The Lover's Path: Seven of Arrows

Sophie-David

In the Lover's Path Seven of Arrows, Venus gathers up five of Cupid's arrows as Cupid himself contends on his sick bed with his self-inflicted lover's wound. As if he cannot be trusted to play with his dangerous toys, Cupid's mother Venus seeks to protect her son from further pain.

Kris Waldherr also suggests that Venus is stealing the arrows for her self-protection, and if so it is not that Venus the Queen of Arrows would fire them from a bow - she does not have a bow - but so that she herself would not be smitten with Love's arrows. For this is the weakness of the Queen of Arrows or Swords: she desires that her intellect should rule her emotions, for in the potential striking of an arrow to her heart she fears its pain more than she welcomes its ecstasy.

Thus by her theft, the intellectual Queen of Arrows seeks to save both her son and herself from the pains of that most devastating and transforming emotion, love. But this regressive defense will not avail either of them, for erotic love will take its course and both will be matured by it.

Venus here represents the static feminine who would prevent her son's separation and maturity - and thus her own also - through the transformative power of the dynamic feminine principle, Psyche, she who would liberate them both. For Psyche is the soul herself, she who must forever seek her own completion and wholeness, no matter what the cost. From Psyche's deepest wounds she gathers the grief by which she empowers her ascent. What is the pain of an arrow compared to the soul's desire to soar and triumph?

Even as this Venus attempts to disarm her Cupid, she had best be careful how she herself handles those arrows. One might well slip from her grasp and strike her foot, and so she too will dance the lover's song with her Adonis, her soul irrevocably seeking its completion.