Ace of Cups - Home of Love

Jean Noblet Tarot, JC Flornoy 2014 

We are accustomed to associating the suit of Cups with emotions and relationships, which is a figurative leap based on the role real cups play in our lives.

The cup is the vessel we use to hold water or wine. Without liquid, we would die within a week, as opposed to going without food, which will kill after about 45-60 days. (According to sources found online). The vessel that delivers liquid, then, becomes symbolic of life-giving properties.

The cup represents the essence of nourishment -- physical, spiritual, emotional, and nowadays we would add psychological.

The cup represents fulfilment in all those areas, and the people and circumstances that deliver that fulfilment to us.

It's not the cup so much as what's in the cup. An empty cup is useless. The emblems of the other suits are tools in and of themselves. You can cut things with a sword, hit things with a stick, and buy things with a coin, but you can't do anything with a cup, if there's nothing to put in it. It can only fulfil its role if it has something to contain. Though I suppose you could rightly say, you can't cut if there's nothing to cut, hit if there's nothing to hit, or buy if there's nothing to buy. However, there's one other point about the cups suit. With the other emblems, you use them as a tool to act upon something outside yourself, but with the cup, you use it as a tool to deliver something inTO yourself. It is thus instantly more intimate. And that's another reason to associate it with internal things, like love, emotion, spirituality and psychology.

Havdala receptacle 

The Ace of Cups in the Tarot de Marseille, though, doesn't look much like a cup. It certainly doesn't resemble the cups found in the pip cards. What is that thing?

Containers of holy relics

It's something called a 'reliquary', or a container of holy relics, in the Catholic tradition. Similar looking vessels are also used to contain spices in the Jewish Havdala ceremony to mark the end of the Sabbath. Here the cup is elevated to its most spiritual level of meaning.

We can see, then, how other emblems are mostly concerned with conflicting with others, while the cup is concerned with communing with others, both in the earthly and the heavenly realms. The cup is nourishment to the body, nourishment to relationships, and nourishment to the spirit as we use it to connect to others and to our gods.

Like reliquaries and havdala receptacles, the Ace of Cups has an architectural quality. It looks like a building! It resembles a castle with turrets. On a mundane level, the Ace of Cups can represent a house, for this reason. It can also be seen as a connection between the earthly and the divine, just as the receptacles serve as earthly homes for divine objects in the Catholic and Jewish traditions.

The question that springs to mind in response to this card as a daily draw is this: How is your home a source of comfort and love to you? How can you make your home a more loving place?

Well, look what appeared on my card today

Tarot of the Spirit, P Eakins 

Today I've drawn One of Water, or Ace of Cups, from Tarot of the Spirit by Pamela Eakins. You know the other day when I posted about wanting a 'statement ring'? Well, what I've been envisioning is a huge blue stone, just like this card. So of course when I pulled this today, that's the first thing I thought of. It doesn't have to be a 'real' stone, that's not important, it's just the colour I'm after. And now I have symbolism to explain why this big blue stone may have popped into my consciousness.

'At the One of Water, you are open to all possibility,' Eakins writes in the companion book. 'You feel a sense of anticipation, as if something is about to happen. ...Be advised you are now opening to the possibility of jubilance and joy. But, you are also opening to vulnerability. ...This is because, at the One, through your own newfound receptivity, you are beginning to access the deep understanding of Self within you.'

rubylane.com

It could be that the ring I envision is a symbol of a new era, a reminder, a token. 'The dark hole is a sparkling jewel at the centre of an unfolding lotus. It is also a cup as viewed from above. The dark opening is a hole. It is whole. It is holy. The significance of the hole is that the more holes you punch in your structure, the more holy you become.' Okay, I have to admit that made me laugh -- puns aren't my thing. But the sentiment is there, and I like it.

