Court Portrait - Queen of Cups

Think you know yourself? Try your hand at acting, and you may be surprised at what surfaces.

I've given it up myself, mostly. There was a time when I used to find myself onstage quite often, but one night during a painful argument with a close friend I realized I had lost my ability to subjectively grasp my own emotions. As my eyes welled up tears, I caught myself thinking: Should I let the tears fall, so he sees how hurt I am? Or should I stifle them so that I seem more independent? Which would be preferable?

I became bothered by the fact that I was having these thoughts instead of actually experiencing the moment as it occurred. If I was detached enough to play director, how hurt could I really be? So I ended the argument, and I took some time off from acting.

There are people I know who make me want to do a lot more of it. I knew Amy Lee had that quality before I'd even seen her onstage -- in our few chats she struck me as being more genuinely interested in others than most actors I'd known, and more self-aware. Naturally, I assume there's a sad story behind all this. But that is what drew me to AL, the access she granted to both her joy and her sadness, the former shining just above the surface, the latter suspended just below the crust like a rich vein of oil. I've seen Medea smile lovingly with those lips, seen Nurse Ratched weep real tears from those eyes, and somehow they were just as believable as the snarling. As real as the blood.

You can imagine my pleasure in seeing this portrait of the artist as a woman confronting her own reflection, hovering on either side of terminal point where the observation threatens to switch places with her observer. On one side of the glass bright lights emanate, on the other side you see the darkness creeping in from behind. The cup, suitably enough, is just another prop; the litter of empties hints at the long day behind, the long night ahead.

This particular figure, the Queen of Cups, is often imagined to be somewhat inaccessible, gazing raptly into inner space. If she ever hopes to share the observations that lie within, she must either attempt to drag them to the surface (a task better suited to the Princess/Page of Cups), or she must lure people down into the depths where they can apprehend her vision with their own eyes. In my opinion, that is the real challenge and magic of theatre: convincing a stranger in the audience to hold his breath, suspend his disbelief, and dive (not to mention pointing him back at just the right moment, before he can panic and drown).

I don't know if I have the elemental infrastructure to spend any great amount of time exploring those reefs -- my last stab at acting commanded more introspection offstage than on. But will always love watching others try, and I love following them down to the places which they know so well, the underwater fumaroles that give off such surprising heat.

Previously On Arcanalogue: The Queen of Cups

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Sketchbook - Six of Cups

I used to be able to enjoy rides like these, but now my vestibular system protests vigorously against them, getting other bodily systems involved if necessary.

This is the first sketch in a while that I've been a little disappointed with, once I saw the final result. Part of it is that I was stuck using a sucky pen and had to fix a lot of mistakes, but in general I see myself compromising left and right here to make up for my lack drawing ability. I don't hate it, it's just not exactly what I envisioned. And the perspective is a little weird -- I think I might have given up on this one too easily purely for the sake of getting it over with already.

Since the Six serves as the midpoint of our journey from Two to Ten (excluding the Ace, which is merely the catalyst that triggers this journey), it occupies a point of near-perfect equilibrium. Perhaps that's why I drew half of the teacups full and half of them empty...

There's been a lot of speculation about Pamela Coleman-Smith's version, apparently people have a hard time grasping what they're seeing. Are the figures children, or tiny adults? It pains me to say so, but it seems that the perspective in PCS's is a little off too.

More than anything the Six of Cups speaks to me about the simple pleasures in life, the ones which require little risk on our part. (There is a sort of gravitas in the Two of Cups, for example, that feels anything but casual.) In the cards that follow the Six, we are closer to the end than we are to the beginning; perhaps that's what's necessitates this last, idealized look back over our shoulder. We are nothing like what we used to be, but it is still possible to search ourselves and discover traces of our origin.

Previously On Arcanalogue: The Six of Cups

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Sketchbook - Five of Cups

I typically manage adequate care for whatever plants I bring home, but along the way I've killed one of everything. Sometimes my laziness or ignorance has totally been the problem, but sometimes things just wither for no reason anyone can figure out. A few years ago when I was dealing with problems in my relationship, the responsibility of indoor gardening became too much of a psychological burden altogether. So I gave away all my plants, breathed a sigh of relief, and moved on to other things.

Recently it occurred to me I might be ready to start again; I picked up a hardy-looking aloe vera plant at a local nursery and we're learning to love each other.

