The Lover's Path: Two of Cups

Sophie-David

The Lover's Path Two of Cups is particularly interesting to me in that it bridges this deck with Legend: The Arthurian Tarot. In Legend the Two of Cups also depicts Tristan and Isolde just after they have consumed and are consumed by the love potion. Whether or not you have the Legend deck, I think you may find it worthwhile to follow the link.

In quite a different style from Legend, this Two of Cups is just as beautiful. As they begin to embrace, they pause to gaze tenderly, deeply into each others eyes. Each of their left hands, which connect most innately to the right brain of integrative thought, caress the other's face. Whenever I look at the card, this gesture at first looks as if they are cat boxing, as if weighing up the strength, passion, reaction and committment of an opponent. And how well this expresses the dynamic which exists between lovers who, to be healthy, must both draw together into fusion just as they also separate in contemplation. This is the type of love which that I would associate with the high archetype of Balance, the Lover's Path Temperance card. If their left hands are in a sense cat boxing, exploring the boundaries, with their right hands they draw the lover towards them, just as the associated left brain seeks to assert itself in possession. And so, in their very gesture, they express so completely the dynamic of erotic love.

The world around them echoes their passion. The love potion draining unheeded into the earth, the Land flooded with their emotion, the background trees bending in a rush of wind, a distant burst of lightning energizing the deep seas of the unconscious which lie beyond. Like a new Adam and Eve, they stand barefoot in this watery paradise, holding on to an eternal moment with a new lover's first embrace.
 

irisa

Oh dear I've got all behind here :)

One quick note I find it a bit disconcerting that the appearance of Isolde is so different between Desire and the Cups... she goes from striking redhead to dishwater blonde... I think she's put on a bit of weight too...


irisa
 

Sophie-David

As a man happily married for 28 years I'm trained not to notice these things...

A similar incongruity happened the second time I saw Sophie, some weeks after the union:
Shortly after waking, I could see a little image of Sophie, attached to the left column of a book. She was very much alive and happy, dressed in a long red gown, her hair in permed curls to her shoulders, her features like mine, but with feminine softness, aged in her mid-twenties...As I write this down now, Sophie wants me to notice what a fine dress it was, empire waisted, just the right colour to set off her skin tone, just enough upper chest exposed to be womanly without feeling uncomfortable. "But you have straight hair". Nothing a little creativity can't fix - we have to look our best!
So I have long since learned not to try to track or question these "creative" changes! ;)