Five of cups and the moon

ficbot

I did a reading with my new Steampunk Tarot deck and it had a caution in the guidebook to be careful is five of cups appears in a reading with the moon. I have searched everywhere and cannot find an explanation for this. My first reading did include these two cards together. Why is that significant?
 

rwcarter

The Moon can point to being delusional and with the 5C' focus on what's been lost and not what remains, the two cards together could point to lamenting about something that never was.
 

Thirteen

Overly Dramatic View of the Two...

I did a reading with my new Steampunk Tarot deck and it had a caution in the guidebook to be careful is five of cups appears in a reading with the moon.
I wonder if you shouldn't write to the authors of the Steampunk tarot. I'm sure they're on line and likely have at least a Facebook page. As a writer of tarot books, myself, I think it irresponsible of them to caution readers about any combo without fully explaining what it means. A guidebook is no place to be mysterious.

That said, I'd say that the authors of this deck think that these two cards, together, might indicate suicidal tendencies. 5/Cups often indicates an obsession over something you've lost or done wrong, to the point where your self worth is gone and you can't think of anything besides how miserable you are, how horrible a person you are, etc. The Moon *can be* delusions and sometimes literal "lunacy." Put these two together and you *could* get suicidal depression. You know, those articles in the news where a husband felt himself a failure as a man, or a wife was in deep postpartum and they killed the kids before killing themselves.

Yeah, I know, scary. But the guidebook is, again, being irresponsible (I think) with this dramatic view of the combo. Such mental heath issue exist in the world. And so there have to be card combinations to indicate them. But we don't read about them happening on a daily basis. Meaning 9 times out of 10, the combo is simply saying that you're sad about something and having bad dreams. ;) Which, yes, is enough that you ought to consider getting exercise, fresh air, and talking to someone to make yourself feel better. But while I'd ask someone I was reading for exactly how they were feeling if I got these two, just to be sure they weren't in any danger, I wouldn't jump to any scary conclusions and call up the police to take them away for 24 hours observation. That would be...irresponsible.
 

Adriana

Love Thirteen's take on this.. as always

But could we not feel this way after a bad break up? When you wake up the day after and feel like you walk into a nightmare.. thinking only of what is lost and what if's and you are confused on what to do and rather go back to sleep?
So that stage will pass, it feels extra bad at first. And a bit worse than 5 of cups alone..
 

Prilica

I did a reading with my new Steampunk Tarot deck and it had a caution in the guidebook to be careful is five of cups appears in a reading with the moon. I have searched everywhere and cannot find an explanation for this. My first reading did include these two cards together. Why is that significant?
Well looking at the Steampunk tarot deck images probably for them the 5 of cups has to do with addictions... drinking in the image, drugs etc. So the person wants to fill that emptiness. But can hardly do it with these 5 cups. So with the moon he/ she is seeing everything so dark... perhaps will feel in ecstasy for some time, but that effect we know very well, won't last much.

So for your deck that's a personal meaning I would give to that combo. Of course not everyday is so dark.. And could also point to a bad day when one wants simply to daydream escaping from reality which is good and help us to survive.
 

Grizabella

Do you keep a Tarot journal? If so, that might be helpful to you and you can start making your own observations of what cards mean to refer to refer back to. Each of us reads the cards a little differently. Even though a meaning is written in a guidebook or other Tarot book, that doesn't mean a card or combination of cards really means that all the time.

I sometimes think about what it would be like to be an author of a Tarot guidebook or booklet. There are so many of those written that just writing in the same meanings that a buzzillion other authors have put in their books would be pretty boring for themselves and their readers so they may put in information that's a little different than the norm to make their book more relevant and interesting. Maybe this author has seen this combination in her own readings so she included that in the guidebook.

If you do keep a journal, write down your readings and then refer back to them at the end of the day. Write down whatever insights you can glean from comparing your actual day's experience with the cards you drew. Often that will be a more accurate way of learning how your particular cards apply to your own life. :)
 

ficbot

That is interesting because I don't personally interpret the moon as being about delusions. It's more about uncertainty...like, the reflection of the light in the water, and the water shimmers and a shadow passes and the image is gone. This reading was about a job situation and it was three cards, present-near future-ultimate resolution. Present situation was 5 cups and yes, I am returning to work after a major loss and have varying feelings about that. I am also working for a governmental body which has a long probationary path before one can attain permanence, and I thought the moon card was referring to that. I actually found the glowing spotlights on this deck's moon card to be reassuring. Like, reminding me there is a path to which I can navigate toward the end. Not sinister, really...
 

magicjack

The moon card can also be about fear. You may have fear about letting go of something or fear to move on ( 5 of cups ). Maybe not exactly fear but some uncertainty involved. But as soon as you move on the fear or anxiety goes away and you realize fear is nothing more than something your mind made up. Sorry I didn't read your last post so I could be wrong.
 

Thirteen

But could we not feel this way after a bad break up? When you wake up the day after and feel like you walk into a nightmare.. thinking only of what is lost and what if's and you are confused on what to do and rather go back to sleep?
I totally agree that one could feel this way with this combo. But ficbot's confusion is over that "dire warning" in the guidebook, and that means that the authors probably had something more severe in mind for the meaning of this combo :D I can totally understand why you (and I and many of us) would be scratching our heads if we saw it, though, given that we have much less dramatic views of this combo.
 

Thirteen

Things that go bump in the Night

That is interesting because I don't personally interpret the moon as being about delusions. It's more about uncertainty...like, the reflection of the light in the water, and the water shimmers and a shadow passes and the image is gone.
You may not personally interpret the Moon that way, but it certainly *can* be interpreted that way (delusions, paranoia, visions, waking dreams, psychic powers, and yes, drugs that cause hallucinations. Also trickery and evil people/things going bump in the night). Which is why I think the card creators see this card in this way, otherwise their dire warning hardly makes sense. If it's just uncertainty--shadows and tricks of the light--then even paired with the sad 5/Cups it would hardly pose danger enough for a warning.
I am also working for a governmental body which has a long probationary path before one can attain permanence, and I thought the moon card was referring to that. I actually found the glowing spotlights on this deck's moon card to be reassuring. Like, reminding me there is a path to which I can navigate toward the end. Not sinister, really...
Actually, a card indicating a path by moonlight would have been the HPS (whose planet is the moon, and who's Hebrew letter--Gimel--means "camel"--carrying you across the desert). The actual Moon card is far less helpful. Why? Well because this card should really be called "Nighttime" not "The Moon." It's called "The Moon" because we only really see the Moon at night (and because tarot card creators liked having a Star, Moon, Sun card). But this card isn't simply about that lunar body. It's about ALL aspects of nighttime. And by that I mean, you need to cast back to when there were no streetlights, to when wild animals and bandits roamed, to when getting lost in the woods at night might leave you alone and cold and in danger till morning. To those days when magic happened at night--including scary magic.

I would say that you're going to find this government job a little scary, deliberately shadowed and mysterious; and your feelings, thanks to the 5/Cups, isn't going to help you be confident when something unsettles you. So, good to know. Make sure you have a flashlight on you as you travel through the woods of this job (maybe ask the cards what that should be). That way, you can see, for sure, if that scary sound belongs to a wolf (and you need to climb a tree) or a raccoon and you just have to protect your food. :D