Today, may I be open to the possibility of jubilance and joy. And may you be, too. x

The Hamburger Moment: A Reading

An article that's making the rounds on Facebook caught my eye the other day:

The Hamburger Moment: I wasn't treating my husband fairly and it wasn't nice

I recognized a lot of my own patterns of behaviour in that article, and not for the first time. I know from experience that I am not the only woman who tends to come down very hard on her partner for small things. I've listened to women complain to each other vigorously about such sins as leaving wet towels in the floor, not opening the hamper but leaving clothes on top, and putting toilet paper the wrong way round. I have certainly seen a lot of this sort of behaviour on TV shows like 'Everybody Loves Raymond' and 'Home Improvement,' etc (forgive my ancient TV references, I don't watch a lot of sitcoms anymore). I guess we've been doing this crap for a long time; it's even mentioned in the Bible: 'A quarrelsome wife is like the dripping of a leaky roof in a rainstorm; restraining her is like restraining the wind or grasping oil with the hand' (Proverbs 27:15-16). Ha ha!

I don't have a clue about the bigger picture of why there seems to be a pattern of women nitpicking. Maybe it has something to do with some underlying pressure to be perfect ourselves, imposed on us by cultural and societal expectations, maybe it's learned behaviour from watching our mothers, don't know, but what I do know is I can try to recognize and address this sort of thing in myself. Better late than never. So here is what I asked:

1. Why do I slip into the habit of constant fault-finding in my husband? 

2. What is the best course of action to address this? 

3. What is the biggest challenge in this course of action?
4. What is the biggest support?

5. What is the outcome? 

I then pulled 5 cards and examined them:  7 of Cups - 2 of Pents - 10 of Swords - 10 of Wands - 6 of Cups. I was getting an impression of the reading, but decided to pull clarifiers for each card in the spread (not something I usually do) and laid them in a second row beneath: Sun - Ace of Wands - High Priestess - King of Swords - Queen of Wands. Each card I laid down felt like 'Boom! There it is!' They just solidified the original draw so well. Let's take them in pairs. 

 I do this because of deceptive, destructive fantasies of perfection. It's not just him I hold to these unconscious rules, it's the entire world! I've been reading a lot about irrational beliefs that underlie our unhelpful responses to life, and I've identified several from a list produced by Albert Ellis (12 Self-Defeating Beliefs). The ones at work here seem to be:

*People should always do the right thing and when they don't, they must be punished.
*Things must be the way I want them or life will be intolerable.
*My unhappiness is caused by things outside my control, so there is little I can do to feel better.
*Every problem must have an ideal solution, and it is intolerable when one cannot be found.
*To be a worthy person, one must succeed at what they do and make no mistakes.

I have no idea how these irrational rules and beliefs become embedded in us, but I have found that when I feel upset about something, if I have a look at these lists, I can usually quickly identify the irrational belief or demand that is causing the discomfort. It is rather uncanny. So what's the best course of action?

To create 'a partnership working with proper energy flow and support', I must remember that 'mood swings may threaten stability' and that 'anger and not fully understanding the consequences of actions' will break down the balance. (The quotations come directly from the LWB of the Sacred Rose Tarot deck. It's useful to keep and to check the LWB! Sometimes what you find there is spot on!)

The key here is to learn to catch myself between the irrational belief and the consequences (that's the exact term used by Ellis -- fits, doesn't it!) of that belief. It's almost impossible to do that, so the only way you can change a habitual response is by doing what Ellis called ABC analysis (see previous blogs here and here). Over time, with reflection and by disputing irrational beliefs after the fact, the behaviour begins to change. That's the theory, and it's certainly helped with my tinnitus, so why not try it here.

The biggest challenge is of course rooting out and recognizing the self-defeating actions. That's reflected in the pairing of 10 of Wands and High Priestess. The LWB says there are 'excessive pressures and problems to be resolved' and that good judgement is based on 'logic and knowledge removed from the confusion of emotion.' That is precisely the process of REBT. It's not easy, it's hard work. So it's the biggest challenge.

