Tarot - Five of Cups (Apr. 6, 2011)

To feel severity (to feel the absolute chill of finality) in the suit of cups – also recognized as the “realm of water” and, by another name, as the “world of feeling” – is to deeply feel the harsh reality that, sometimes, in order to take in and utilize that which is new, you have to be completely drained of that which has currently been filling you up.

This is such a hard reality to deeply feel because it is, in fact, a form of death (albeit the form of death that ushers in new life in its wake) and we all instinctively recoil from such severity.

If you are like every other human being you will not step into the jaws of death willingly and readily surrender that which you have been relying on to give your life purpose, meaning, form and colour.  Why would you?  The feeling of emptiness that accompanies this degree of loss is, indeed, severe and extremely hard to bear up under.  No one enjoys feeling bereft, lost and without purpose.

Rather, we all love to feel exactly the opposite and so each and every one of us will usually do all we can to defend and preserve our status quo.  But, it is sometimes the case where new wine simply cannot be added to the old and therefore the old must be spilled out entirely to make way for what's to follow.

Intensifying the feeling of severity represented by the Five of Cups is the fact that the new purpose, meaning, form and colour that is poised to fill you up, once you have been emptied, may not appear evident at first – especially while you are duly and truly mourning your loss – but just because you aren't seeing it doesn't mean it isn't within your arm's reach.

Obviously, this severe process of “emptying before filling” will go easier for you if you have truly felt (and accepted) the merciful balm issuing from the preceding card in the suit of cups.  In fact, life's abundance is here again being made obvious by the river shown flowing across the arid landspace of the Five of Cups.  Your vessels (full of that which you have come to know, depend on and love) have been emptied - with or without your volition  - but there is a river flowing through your life which ensures you of an endless supply of new, filled vessels.

Bite down hard on the bullet and allow the feeling of severity to cleanse you to the bone and make you ready for - and worthy of - your fresh, new, infilling which will follow.  Accept, with the best grace you can muster, the feeling of severity conveyed by the Five of Cups and this entirely natural (though oft unwelcome), cyclical process will go easier for you.

PLEASE NOTE:  This interpretation is based purely on the feelings I experience when I  focus on, and merge with, the images in the card combined with how I understand the Minor Arcana of the Rider-Waite deck dovetails with the Tree of Life in the Qabalah (as taught by Wald and Ruth Ann Amberstone, co-founders of The Tarot School in New York City, NY).