Editor’s Note: If you want to experiment with tarot cards and don’t have any, we provide a free tarot spread generator using the Celtic Wings spread, which is based on the traditional Celtic Cross spread. This article tells you how to use the spread. You can visit Sarah’s website here. –efc
By Sarah Taylor
You have hit a period of boredom or disillusionment. You are invited to pick yourself up, embody a sense of discipline, and assume the mantle of responsibility.
The three cards this week seem to me to be calling for a change, a shift in attitude and/or action. In the first card, the Four of Cups, a man sits under a tree, his body language closed, his face sombre … this in spite of the fact that he is well-dressed; the sky is uninterrupted blue; the world around him is thriving, leafy; he is supported and sheltered by a tree that seems to look at him with one eye, its branches dropping towards him. Three cups sit in the foreground, a distance from his crossed feet. A fourth cup is presented to him by a hand emanating from a cloud — but he is having none of it.
Every aspect of each illustration by Rider-Waite Smith artist Pamela Colman Smith is deliberate. The fact that there is no apparent (i.e. visual) reason for the man’s obvious disillusionment to me indicates that the cause lies within. In other words, it is in his mind.
Not even the presence of the divine — the hand and cloud — is enough to immediately rouse him from his ennui. This is a moment of boredom, suspended in time. The hand doesn’t seem forceful, however: to me, it is not the kind of hand that is going to put the cup down and shake him to his senses. Rather, it embodies a gentle, but persistent, patience: I feel like it will hover there, waiting, until the man is otherwise prompted, or prompts himself, to look up and see it. And once he does, the potential is there for all change, heralded by The Hierophant.
The Hierophant can sometimes be a bit of an archetypal stick-in-the-mud, standing for formal doctrine as he does, even dogma. The flip-side to this, though, is the sense of discipline that he asks of us — the dedication to a path, and the commitment to oneself in the pursuit of a discipline.
What I find particularly interesting about these three cards is the linking nature of The Hierophant. Take a look at the two figures at his feet. They represent two different paths. The one on the left has a tunic of red roses — and it is a red that I immediately pick up in the tunic of the young man in the Four of Cups by virtue of the proximity of the two objects. Now look at the man on the right, whose tunic is decorated in blue fronds, and then move your eyes to the right, and into the card inhabited by the King of Cups. There, the blue is continued in the King’s robes, in his head-covering, in the swirl of the waters and the fish that seems to have jumped from the waves. Two paths, two different cards — one of them a youth, introspective, unaware, the other a man, present, receptive, centred. It is also clear to me that he now holds the cup that was earlier being offered to him. He has assumed that mantle of responsibility that I referred to in the introduction. He is not only kingly by decree, but also by demeanour.
There are also echoes of The Hierophant in the King’s position. Both sit on thrones; both are raised above their surroundings (whereas the young man is at ground level and presided over by the tree, which, though inanimate, immediately seems older and wiser); both hold in their hands the symbols of their authority (while the youth’s hands are tucked mostly out of sight).
There is a choice at hand: to continue as a youth, full of potential but still waiting for the promptings of an outside ‘other’. Or to become an adult, who stands alone, but who embodies and owns the ability to activate and enact their experience. And because this reading focuses on cups, it is about your feeling nature. What is it that you disown emotionally that prevents you from ‘growing up’, so to speak? Boredom can often be a defence against something that needs to be looked at — or, in this case, felt. What path of discipline can you follow that will lead you to your feelings, and to a stronger sense of mastery? You don’t have to get bogged down in dogma in order to progress, but at the very least there is the calling towards a courageous and steady self-application that enables a fuller flow of emotions, and of consciousness.
What a wonderful visual of an island in the middle of an ocean. That works on so many levels. Thank you, Charles!
Thanks Sarah.
Wow, that is a beautiful card too.
Thanks so much for this column. I’m really enjoying it.
It’s very nourishing in how these layouts trigger the soul
and impressing of how the personal=the world in how it touches everywhere.
Eco, that is a beautiful interpretation. Have you seen the Thoth version of the King of Cups — the Knight of Cups? That version immediately sprang to mind when you speak of the King being able to hold the Divine Feminine:
http://pyreaus.com/tarot/full/thoth_cups_knight_full.jpg
These cards and this reading deepened in me overnight. I felt compelled to keep looking at the relationship, the story, between them.
More and more, I kept remembering Len’s article about the Return of the Divine Feminine. In fact, I went back and reread it. There is a distinct synergetic thing going on on this blog right now.
Then I thought about another article
(could also be Len’s or maybe someone else’s – can’t quite place it at this moment, but, as seen yesterday between the two Neptune articles, there is a slipping into one another’s thoughts and intuitive takes that has been occurring here)
that I read somewhere on this blog that talked about how everything is in its correct position.
So I looked again, re-contributing all the written readings, Sarah’s and the reply ones, deeper as well.
And this grouping is perfect!
It feels ALL about the Divine Feminine and/or the Return of the Divine Feminine.
The boy, rich, of noble birth (his clothes describe a young prince to me)is born of both the masculine and feminine principles, as we all are. But he is a boy, not grown. He cannot take in the Divine Feminine yet. Where at first, I saw him as spoiled or asleep, I now understand the perfect balance in his disconnect. He needs to incubate and mature. He is not strong enough or full enough in himself to take in the mystical feminine of water. He is right-on to fall asleep and close off from it. He is not yet prepared. This is so cool, like a male version of Sleeping Beauty.