The biggest support comes from the cerebral nature of the whole thing. This is the death of irrational beliefs and the meticulous re-training of the thinking needed to challenge and change them. If the King of Swords were to identify something as entirely self-defeating, he would be merciless in rooting it out. This is a good thing. When my King of Swords nature recognizes how illogical and pointless certain beliefs are, he simply won't allow me to believe them anymore. And when I don't hold a certain belief anymore (like 'people must be perfect and they if they make a mistake they deserve to be punished') then I won't react to events based on that belief anymore (like if my husband or I drop the cafetiere and break it, it is cause for a flash of anger and sharp words). -- If my underlying belief can be changed to 'People make mistakes and though it's inconvenient it is not intolerable and we remain worthy human beings regardless of our mistakes', then dropping the cafetiere would result in 'Oh crap, oh well.'

The outcome of attacking this behaviour using these techniques? I will become responsible (or accept responsibility for) my own emotions. This will allow me to access the better qualities of my Queen of Wands nature: warmth and affection coupled with authority and determination.


I then asked, 'What is the overall message to me about this issue?' and drew three cards:

It's up to me to recall the source of love and emotion and to exercise my free will in deciding how I will react, what path I will choose in response to the cycles of the day-to-day. There is always a choice in response to the Wheel of Fortune. May its genesis be love, and not flawed beliefs and unconscious rules. 

All images in this post are from Sacred Rose Tarot (US Games 1982). 

Plenty and more coming

Shining Tribe Tarot, Pollack 2001

There is a river
that flows from God above
There is a river
that flows with his great love
Come to the waters
There is a vast supply
Come to this river
That never shall run dry 
                        ~ something we used to sing in church

I love this image! Such vivid colours. The red thing reminds me of an owl, and out of it emerges a river, with a big pink fish swimming up it - must be a salmon! A girl comes to the river to collect water, and on the other side of the river, a deer also comes for a drink.

This is the Ace of Rivers (Ace of Cups) from Rachel Pollack's Shining Tribe Tarot. I always associate Ace of Cups with a font of feeling, relationships, emotional needs being met and our boundless capacity for love, forgiveness, acceptance, and peace.

The companion book reveals the source of images in the card. The red 'owl' is a face figure carved in a piece of flint found at the mound of Knowth in Ireland. A search on the intranet tells me that it is actually a mace head. A mace was an early weapon of a stone affixed to a stick, but became a symbol of authority or a votive object. The woman and the deer come from Tassili rock frescoes in the Sarahan Desert.

The water flows from the mouth of this face with the spiral eyes, and the woman and the deer come to refresh themselves, the deer in his natural instinct of the moment, the woman carrying bags with a view to meeting the needs of her loved ones and in the future. Like the salmon, the fish swims upstream, returning to its point of origin.

This card reminds me of what's important in my life. Details are just details...it's the biggest picture that counts. Are my needs met? Am I loved? Do I love? Yes, yes and yes. How about you?

And another thing ... yesterday I told my manager I want to go back to my regular job. The secondment isn't for me. I've given it three months; I'm wishing my life away trying to get to the end of this 12 months, instead of just saying - hey! I don't have to endure this for 12 months. I'm in charge of my own life and I can say stop, I am ready to do something else now. So...that's another reason for feeling happy. It's relief. I'm flooded with relief. Curious as to what comes next.

Baptized in love

Pearls of Wisdom, Roxi Sim (7th House 2008)

I really love this deck, Pearls of Wisdom by Roxi Sim and Caeli Fullbrite, published by 7th House, 2008. I'd like to thank Chloe at Inner Whispers for making me taking it out of a sale offer I put up a few years ago, reminding me that I like it. (I do get a bit carried away with my deck purges at times. It's nice to have someone watching out for my best interests!) It's been three years since I blogged with this deck, so it's my deck for this week!

I read somewhere that Pearls of Wisdom Tarot is a 'master class in paganism.' It's true there is lot going on in each card. They are exuberant, playful and childlike, so colourful.

In this card, we see a glorious pink woman, naked baptizing herself in blue streams of water which she pours over her head from a golden chalice. The bottom of the chalice is framed by the sun. Daffodils grow in a circle around her. In the background, the earth maiden sleeps in the form of grassy hills. A bumble bee hovers to watch the pink lady, who of course is wearing a pearl necklace with a pink heart pendant (it is featured in the bottom right corner of the border as well; the chalice is in the bottom left corner). Going up the left side of the border, we have a large daffodil, and hanging above it from a peg is a rose quartz crystal point on a cord. Water pours from the mouths of golden fish figures, which are koi fish, symbolizing good luck. On the right border of the card is a cherry tree in blossom, with birds nesting there, feeding their babies.

