January 13-15, 2012: 4 of Cups
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LUXURY
(Previously called, “Blended Pleasure.”)
Four of CupsMeditation Pattern: Place Atu II, The Priestess, and Atu VII, The Chariot, side-by-side, with the 4 of Cups above them.
Traditional Description: Four cups, the upper two overflowing into the lower two (which do not overflow). A lotus stem ascends, bearing one flower at the top of the card, from which water flows into the two upper cups. From the center, two lotus leaves pass right and left, making a cross between the four cups. Above and below are the symbols of Luna and Cancer for the Decanate.
Chesed of Water: Luxury, leisure, an abundance of pleasure. Pleasure that is ordered, stabilized. Receiving pleasure or kindness from others, but some discomfort therewith. Laziness, dispersion, excess, negligence; loss of impulse from over-satisfaction. Philosophy, contemplation, introspection. Devotion (of all kinds, including spiritual devotion).
Luna/Cancer: Success or pleasure fulfilled. Strong feeling nature. A stationary period in happiness, which may, or may not, continue. It does not mean love and marriage so much as the Three of Cups. It is too passive a symbol to represent perfectly complete happiness. Swiftness, hunting, pursuing. If ill-dignified: acquisition by contention; injustice; drawbacks or dissatisfaction regarding pleasure is implied.
Chesed/Jupiter + Luna: Happiness, kindness, generosity, sociability, popularity, pleasure, rich-living, noblesse oblige. Indifference, negligence, jadedness, lazy justice, opportunism.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AXKmIvxOXUs/Tb_T_uVCkAI/AAAAAAAAACI/SAZe9jxUEgE/s1600/39.png
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Haven't started meditating on the arrangement yet but I'm already feeling it's energy. It's manifesting as rapidly fluctuating emotional states. I had a thought arise and it instructed me to practice ardent detachment. I felt like this was worth sharing considering the description of the card along with today's MOTD.
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Interesting, 'Reef, already. And, here's the layout. (Are these useful to people here?)
[attachment=0:1uk27cbg]<!-- ia0 -->Cups 4.jpg<!-- ia0 -->[/attachment:1uk27cbg]
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Thanks Jim. Speaking for myself, I think the images you've uploaded so far have been pretty useful for me especially when I'm not able to physically use my cards. I tend to check the forum frequently throughout the day and seeing these helps me keep the image of the arrangement in my mind throughout the day.
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Are these useful? Yes. Very.
Personally, I'm having a little harder time with this set, and I don't have much to say.
I'm having a hard time connecting the emotional context of the Cups with the Chariot. I know the astrological correspondence is Cancer, but I'm just not getting the emotional "cuppy" feel of the combination of the Chariot with the other trumps like I did with the trumps of the Wands.
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Iaomai I had a difficult time initially connecting with the Chariot as well. I was anticipating an sharply emotional experience with that trump but that didn't occur for me.
The energy of the Chariot has been showing up for me as a preoccupation with "advancing" and creating the environment (both internal and external) that supports the movement towards an intended goal, target or destination. I've had to constantly "side-step" myself (or my ego rather) in order to keep the momentum going.
In my case, I believe the emotional intensity I'm experiencing today has more to do with the influence of the Luna trump rather than the Chariot trump.
So what I invite you take on is releasing any preconceived notions you have around that particular trump and pay special attention to subtle cues you get from your subconscious.
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@Iaomai said
"Personally, I'm having a little harder time with this set, and I don't have much to say.
I'm having a hard time connecting the emotional context of the Cups with the Chariot. I know the astrological correspondence is Cancer, but I'm just not getting the emotional "cuppy" feel of the combination of the Chariot with the other trumps like I did with the trumps of the Wands."
The simple, traditional delineative readings provided at the top are not necessarily going to match up. Those are the surface meaning of the card, good for a quick delineation.
But these meditations give deeper ideas that you won't find in those books - they're intentionally not written, but are intended to be drawn out by a deeply trained and experienced Qabalist / magician in the course of his or her real work.
So... yeah, I wouldn't expect "an emotiona cuppy feel" from these at all!
This would also miss the fact that Cups aren't necessarily emotional. It's far easier to argue that the Swords are emotional, in the sense that they are reactive, and most "emotion" people experience is reactivity. On the intellect vs. emotion polarity, you can't break that down by Swords vs. Cups, because Swords (expressing Yetzirah) express both reafctivity and intellect, while the Cups (expressing Briah) express both Mind and feeling.