In the picture above, everything has fallen into decrepitude. Who cares why? Drought, inattention, pests -- it could be anything, and the result is the same. The important thing is that the biggest, roomiest pot of all still shows signs of life, imploring you not to retire your fork and spade just yet.

By the looks of the emotional terrain on display here, you may not be the master gardener you thought you were. That's just fine, people (like plants) go through many seasons, and inconsistency is thoroughly human. But dwelling on your failures may cause you to overlook the small patches in your life that still need tending. The RWS Five of Cups is very clear in this regard. Mourn your losses, but not at the expense of what's survived. See that bridge in the background? Get over it already.

Previously On Arcanalogue: The Five Of Cups

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Sketchbook - Eight of Cups

Often I find I have some item laying around that I no longer want or need, but which I can't bear to throw away -- keepsakes that have outlived their value, token objects no one but myself would ever treasure. But these things aren't garbage, so it seems improper to just discard them unceremoniously among the orange peels and cat litter. So instead, I put them in the river.

My friend Chris was horrified when I let this slip. "You can't just throw your old shit in the river," he scolded me. I tried to explain that I consider the East River to be a sort of long-term safety deposit box. When I put something in it (an old ring, a busted pocket-knife, a pair of underwear I will always have fond memories of) I always know where that thing is -- it's at the bottom of the river. As opposed to when you throw something in the garbage, in which case, who knows where the hell it goes?

Chris remains judgy and unconvinced. Look, I don't do it often. And the river is already full of sewage, dissolved metals, and runoff from Newtown Creek (itself one of the most polluted waterways in the US). I think a pair of plaster antlers is the least of its problems.

The worn remains of this industrial area have fascinated me for years. Right now I live just three blocks away, and visit often. It's a quiet place where people go to sit and think, or drink. Sometimes you even see people fishing there. I often see Canada geese there, looking a little lost and disappointed. It's a desolate, wild place on the edge of a great civilization.

These are the kinds of areas that the Eight of Cups compels us to wander through. The Eight oversees our rituals of renunciation; it illustrates the moment when you finally loosen your grip on a relationship or a vision of yourself that you've been clinging to for far too long. We invest in these things emotionally to the point where we're desperate to keep them even when they don't mean anything anymore.

Walking away is always an option, the card reminds us. Sometimes it's the only option. Why fight a losing battle with the past when nine new cups await just over the horizon?

So I drew a picture of myself throwing the old ones into the river; I can honor their existence without keeping them in my (tiny) apartment, without dragging them around with me from place to place for the rest of my life. It may be hard to let go, but at least I'll always know exactly where they are.

Previously On Arcanalogue: The Eight Of Cups

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Sketchbook - Seven of Cups

On the surface it seems like such an innocent moment, just pure wish-fulfillment. That's what the carnival is for, isn't it? So, drunk on the possibilities, you reach out to accept everything that's offered.

Who cares if it's too much ice cream for just one person, more than you could even physically eat? Who cares about the visible cracks in the cone, the hot summer sun, the carelessness with which it is handed to you -- all the myriad factors actively correlating to keep you from enjoying your fantasy-come-true? Desire eclipses reason, intoxication outpaces temperance.

That's the story of the Seven of Cups in a nutshell: fantastical visions getting mixed up with all-too-real possibilities, blinding us to our true needs and natural limitations.

I get sick almost every time I go to Coney Island, because I think that food you ingested for pleasure doesn't really count as having been eaten. I remember when I bought a cheap piña colada on the boardwalk once, in one of those gigantic goblets that looks like genie bottle; I tried to show the woman my ID and she laughed in my face. "Hello?? This is Coney Island!" she explained, gesturing at the landscape around us. Then she stage-whispered that she'd give me a free refill if I tipped her well. So naturally I wound up drinking two of those hideous corn-syrup cocktails, probably 32 ounces in total, and felt seasick for almost 48 hours afterward. I'm sure the cheap-o onion rings, pistachio soft-serve, and fried oysters didn't help.

(As of today I haven't eaten any refined sugar in eight days. I didn't think of it until after I started, but it just figures that I'd wind up drawing ice cream.)

