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by Beth Owl's Daughter
As the Wheel of the Year turns away from Summer and we have now crossed
the threshold of Equinox into the dark half of the year, there is
something deep within us that stirs. Perhaps it is hearing the call of
migrating birds in the cool mornings, or witnessing the glory of the
falling leaves. Maybe it is the sudden silence as our children disappear
into their schools once more. After the long, seemingly unchanging dog
days of summer, everything in Nature is filled with change, letting go,
moving on. The crisp, clean wind, the slant of the golden sunlight, the
blaze of the leaves all bring a quickening of the blood that tells us to
make haste, to be ready before Winter closes in. The heart is restless,
we seek something buried in our heart's memory, something we can only
barely name.
This is the time of the Tarot suit of Cups, for Autumn is the time of the
setting sun, the Guardians of the West, the element of Water. In the
Tarot, the Cups are the representatives of the watery energies --
emotion, intuition, dreams, healing, yielding, compassion and love.
In most decks, the Cups may be depicted as filled or empty goblets.
Sometimes they are flowers, particularly lotus blossoms. Or they may be
cauldrons, chalices, hearts, or even dolphins and other water creatures. While the flowering branches of Summer's Wands are generally phallic,
the Cups are the sacred circle of the feminine yoni. The ultimate Cup,
of course, is the sacred Feminine, the Holy Grail.
Cups illuminate what is inside us, the depth of our character, the colors
of our dreams. What and to whom we give our love is revealed by the
Cups. They teach where we might need to open our hearts more. The Cups
show the way to our emotional flow, the places where our tears must be
shed for healing and wisdom; they represent wonder, harmony, devotion,
and joy. They show us what our hearts are longing for, and rule over the
ways we express our longings, particularly in love and art.
As Frank MacEowen says in his gorgeous book about Celtic wisdom, The
Mist-Filled Path, "All people have a longing for something, and that
longing is always a dynamic process that we must follow if we want to be
led into our deeper life...It is something to pay close attention to, for
to disregard it can only be to our detriment. We conjure great risk when
we ignore the powerful prompts of the longing in our souls."
As he points out, longing is at the heart of the most beautiful works of
art and the most heroic acts of our history. It is the universal human
longing for a homeland that births so much creativity and, unfortunately,
conflict. We ache to be held by our lovers. We carry a longing in our bodies for the loving arms of the mother who gave us life. And our souls
long to be united with the loving Divine One who created us.
The Cups of the Tarot depict this journey of longing, reflection,
disillusion, and need. We love, we are hurt, we suffer, we rejoice. Our
emotions are a great gift to us, one that compels us to seek, to flow, to
change. May this season of the Cups bring you deep reflection, and guide
your intuition, so that your greatest dreams and soul's longings may be
clearly shown to you.
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Some of the moods of the Cups Suit
Left side (top and bottom): Morgan-Greer Tarot U.S. Games Systems, Inc.
Right top: Daughters of the Moon Tarot by Ffiona Morgan
Bottom right: The Robin Wood Tarot Publisher: Llewellyn Publications
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