5cups

The Five of Cups

sorrow

A clearly depressed figure contemplates three spilled cups in front of him. Two full cups are behind him, but he takes no notice of these. An old castle is in the background, along with a bridge over a rushing river. The liquid that has spilled from the cups is red and green, symbolizing blood and disease.

The Meaning of the Tarot Card:

Even though most of the cups in the card have been spilled, two cups remain full. The individual must turn around and contemplate these cups in order to emerge from their depression. Dwelling too long on emotions - inaction caused by a lack of reaction to a situation. While the loss is acute and should be deeply felt, there is still enough joy left for the person to enjoy life. Living too much in the realm of the emotional rather than the physical - a need to pay attention to one's surroundings.

The Five of Cups

 Lord of Disappointment, turns up in our readings. let down or sad about something. we can end up giving ourselves a hard time, and hurting ourselves unnecessarily.

But there's one important thing to consider when we get disappointed - we feel that way because an expectation we had is not fulfilled, whether by ourselves or by somebody else. So if you get this card coming up often, it's worth taking a good look at your expectations. Are they unrealistic? Are they geared to the abilities and characteristics of the person you hold them of? Or do you expect too much - this is an attitude we tend to apply most viciously to ourselves. Are you expecting more than you have a right to? Are you expecting things that the person in question -yourself or somebody else - is simply not able to provide? If the answer to any of the above is yes, then if you change your expectation, you'll stop being disappointed.

When this card comes up, it warns us that either we have failed to resolved an old difficulty, or that - realistic or not - our expectations are about to be disappointed. Often this will happen in an emotional situation (because this is a Cup card) but can happen elsewhere in our lives too, because disappointment itself is an emotion and therefore belongs to Cups. Aside from locating where the problem lies, there's rarely much that can be done except preparing ourselves to accept the inevitable consequence of being alive - into each life a little rain must fall etc.etc.

One thing that is always worth bearing in mind with a card like this is that the feelings which arise when it occurs often scare us into failing to take another risk, failing to make another effort, hiding away where we can't be disappointed again. But then if we give in to those sort of feelings we're expecting to be disappointed again, aren't we? So maybe we need to think about the 9 Wands when we see the 5 of Cups, reminding ourselves of that inner reserve of strength and capability we can all release inside us!