(And yes, that seems to be our sideshow strongman from the Four of Swords forking it over. I didn't expect to see him again... Initially the arm was just going to belong to an ice cream truck vendor, but the picture wound up having a sort of "Get into my van" quality which, as interesting an interpretation as that would have turned out to be, was not what I set out to evoke.)

Previously On Arcanalogue: The Seven Of Cups

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Sketchbook - Ten of Cups

When I cut the deck and selected this card, I was 27,000 feet over the Great Plains and surrounded by sleeping grandparents.

I really felt pretty torn about what to draw here; for a while I suspected that my Nine of Cups drawing was actually better suited to the Ten, what with its hierarchical overtones and effective infrastructure. But it also seemed a bit... dry, or utilitarian, in a way that seemed unsuitable for the suit's crowning card. The Ten is supposed to seek out that line where a good thing becomes too-much-of-a-good-thing, and then plant its flag right at that edge. Surely a little more fanciful excess was required to construct a proper Ten.

I meditated on this for quite a while -- I had all the time in the world, and no in-flight movie to distract me. Eventually I came up with the idea of a castle built literally on the water. Even though this is just a jaunty little sand castle and not the full-blown citadel I originally envisioned, it seems just as improbable and magical. This is a fortress built on intangible, irrational ideals that somehow manages to stay afloat. It's an embodiment of the suspension of disbelief required to thrive in emotional, mystical, unfamiliar settings. Without that suspension, we'd never be able to answer the initial call of the Ace of Cups, and building a house inspired by it would seem like pure madness.

And maybe it is, but it's a madness which takes us somewhere, offering us temporary shelter as we travel.

Previously On Arcanalogue: The Ten Of Cups

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Sketchbook - Nine of Cups

I drew this card and the Ten, back to back, while traveling on an airplane to Arizona for a family visit. Funny how the lesser Cups cards usually seem to refer to romance and the greater ones to family relationships. Perhaps it's because love has to be thinner and more aqueous in order to flow freely toward new people -- in streams as opposed to channels, pools or gulfs.

For the Nine I wanted to show how emotional expression could flow from many different points of access and unite in a common cause, whether it be familial or horticultural. Each cup gathers and re-routes its own small amount of condensation or rainfall, an insignificant effort made great when you appreciate the scale of the entire network. Working in concert to distribute life- and love-giving attention where it is needed most, this ungainly construction illustrates the benefit of granting others access to the tender parts of ourselves which are still growing.

Previously On Arcanalogue: The Nine Of Cups

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Sketchbook - Three of Cups

O, delicate triumvirate! How the world envies your happy dancing.

I really wanted to think of something that would indicate the fullness and delicacy of this card. Here we see three conjoined soap bubbles, remaining magically intact as other bubbles burst all around them.

A wand looks on approvingly from the sidelines -- its actions may have brought them all together, but now it's perfectly superfluous. Though it does serve to remind us that expressions of openness and love are always more accessible than you think they are. There are always more where these came from, and the phenomenon never fails to enchant.

Previously On Arcanalogue: The Three Of Cups

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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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Sketchbook - Two of Cups

I was kind of excited to go for my fourth post in four days, until I actually cut the deck and drew. You have got to be kidding me -- first the Two and Ace of Wands, now the Ace and Two of Cups. Again I almost cheated and went ahead to a sexier card, and again I decided to just play 'em as I was dealt 'em.

So. I sat and thought for like ten minutes and couldn't come up with anything. I really like this card in readings, but I couldn't think of anything very interesting that remained true to the card's meaning of fellowship, love, reconciliation, and unity.

I figured the bells cover all of that -- some will instantly see them as wedding bells, but bells toll in celebration of pretty much any major event. They even toll the simple passage of time. Tex and I live close enough to a churchtower that we hear its bells toll every hour (five minutes fast) and I am always surprised by how reassuring the sound is. You'd think you get used to it after a while, but apparently no.

And of course, turned up like that, the bells can also be seen as a pair of cups. I kept them as white as possible so they'd look like they were announcing good news.

Also, bells are hard to draw -- they have a totally inflexible curved surface. Try it sometime, you'll see.

Previously On Arcanalogue: The Two Of Cups

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Sketchbook - Ace of Cups

I was looking forward to a little more action today, hoping to draw something exciting. Instead I drew my second Ace in a row. I nearly cheated and went with the card beneath it instead, but I decided to sit and think about it for a while first -- and I'm glad I did, because that's when I remembered the pineapple lamp.

