Greetings, gremlins, and welcome to our first card pull for the month of August! It's getting hotter out there (at least in the Northern hemisphere, anyway), so I hope all of you are managing to stay cool.

Before we get into our reading for the month, I wanted to take a second to introduce you to the deck we'll be conducting readings with for the month, the Ethereal Visions Illuminated Tarot Deck. This particular deck is done in an art nouveau style and is one of two decks in my collection that's gilded. Yes, that's right. The art for this particular deck has gold foiling on it and it's stunning. The downside to this is that the foiling makes it a bit tricky to take proper photographs of, so I apologize in advance if the photos for this month look a little strange. The art is absolutely worth it, though.

Now that you've sort of met the deck, let's move on and answer our usual question: "What do my followers need to keep in mind to live their best lives this week?"

We're starting off August with a reversed Nine of Cups, and I personally find it a bit amusing that we ended last month with a nine and we're starting this month off with one, as well.

Over the past few weeks or maybe even months, you've found yourself in a position where you feel like you have everything you could ever want or you feel as though you're very close to that point. I say this because the first place my eyes go on this card is to the row of nine cups, which, at least for me, is a sign of abundance.

However, even though you have that or you know it's coming, I have a question for you. Are you happy? Is obtaining all of those things really going to make you happy in the end?

The cups on this card may be abundance, but cups are also material possessions, and sometimes, having an abundance of material things may seem like it will make you happy when in reality, it's covering a void in our lives that we're hoping we can fill with stuff.

I'm not saying that's absolutely what's happening here, of course. It may not be material possessions at all. It may be that you feel like you're close to achieving what other people have told you is the dream that you should be striving for your entire life.

But is that dream other people have told you to strive for really your own, or is it just something you feel like you need to shoot for to keep other people in your life happy and you've convinced yourself that this is something you genuinely want?

Please remember, my gremlins, that success and happiness mean different things to different people, and you deserve to have your own definition of those things. Take some time this week to evaluate where you are and what would actually make you happy in the long run. Maybe it turns out that where you are is exactly where you need to be happy. Maybe it's something else. But you're not going to know unless you sit down and really think about it.

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If you enjoyed this post and are perhaps interested in acquiring a reading of your very own, I do keep tarot commissions open over on my Ko-fi.

I also have a shop full of all of the commission readings you can find up there, plus a couple of extras I won't be sharing anywhere else. You can find it over here.