Four of Cups ~ The Borderlands

Tarot of the Hidden Realm by Julia Jeffrey

Several weeks ago the Four of Cups swam into my awareness as one of those conundrum cards. You know the ones I mean. You understand the symbolism, you grok the traditional interpretation no probs but you feel like you're missing the deeper themes it speaks to. It's been my experience that holding the misunderstood card as a question and letting it live at the edges of my awareness without the need to analyze it eventually yields the kind of resonance I'm looking for. It's as if it takes on a kind of somatic reality that gradually trickles up to my mental reality.

Universal Waite by Pamela Coleman Smith
recolored by Mary Hanson-Roberts

And such was the case with the Four of Cups. Traditionally we see a figure seated at the base of a tree, arms crossed, three cups before him, one being divinely offered. On his face is a look of several possible realities, boredom, daydreaming, self absorption, disinterest, contemplation. It never really rang true to leave it at that surface level. But I was never able to get too far with it beyond this, at least not into something that felt resonant.

Tarot of the Hidden Realm by Julia Jeffrey

Enter this version from the Tarot of the Hidden Realm with its gorgeous and lyrical depiction of a selkie at the moment she is leaving behind her human body to transform into a seal and suddenly there it was, the deeper message. The level of her apprehension at taking up full embodiment in either realm is palpable. Leaving behind the riches of her Fey world is as daunting as not being able to swim freely in the ocean's currents. And it's this ambivalence that I think speaks to the heart of the card.

This is a card of navigating the liminal realms. Its geography is the borderlands, the edges. It speaks to a deep ambivalence towards incarnation, towards manifestation, towards the present moment. Betwixt and between is the phrase that comes to mind, and with it the suffering and isolation that ensues from such a state.





As I was musing on this very familiar state, on my own sometimes ambivalence at being present, occasionally at being in a body at all, I wondered at the possible reasons for it. The word perfectionism swam up to greet my inquiry. Yes, I imagine that is at the heart of things, an ideal so high that it's impossible to reach and therefore one spends a lot of time roaming, neither in the "imperfect" world of form nor the unattainable ideal world of, well, ideals. I dunno, for me this touches on subjects and themes that feel soul-oriented, that are questions I'm holding this lifetime. How often am I absent from the moment, from life, from myself?

The way the figure is seated at the base of the tree in the traditional depiction of this card gives me the sense that root chakra work would be a wonderful way to begin the slow and steady process of incarnation, of coming to terms with being here, now. Spending time with my back against a solid tree, feeling its roots spreading out beneath me, the ground supporting me. All of these bring the body into the present moment of sensation, of feeling and noticing. Perhaps even spending a bit of time each day connecting this way would go a long way to redress the imbalance between ether and earth. And I think when this card comes up for me now I'll have a much better sense of its message, not only emotionally but also somatically.

Tarot of the Hidden Realm by Julia Jeffrey

Five of Swords ~ Travels with the Inner Critic

The Wild Unknown Tarot by Kim Krans ~ The Crystal Oracle by Toni Salerno

The month is coming to a close and the Five of Swords, my card of the month, has made itself quite comfortable in my inner landscape. Thanks to this version above I've taken to calling it the Five of Worms lol. When it appears in a reading for me it usually means the inner critic, the inner bully, is on the premises. The rose quartz mala and red jasper oracle card are incidental, necessary embellishments, distractions even to the starkness of this depiction of segmented worms. Though both of these stones with their qualities of loving kindness and strengthening and stamina, are very useful when working with the inner judge.

Tarot of the Sweet Twilight by Cristina Benintende

In WU depiction of the Five of Swords we see a worm's body, surrounded by sharp-edged swords, that has been severed by the largest blade. Those unspoken cutting remarks we make to ourselves, the conditioned responses, this is how wholeness disintegrates, how the Self becomes fractured. When trust has been betrayed the body follows suit in its own intelligent way. And until that trust has been restored wholeness is a concept. It has to begin at a cellular level.

In the Tarot of the Sweet Twilight we see a visual representation of this kind of somatic disintegration. Heads have been removed, bodies are missing parts, the main figure has got several different voices running her rampant, her lower body is at odds with her upper body. This is the inner critic at her finest, creating somatic chaos in a landscape that depicts the wasteland that this voice lives in. Bleak, depleted of life, sere and inhabitable only by those who lack sensitivity. 

Tarot of the Hidden Realm by Julia Jeffrey

Perhaps one of the most stark representations of this inner bullying quality of the Five of Swords is from the Tarot of the Hidden Realm. While the guidebook places this figure on the defensive I tend to see her as the face of my own inner bitch. She's got a kind of wild, seductive beauty, her crow familiars whirl around her and the haziness of her realm all feel familiar to me. Once that voice gets going it's hard to stop.

