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If we said Three of Cups was a card of friendship,
could the Four of Cups mean withdrawal from friends or a group of people (friends, family etc.)
I always thought this was a card of being emotionally disappointed & re-evaluation of friendships.
But now I'm thinking maybe it's about being offered a new friendship but looking at the past with disappointment.
I guess I never thought that we are sometimes in need to offer our friendship also.
A need for new friendship?
brandi124
23-03-2004, 19:31
Hmm, I never thought of the friendship aspect this card could have-- I'm going to have to go back and look at a few readings I did for myself-- i had this card show up a few times and I think your ideas are going to bring a whole new aspect my reading. very cool
WalesWoman
24-03-2004, 23:57
This is an interesting concept, I've usually thought of this card as apathy, or self involvement to the point of not being able to see or appreciate what you already have or what is being offered. Or maybe not being interested in what is there, so yeah, I could see how this could mean outgrown relationships of some sort or total boredom with them, and that it's time to make some positive,constructive changes. But with the cup being offered, sort of like the Ace of Cups, the hand emerging from the clouds, is the offer of something new and different, but this person under the tree seems to be looking inward rather than outside. It would seem like a state of stagnancy, coming between the celebration of the three and the regrets of the five.
Oh wow, how about too much 3 of cups creating a stupor, kind of the after effects of overindulgence, pre passed out and hang over (that really seems like 5 of cups) Basically in a state of saturation. Too much to take it all in? So it could be not being able to see the forest for the trees? (Or would that cliche apply to 7 of Cups?)
Thanks again for raising more questions with your one!
Phoenix Rising
28-03-2004, 04:23
I've drawn this card a couple of times in the last couple of weeks.And what it meant for me was "I was looking at other options(3 cups) but the one option that was staring me in the face I chose to ignore(arms crossed and not looking at what's been given) It was just what I needed. So now I'm taking the one that was handed to me.
Penelope
27-07-2004, 17:40
If you look at the tree trunk and the leaves using a magnifying glass
you can find a lot of contours and suggested images, dark imaginings.
cartarum
14-08-2004, 18:21
this four is the archetype of boredom, monotony. also like when you have all these things to entertain you, but you are still miserable. rejection, too. the man in the four may be refusing or unable to see whats before him. of course, he may have already seen this magical cup appearing before him in a cloud, but still doesent change his mood.
While researching another subject, I came upon a reference
to the following information, and wondered if anyone can
find a comparison to this tradition in the Tarot illustration.
I have chosen to briefly paraphrase, using my own words:
The Four Cups of Wine for Passover
By drinking from The Four Cups during Passover we demonstrate
that we can physically accomplish our spiritual goals ourselves,
that we can actively free ourselves from whatever enslaves us.
FOUR of CUPS (http://www.sacred-texts.com/tarot/pkt/img/cu04.jpg)
Is the seated figure resisting liberation
...by selfishly clinging to past sorrows?
SeraphSarah
28-10-2004, 00:54
Interesting ideas!!
When I see the 4 of cups I always think of an oppertunity that is being handed to that person but that person ignores it or does not want it. They nee dto give it a second look.
Formicida
28-10-2004, 23:10
I like that idea, ros.
I've also often thought of it as a card of "emotional focus." That is, being so focused on a particular emotional event that you can't enjoy other things that would otherwise give you pleasure. You know you're going to see a loved one that you've been missing, so the company of your friends doesn't mean as much.
In this case, the clouds would represent your mental fantasies and imagined futures, as opposed to what's sitting right in front of you.
Little Baron
22-11-2004, 21:31
Just a thought. I see the 3 as growth in an emotional situation. Maybe growth and development from the unity of the 2. Could the 4 be offering another emotional relationship? Possibly an affair. The man can take this offer or can return to the established three cups on the floor infront of him. Decisions....
Probably a silly thought .. it is 2.30am
Yabs
I love this card. I think it's one of the most eloquent in the RWS. The aspect of the card that makes me really smile is the little hand emerging from the cloud with a cup. It makes me think of something I thought and wrote once, that were God a personal being with emotions, God must feel really hurt and rejected by us because we are constantly lamenting how bad things are when God is constantly offering us gifts. I think of a lonely God saying in a voice no one can hear, "Look at this beauty I have given to you and you do not even see it; look at the love I give you, and all you can experience it as is pain that makes you want to turn away from Me." I personally see God as an impersonal force, the subtle foundation of pure consciousness that underlies all things, but I think personifying God in this way can show how deeply sad it is that we fail to see the gifts life gives us so much of the time.
I love this card. I think it's one of the most eloquent in the RWS. The aspect of the card that makes me really smile is the little hand emerging from the cloud with a cup.
Do you think there is a "connection with" being shown here to the
"Spirit of the Aces" (so to speak) by the use of the Cloud-Hand?
If the 4 of Cups were the only card showing this, it would be even
more singularly powerful, but then there are the Aces like this too.
Do you think there is a "connection with" being shown here to the
"Spirit of the Aces" (so to speak) by the use of the Cloud-Hand?
Yeah, I think it would be hard not to connect them. I see all of the "Cloud-Hands" as representing gifts, that which seems to come to us "out of the blue," an act of grace. And the person in the Four of Cups ignores or is blind to these gifts, while the Aces represent that gift simply on its own, and it becomes up to the querent whether to see and take advantage of how that gift manifests in their life when that potential is present.
