02. Two of Cups
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Number: 2
Card Title: Two of Cups
Esoteric Title: Lord of Love
Numerical Keywords: 2: Expansion, Duality, Life Force
Numerical Attributions: Zodiac, Gray, Year, End
Intelligence: Illuminating Intelligence
Element: Water (cold, wet)
Elemental Keywords: Love, Container, Emotions
Elemental Attributions: West, Fall, Twilight
Astrological Attribution: Venus in Cancer
Dates & Timing: June 21 to July 1
Qabalistic World: Chokmah in Briah
Translation of World: The Wisdom of Creation
Suit Color: Cups - Blue
Keywords: Good rapport, one on one, kindred spirits, marriage, mutual interests, emotional compatibility, joy, reflection, pleasure, love, warm friendship, attachment.
Ill-Dignified:Holding back, False Love, Isolation, Separation, e motional withdrawal, infatuation, Minor dispute, tiff between friends, misunderstanding, Oedipus complex, discord.
Interpretation: Relationship between friends and lovers not groups of people. Meeting with like minded person. Spiritual nourishment. Good news coming to home, bringing love or new home. Exchange of loving energy. Beginning phase of relationship. The harmony of male and female that radiates an intensity of joy and ecstasy.
Reversed Interpretation: One party is less interested. Disparity in way 2 parties judge a relationships value and areas of compatibility. One person looking at differences, the other looking at similarities. Quarrels resolved by using intellect rather than emotions. Misunderstanding with someone important. Love turning to opposite. Discord in friendship, one of the parties breaking off.
Rider-Waite Imagery
The Number two is related to the 2nd Kabalistic world and is called wisdom. Cups represent the world of emotions and relationships. These two ideas together form the two of cups which is about the union of soul mates and all relationships based on mutual understanding. A man and a woman are shown on this card looking at each other. The woman is wearing a Laurel wreath (controlled energy) and the man is wearing a rose wreath (ennobled passion).
They are offering their cups as a pledge of faith and fidelity. The Lion, above the couple, is the symbol of the soul created from the union of a pair of people or opposites. The red that shows up on this card on the lion, rose head wreath, and woman’s’ shoes represents desire. Both figures are wearing white (spirit). The woman has a blue (wisdom) over garment and the man is wearing yellow (consciousness).
The Pictorial Key to the Tarot by Arthur Edward Waite (1911)
A youth and maiden are pledging one another, and above their cups rises the Caduceus of Hermes, between the great wings of which there appears a lion’s head. It is a variant of a sign which is found in a few old examples of this card. Some curious emblematical meanings are attached to it, but they do not concern us in this place. Divinatory Meanings: Love, passion, friendship, affinity, union, concord, sympathy, the interrelation of the sexes, and–as a suggestion apart from all offices of divination–that desire which is not in Nature, but by which Nature is sanctified.
4 Some Additional Meanings of the Lesser Arcana
Two.–Favourable in things of pleasure and business, as well as love; also wealth and honour. Reversed: Passion.
The Recurrence of Cards in Dealing
In the Natural Position: 4 Twos = contention; 3 Twos = security; 2 Twos = accord.
Reversed: 4 Twos = reconciliation; 3 Twos apprehension; 2 Twos = mistrust.
4 Some Additional Meanings of the Lesser Arcana
Eight.–Marriage with a fair woman. Reversed: Perfect satisfaction.
The Recurrence of Cards in Dealing
In the Natural Position: 4 Eights = reverse; 3 Eights = marriage 2 Eights = new knowledge.
Reversed: 4 Eights = error; 3 Eights a spectacle; 2 Eights = misfortune.
The Tarot of the Bohemians by Papus; tr. A. P Morton, [1896]
Signification of the Four Series of Minor Arcana in the Divining Tarot
CUPS. Preservation. Love. Instruction.
Two. Opposition to this commencement. Unimportant obstacles raised by one of the lovers.
The Tarot by S.L. MacGregor Mathers [1888]
Meanings of the Cards
48. Deuce of Cups.–Love, Attachment, Friendship, Sincerity, Affection; R. Crossed desires, Obstacles, Opposition, Hindrance.
Three Books of Occult Philosophy by Henry Cornelius Agrippa
Cancer I
A young Virgin, adorned with fine cloathes [clothes], and having a Crown on her head; it giveth acuteness of senses, subtilty of wit, and the love of men:
Picatrix the Goal of the Wise by Ghayat Al-akim
Book "T" The Tarot
LIV. The Lord of Love
Two of Chalices
A WHITE Radiant Hand, issuant from the lower part of the card from a cloud, holds lotuses. A lotus flower rises above water, which occupies the lower part of the card rising above the hand. From this flower rises a stem, terminating near the top of the card in another lotus, from which flows a sparkling white water, as from a fountain. Crossed on the stem just beneath are two dolphins, Argent and Or, on to which the water falls, and from which it pours in full streams, like jets of gold and silver, into two cups; which in their turn overflow, flooding the lower part of the card. Venus and Cancer above and below.
Harmony of masculine and feminine united. Harmony, pleasure, mirth, subtlety: but if ill dignified — folly, dissipation, waste, silly actions.
Chokmah of HB:H (Marriage, love, pleasure).
Therein rule the Angels HB:AVa’aAL and HB:ChBVYH.
Often the General signification of the Majority of a particular suit and of the particular signification of the either 3 of 4 cards of a sort in a reading:
- A Majority of Cups Pleasure, merriment.
- 4 Twos Conferences, conversations.
- 3 Twos Reorganization, recommendation.