For example - and this is terribly superficial - when I first looked at these images after preparing the layout graphic above, my first impressions were along these lines: The Chariot (which is all about the personality's receptivity and response toward what is flowing from the highest) is here joined with The Priestess (who, even in her own crescent, cup stance, essentially embodies that pure, primary stream of flowing from the Crown to the rest of the Tree; and, even as that stream, she is, herself, receptive). It's just all this FLOWING, and nested realities of being OPEN and RECEPTIVE and RESPONSIVE to the flowing. Yes, nested realities of it... be open to, uh, that thing in you that is more deeply OPEN to, uh, that stream which itself is a RECEIVING of... boy, it gets deep, but I get it. It's just all this FLOWING, this very Chesed-like, overflowing ABUNDANCE of the primary generosity of the continuing act of creation. By non-resistance (and what two trumps other than, say, Mem, are more non-resisting!), we become perfectly serene channels of this flowing through us - the usual experience of the 4 of Cups "on a good day," the meditative inner serenity and contemplative peace. To the extent that we resist it, we still stand in the shower of all of that STREAMING REALITY, with varying effects - from sense of bounty, to cascading splash around us bouncing to those about us, to being kicked in the gut by a fire hose.
That, as I said, was the impression of first glance - though it got elaborated and spilled into words when I typed it just now. But the core was there in a couple of seconds. That might give a clue to what to expect from these meditations. As you can see, it goes way past the "pop" divinatory meanings (though those are entirely useful and desirable at their own level).
PS - Perhaps this will make clear why I emphasized to much that you MUST integrate the Trumps (in phase 1 of the meditations) into simple core ideas solidly built into you - otherwise, you won't have what you need to work on the Minors. And, now, in Phase 2, you really need to get the Minors built into you, and get yourself equipped with simple core ideas about them, because this is exactly what you will use to understand the Court Cards.
The Trumps are words, the Minors are sentences, and the Court Cards are paragraphs. In exactly this way, you need to understand words as distinctive, living units before you can compose sentences from them, at which point the sentences are both (1) nothing but the words put together and (2) things in and of themselves. Then, you have to understand your sentences before you can meaningfully string them together into paragraphs.
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Well, somebody help me with the Chariot a bit.
Most of my associations for it run like fence, vehicle of expression, field of manifestation, and Will. It's got more of a "choose ye an island" feel to it for me, and that kind of matches up with my understanding of Cancer.
Anyone care to share a bit about the receptive aspects of the trump? That seems to be the main idea I'm struggling with here.
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@Iaomai said
"Well, somebody help me with the Chariot a bit.
Most of my associations for it run like fence, vehicle of expression, field of manifestation, and Will. It's got more of a "choose ye an island" feel to it for me, and that kind of matches up with my understanding of Cancer.
Anyone care to share a bit about the receptive aspects of the trump? That seems to be the main idea I'm struggling with here."
You've got the basics. Now, let's go further.
First, here are the meditation notes from when this Tarot Meditation Project worked on that card:
<!-- l --><a class="postlink-local" href="http://heruraha.net/viewtopic.php?f=89&t=8375">viewtopic.php?f=89&t=8375</a><!-- l -->You correctly started with the Hebrew letter: Cheth, typically called "fence," and meaning that which defines a territory; or a field or other enclosure. It is symbolic of any device of containment or "vehicle." - I'll give you a head start by saying that it especially refers to that perimeter that we place around the field of personality to arbitrarily distinguishing what we call "ourselves" from the great sea. As Cancer, it similarly relates to ideas of enclosure, drawing off psycvhological territory, etc.
It's important - very important! - to notice that the card is not called The Charioteer. It's not about the passenger (or, for that matter, the driver); it's about the car! The card itself is about the vehicle.
This all comes together when we look at its placement on the Tree of Life. Cheth is the path whereby Geburah opens itself to receive the influx of Binah. Geburah is the field of volition, the Will-force as manifest in the distinctive individual, which either listens "downward" to ego (and lower vehicle) needs, or "upward" to Supernal input.
So... pull this all together... the Chariot shows the behavior of the personality structure in the face of the choice concerning Supernal input, and its receptivity thereto. When the Exempt Adept actually works this Path, it ultimates in the final choices before crossing the Abyss: specifically, the complete surrender of resistance by the personality (and especially the will-driven, volitional, making-my-own-decisions part of the personality) to the governance of Binah. Neshamah becomes the driver of the "vehicle" that the Adept previously thought of as himself or herself. That is, the Adept becomes the Grail.
In more ordinary situations, the essential function is the same: Cheth corresponds to the process wherein "will" elements in the personality - all the way up to the highest aspect of Will that can be distinguished as personalized rather than universal - are opened to the influx from Neshamah.
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Thank you for that.
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I saw Almodóvar’s “The Skin I Live In” last week, and it's fully of Chariot card symbolism.