I got the pineapple lamp at a flea market in Connecticut. Since I had only a certain amount of cash to spend, I was walking around the market in a sort of panic, afraid that anything I paid for would wind up being trumped by some other treasure a few tables over. Meanwhile, anything I passed on could get snapped up by someone else any moment! It was like being in a dream where everything you want is laid out in front of you, but you can only choose one thing.

When I saw the pineapple lamp, I felt a sort of click in my brain. I knew I wouldn't find anything I wanted more than this. I think my friends thought it was a sort of odd purchase, just sort of a 1950s old-lady's-nightstand kind of lamp. "Wait until you see it in the dark," I told them. And... well, I don't think that changed any minds exactly, but I was convinced and that's all that matters.

The lamp is a kind of creamy white ceramic studded with cracked-glass nodules, and the grooves in its surface are filled in with gold enamel. I think it's supposed to look like the base of a pineapple, but it looks more like those eggs in the Alien movies:

The surface is divided into a geometric pattern that combines with the glowing nodules and creamy, golden background to create a beautifully organic ambient warmth:


Anyhow, this isn't the first time I've associated it with the Ace of Cups. It has the same sort of splendid energy I've seen in other portrayals of this card. For example:


So I decided to see if I could sit down and actually draw the pineapple lamp in a way that would do it any justice. I'm pretty happy with what I ended up with, and surprised that it's at all accurate -- that pattern is pretty intense. I left the lamp in the picture unplugged so you could see that its radiance was not dependent on electricity. The pineapple runs on emotional energy! And the moth is sort of a pun based on the dove you see in the RWS version of the card, in this case seduced into the lamp's bioluminous maw. The moth is also a sort of avatar for myself in this case; I imagine that he and I were both to gaze into the pineapple, we'd each see the same thing.

UPDATE: Just saw this today:

The city of Guzhen, China, will soon be home to a "colossal 833-foot luminaire," Metropolis reports. According to the building's own promotional literature, it will be the "world’s only architecture shaped like a huge Western classical oil lamp."

Previously On Arcanalogue: The Ace Of Cups

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"At Once More Poetic And More Precise..."

Dreamers, activists, malcontents, I'd like to introduce you to Emily Wernet's fledgling webcomic Moonlighting. Its heroine, a high school girl named Billy, has a secret life that she is still only dimly conscious of -- which probably has to do with the superhero sightings pouring in from the streets of her boring suburb.

What I love most about the orange-tinted supergirl -- and what cements her as a Princess of Cups -- is the way she expresses herself. Where others speak mere words, her speech bubbles are filled with images that express her intent symbolically. It's a wonderful motif that illustrates what it would be like for a dreamworld creature to interact with everyday people. It also reminds me of the alien creature's telepathy in this Aeon Flux episode. (As Trevor Goodchild describes it, "Her language of pictures is at once more poetic and more precise.")

Rather than inducing a state of paralysis or stagnation, the Princess's suspension between the material world and the watery dreamworld compels her to action in both realms. She may not yet understand herself, but she will learn by doing and speaking, articulating her inner vision as it reveals itself to her. Incapable of the Queen's deep-sea excursions, the Princess trains by executing a series of shallow dives into her unconscious. This has the benefit of making her more accessible to the surface-dwellers out there, and let's face it, we all need a hero who encourages us to straddle that divide ourselves.

Previously On Arcanalogue: The Princess of Cups

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"Standing Directly Over A Forgotten Source Of Joy..."

We depend on photographs to link us to our past, but they are static, dimensionless things and they fail us. In fact, sometimes they make looking back harder instead of easier -- the past they show seems to exist in its own world, curiously remote and emotionally inaccessible. "Now" and "then" seem to exist independently of each other, showing no signs of overlap, regardless of what we remember.

What I like about the Looking Into The Past project's photos is that they force our physical and emotional awarenesses of time and space to intersect. By informing the eyes, heart and mind simultaneously, they are sort of hyper-realistic. The truths they tell are slightly truer because of their complexity, and whatever lies they tell us are no worse than the ones we are already telling ourselves.

The illusory difference between "then" and "now" is an ever-darkening line that we are always struggling to erase. When we find a way to reach back and connect vividly with our own history, it heals us in both directions, giving purpose to our past while also pointing us onward to the future.

