What's with the mitt????

I think I participated in the original thread which discussed this (JMD has provided the link).

I remember feeling particularly awful that day and went a bit overboard in my reading of the card. I think it could be called projection. I can go dotty on that track and am slightly horrified at how dotty I was that day. .

One thing I have noticed about Pamela Colman Smith (for whom I have the greatest admiration) is that her perspective (as in drawing) wasn't always crash hot. I've looked at other cards where there are examples of that and wondered whether there is any meaning to it, and I just don't know. In 6 Cups there seems to be a lot that's not quite in perspective including the glove, the relative sizes of the boy and the girl, the size of the chalices etc.

I wonder about the style of art in the day and a few other things.

However, today that card looks a lot better.

Numerologically, 6 is about harmony. truth justice and a sense of balance. It is a domestic and artistic vibration - Home, family, service to the community, love and compassion So it sort of fits with the image Pixie Colman Smith gave us.

I'd like to throw another log on the fire here and offer an interpretation that I came across.

It's by Isabel Kliegman, in her book Tarot and the Tree of Life. It is based on the Kabbalah. The sixth sefirah on the Tree of Life is Tiferet it is the place of the sacrificed god, the wounded warrior, the place of Christ consciousness.

Isabel Kliegman sees the six of cups as a card of deception and martyrdom.

The clothes on the children represent the deceptions parents tell their children to protect them from physical and emotional harm. A warm cocoon of protection from the sometimes harsh realities of life.

The cross of the martyred St. Andrew on the sheild represents the fact that all children will eventually be martyred to life. To the fact that there is no Santa Clause, if you don't do your homework you get an F, if you drink and drive you go to jail. ect.

The guard walking away represents the parent who has to let the child realize these truths on there own. Knowing they can't protect them from life forever.


In my own interpretation of all this, when I look at six of cups I see a card of transition. Those children are just on the verge of experiancing life. And I wonder what will life offer them?

I see the mitten as representing the little girls innocence. The boy isn't wearing any because he's holding the flowers. To me they represent the experiances of life. All the pots of flower around them, are all the things they have yet to experiance. He's older and he's already had a little peek into what life is all about. And now he offers his experiance to her. She's not sure if she wants to leave the comfort, nostalgia and protection of her childhood just yet. And the guard walks away because he knows he must leave them to discover life for themselves.

I have enjoyed reading all of your opinions they help me to learn and grow. Nameste.

Part of what the six of cups evokes for me is nostalgia for childhood paradise. I like to think this card represents "Ithaka" the place which Odysseus was desperate to return to.

My childhood paradise was also called Ithaca (upstate New York) -- where the grandparents lived, a house and farm with a window into history. The smell of freshly cut grass and lilacs outside, the smell of old wood, ivory soap, and vanilla cake in the kitchen...an acre of flower garden, 70 acres of pine woods.

That was Eden. But as Chateaubriand wrote, when describing his childhood paradise, we become conscious of it's having been an Eden, once we have been, like Adam and Eve cast out. And it is precisely the having-been-cast-out which gives the paradise garden its golden aura.

What many poets and writers have expressed as the tragedy of being human, is this sense of being separate from God. The myth tells us that this separation is the price we pay for our consciousness -- for having tasted knowlege, we are thrown out of God's Garden... in being thrown out of God's garden, we gain still greater awareness, greater pleasure, greater pain.

Hence, the the presense of both pleasure and martrydom in this card...

In TAROT REVERSALS and let's reiterate, I've no problem defining or intuiting the card that way IF it's reversed or surrounded by other cards that would suggest that meaning.

But if it's by itself--well, shall I go down the list?

Crowley: Pleasure, harmony.
Douglas: The past working through the present.
Grimaud: Equilibrium, assured success.
Khan: old friends, return home, sexual fulfilment.
Thierens: Happiness, riches, good health, impressions of the past.
Waite: Memories, nostalgia, pleasant memories, an inheritance.

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Mary K. Greer gives this interpretation with the upright meanings, not the reversed ones. My only point was to show that Mary K. Greer - a respected tarot writer - also notes that something's not right. That's all.

My point is simply that JUST because it can mean something sinister in childhood doesn't mean it MUST. And my point is that we tend to think INSTANTLY of the sinister rather than the innocent. And I think you just proved my point.

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I didn't instantly think of the sinister interpretation, I saw nothing strange at first, but when I really did examine the card, I noticed that something seems off on this card, that something just doesn't exactly feel right.

But there is a guard suggesting that the children are protected!

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If someone would want to show that there's a guard watching over the children, I don't think that someone would draw a guard walking away of the children, don't you agree?

I don't know what you're looking at but on my card she looks like she has her hands open--awed at the cup and the flowers, ready to embrace it. And yes, she could carry it. Not easily, but in her arms.

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And I don't know what card you're looking at ! Here's a link to the card I'm talking about and I must say that I don't see her arms open, "ready to embrace it". Sorry!

"what about that second face in the hair of the girl?" Don't know what the heck you're talking about there.

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Did you read the thread Jmd linked to? I do see another face there.

Are they laughing? Singing? Dancing? No.

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Exactly my point. Finally, something we both see ! On the link I gave (just to know that we're talking about the same card), the boy doesn't even appear to have a mouth.

