2 Cups Love
I thought this month I would explore one of the more positive cards in the Thoth deck – here we have the 2 cups – entitled Love. A card people want to see in regards to relationship matters as it is a card of balanced and even love. A relationship that can last that has both partners as equals supporting each other but standing on their own two feet too.
As we look at the image we see two fish entwined and feeding energy in the form of light into the lotus of spiritual love they are standing on – this shows them as separate yet also each has an equal footing in the relationship that is balanced. The fish symbolises love and Crowley talks about them being dolphins though clearly they do not resemble dolphins in their depiction on the card. Dolphins are creatures of love, often associated with spiritual love and giving, fish in general are connected with water and thus the emotions. Here they are in balance and feed into the central stricture as a well as acting as a bouncing point for spiritual love from higher sources to bounce from and on out to the wider world.
In the way you often see when you are in love the whole world around you seems a better place and it is easier to love all people as you are feeling filled with love yourself.
Being a ‘2’ card it is a card that has just differentiated from the unity of spirit into two things so the driving force is to return to that union, so in relationship we seek to unite with our lover and become one again, yet there is also the tension of being in the physical world and complete union through all time is difficult or impossible to achieve physically though our souls may experience the union fairly fully.
You can see how the spiritual love from the two feeds the two at the foreground of the image and these two are cups overflowing – there is an abundance of love and it is never-ending in this card. There is a hint though given the four receptacles – two lotus’ and two cups that once stability (4 is stability) is achieved then there will need to be a shift and movement to allow development or else stagnation will settle in (reference to the 4 cups that is coming)
The background is yellow calm sea becoming green in the foreground indicating a sense of positive self-regard and self-esteem (the yellow) is the source of the love (green) and this relationship is founded in the self-love that each person has of themselves – we can not fully love another until we love ourselves. In some cases it may well be that each person has indeed fallen in love with a reflection of themselves in the other person – something they may not yet have seen in themselves.
Snuffin talks about the symbolism of the dolphins being additionally connected to the sun and the moon – with each fish a different eye colour – the one on the left has a yellow eye representing the sun and the one on the right a silver eye representing the moon. In addition there is a tenuous link with the Emperor and Empress with the 5 and 4 fins on the inner side of each dolphin, and these cards being the 5th and 4th trumps (fool = 0) personally I do feel this is tenuous – though in an intuitive sense makes for a good connection between the two poles of energy each of us has – the masculine and feminine. As we integrate these so we are better able to be whole in our relationships with others and make for better, more harmonious and loving interactions. So in this sense it is a useful trigger point in a reading.
With the astrology being Venus in Cancer and this is harmonious in itself we have additional links with beauty, the home and a feeling of emotional stability, love and protection.