Don't get bogged down in the hurts and dead hopes of the past. "Nostalgia," Don Draper reminds us, "literally means 'the pain from an old wound.'" But neither should you refuse to commune with yourself. We bury our happy memories like so many acorns, hoping they'll help us survive the winter. You may be standing directly over a forgotten source of joy, stored just out of sight. Hungry? Cold? Miserable? Find a soft place in your memory and start digging. Explore your room, your desk, your computer, until you turn up an artifact that makes you real to yourself again.

I just did this now. Here's what I turned up:



I remember every inch of that yard; I will probably never see it again, will never be able to hold this photo up against it to see the changes wrought by time. In this picture, my mother is younger than I am now. It pains me to see it.

But underneath it all, somehow: "Wheeee!"

[Via]

Previously On Arcanalogue: The Six of Cups

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"More Subjects, More Objects, More Love..."

When it comes to symbolic gestures, you really can't beat Ecuador's "glass frog". Since the creature lacks any pigment, you can literally see his heart beating through his chest. Awww... More awwws for this barely-there gecko, also recently unearthed. Researchers are racking up the discoveries down there, but they're still only the beginning -- National Geographic speculates that, all told, we've only identified a tiny percentage of all the world's life forms. And I bet you thought we'd more or less sorted it all out by now!

The glass frog is my hero today. I've put him at the helm of the Three of Cups because of his all-too-poetic transparency -- I ought to channel his fearlessness a little more often and let people make of my lungs and pancreas and feelings what they will. But really all these "new" animals deserve a spot on the card, because collectively they are a reminder of the life our planet is teeming with, the opportunities yet to be discovered, and the vulnerability that is universal among all life forms -- as superior as we humans consider ourselves to be, what with our chain-mail and wisecracks and neatly pressed khakis, we are not much different than a horde of pencil eraser-sized lizardettes swarming across the jungle floor.

While the love in the Two rebounds back and forth in a closed loop between two subjects, the Three invites you to open up in search of more -- more subjects, more objects, more love. It heralds a season of availability and generosity, regardless of how this jibes with your fastidious economic principles. Conserve through giving -- when it comes to emotion, ecology trumps economy every time. [Via]

Previously On Arcanalogue: The Three of Cups

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"Artifacts from the years we can't remember..."

I have a real weak spot for purely autobiographical comics; there's something about them that's a little more personal than photographs, or even written journals and memoirs. When my friends Megan and TJ had their baby, it was sad for me to know how much I'd be missing out on because of the geographic distance between us. The Danger Science comics that TJ began posting to his blog have made me feel a lot closer to the action. They're just little vignettes of family life -- not really the kind of moments you'd point a camera at or tell someone about on the phone, but the kind that make up the fabric of our everyday lives. Since that's exactly the sort of thing you miss out on when you're friends with someone long-distance, I have found these updates to be hugely gratifying. It doesn't hurt that TJ has a real talent for visual storytelling (I also enjoy his ongoing comic The Konamis!, about a quartet of crime-fighting musicians).

But what I find particularly interesting about this method of storing memories is that they're going to be quite valuable to the baby in question when he grows up. Artifacts from the years we can't remember always hold a special power over us, and so do pictures of our parents when they were young. TJ's comics are the best of both worlds, providing a sort of running prequel to Jonas' own still-forming narrative. As a parent, it's a significant gift to give, and I see more and more people using the internet as a sort of a living time-capsule for these kinds of projects.

It's this aspect of TJ's work that made me think of the Ten of Cups. (See also, last cycle's King of Cups.) We're already familiar with the card as an emblem of arrival, of togetherness and success and satisfaction -- but that momentum must be carried forward, invested somehow, before it's squandered or collapses under its own weight. Everyone invests in their future happiness (and each other's) in different ways. Depending on the eye of the beholder, this card encourages new emotional, professional, or creative endeavors as a way of perpetuating the love you already feel. When the peak you've just climbed turns out to be merely the foundation for even higher hopes and grander schemes, what will you do with that discovery? Probably what you've already done in the past -- only this time you'll do it even better, and more people than ever before will benefit.

Previously On Arcanalogue: The Ten of Cups

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"The Finish Line Is In Sight..."