But they're not weeping, or crouched in pain and misery like 5 cups or 5 pentacles either. There's nothing to suggest that any harm is intended, or that they're depressed, scared or in danger.

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You're right, they don't look depressed or scared. But they don't look happy either, and that's a fact. Maybe the harm itself hasn't happened yet.

But I'm finding it really sad that in a deck dominated by overtly frightening and depressing cards [...] you'd toss aside one card that WAITE himself says is positive and filled with "pleasent memories".

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Waite didn't draw the cards, now did he? Just go look at the sun-card and be happy !

I think this whole discussion proves that there is a lot more to the Six of Cups (on the Rider-Waite) than meets the eye. The fact that many see that something doesn't seem right on the card should be a sign that the Six of Cups here has many layers...

Spoonbender

Some view the significance of a glove or a mitten as similar. I definitely do not. A mitten, apart from its wonderful warming qualities, has quite constricting ones, for it mitigates most dexterity one may have. A glove, on the other hand, protects without inhibiting one's movement.

What is also quite interesting is where her other hand actually is, for it looks as though it may be folded under her cloak, resting upon her left shoulder... or is she holding in the warmth a small pet?

My point is simply that JUST because it can mean something sinister in childhood doesn't mean it MUST. And my point is that we tend to think INSTANTLY of the sinister rather than the innocent. And I think you just proved my point.

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I have to disagree here Thirteen,
I for one didn’t INSTANTLY see the 6/Cups as being a possibly negative card when I started out. That is because the books I read then, gave this card glowing references, e.g. Focussing on childhood, simple goodness, joyful nostalgia etc.

But in the last year or two, in a couple of readings when this card showed up, (it doesn’t often for some reason) the above keywords proved not to be the case.
When we speak of an unhappy childhood, it doesn’t have to mean that physical/sexual abuse played a part here. There are 101 other reasons for unhappiness in childhood; feeling unloved by a parent, a parent dying, not having parents as such, maybe childhood spent in care. Another aspect, a child sent off to boarding school at an early age, the list is endless.

I had vague memories of the thread JMD directed us to, but didn’t think too much about it, what I mean is, it didn’t sink in at the time.
It wasn’t until Celeste’s query that I started to really look at the card. I hadn’t even noticed the oversized mitten before.
So thanks for that Celeste.
And thanks JMD for redirection to original thread.

Gloria.

I just want to thank everyone for a delightful discussion about a card which I always sort of took for granted, but certainly won't anymore. It's this kind of thing which makes the Aeclectic forums truly valuable for me.

At the same time, I think we want to be very careful not to get into an "I'm right, you're wrong" kind of argument, especially over something so subjective as tarot interpretations. Thirteen, I'm truly interested to read your takes on things, but I very much doubt, if someone sees a card a certain way, that you're going to succeed in arguing them out of it, and I'm not really sure I understand why one would want to.

-- Lee

Lee said:

Thirteen, I'm truly interested to read your takes on things, but I very much doubt, if someone sees a card a certain way, that you're going to succeed in arguing them out of it, and I'm not really sure I understand why one would want to.

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I'm not trying to convince them, though it may seem as if I am. I'll repeat this again: I'm perfectly willing to interpet 6/Cups as sinister if other cards suggest that interpetation. My only qualm is interpeting the card that way if it's on it's own--or not supported by other card. I have this qualm because I don't think such a strong interpetation ought to be offered to a querent without being sure.

That's said, I'll also repeat that: It's their world, their deck, their reading. They can see it however they like.

The person I'm trying to convince with all this is the newbie reading through this thread for ideas on how to interpet the card. I don't want them to think the 6/cups instantly means "child molestation"--and both Gloria and Spoonbender will forgive me, and no disrespect intended, but their posts sounded, AT FIRST as if that's what they were implying: that 6/cups is a sinister card and should be seen as such.

Our discussion has revealed, to the contrary, that that's not what Gloria means, at least.

I'm much more in the camp, actually, of those who are pointing out the "Loss of Eden" take on the card. That this is a memory of our time of innocence and comfort and that the card suggests that such a time is lost forever in the past. That the flowers of experience, the loss of the protective guard, occur to us as we grow up. That Eden existed and remains now only in our memories makes this card bittersweet--and I, at least, can readily accept, agree and be persuaded by THIS observation that the card could be "dreamy-sad" and even painful rather than "happy."

The 6/Cups represents childhood memories.

As you say the mitts do look big and I think clumsy. Surely it would be impossible to take hold of that cup.
Could they signify an inability to come to terms with maybe an unhappy childhood? Something traumatic that hasn't been worked out yet.
As we see in the RW card the person doesn’t actually accept the offer of flowers. (friendship, love) Maybe a parent is now tryng to say 'sorry.'
But I think the large mittens signify the difficulty this person has in responding to the offer being made.

Could even signify the need for councelling.

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I know a person who as she puts it “was given away as a baby.”
She had a couple of brothers and a sister, but it was only her that was adopted.
After many years she was able to contact her mother and become acquainted with the rest of the family.
Even so, her ‘adoption’ and the reason why has never been explained to her.
She is approaching 60 and still hasn’t been able to come to terms with it.
Maybe therapy or counselling would have helped in a case like this.


No hint in my post of child molestation, maybe it was the word 'councelling' that triggered something off in the mind.

Regards Gloria.

Perhaps, just perhaps, the "mitt" is actually a *pot holder*.