Monday, January 4, 2010

2010's Whispered Message -- The Queen of Cups

Queen of Cups, The Mythic Tarot Cards
"I am a radiant loveable being."

In continuing with last year's tradition, I meditated and let a new tarot card choose me for this year's journey. Last year, the Sun Card walked with me. This year, it is to be the Queen of Cups.

From what I have gathered, the Queen of Cups is an inward card, encouraging deep reflection and gentle loving of self. Last year's roaming with the Sun created a year of...well...roaming the earth, especially its sunnier locales. It was exhilarating. It was also a blur of a year. Whew!

Meditating on the Queen of Cups card, I see the goddess enthroned. She holds a golden chalice/cup with her right hand and a golden apple with her left. Her cerulean dress sinks into the water as if she is an aquatic creature living in two worlds -- the earthly realm which is of form and the aquatic which is without form. The ocean sits behind her, as do verdant, lush fields. Two golden snakes curl around the throne's armrests and curve towards her. She is smiling. The sky is blue and clear of any disturbances. The quality of image crackles with clarity.

The Queen of Cups appears to indicate a woman who is a dreamer. She is highly intuitive, creative and psychic. A nurturer. A mother. She absorbs the energies around her and reflects them back to others, unchanged. A revealer. She is emotional. The Queen of Cups is linked to the unconscious and moon realms but not to the degree of the High Priestess.

According to
The Mythic Tarot guidebook, the Queen of Cups is represented in the deck by Helen of Troy -- a woman of enigma who inspires a range of emotions:
"The Queen of Cups is elusive as a character, yet she stirs up trouble wherever she goes, activating the depths in others and inaugurating action and conflict without doing anything at all...When the Queen of Cups appears in the spread, it is time for the individual to encounter the deep, unknowable, paradoxical world of feeling in himself or herself."
I have to admit that I'm not surprised this card has presented itself to me as this year's guide. Lately, my unconscious has been stirring up the dream world and I find that I'm being introduced to new guides--both teachers and animals--on a weekly basis. My inner Jungian says that something within the unconscious seeks the conscious light but I'm not sure what it is just yet.

What I do know is that I had to giggle when I saw two snakes in the card.
Within the past few weeks, I have had at least two dreams in which snakes (at least two) have appeared to me. In those dreams, I am directly across from these snakes and we are eye to eye. We stare at each other...cock our heads...size each other up. There is no other action. In one dream, the snakes are as large as dragons. In the second dream, they were as small as worms.

Snakes are not one of my typical animal messengers but I am intrigued and wonder if their appearance is not a call to move with Kundalini energy this year.

Laughing, I just randomly opened my copy of Joseph Campbell's "Reflections on the Art of Living" to p. 110 which states:
"[Kundalini]...the figure of coiled female serpent--a serpent goddess not of "gross" but of "subtle" substance--which is to be thought of as residing in a torpid, slumbering state in a subtle center, the first of the seven, near the base of the spine: the aim of yoga then being to rouse this serpent, lift her head, and bring her up a subtle nerve or channel of the spine to the so-called "thousand-petaled lotus" (sahasrara) at the crown of the head...She, rising from the lowest to the highest lotus center, will pass through and wake the five between, and with each waking the psychology and personality of the practioner will be altogether and fundamentally transformed."
Hm. Well, it certainly promises not to be a boring year! Buckle up, methinks.

5 comments:

emily said...

snakes? hmm... temptation vs. earthly knowledge...

your queen (so i read) can form a pair with any other court card.

to the images we create,

Kelly said...

i've wondered all this, too. currently, i'm digging through all myths trying to find stories/images/attributes that match what's appearing in my dreams. now that's some fun work!

to the images and more!

John Webb said...

In Jung's 'Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious', talking about the anima, he says 'If you want to know what happens when the anima appears in modern society I can warmly recommend John Erskine's 'The Private Life of Helen of Troy'.

I have not read it. The entire text is actually on-line here:
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0600381h.html

It's not easy to read a book on-line, and can't immediatly see why Jung was so enthouiastic about it.

Joseph Campbell and 'Queen of Cups' also brings to mind a scene from Mythos, where he examines the story told around the Pietroasa Bowl, which has a woman at the centre holding a cup/chalice.

The Pietroasa Bowl, and a also lot of Grail stuff, is also covered in Campbell's 'Masks of God (vol 4) Creative Mythology'. But it's a much heavier read than most of his other books.

Kelly said...

Ooooo. Many thanks for reaching out, Robur. I was delighted to read your comments and am happy to chat Jung and Campbell with you. Thanks for passing on Erskine's title. I wasn't aware of it. And, yes, I love that scene in "Mythos!" It is a beautiful bowl and if memory serves correctly, i believe it no longer exists. Melted down? Hm.

I haven't read those four volumes yet but plan sequentially this spring.

John Webb said...

I'm new to Blogging and only set up my own a few days ago. I found yours by Googling for "Blogspot Jung Campbell". Surprisingly, there were very few hits on that combination, of which yours was one of the few.

If you'd like a brief chat, we could either use my E-mail, which is on my Blogger profile page, or can do so here. It's entirely up to you.