King of Cups ~ Wanderer, Worshipper, Lover of Leaving

King of Cups ~ Pagan Otherworlds Tarot

"Come, come whoever you are, wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving, it doesn’t matter…”

These lines of Rumi's come to mind while journeying with this embodied king, his dominion the Waters of the Heart. Though the ocean swirls around him his bedrock is firm, his feet large and capable. The water stains on the rock tell of his own emotional experiences, he’s not been untouched by Love’s arrows, he, too, has been marked but he has achieved a perspective, his station borne now of mastery. He may not choose to get involved with the minutiae but he’s aware of it all, sees it all. The musculature of his body tells stories of strength and experience.

This is a king of complexity, perhaps even ambiguity. He’s less interested in answers than questions and process. The ermine fur on his cape speaks both of his royalty and his animal nature, his humanity. And the graceful folds of his robes speak of sensitivity and grace, a refinement that he wears with ease. The luxurious lines and drape of the cloth over his knees echo this, there is a hint of gravitas in their weight, introspection, his body capable of sinking into the more sober qualities of the feeling realm and meeting them with sovereignty, with equanimity.

His upper body, as he leans in to bare his heart which is, after all, a muscle, echoes a particular stage in the whirling dervish ceremony known as the Sema, which means to hear. In the very last stage of the Sema the Sheikh stands in the center of the floor with all the dervishes turning on their own around him in the outer circle. The Sheikh makes exactly the gesture this King of Cups makes, he grasps his robe, lowers his head slightly towards his heart, the only altar there is, really, and he begins to turn very slowly. It’s a tremendously moving sight to witness this expression of sober love amidst the ecstatic turning of the dervishes. And one feels intimately that he is holding space for not only his dervishes but for the hearts of the world. He is the sun around which all the planets spin…Love as centripetal force.

Just so with this King. He leans in, he inclines his ear, he listens for that steady under-rhythm of love, he grasps his robe, his heart is bared and one can almost feeling him turning slowly, slowly, slowly, master of Love. The ocean, the Source, contains and witnesses him. It is both his arrival and return. As it is for each of us.