V of Cups
I feel like I can see a trend forming with this week's cards. Monday: X of Cups, celebrating your family, your successes, and finding appreciation/gratitude for what you have; Tuesday: II of Swords, being faced with difficult decisions weighted in yukky emotions; and today, the V of Cups.
The V of Cups is a card of mourning, grief, and regret. It's represented by a figure on road observing three of their cups knocked over and their contents spilled, while the other two remain upright. Their focus is on what is lost and not what remains. It's an easy thing to do; regret is heavy; disappointment can linger.
I feel like as a follow-up to yesterday's card (the II of Swords), the V of Cups is almost like we've made our choice, put down one sword, and finally turned around to look at the water behind us. The choice was hard to make; we knew there were troubling emotions involved. Now we are left to clean up the mess that came with the choice we made because not all choices are clean and swift.
The V of Cups playlist is available on Spotify.
Message of the Day: To look at the gravity of this card, we have to step back and think about how many things in our life are irreparable. I'm talking about an unbiased, unemotional, bird's eye view of things in our lives. What things, if they were lost, would cause us to truly mourn their loss? From that perspective, I think it narrows it down to very few things - and I'd be willing to venture a guess that most of those are relationships.
As we begin to step outside of ourselves and seek to improve, I find our attachment to physical things becomes less. I mean, if something were to happen to my house or car or, heaven forbid, my Tarot decks, I'd be livid. But these things can be replaced. Not without effort or cost, of course, but life would eventually return to some semblance of normality, not to mention most of us have a support structure who can step in to help shoulder some of that burden.
But when we lose a significant relationship, be that from death, divorce, disagreement, or betrayal, it's a loss on another level. Those are not Cups that can be replaced or refilled; they are unique and of value. That reminds me of The Little Prince and his Rose. In the story, he comes across a garden of roses and says:
“You're beautiful, but you're empty...One couldn't die for you. Of course, an ordinary passerby would think my rose looked just like you. But my rose, all on her own, is more important than all of you together since she's the one I've watered. Since she's the one I put under glass, since she's the one I sheltered behind the screen. Since she's the one for whom I killed the caterpillars (except the two or three butterflies). Since she's the one I listened to when she complained, or when she boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing at all. Since she's my rose.”
Our relationships find value because of the time and effort we put into them. It's not typically a financial investment (although relationships with business partners could certainly have financial involvement, parental relationships with children most certainly have a financial cost), but an emotional investment, which is why the loss of one of these relationships feels so, so terrible.
Sometimes relationships (friendships usually) naturally fall by the wayside. Sometimes life takes us on different journeys and we naturally grow apart from each other. It doesn't devalue the relationship, but there can be sadness and disappointment that it no longer thrives as it once did. I mean, this also happens when your "baby" grows up into an asshole teenager, right? You mourn the time you had together when they were young and innocent and depended on you for everything. In a sense, that's kinda selfish though, isn't it? You had control then, and now you don't. Perhaps what is truly being mourned here is the loss of control masked as emotional connection; they are, after all, the product of your investment. That is very logical, of course. Of course you mourn the loss of emotional connection. They have moved in their own direction where you are not necessarily invited. Like I said, assholes.
But of course, sometimes it's necessary for relationships to be severed (a la II of Swords). Sometimes relationships become sick, one-sided, abusive, or outright toxic. If the relationship were a pet who had become too sick to be comfortable or was a danger to itself or others, the pet would be put down. That's never an easy decision, obviously, but your gut (intuition) tells you it's for the best. For some reason, that gets much more difficult when that "sick pet" is a close human relationship.
Putting that type of relationship down is nowhere as easy, particularly when it's family, because that relationship also impacts other people. In the database development world, it's what we call a many-to-many relationship: we are a network of shared relationships, and the corruption of one relationship can have an impact on the other connecting relationships. For example, a divorce may dissolve your immediate relationship, but it has implications on the relationships with your (and their) parents, other kids in your family, shared friends... that is part of what makes these types of decisions so difficult: your spilled cup, the chosen shattering of your valuable relationship is also felt by those around you, and you feel some sense of responsibility and guilt.
I think as we grow and learn about ourselves from the perspective of forward progression, we begin to find a sense of confidence in our actions. We don't act out of impulse (hopefully). We try to remain like Justice, unbiased and honest. We step into Strength to help us find the internal support we need to make difficult decisions, decisions that we know we'll be all the better for making. We are stoic and persevere the like The Chariot, but at the same remain grounded and emotionally available like The Empress.
Treat yourself with love and respect. Honor your choices, but recognize the value in the relationships you have. You may not get along 100% of the time; you may believe different things; you may aspire to different heights. But what is the foundation of your relationship? Where is the value? Recognize that you are not looking for a clone of yourself and the value comes in both your shared interests and differences. Think of Clarice and Ouisa in Steel Magnolias.
So today, the V of Cups asks you to muck around in those spilled cups for a bit to learn about what is valuable about the remaining upright cups. Why are they upright while the others are spilled? How do you invest in your relationships to increase their value and communicate that value so that it is shared? Be emotional (this IS a Cups card, after all). Be vulnerable. Be human. We aren't here forever; so take the time to evaluate, invest, and improve your relationships where they can be.
Decks shown above: