78 Weeks: Four Cups

jmd

To find out what these threads refer to, please see

The link above provides suggested dates and links to all threads for this study.

Some amongst us may be working through the deck in a different order, and using different decks.

For more general comments or questions about the 78 weeks, please post in the thread linked above.

Enjoy!

cartarum

the four of cups

this four is monotony, boredom, sameness. it is also rejection, failing or refusing to recognize some obvious fact, or just being a malcontent even when theres magic in the air.
reversed, its doing something. you may get a request, an offer of help, or you may need to do something yourself.

CreativeFire

Four of Cups

Once again my study (and inspiration for my version of this card) has come from the Universal Waite, with the young person sitting underneath a tree with the four cups.

I went and found a tree to sit under for a while to think about this card

Which was an interesting exercise in that it made me think about the different thoughts and emotions that could make you want to just get away and be alone under a tree. These varied from almost a childish sort of sulk where something has not gone right or feelings have been hurt and you block yourself away from those around you, not wanting to listen or acknowledge others feelings.

I get a feeling of 'funk' or down in the dumps with this card but more from point of view of not taking in or acknowledging that there are good things around you or on offer, being a bit self-absorbed or inwardly focussed because you may not be happy about something in your life at the moment. Also as well maybe not wanting to or even seeing that there is something or someone there that may be able to help.

In my card I have actually used an image of a young girl as the person under the tree which connected for me with some of my thoughts on this card. She is holding a yellow rose which I connected to yellow for thought.

CreativeFire

Major Tom

I'm still studying 6 different versions of the Tarot of Marseilles, although it looks as if I may add a 7th version. :laugh:

With my RWS upbringing, I've associated the 4 of Cups with boredom or missing something. The Marseilles again seems to offer a much wider scope.

Cups are the suite of emotions and spirituality. My one and only numerology book tells me that 4 is about work and discipline. It's become clear to me that 4 isn't very happy in the suite of cups and perhaps this is where the boredom can come in... Putting these two together does suggest the idea of getting stuck in a rut, becoming too rigid. Perhaps we need to experience the highs and lows in order to appreciate our emotions to their fullest. It could be that with 4 cups we get sated to the point where we can't even see the world of opportunities that awaits us. There is also the idea of being too dignified to allow ourselves to experience the full range of emotion. Nonetheless the illustrations give the hint that with a bit of a shake up a greater variety can be experienced...

I attach my version of the card:

Belladonna

To be honest, I have no patience for the four of cups. Here is a young person with the emotional stability and support of his environment. He is lacking neither mental capacity nor physical ability. I see boredom here and unfulfillment, but why? The world tempts him with offerings that stir the imagination and yet he makes no move to get up off his butt. He is mired down in his own inertia. I feel like shaking him and saying, just look around you! The world won't come to you- you must go to the world!

gregory

Four of Cups - Revelations Tarot

First impressions
Another card where at first glance the upright image looks less positive than the reversed….

From the book
Upright
She lies back, pondering and waiting. She does not move or care for offerings around her.
Complacency overrides emotional growth. Here stability breeds a bored and lifeless character. You may find that you are too comfortable in your environment and have reached a sense of numbness. Even when approached by something of remote interest, you may find yourself unwilling to apply yourself. This card advises you to break out of your rut and perhaps go on a short trip or a vacation for a change of scenery.
The environment around you feels lifeless and still. Energy behind projects seems to lack drive and motivation, and interest is waning due to the lack of excitement. Relationships feel routine and inconsequential.

Reversed
She grasps the situation and the opportunities presented.
The reverse of this card reflects a spirit of finding one's calling out of the darkness of complacency. Here the emotional need to succeed will drive you to achieve more than you already have. Your eagerness and tenacity to do will be rewarding enough to lift your spirits up.
In situations around you, there will be a can-do and willing-to-do atmosphere. People all around will cheer you on and encourage you to strive for more for your own sake. In relationships, you will be dragged along on a roller coaster ride of excitement and fun, all to aid being a part of more than the conventional.

Images and Symbolism
This card explores the ideas of stability and of the rut one may fall into when seeking it. Both mermaids are presented with the same emotional possibilities, but one takes them (reversed) while the other is so lost within herself that she cannot see them (upright).
On the upright half of the card, the mermaid plays with her hair out of boredom while waiting for something better to come along. As she sinks slowly toward the bottom of the ocean floor on the nautilus shell, she does not notice the offering of cups to her or the dangers of the free tentacles, which may entwine around her. Her complacency does not make her aware of both the opportunities and dangers around her.
On the reverse, the mermaid seizes her opportunity and takes the cups. She does not stay around long enough for the tentacles to grab on and hold her back.
Color: deep reds, blues, black; associated with Scorpio.

Traditional meanings
Upright:
Emotional fulfilment at its peak. This being attained, what can follow? Familiarity breeds contempt.

Reversed:
Over-indulgence, satiety, excesses leading to fatigue.

My impressions:
Upright
A lazy looking mermaid isn’t even energetic enough to look around her; she is lying back on some kind of a shell. An octopus arm is offering her a cup, but she isn’t even looking at it. Other tentacles are writhing around her. The background is greens and purples – the very depths of the sea, and she appears to be sinking.

Reversed
An alert and cheerful looking mermaid has seized two cups and seems about to swim happily away.

My take
The upright image is positively indolent; she looks as if she really could not care less – and if she stays where she is the tentacles will wrap around her. She is in danger – and doesn’t notice – or even care. She looks to have given up. She is in a rut and happy to stay there – and needs to be warned that if she does, thing will get a whole lot worse. Maybe she is seriously depressed, and needs help. And reversed – my initial – surprised ! – impression was right ! Much more positive- she’s in a rut, but making every effort to get out of it. There will be opportunities which should – and will – be seized upon.

All the cards from this deck can be viewed here.

gregory

Card name: Four of Cups

First impressions
A lotus flower – with a crescent moon on the stalk just above its bending - on intricately woven stems hangs over to pour water into four cups below. The sea is slightly ruffled. The water from the flower flows into the top two cups, which in turn drop it to the two below. I THINK there are 11 streams flowing from each cup. Interestingly the two cups at the bottom seem to retain all that is poured into them, rather than having it overflow into the sea. A cloudy sky. The sigil of Cancer.

From the Book of Thoth

THE FOUR FOURS

These cards are attributed to Chesed. The connection between the number Four and the number Three is extremely complex. The important characteristic is that Four is “below the Abyss”; therefore, in practice, it means solidification, materialization. Things have become manifest. The essential point is that it expresses the Rule of Law.

In the Wand suit, the card is called Completion. The manifestation promised by Binah has now taken place. This number must be very solid, because it is the actual dominating influence on all the following cards. Chesed, Jupiter-Ammon, the Father, the first below the Abyss, is the highest idea which can be understood in an intellectual way, and that is why the Sephira is attributed to Jupiter, who is the Demiurge.

The Four of Cups is called Luxury.

The masculine nature of fire permits the Four of Wands to appear as a very positive and clear-cut conception. The weakness in the element of water threatens its purity; it is not quite strong enough to control itself properly; so the Lord of Pleasure is a little unstable. Purity has somehow been lost in the process of satisfaction.

The Four of Swords is called Truce. This seems rather on the lines of “the strong man armed, keeping his house in peace”. The masculine nature of air makes it dominant. The card is almost a picture of the formation of the military clan system of society.

As to the Disks, the heaviness of the symbol rather outweighs any considerations of its weakness. The card is called Power. It is the power which dominates and stabilizes everything, but manages its affairs more by negotiation, by pacific methods, than by any assertion of itself. It is Law, the Constitution, with no aggressive element.

LUXURY FOUR OF CUPS

This card refers to Chesed in the sphere of Water. Here, below the Abyss, the energy of this element, although ordered, balanced and (for the moment) stabilized, has lost the original purity of the conception.

The card refers to the Moon in Cancer, which is her own house; but Cancer itself is so placed that this implies a certain weakness, an abandonment to desire. This tends to introduce the seeds of decay into the fruit of pleasure.

The sea is still shown, but its surface is ruffled, and the four Cups which stand upon it are no longer so stable. The Lotus from which the water Springs has a multiple stem, as if to show that the influence of the Dyad has gathered strength. For although the number Four is the manifestation and consolidation of the dyad, it is also secretly preparing catastrophe by emphasizing individuality.