I think the Aces can be the most exciting cards to see in a spread, because they show a pure, new potential which can yield powerful results if taken advantage of. The Four of Cups shows what not to do, though sometimes ending up in the state of the person on the Four of Cups can be inevitable... sometimes life really drains us and we have to be swirled around in "emotional eddies" a while before we regain the strength to see and receive what's being presented to us.
How about if each cup represents one Ace. The offering is the
last Ace (or cup).
Knowing that there is still discontentment, we know that this last
Ace may not solve our problem.
We don't really know what we want emotionally.
Emotional discontentment.
You have to have a happy heart before the gifts of the Aces
are appreciated!
northsea
05-12-2004, 01:54
Yaboot, ros, and others,
Great interpretations! Could the cup from above also be a karmic benefit from meditation?
Frank Hall
05-12-2004, 09:13
I like that idea, ros.
I've also often thought of it as a card of "emotional focus." That is, being so focused on a particular emotional event that you can't enjoy other things that would otherwise give you pleasure. You know you're going to see a loved one that you've been missing, so the company of your friends doesn't mean as much.
In this case, the clouds would represent your mental fantasies and imagined futures, as opposed to what's sitting right in front of you.
I am impressed with this interpretation, especially as I look at how the man holds in and fixates on "a particular emotional event"-- he denies the beauty below (three cups on open field) and the truth which issues out of his unconscious. What now must he do? How did he get this way? I like to think of a Tarot scenario as having a prior and subsequent time-flow. Now, but not only now.
Yaboot, ros, and others,
Great interpretations! Could the cup from above also be a karmic benefit from meditation?
I like this interpretation. Perhaps this card means we need do nothing. Just by sitting quietly, not forcing the events, gifts will appear. All we need do is open our eyes.
Formicida
05-12-2004, 11:21
I guess the obvious thought would be that in the past, he only had the three cups. He used them, drank out of them, enjoyed them (you could see this as coming directly out of the 3 of Cups). Now they aren't giving him that much pleasure, for whatever reason, but he's not yet ready to let them go and grab hold of the fourth cup.
In the future? Well, he has two options. He can forget about the three cups that have given him pleasure in the past and take the new cup. Lose his focus and move on. Sometimes, that's the only workable possibility. But on the other hand, maybe he could pick the old cups back up again and go back to the past. Maybe this is only a temporary break.
Is return possible? Is it desirable? It depends on the nature of the situation.
Also, I like northsea's idea of a "karmic benefit from meditation." It's a fresh interpretation and not as negative as many interpretations of the card.
So far I have usually taken a pretty standard approach to this card - the person is not seeing something that life is offering him, in the sense of fear, uncertainty, apathy or pessimism, though not as serious as those words make it seem - the cup is still there, all he has to do to see it is turn his head. (Love all your deeper interpretations though, real food for thought...)
To me the most important aspect is often 'why' he's not seeing it; in one Celtic Cross that I did this card came up as the Basis, with the Five of Cups in the Hopes and fears position. In this case he wasn't seeing the cup being offered him because he was afraid. This reading was a general (no specific question) reading for my friend, whose mother died whe she was ten; the reading showed that she was afraid to turn fully to the fourth cup - though mentally she recognised how rich her life was - because of the pain she had already experienced because of the death ofher mother - the 'once bitten twice shy' feeling - and at the same time she was unwilling to let go of the pain the three cups held - she didn't want to pick up the two upright ones in the Five and cross the bridge with them because somewhere inside her she saw this as leaving her mother behind.
So the fourth cup in the Four, like the two upright ones in the Five, represented letting go of the past and moving on, fully experiencing the present, but the three upright cups in the four were the ones that had been knocked over in the Five - and they held a strong but subtle power over my friend because she was afraid that if she looked away from them they would fall over again, on the one hand causing her more pain, and on the other taking away a kind of anchor in her life.
This last point bears in mind the trap of the Devil card, or perhaps the Six of Swords, where pain becomes a kind of safety net because as long as you keep the pain you have, you can't be faced with any more pain - 'better the devil you know than the devil you don't'
So to sum up - in this situation the man in the card 'knew' on a certain level that the fourth cup was there, but he was choosing not to actually take it, simply to be aware of it. That way, he thinks, he has the best of both worlds - the safety of the past and hope of the present, though in reality he has neither.
Hi again,
Ironically the Four of Cups came up in a reading today, with an unexpected meaning:
The reading was concerned with facing and releasing a trauma from the past, which was represented by the the three cups - the fourth cup representing the 'light at the end of the tunnel' that comes after we release pain that has been inhibiting us, like the Star after the Tower.
In this scenario, the person in the card is aware that the fourth cup is waiting for him, aware that Life is on his side, and it's exactly that awareness that gives him the strength to face the harsh realities of the past that are embodied in the three cups before him.
I've always seen the man in the 4 of cups as missing, or ignoring the cup from the clouds. But in the spirit of the discussion I looked again to see if there might be another intended meaning, and I wondered if he is supposed to be dreaming, or thinking about that 4th cup. His eyes seem shut and he's sat under a tree, could he be resting to think or dream?
D.
krazymayj
09-12-2004, 18:42
hes trying to ignore the cup, he doesent see it, or the cups before him distract him from the cloud cup. perhaps what he needs is a cup to magically appear before him, to jar him out of the stagnation imposed by the aftermath of the three
Kilted Kat
20-04-2006, 18:08
Does anyone have an earlier, clearer version? It looks as if the boy has his left eye on the cup, his right eye cast downward, and skulking.
When I was in the rooms, an old addage went around; "Don't have one foot in the past, one in the future, while p!$$!ng on the present..."
KK