Queen of Cups

I just could not resist..

I think all of you added a little flavor to what the queen dipicts.

And, Lillie.... I think you hit on alot of some base qualities, as you indicated too, I agree, I think most of the time there is no ill intentions... Personally, I don't have the time or energy to calculate on how I am going to get someone to do what I want. However, I contemplate on a win/win...


One of the things I think should be brought up is:The queen is constantly looking "in" and contemplating issues about herself. I think that when she turns the focus on to one thing somehow she attracts that issue into her life. when that occurs she is able to "live it", "feel it" and therefore can experience it to the max. Thus, she can become an expert in what ever issue she sees as a weakness or doesn't understand.

So so True Queen of Cups...outstanding observation.

Lillie- I wouldn't say the courts are "bad" so much as one (or two)-dimensional. Definitely a characature of a fully developed person, but not necessarily "bad." I don't see that a given court implies extremity -- it could be a mild representation of the energy. Perhaps you're reading extremity into the situation. I myself can imagine different levels of itensity manifesting in each of the cards.

I think they're a lot like astrological signs. A sign is a pure concept, and as a result, *nobody* exhibits one sign's energies to the exclusion of all others. Everybody has every one of the signs in at least one of their houses. Nobody is a pure archetype, and yet, knowing Pisces energy can help understand someone with four planets in Pisces, for example. And even in that case, we have to take both the positive and the negative manifestations of Pisces. I don't often hear people say they think all signs are "bad" because they are two-dimensional archetypes that are unbalanced by other energies. They just are. I guess I figure if they weren't needed, the universe wouldn't have created them. I don't like to make judgements about "good" vs "bad", because "nothing is neither good nor bad but thinking makes it so" (Hamlet), but if something is necessary as part of the manifestation of an energetic mandala (such as the astrological signs or court cards), then I would say that each must be "good" on at least some level.

Anyway, just a couple thoughts.

I really can't be held responsible for anything I said more than a week ago.

The way I see the courts is the way I see them, and have seen them for a long, long time.

And is probably whatever I said before, whenever I said it.

But it might not be, because I wrote far too much and no way am I going to read it again.

Queen of Cups.
Wet and fishy?

Who knows?

Lillie said:

I really can't be held responsible for anything I said more than a week ago.

The way I see the courts is the way I see them, and have seen them for a long, long time.

And is probably whatever I said before, whenever I said it.

Click to expand...

I know you use the Thoth deck as your deck of preference, and whenever I see the courts from it I get a similar uneasiness about them so in no way do i consider them harsh

Queen of Cups

This is the first court I’ve gotten in my IDS study (number 13 of 78), and it’s my birthday court. I’m a Cancer sun but with lots of planets in Leo, so this card doesn’t really describe me very well!

I have always wondered why the Queens are Cardinal and the Princes are fixed. Crowley says they receive energy and hold it until they have exercised their function (whatever that means), but they are not the final product. I’m assuming the Princess is the final product? Who then takes the place of the Queen to receive the knight’s energy? But what about the Princes? If they “go forth to carry out the combined energy of his parents,” why are they the fixed signs? Maybe I don’t understand what fixed means . . . Anyway, queens are cardinal, so maybe I should try to understand THAT first! And I’m not the only one who has trouble finding cardinal aspects of Cancer.

The Queen is very similar to the Priestess. Snuffin I think says they both personify cups: the bowl is above them and their bodies are the stem and base. The cup behind the queen is the moon. The cup of the Priestess is made of her outstretched arms and the light veiling her. She IS the moon! The queen is also veiled, but is she veiled by light, like the Priestess? I’m not sure about that. I guess so, maybe by reflected light from the water.

The second thing we notice about the queen are the reflections. Everything is reflected pretty accurately in the still water. Of course all we can see is the veil, not her face. Snuffin says the crayfish in the shell is the same animal as in the Moon, which is obviously not true—that is a beetle or spider. But I guess it’s the same animal as in many OTHER Moon cards, lobster, crab, etc., symbolizing animal, non-rational emotions and reactions. We’re also pretty safe to say the shell symbolizes the womb, salt water, etc. I like Snuffin’s take on the ibis. He says the lotus of emotions is overtop of, taking precedence over, the ibis of rational thought (the bird of Thoth, the scribe of the gods). But I like to see that she is petting/protecting the ibis, too! And he says that in the reflection the moon is rising out of the shell. He also says the two floating lilies represent the decan of Gemini represented by this card.

A while back I took Crowley’s challenge/quiz to come up with a natural world example for all the combinations of the elements. I don’t know what happened to my notes, so I think I’ll try again in this study. Water of water can be symbolized by the ocean. Water, water everywhere. All water comes from it and all water goes back to it eventually. But if the ocean is the water in this card, it must be a very still tide pool, maybe right outside a cave. Maybe that’s too earthy!

Ok, reflections of emotions, I’m just musing along here. Having reflecting tendencies can be disadvantageous to the reflector. If you usually end up reflecting to people what they want to see, when are they going to know what YOU want to see? And, reflecting back emotions that are in the air around you can be quite bad. If people are upset or cranky, you just pick up on that and get cranky yourself or upset with them for being too cranky! When it would be more productive to calm them or distract them or divert them to some other emotion. And then you get accused of being manipulative when it’s not a life strategy, it’s just an unwanted tendency you fall into. (You can see this is coming from a frustrated Leo, right?)

I found the positive aspects of reflection in the Cosmic Tribe, in which the Queen of Cups is called the counselor. If you can reflect someone’s emotions back to them accurately, they will have a better idea of what they need to fix in their lives. I think they call it cognitive therapy. A counselor can ask a person, “what would you advise someone to do who feels and acts like this?” They give themselves the advice, once they realize what it is they’re doing. Cosmic Tribe book says “she can absorb the emotions around her and filter them to catch the nourishing truth in them.” Instead of the destructive force of them. Wow.

She is a more human form of the Priestess. The Priestess hides and reveals lofty spiritual truths; the Queen of Cups hides and reveals ourselves. These two activities can have very similar results. Because what are lofty spiritual truths but ways to live a better life!

Crowley says the I Ching hexagram is 58. Lake, Joy, Talk, Exchange. Yes, these are the different titles for this hex in the various books I have. Now you know why I keep coming back to the Thoth to study instead of taking time off from tarot to study I Ching. I would spend the rest of my life on I Ching and never get back to tarot, and I would be sad to lose tarot and AT!

The basic idea is it’s the trigram Lake above trigram Lake (water of water). The lake trigram is generally considered to be pleasant and auspicious, associated by some as soft mist over a lake or an abundant rice paddy. There is also a trigram called water or gorge that is associated with a dangerous pit or river gorge. At least Crowley didn’t go there. So I’m thinking he went with the more positive aspects of water for the Queen of Cups, and least not the dangerous ones. I don’t think it would be helpful to go more into the hex 58 since the interps I have are so variant, and I have no understanding of why! Maybe I’ll do more for other courts if the hexes make more sense for them.