There is a certain parallelism between this card and the Geomantic figures Via and Populus, which are attributed to the Moon in her decrease and increase respectively. The link is primarily the “Change=Stability” equation, already familiar to readers of this essay. Four is an “awkward” number; alone among the natural numbers, it is impossible to construct a “Magic Square” of four cells. Even in the Naples Arrangement, Four is a dead stop, a blind alley. An idea of a totally different Order is necessary to carry on the series. Note also the refolding-in-upon-itself suggested by the “Magic Number” of Four 1+2 + 3+4 which is Ten. Four is the number of the Curse of Limitation, of Restriction. It is the blind and barren Cross of equal arms, Tetragrammaton in his fatal aspect of finality, as the Qabalists knew him before the discovery of the Revolving Formula whereby the Daughter, seated upon the Throne of the Mother, “awakens the Eld of the All-Father”.

For the meanings of Via and Populus, refer to the “Handbook of Geomancy” (Equinox Vol. I, No.2).

Images and Symbolism
Frieda Harris says in her essays:

Four of Cups = Luxury. Chesed in the suit of Water. Moon in Cancer.
The four Cups stand upon the sea, no longer stable but ruffled. The Lotus has a multiple stem. The Energy of the element, although ordered, as lost the original purity of the conception.

Also:

Four of Cups = Luxury. Moon in Cancer. Chesed.
The roughened surface of the sea on which the cups and the lotuses are balanced explains that an element of excess has entered into love.

The sea is indeed slightly ruffled. This shows that the cycle is at its end. (How ?) Balance is still present on the arrangement of the cups.
Banzhaf says that the two lower cups have “separated themselves from the source” in that the water does not return from them to the sea. The interlaced stalks of the flower start with four strands at the base and weaves upwards into two; this shows the condensation of the two achieving completion in the four, but also restriction – no further development is possible. (Banzhaf.)
Snuffin points out that everything about this card is water – Chesed, Briah, the Moon and Cancer. This is, he says, a weakness.
But there is a sun influence – the flower is pink and the cups are red and gold.
The cups have square bases, suggesting stability – but while the top two have round bases to stand upon, the lower two do not – suggesting an end to stability is at hand – here also the way sea and the stormy grey sky..
Snuffin also points out that there is a lemniscate concealed in the twining stalks at the base of the card, for the unlimited potential of the sea of Binah.
Meaning (cribbed from Wasserman)
Weakness. Abandonment to desire. Pleasure mixed with anxiety. Blended success and pleasure possibly approaching their end. Injustice. The seeds of decay in the fruits of pleasure. (Again – as with the three, I guess the second part is the ill-dignified meaning.)
DuQuette
Receiving pleasure or kindness from others, but some discomfort therewith.
Success of pleasure approaching their end. A stationary period in happiness, which may or may not continue. It does not mean love and marriage so much as the previous symbol. It is too passive a symbol to represent perfectly complete happiness. Swiftness, hunting and pursuing. Acquisition by contention: injustice sometimes; some drawbacks to pleasure implied.

Traditional meanings – From Thirteen’s book of meanings:

Four of Cups
Water is about movement and flow, making the stability of the "fours" contrary to this element. Which is why it's a card about dissatisfaction. A man sitting under a tree with three cups is offered a fourth by a hand from a cloud. He seems to be staring at the three cups he has, the fourth from the cloud suggesting that he feels unhappy with those three. This is sometimes called the "grass is greener" card. It indicates discontent. What we thought was wonderful when our feelings were new is now taken for granted. We might even start to find fault with it, become irritated by what we imagine is lacking or wrong with it.
The man under the tree is still, comfortably seated even, but it's clear that his feelings are restless. Think of those who stew in their emotions, grumbling and grousing, maybe wasting their time drinking or spending too much time on the internet. He's too locked in habit and routine to move, but habit and routine no longer give him comfort. He is dissatisfied and bored.
The querent might be on either side of this stagnant relationship, the man under the tree or the unappreciated cups. Either way, something must be done to bring these feelings out into the open and change them. There is still time to salvage the relationship, but that time is running out.

My impressions (appearance of the card):
I actually like this better than the three, visually. To me it looks less greedy – until we look at the way the bottom two cups are holding on to everything they get. The twined stems are beautiful, and suggest complexity to me. And the flower seems to me to be giving its all.

My take (what I make of it/what I might see in a reading where I drew it)
It looks like greed, plain and simple. A greed that will take over if not dealt with. It follows on rather well from the three that way. There one had too much; here you have holding on to too much. Let something go.

78 Weeks: Four Cups

jmd

cartarum

CreativeFire

Attachments

Major Tom

Attachments

Belladonna

gregory

gregory