Here we are again, at the final card in a run of 78 posts. As you probably know, my cards are posted in no particular order -- whatever I come across, I write about. The last few are so hard to find subjects for because the card options are so limited; I've been agonizing over the Nine of Cups for days now, trawling MetaFilter and other sites with a desperate, predatory eye. And then I have to be extra scrutinous of what I pick, to keep myself from forcing comparisons just to get it all over with.

What a relief when my eyes beheld a project which turned a notoriously crooked side-street in San Francisco into a life-sized Candyland board, upon which children from various youth charities were invited to play and feast! As an adult who's played numerous (regular-sized) games of Candyland with children, I'm surprised and sad to note how much my adult brain recoils from the simplicity of a game I cherished when I was four. And the board has changed a lot over the years, too. There's simply no way to have a Candyland experience that will live up to your memory of the game -- until today, when Lombard Street became temporarily paved with colored squares that led children and adults to the cake and treats waiting at the finish line.

Through games, even those that seem silly and pointless, kids learn that if winning is possible in make-believe challenges, then it's possible in real ones (and vice versa). The Nine of Cups perfectly illustrates that rush of giddiness you feel when the finish line is just steps away. You're finally arriving at the point you set out for so long ago. In this way, I think the entire suit of Cups represents the journey that the Moon card takes us on through the underworld of our unconscious, and thus in the Nine we see the dawn finally breaking.

My favorite Nine of Cups card is this one from the Victoria Regina deck. This lady has the breathless, rather simple look of someone who is purely enjoying life and not thinking too hard about any of it. I envy her. As we've seen, there will be plenty of time later to turn our eyes to the future and decide which trials await us next. For now though, isn't it enough to just enjoy the last moments of the game we're playing, while we're actually still on the board?

Think of that moment when you're playing a game with friends and someone finally wins. There is that strange satisfaction that falls over people as they start putting the pieces away and cleaning up their mess; it's like waking up from a pleasant dream. I am excluding, of course, the numerous games of RISK and Monopoly that end with shouting and hurled statuettes. But even then, there is that moment where our brains transition from their game modes back to reality. For a while, we were not ourselves, or perhaps we were a part of ourselves that doesn't get to come out and play very often. In that moment before the conscious mind fully re-asserts itself, we are effortless. At the end of a good Tarot reading you will feel the exact same sensation.

Growing up means being in charge of finding and savoring these moments for yourself -- they are not provided for you by others as generously and miraculously as they were when you were tiny. I can't think of a better note to end this cycle of cards on. For me, the game is over. For you reading this, the good news is that you can still win... if you play your cards right. [Via]

Previously On Arcanalogue: The Nine of Cups

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"Conquered And Converted All The Same..."

Whereas other Princes are conscripted to either ride off into battle or stay home and guard the homeland, the Prince of Cups is a seeker and explorer, and also something of a bard. He may brandish a loving cup instead of a weapon, but the strangers he encounters are conquered and converted all the same, won over by his unique and charismatic vision and the sincerity of his crusade.

I was similarly ensnared by this song by performance artist Taylor Mac, "The Palace of the End." It depicts an unlikely epic romance between real-life unlikely romance novelists Lynne Cheney and Saddam Hussein -- by virtue of Mac's incredible talent for storytelling, nothing about this song seems even the faintest bit unlikely by the end:

Art allows us to do, say, and feel things that seem to have no place in people's everyday lives, to channel the emotional truths that slumber beneath the surface of our culture. In this way, the Prince of Cups (as well as Taylor Mac) is something of a diviner, unearthing thoughts and feelings from the unconscious and turning them loose on the world, presenting them as a challenge to the way we're used to seeing and thinking about things. We think we're being entertained, but we're also being transformed.

On a more practical level, consider this card an appeal to your creative side. Whereas the Princess of Cups nakedly broadcasts her feelings to the world as she discovers them, the Prince's approach is more calculated, more strategic. He crafts and fine-tunes every aspect of his message so that it will have maximum impact. This could mean that it's time to take a creative project (or any project you feel passionately about) more seriously and start looking for ways to bring it to the next level -- think about how you could emulate the Prince's approach as described above. When it comes to love and relationships, this card encourages you to cultivate an air of receptivity, suggesting that your boldly romantic overtures will be hard to defend against as long as they are genuinely meant and thoughtfully planned.

