Card Meaning: Two Of Cups




Two of Cups



General

    The relationships are the main motif of this card. That is immediately clear by its imagery. This card is connected to the theme explained in the card The Lovers but not at the same level. While The Lovers shows more of a cosmic duality of principles and possibility for their reunion, this is more down-to-earth relationship of two incomplete living beings. On the other level this is a relationship of different parts of ourselves. Do we live in peace with ourselves, are we able to embrace every part of ourselves? If not, this card can indicate the first step of accepting some unwanted part of our personality. First we must become whole before we can create relationships with other people. So, this card speaks about both external and internal relationships. We could say that this card is about bonding of people, ideas and concepts, different facets of ourselves and generally speaking about parnership of any kind. The cadeceus with wings floating in the air speaks about power of unity, the lion's head is reminiscence of the card Strength and its accent on love as the true strength.




Reading

Positive: healing of a damaged partnership, harmony, love, resolving differences, understanding, accepting oneself.

Negative: quarrels, opposition, divorce, end of the relationship, infidelity, betrayal, differences in opinion, confusion.

A youth and maiden are pledging one another, and above their cups rises the Caduceus of Hermes, between the great wings of which there appears a lion's head. It is a variant of a sign which is found in a few old examples of this card. Some curious emblematical meanings are attached to it, but they do not concern us in this place. Divinatory Meanings: Love, passion, friendship, affinity, union, concord, sympathy, the interrelation of the sexes, and--as a suggestion apart from all offices of divination--that desire which is not in Nature, but by which Nature is sanctified.

The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, by A.E. Waite


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Minor Arcana