Sketchbook - Four of Cups

At first glance this may seem like an unnecessarily forbidding image for the Four of Cups, but that's because we all tend to automatically look at the Venus fly trap from a bug's perspective. Attempting to relate to the plant itself is a little more challenging -- it has mandibles, but no brain or eyes, no cute earlobes to pierce or cheeks to pinch.

So here are some of facts about the fly trap that fascinate me, and which also inform its association with this card:

1. It gives off a powerfully sweet odor, something like overripe citrus.

2. As voracious as it looks, the plant doesn't actually need to eat insects to survive -- it can make do quite happily on a diet of sunlight and water.

3. Each individual set of jaws can only open and close a handful of times, after which they turn black and drop off.

4. A healthy fly trap will flower, just like most other plants. But it's recommended that you pinch off the flowers, so that 100% of the plant's energy will be invested in growing more traps.

I find it interesting that I focused on a similar image when I last wrote about this card. Something about the sight of all those mouths seems unnatural but also strangely human -- we want so much, but we are so difficult to satisfy. The idea that the Venus fly trap has so many more mouths than it needs is interesting to me, because it takes such a great deal of energy to produce such elaborate technology. The fact that we encourage this instead of letting the plant complete its regular reproductive cycle makes me think of the ways in which we forestall our own growth, wanting to keep things just as they are for just a little bit longer, clinging to the recent past out of longing, indolence or fear.

We have a strange relationship with pleasure and nourishment; a dearth of it impoverishes us emotionally and physically, but so does a wealth of it. Where is the line between the splendid fruition of the Three of Cups and the hungry hyper-abundance of the Four? I suspect that one can only ever find that line by crossing it.

Previously On Arcanalogue: The Four Of Cups

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"Silencing Those Hissing, Preening Doubts..."

In the best-known illustration of the Four of Cups, the blessings that were once novel and worthy of celebration seem to have lost their luster. It's a fundamentally human idiosyncracy that we each discover early in life and spend a lifetime trying to defeat: once a pleasure is easily attainable, we become far less satisfied with it, and will give it up easily in pursuit of some new thing.

Sometimes this leads to accumulating what's referred to as an "embarrassment of riches" which bring you little joy. Other times, you might move from one exciting experience to another, never settling down long enough to be nourished by them. I'm sure you're well familiar with that deep-seated feeling of restlessness and uneasiness -- it prevents any option from becoming apparent as the right one.

Dreaming up new and exciting conquests is sort of like dreaming up new and fantastic animals. On the page they're tantalizingly possible, but if they were ever to take shape and become real flesh and blood (and beaks, and feathers, and horns...) they'd fare pretty miserably. I've been very inspired by the cryptids that populate the paintings of Justin Gibbens, especially his birds. They seem like such hungry, noisy creatures -- you can see how the serpentine elegance of their necks would easily become a threshing snarl, how their ravenous beaks would be forever gnashing in search of food. They're cumbersome (and apparently flightless) creatures that have lost that essential "birdlike" quality, despite having more avian anatomy than ever before.

If you know the trick to silencing doubts and desires and enjoying things purely as they are, I'd sure love to learn it. If your dissatisfaction with the status quo is genuine, then it may be an impetus to pick up and take off in search of new adventures; if it's false, then you should have no problem settling down for a while and enjoying that hard-earned feeling of fullness for as long as it lasts. The more time you spend hovering in between, however, the less you'll be able to trust your own impressions on the subject. Activites that demand discipline and endurance, such as exercise or meditation, may turn out to be the key to silencing those hissing, preening doubts, one beak at a time. [Via]

Previously On Arcanalogue: The Four Of Cups

Summary only...

Four of Cups

1. Fulfillment
2. Luxury and pleasure
3. Disenchantment with present accomplishments.

-- David Allen Hulse, The Western Mysteries

Summary only...

Four of Cups

In the Two of Cups, we saw love in its purest form glimmering into existence; in the Three of Cups it ripened, becoming radiant and abundant; the Four, however, takes us just beyond the border into sickeningly sweet territory. Imbibing too much of a good thing when we're already giddily enjoying ourselves is practically (unfortunately) second nature, but the disorientation and attendant queasiness that follows can distract us from whatever we were celebrating to begin with.

Oscar Wilde wrote, "Nothing succeeds like excess," and I think this really explains the allure of romance novels. But however entertaining it might be to project oneself into luxuriously wanton scenarios, even devoted readers would probably admit that actually living like those characters would get old pretty fast. One can only tolerate so much intrigue, so many bubble-baths. Eventually you have to come up for air.

The discerning ladies at Cover Cafe know when enough is enough; they've rounded up the very best that 2007 had to offer in the way of romance novel covers -- but also the very worst. How bad are they? Well, I know that technically I should have used the winner in the "Worst" category for the card image above, but I simply could not bring myself to look at the cover of Big Spankable Asses even one more time than necessary. I went with the runner-up, which is less patently offensive but still utterly unsettling. How exactly is this manic Ken doll able to support that giant camera one-handed? And why is everything so... blue?

If anything can be learned from this, it's that the line between indulgence and overindulgence is clearly a pretty fine one -- it's probably best to at least know where it is before sailing past it. [Via]

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