Tarot Thursday: Two of Cups

This post has been sitting in draft mode for … far too long. I saw the lovely couple who modeled for this card this past weekend, and it motivated me to get off my butt and write this post.

2 of cups tarot card Walks Within ArtLoveLightThe suit of cups is about your emotions, your relationships – both romantic and otherwise – and dreams and intuition. It is associated with the element of water, so it can also indicate the subconscious, or what lies underneath.

Twos are about polarity and balance. Polarity is like a magnet – when two things that possess an opposite charge come near each other, they draw each other in like a magnet.

The two of cups shows a couple looking lovingly at one another, and raising their glasses in a toast to each other. The two colors from their cups combined create purple, a beautiful Union which twines up the caduceus into the head of a lions head with wings. He holds a golden rimmed cup and she holds a silver rimmed cup. A flash of light sparks where their cups clink together.

They stand on a peaceful sandy beach – water is lapping calmly and peacefully at their feet. They are barefoot, grounded in reality and trusting the earth to support them.

The two of cups is most often about a relationship (remember, this could be a romantic relationship, a friendship, or even a business partnership) that brings out the best qualities in each person.

It is the relationship that completes you, or makes you both more than you are on your own.

Depending on where this card falls in your reading, it could mean that this is a relationship that you are attracting into your life, like that magnet.

Or it could mean falling in love with yourself and finding your own wholeness.

There is a lot of polarity in the colors in this card. Stereotypically, pink symbolizes feminine, and blue symbolizes masculine. The woman is holding a cup with pink liquid, and the man is holding the cup with blue liquid. However, the woman is dressed in blue and white like the water, while the man is dressed in yellow and red like fire.

We each have “feminine” and “masculine” traits (I actually prefer the terms receptive and projective because they aren’t gender specific) receptive and projective traits within us, and so it indicates that the two people in this card are balanced within themselves. Two balanced people coming together definitely creates a more balanced relationship!

Where the cups overlap, we see the liquid turns purple, often a color representing spirit, or that essence that is beyond and greater than the physical experience.

From the union of the cups (and the couple) rises a cadeceus, with a winged lion head. The pinkish glow and the golden wings indicate the thought form created by the joining of these two people is one of peace and protection. The pinkish glow indicates affection, the gold, highest and best. The wings are balanced.

You may not know what a caduceus is, though you may recognize the symbol. The cadeceus was the staff of Hermes, the Greek God of commerce, communication, and so many other things. It is a symbol of healing, balance, and finding equilibrium.

It is a wand with two serpents twined round it, surmounted by two wings. The ancient Greeks believed it to exercise influence over the living and the dead, bestow wealth and prosperity, and turn everything it touched into gold.

The wings of the caduceus symbolize the ‘winged radiance’ of those who have achieved the dynamic equilibrium of the two lobes of the medulla, the petals of the third-eye chakra, as well as the lightning speed of Hermes as Messenger of the Gods.

The rod of the caduceus is called a ‘laya rod,’ a central staff surrounded by the positive and negative energy of the serpents. It is the neutral Sushumna, the channel of the Sun’s One Ray.

Theosophy Trust

OK, I could probably add more, and I’ve put off posting this more than long enough! What else do you see in the Two of Cups?

Blessings,

Mary and Katana