What a glorious depiction of the Ace of Cups, which represents the limitless potential of emotion, feeling, intuition, and love.

It has been a beautiful day. Hubby and I practised yoga together (Kundalini Yoga with Gurmukh, which totally kicked my butt!) and went for a two-hour walk around the town, visiting local churchyards. We love old churches and graveyards.

Blessing to all. May you be baptized in love today.

Happy Imbolc

Isn't this card beautiful! What a lovely card to draw on Imbolc, the fire festival to Brigid. Okay, Ace of Cups is not a very fiery card, but it does remind me a lot of the Bride. with her many loving qualities. Also, there are traditions of visiting holy wells at Imbolc, to walk 'sunwise' around the well, pray for health, and perhaps leave tokens or bits of ribbon or cloth. The vessel is also appropriate as the festival is considered by some to be a day honouring women and even childbirth (some translate 'imbolc' as 'in the belly', other's as 'ewe's milk' -- either way, that sounds pretty maternal). And finally, the festival is seen by some traditions as the perfect time for initiations - a definite Ace activity.

I'm just hoping that it isn't one of tarot's tricky jokes, indicating that it's going to rain really hard during the festival! :) Wouldn't be the first time Ace of Cups has turned out to be a deluge!

So...the 2014 Thoth-a-thon, Yule to Imbolc, is officially over. You know, I'd misremembered the date from last year, when it turns out I did a Thoth One Deck Wonder Imbolc to Spring Equinox. Oh well, I got the general time of year right. :) I believe I'll make it a tradition every year to do all my draws with the Thoth early in the year. It seems a fitting deck for winter time, and I do have to say, I now love it very much.

I believe my next deck will be Bonefire Tarot...But first, a brief interlude with Way of the Horse.

And here's my first Zentangle, done with a plain black biro--

Overflow

Druidcraft, 2005

It's Monday and I've drawn Ace of Cups from the Druidcraft Tarot by Philip & Stephanie Carr-Gomm and Will Worthington (Connections 2005). This attractive card features a cup or grail, its base wider than its top, from which spills an endless supply of water. Indeed, it appears that this cup is the source of all water. This magical cup sits amidst the stream framed on all sides by the crescent moon, hazelnut tree,  leaping salmon, and flowing water.

I woke up this morning with feelings of judgement and condemnation about myself. It's weigh-in day. I am not happy with my weight, yet my behaviour has yet to change. But does judging and condemning myself cause my weight to magically be lower? My body size to magically be smaller? No, it just makes me feel bad, so that I'm both podgy AND unhappy. Why be both? What good does it do to condemn myself?

The Ace of Cups card reminds me today that from within myself I can bring forth the bitter waters of Marah, or I can offer myself sweet living water. The card shows the hazelnut and salmon, which are Druid symbols of wisdom. There is a type of wisdom that comes from the inner spring of love and acceptance, and of course that love and acceptance must start with the self. Funnily enough, I am reminded that one of the best ways to love and accept -- to feel good about-- oneself is to take the focus off oneself. So today's card reminds me of two things: 1) offer myself kindness and acceptance, but more importantly, 2) send that love and acceptance outward to others today, and by default I will find myself feeling better inside. The water flows outward from the cup to all the world. It doesn't just well up inside the cup and stay there.

Musings on the Celtic Tarot: Cups

Cups suit from Celtic Tarot, Davis, 3rd edition 2002

The Cups do not lend themselves immediately to a continuous story, as the Wands suit does. There is a thread that runs through them, though. Each card features cups suffused in a kind of effervescent glow, suspended in front of a circular pattern reminiscent of a rose window. The groupings of the Cups and a few subtle cues in the rose window are all the clues you get, really, to help you interpret these cards.