Then the priest, who, to me although this is a male patriarchal figure, holds the balance, holds up the connections of the trinity (three in one) and the holy world. And where he himself, the priest, is traditionally celibate and separated from feminine interactions, except, looking at him, he looks as soft and feminine in his features as he does masculine, more of a unisex being. And unlike the closed, still forming boy, his arms are wide open. He looks straight ahead, holding the balance. And he presents the keys to the mystical that are connected, crossed lovers, a family. He opens the way and the locks to the joining of the mystical forces.
The King, an obviously fully grown and matured and fully formed man, is capable of both holding and carrying the cup, the Divine Feminine, across the waters.
On such progressive levels, I was just stunned by the beauty and harmony of this layout and how actually perfect it all is.
Here I am jumping in late again.
I saw an interesting description of the Hierophant, from wikipedia of all places, ‘The Hierophant’s purpose is to bring the spiritual down to Earth.” Hierophant is an Earth card in the middle of two Water cards, like an island or continent in an ocean.
The 4C always intrigued me. Crowley calls it “Luxury” but I see it more as a sense of disinterest and ennui regarding the luxurious things in our environment. The little “hand of god” offers another Cup, but he’s looking at the three he already has and can’t even see the new offerings right in front of him. The King of Cups would, of course, represent mastery of this 4C problem, he rules the Cups world of love and emotion, and has a balance with the things he loves.
Now putting the Hierophant in the middle of that would seem to make it a spiritual matter, of bringing unto Earth and ourselves, the ability to receive new blessings from our environment, and to integrate them fully into our being.
I’m loving all of these ideas and comments – thank you!
Also, the male and female energy:
The boy is male. He is closed to the cups, even the one seeming heaven-offered to him.
The cups are female.
The priest is male. His crosses bless unions. This card seems all about balance and equality.
The king is male. He carries the sacred feminine cup across the ocean.
Another series of connecting motifs that seem interesting are the crosses:
The boy is closed off, crossed arms and crossed legs, not receptive.
The Priest holds a staff of three crosses and the two keys are crossed. These crosses open.
The King crosses the ocean.
Wow, don’t think I have anything to add to that. It’s like you pulled that spread for me, and I interpreted it personally for myself.
..Maybe I can expand a bit on a personal level. I feel as if I have come through the A-3 of cups. I was born ‘understanding’ unconditional love through my mother (who still wields it like a child holding a machine gun). All my life I’ve theorized and pontificated on the meaning and actuality of the term ‘Love’, but have always felt that it was just out of tangibility. Now, I feel I am ‘actualised’ As That Love: it comes through me and IS what I AM. It’s new for sure.. and I’m gonna have to get a move on to evolve this newly formed reality. The path of the Hierophant has always been one of my least favorites (having a forced religious background and my perceived dogmatic implications of the card),.. but I’ve studied many philosophies, religious, social, and spiritual, and taken that which resonated in me as ‘discipline’. There are countless ‘spiritual’ folk who have come through particular religions that I love and respect with all my heart. I appreciate your linking him to “..the dedication to a path, and the commitment to oneself..”.
..Guess I did have something to say, even if it was a very subjective cluster of words.
Thanks for playing, Sarah et al,
Cups!,
Jere
Sarah,
I am so enjoying these presentations and readings. Thank you. I love the way they are unfolding in such a connecting storyline as well.
When I looked at the first card, in smaller size, the boy looked like he was pouting, especially with his arms crossed so much like a two year old refusing their dinner or a spoiled child saying no.In larger size, the pout becomes more of an innocence, a sleeping child, unaware. And yet he is surrounded by much to drink, the heavenly held cup, the shade of a tree, high on a hill overlooking green pastures. Pouting or sleeping, he is rich, but refuses to wake or receive what sustains and nourishes him.
The second card strikes me with its balance as from a high thrown, a priest looks straight out soberly, giving blessings over two equal subjects and an offering of joined (like a coat of arms) keys.
The third, the king, still sober, looks to the future, away from the other cards but holding the gifts in his hands, also equally, ready to use them, able to hold the gifts. I think water is huge in this and think of Neptune in Pisces today and Len’s article above.
I think much about how the world is changing now.
Sarah, you are the Queen of Tarot.
IF……we could move from resisting whatever it is we are taking a time out from (4C) to accepting a drink from the cup of learning;
IF……we could commit to a path of discipline and become responsible for ourselves (Hierophant);
then we become regal in a spiritual sense (KC).
Queen and King of our inner realm.
http://www.kipling.org.uk/poems_if.htm
Thank you for the weekly guidance in tarotland offered here. Always a royal lesson to partake in! This one was no exception and *very* timely with this Aries new moon urging us to go ahead and take that drink being offered.
Very thoughtful cards to me this week, Sarah. and very thoughtful reading. Thank you. I feel they speak to me, and your guidance is helping me understand. I keepo thinking they are a good follow up of the digging young man of the last wand card in last weeks hand. To me, that resonates. Hard work, this soul formation process. Thankis again, so much.
Sarah you are fast becoming a favorite part of my weekends. Thank You for sharing your skill, and keeping me on point. Peace ~