2 of Cups - Where are they standing?

Margo9023

closrapexra

closrapexa said:
Coming off the Hanged Man's wagon here (having studied it for several months, though ultimately being somewhat unsuccessful) maybe I can chime in. Strap yourselves in, this might get long.

The Bible codified the term "t`shuka" תשוקה meaning "desire." A desire is considered more powerful than a simple need or want, since it denotes not actually needing anything, but wanting it all the same. There are four types of desires:

1. The desire of Eve toward Adam: In Biblical tradition, Eve was born as a result of a rib taken from Adam. When a man "takes" a wife, he needs her, as he is in essence taking back the rib he lost. Eve, on the other hand, was born a perfect being, and so does not need Adam at all, yet desires for him anyway.

2. The desire of Cain's "evil inclination" towards him: I wrote about this at length on a thread about the Lovers http://tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=192337&highlight=cain but in short, Cain's urge to kill Abel "desires" him, yet for slightly more sophisticated reasons we won't get into, it does not need him.

3. God's desire for humanity: According to the Bible, God is perfection, the perfect unity, the All. He does not need, obviously, mere mortals like us, but He desires our existence, if only to brag about how nice a creation was created (this last, of course, is the base for Kabbalah, quite simplified).

4. The desire of rain for earth: The rain can exist quite well without earth, yet it desires it, as without earth to enjoy the rain and bring forth life, rain would have no meaning, and would be pointless.

The last is particularly important for us, as it, in a way, explains the idea of sacrifice mentioned earlier. Let's say I am a lowly sperm cell, the seed of all human existence. witin me I hold great potential, yet that is all I hold. Without the egg to swim to, I am worthless, since I have no real purpose. However, once I enter the egg, all that I have known and have been in my short life are gone, for all intents and purposes, I am dead. However, I am not dead, I have merely transformed and lost myself in the loving embrace of my destiny. According to #3, unity has no choice but to become duality (it isn't for me, of course, to say God has no meaning in unity, but again, there it is) while #4 shows us that duality has no choice but to fulfill its desire and become unity. It is this constant interplay between opposites that perpetuates the universe.

This also, incidentally, gives us clues as to the Lovers. After all, what is the difference between the Two of Cups and the Lovers? I don't know! But I can make a guess, and probably won't be rated PG. Well, the Lovers can be thought of as the abstract energy of the marriage of dualities, omnipresent everywhere. On the other hand, the Two of Cups is the recognition of the fact that a marriage has taken place. The suit of Wands is the first phallus, the straight line creating the space around it in order to create the suit of cups. Now, the Ace of Cups is the vessel into which the Wand has been thrust (sorry!) yet the vessel is in a state of unity, it is a cup that holds the fire. The Two of Cups is where the female says "Oh! How did that get there! It's not bad!" This is where the love story really begins, and from here out, nothing will be the same again.

Even in dualistic Christianity, there is unity. The thought that the Devil could actually and really rebel against God is patently absurd, and Milton expressed this idea quite well in Paradise Lost, between the lines (in his portrayal of Satan as a tragic, "human" figure). Even in the Silmarillion, Eru Iluvatar said that although Morgoth imagined himself in rebellion against him, his actions were still a reflection of all that was planned in the first and original Song of the Ainur.
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Hi Closrapexra! Thank you for joining in! I will read this and have to think about it. : )
 

ravenest

Margo9023 said:
Hi Ravenest! Lol!
Wow! Ok... this I understand better. I will definitely have to read several times and think about what I read.

Re-worded - Is it 2 of Cups - "UN-pure love" - because it is "disrupted" or has "ended" because of outside influences with the agony left to feel?.......................

Thank you : )
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I think the 2 of cups is pure ' love' because it has not yet had a chance to be corrupted (internally) or disrupted (externally) - it may continue to be pure if we avoid the corruption and the interruption (ever head of the expression, or felt it, when one is IN love; 'being in the bubble' - another sort of alembic).

The 'agony' of the troubadours is holding the 'stasis field'; holding the magnets apart while they are PULLING so strong ... so it doesn't get corrupted. It isn't the disappointment felt if the operation failed to run to its conclusion or did and ended .
 

ravenest

Margo9023 said:
Oh, Wow! I understand that much better!
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:laugh: Please excuse me ... I need to blast off from earth ... do few laps of the solar system and come back to earth before I make better sense :)
 

Zephyros

I guess before I was referring to relative levels of complexity, and didn't explain myself well. Each World, representing a letter of the Tetragrammaton, has an entire Tree in it. However, at the same time, Yod is unity, unchanging, with all the other worlds inside it. So we can divide Yod however we want, but at the end of the day it is still unity, from a certain point of view. The Lovers of Atziluth is far more abstract than the Two of Cups, firstly because it is a world higher, and secondly because the whole Tree of Atziluth, although it looks divided, isn't, because Yod is the unity (which is the real deal, duality is only a tool that allows us to perceive unity) and the internal marriage in a world is "smaller" and more abstract than the marriage of an entire world with another. However, it ultimately depends on the model that you're using (probably several simultaneously), whether top-down or three-dimensional or simultaneous, but it is only when Heh is introduced, that the unity of Yod is finally broken, and the "real" marriage takes place, which is finally recognized in the Two of Cups. In essence, it is like a microscope, in which you can increase and decrease magnification of each world, and consequently Sephira and path, as much as you want for your needs. It makes sense if one accepts mutually incompatible and contradictory hypotheses. :)

But this kind of thought can lead to madness.
 

Richard

Lucy, Linus and Charlie Brown were lying on the ground looking up at the clouds and sharing their thoughts. I think it was Lucy who asked Linus what he saw in the clouds. Linus said that he saw a cloud that looked like the stoning of Steven (Bible story), and another one that looked like the sculptor Thomas Eakins. She then asked Charlie Brown what he saw. He said, "I was going to say I saw a duckie and a horsie, but I changed my mind."

I was going to say that the meaning of the Two of Cups is "Favorable in things of business and pleasure, as well as love; also wealth and honour," but I changed my mind. :|
 

ravenest

Well, in this forum you can say that ... you just have to suffix it with a statement that there is more to it but one assumes one is not sufficiently advanced to understand it (in Waite language that is ;) ) - I am the one that is being heretical ... in this place.

So does your avatar go from Mickey to Charlie now? (I hope not, you know how much I love that sinister, Freemasonic gloved, slipped down Thoum-aesh-neith little guy ;) )
 

Richard

ravenest said:
.....So does your avatar go from Mickey to Charlie now? (I hope not, you know how much I love that sinister, Freemasonic gloved, slipped down Thoum-aesh-neith little guy ;) )
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Never fear. Mouse-ism has enough occult depth for this forum. Best not to plunge into Charlie Brown's fearful Satanic abyss.

However, on second thought................ })
 

Richard

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