VIII Cups Contradiction

Barleywine

You are right about the Moon not being connected to the 12th house or Pisces....not sure why I was making that connection......probably has something to do with the Moon card and addictions....anyway, you guys are really stimulating my brain here...I am going to have to sit back and think about this card a bit....I'm beginning to undergo a "gestalt shift" here...(laugh) and see this card in a completely different way than having to do with "love.".... thank goodness.

For tarot purposes (at least of the analytical variety), I prefer the term "emotional investment" to "love" anyway, it's more concrete (dare I say clinical?) and less sugary and vaporous. "Love" in modern terms is more like a projection of our sense (usually learned from purveyors of cultural cues like television and movies, from social peers, and from Hallmark cards) of what is virtuous and praisworthy, onto the object of our affections. Venus, after all, is as much about value and appreciation (an increase in value) as it is about the more "touchy-feely" stuff. And when Mars enters the picture, we get "lust;" the two are often woefully confused in the unsophisticated mind. Unconditional love (aka "pure love") is rarely attainable (and what carnal 20-year-old would want it anyway?); although the idea of it might be a universal romantic ideal, the reality is usually much more subjective and mundane: what we get is a "mongrel."

And hey, bring me back a beer! Oh wait, it's 5:00 AM . . . :)
 

Barleywine

The moon is a moon in its waning phase. This is a style of art that turns up frequently in alchemical art especially. This link shows a picture by Hieronymus Reussner, 1588; it's also the moon in the waning phase. Here's another picture by Reussner, 1582; it's about 3/4 down the page. This is an example of the waxing phase.

What this says to me is the current phase of this person's life is winding down. I don't see the cups as symbolizing anything in particular; they represent whatever the person is leaving behind, it could be anything.

In thinking more about this, Crowley did have some pretty vile things to say about the waning Moon. But I'm wondering here if its allure for the apparently disillusioned man is that it's less impure than what he found in the cups. He's moving away from the austerity and barenness of Saturn in Pisces (what bitter draught is in those cups, anyway? Hemlock?) toward the luxury of Jupiter in Pisces (9 of Cups), so maybe even the "poisonous" Moon will act as a healing purgative to rid him of his dyspepsia. Or maybe its "hair of the dog?" He's hung over and is looking for a "pick-me-up." "Here, Socrates, try something a bit lighter . . ."
 

Ruby Jewel

For tarot purposes (at least of the analytical variety), I prefer the term "emotional investment" to "love" anyway, it's more concrete (dare I say clinical?) and less sugary and vaporous. "Love" in modern terms is more like a projection of our sense (usually learned from purveyors of cultural cues like television and movies, from social peers, and from Hallmark cards) of what is virtuous and praisworthy, onto the object of our affections. Venus, after all, is as much about value and appreciation (an increase in value) as it is about the more "touchy-feely" stuff. And when Mars enters the picture, we get "lust;" the two are often woefully confused in the unsophisticated mind. Unconditional love (aka "pure love") is rarely attainable (and what carnal 20-year-old would want it anyway?); although the idea of it might be a universal romantic ideal, the reality is usually much more subjective and mundane: what we get is a "mongrel."

And hey, bring me back a beer! Oh wait, it's 5:00 AM . . . :)

It seems to me the whole concept of "love" has been going through a transformation and redefinition for the past thousand years....with the death of chivalry and the replacement of the word with "charity" in the Bible.... the lamentations of the loss to mankind were expressed in the '60s Hippie movement...and the word now appears in it's anachronistic phase.....soon to be deleted from the dictionary as well as the language and our hearts. It has passed into the history of mankind along with the Age of Pisces and Christianity. If the new Age of Aquarius is an indication of what will replace it, perhaps the term "brotherhood/sisterhood" is as good as any. Could it be that is the universal meaning of the VIII of Cups....the Hermit (Pollack's analogy) walking away from the "whole catastrophe".... toward a new philosophy of life ... leaving behind a dream of a universal love that was simply a Neptunian illusion all along. The Moon having witnessed the precession of the equinox and the flux and flow of humanity's noble but futile attempt to transform ourselves from our barbarian roots through the philosophy of "love"..... looks on our hopeless predicament with great sadness.

While we're at it, let's have a toast to The Age of Aquarius and the following Age of Capricorn....and 4,000 years of Saturn's cold discipline. I wonder if anyone will remember that we once "loved".... or tried to.