The Princess of Cups

Things are getting stranger. My feelings are strange. It’s all so surreal right now. I’ve been contemplating and struggling lately, internally. I picked up my Tarot deck—Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot—before heading out to see my parents yesterday night. I’ve owned this deck for six plus years and was never fully drawn to it because of stories I’d heard of Mr. Crowley and because I knew there was real power and precision to the stories revealed by the pulling of cards as they related to one's life. Ever since my first blog of this year, I’ve been gravitating towards this deck. Any apprehension I once had is a thing of the past. I’m ready.

I stood by the kitchen counter with my coat on and felt I needed to pull three cards before heading out. In front of me lay a book about Gurdjieff, his face taking up most of the cover, his eyes staring right through me. I shuffled the cards thinking of Crowley and asked the universe to give me some insight about my current situation. As I lay down the cards, I was aware of Gurdjieff, my Jesus key chain on top of the book and Crowley in my head. I pulled the Six of Swords (Science), the Princess of Cups and the Ace of Disks. I took Lon Milo Duquette’s Understanding Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot book with me and was excited about reading each of their descriptions while riding the bus.

I had pulled the Science card in the past as well as the Princess of Cups and even the Ace of Disks but this arrangement, this reading spoke to me directly. Perhaps, I’m paying more attention or am seeing the world through new eyes. I recall flipping the pages to find the Princess of Cups and being blown away when I read the description. Being the middle card, she represents the present. Everything I’ve learned of her is a reflection of the things I’ve been feeling and thinking and exploring.

She’s known as the Lover. She is a giver who holds a chalice in her hand that represents her heart which she is very protective of. Her heart fills the world. She lives in the realm of Romance and Emotion, but she’s able to manifest her dreams into reality because she’s earth of water. Now, this part is key. She’s not just a daydreamer. She’s able to intuit the world as it is and will things into being. She represents psychic abilities or heightened perception and may also reflect creativity in the way of writing, music and art. That’s me. Princesses are messengers and in this case, she may bring a new relationship, the birth of a child, or a new love.

I took her with me to work this morning and placed her on my desk to my right glancing over every now and then taking in the greens and blues of the card. I could have fallen asleep just staring at her. She keeps surprising me because while surfing the net and wanting to feed my curiosity, I came across a blog by a woman from Peru who devoted an entire page to the Princess of Cups. I could have cried reading it because it was deeply heartfelt--the way she described her sentiments and the pain she experienced, internally and in silence. She spoke of two paths and two loves and feeling the pressure of having to choose between one or the other and then coming to the realization that by choosing one, she was not only neglecting the other (which brought her more pain) but in doing so, was also denying aspects of herself. I thought that was brilliant, eye opening, freeing. She spoke of this kind of duality and how she feels she's risen above it but after much struggle. She realizes she can bring love to both differently without any guilt and that rules or morality, especially for a woman, can be a form of imprisonment if it denies her the capacity to love. Beautiful. And she got all this from pulling the Princess of Cups...

I'm still trying to piece things together for myself so I can't really offer that much in the way of insight but I think I'm getting close to understanding her role in my life at this time. Some parts are obvious, others a little obscure but as with all things, life unfolds and its messages revealed in due course, when we're ready, present and receptive.