Previously On Arcanalogue: The Prince Of Cups

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"Love Is A Seller's Market..."

However pure and altruistic our intentions are at the outset, at some point we have to commit to thriving in the world, laying a foundation from which to build our own utopia.

For entrepreneur Craig Zucker, this means bottling New York City water straight from the tap and then selling it as an alternative to pricy brands that are imported from halfway around the world. He considers TAP'DNY a slightly more eco-friendly option for New Yorkers, removing fuel and transport costs from the equation; and since NYC's drinking water is among America's purest, TAP'DNY is easily on par with Dasani and other brands which just reprocess tap water from municipal water supplies. To some people Zucker's business sounds like a joke, but to others it just makes sense. Many people prefer to buy local than put money in the hands of giant international corporations. (Still others carry their own refillable bottles, but let's not get bogged down on fine points.)

I've always thought that the figures on the Ten of Cups look like they're selling something. They're a little too happy, if you know what I mean. The loving happiness of the Nine of Cups ultimately cannot be constrained to just one or two people -- it demands to be shared with the world, and so its burgeoning growth creeps into other aspects of your life. Your family, your business -- whatever is there to catch the runoff will thrive.

While the Ten of Wands andThe Ten of Swords urge you toward a completely fresh start, the Ten of Cups and the Ten of Coins urge you to consider your legacy and proceed with your enterprise, building on what you've already attain and nourishing those who depend on you. If you're unhappy, however, the Ten may be a signal that you've already reached the climax of this part of your story -- even if you stay and gut it out, it may not get any better than it already is. Keep a look out for Aces in your readings, they usually signal the way toward something new and provide the necessary burst of energy required for you to actually do something about it.

We all know this Beatles lyric: "In the end the love you take is equal to the love you make." To me it suggests that love is a seller's market -- if you've already got the capital to back up your enterprise, there's practically no risk of ending the year at a loss. Barring unforeseen catastrophes (which you are hopefully insured against), I think you're going clean up in this town. [Via]

Previously On Arcanalogue: The Ten Of Cups

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"The Medium Is The Message..."

I thumbed through this deck of cards designed by Marshall McLuhan with great interest. Published in 1969, the deck was called "Distant Early Warning", and was meant to provide a random matrix of McLuhan-esque wisdom. You know, handy little sayings like "When you're flat on your back, don't raise your head or your friends will kick your teeth in."

While it's not unlike a Tarot deck in certain ways, the images and messages on the DEW cards rarely echo the meaning of their corresponding Tarot cards. For example, his Two of Spades says "I Drew The Coffin,." It would require Nixon-esque contortions of logic to see any meaningful parallels to the Tarot's Two of Swords.

Some, however, are tantalizingly close calls. And then I saw this, the Queen of Hearts, and I felt a tingle of recognition. The Queen of Cups is a dreamer and gazer. She's often seen as something of a sibyl -- her focus is ultimately inward, and while she often communicates her feelings and visions with startling clarity, she can obscure herself safely behind the veil of her dreams at will. The nonsense sentence "She shell ebb music wayriver she flows," with its beautifully watery and opaque phrasing, seemed like a pure utterance from the Queen of Cups -- in fact, I couldn't even imagine what else it referred to. It didn't seem anything at all like the deck's other wry and rather obvious sayings.

Perhaps you're already miles ahead of me here, but I wrote to my friend Colin and asked him if there was something I wasn't seeing. Right away he wrote back: "She shall have music wherever she goes." Of course!! That nursery rhyme:

Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross
To see a fine lady upon a white horse
With rings on her fingers and bells on her toes
She shall have music wherever she goes

So the tingle of familiarity I felt when I saw the card was twofold, it seems. But what was McLuhan's card actually intended to convey? That there are clear and familiar meanings hidden in plain sight behind our language? That we must listen more deeply, to how things sound or feel, instead of accepting them at face value? I doubt he cared much for the Tarot, but I think he'd appreciate the extra layers of meaning that my brain painted onto his Queen. (I admit, he seems to have gotten the Queen of Wands' number as well.) And in any case, his famous saying "The message is the medium" applies to the Tarot quite wonderfully. But I think I'll leave it up to you, dear reader, to inuit exactly how... [Via]

Previously On Arcanalogue: The Queen 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

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