However this is the Swords suit, the suit of Air of the mental realm and it's helpful to remember that all of this is an internal process. 

It's interesting to note her stance, rigid, fight-or-flight response. No equilibrium can come from that, nor can any somatic messages get through. Everything is constricted in almost Eight of Swords like way.

Vision Quest Tarot ~ Crystal Visions Tarot ~ Herbal Tarot

I've included the three cards to the left in my month-long study as they've given me some valuable information and tools. 

The Vision Quest Tarot by Gayan Sylvie Winter and Jo Dosé gives this card the title, Fear. And it's a good reminder to note that beneath all that posturing fear is the foundation. 

When I ask myself the questions, Fear of what? There are several responses that come to mind but all of them come down to love, really, or a lack thereof. 

The middle card from the Crystal Visions Tarot by Jennifer Galasso has a Three of Swords-like feel to it with two of the Swords having been stabbed into the back of the figure with the bully walking away. That this figure is all dressed in white speaks to me of her trusting, innocent nature, that inner child within us who wouldn't suspect anyone of wanting to harm us, to bring us down. A little bird perches on one of the Swords in a poignant attempt at comfort. Thankfully she has looked round and is able to acknowledge it. Someone in her court. Every little bit of positivity counts here.  Finally the Herbal Tarot by Candace Cantin and Michael Tieris offers an herbal ally for this card in the form of Mistletoe. It is a plant of protection and we know it best as something for lovers to kiss under. But it was sacred to the Druids, used in ceremony and vision and medically is a heart tonic herb. This last gives me a clue as to what qualities to bring to the table where the inner critic sits.

Tarot of Transformation ~ J. L. Cori and Willow Arlenea

Looking at the depiction of the WU I sensed this month's focus might take shape around being aware of the somatic effects the inner critic has. More body work, more art, more immersion in the earth realm.  There has been some of this this month, more than usual as a result of this card, I think. The worm is guardian of the Earth, aerating the soil, turning it, fertilizing it as well as being nourished by it. Because they are segmented they're capable of regeneration if their body has been cut in two. All of this feels wonderfully restorative and hopeful. 

There are also a whole host of phrases that come to mind here...'getting my hands dirty', 'doing the dirty work' 'finding my ground' They bring a wonderfully embodied element to this card of the Air. For the place where the prima materia awaits the light of our own awareness. Holding the Vision, the title of the card at right, is key.

Hecate's Daughters

Soul Cards ~ Vol. 1

I drew this to journey with last week when the day's theme was 'Hecate's Daughters'. When I looked at it I could feel so palpably the living legacy of Hecate, of Persephone, of Demeter and the whole tribe of women for whom the Underworld is a place of transformation. Jung's pithy quote on this realm swims into the fore with an immediacy that stuns..."One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious." This is clearly something to live into. What does it mean to make the darkness conscious, what does it mean in the context of Hecate's body, her truth? Is it even possible to pin down such musings with something as finite as an answer? I don't think so but we can catch gleanings, whispers, intimations and so I drew some cards...

Tarot of the Hidden Realm

I'm not sure what I was expecting but certainly not so much dazzle, not this luminous offering of beauty and generosity, of stability and the manifest.

The earth of the body is where sovereignty lies. Its darkness becomes numinous if received with an awareness undifferentiated by preference. The soul is the wilderness of endless return, lose yourself in the gesture of its embrace. Its landscape is the body, the loam of its truth...

These are the words that came through as I took in the cards. I had to sit with them awhile afterwards to parse them out breath by breath...sometimes this kind of poetic guidance flows through unstopped by my critical faculty and it's only afterwards in the ebb of its wave that it settles somewhere in my body for me to be able to work with.




In this instance all points towards the earth, the body, the manifest realm, that is the place to begin making the darkness conscious. The King and young child have been transformed into a union of opposites in The Lovers card suggesting it's not through a polarizing of dark and light that one awakens to an embodiment of awareness but rather by integrating one into the other, through coniunctio...the sacred and alchemical marriage of spiritus and mater...soul and body. The child is father to the man, says Wordsworth and here that phrase leaps from this card pairing with prescience. To be led through the dark with a childlike wisdom, to be ripened into maturity by innocence, by wonder, by not knowing...this is how dark and light come to know each other as entwined limbs of the same holy body.

Jung's words breathe their darkly luminous syllables of truth through the underworld of my own body like the sacred seeds of a mantric hymn...to make conscious the darkness...the first gesture of awakening is somatic...Love as the perfect consensus of breath and cell...