Tarot Talk: Four of Cups

One of my favorite versions of the 4 of cups coming from Kim Kran’s The Wild Unknown Tarot

Okay everyone we are back with some more tarot talk! Today our card is the 4 of Cups.

Traditionally we should keep in mind that things dealing with the cup suit highlight the importance of emotion, intuition, relationships, and creativity. The story of the 4 of cups is often depicted with a man sitting in front of three cups looking displeased. There is a floating hand (indicative of the divine) trying to give him another but he has yet to notice. The story this card is trying to portray is dissatisfaction.

In the rendition above what is being pointed out with the rat having all 4 cups is discontentment breeding greed. There are 2 things that I would like to point out about the 4 of cups. The first being more obvious; If you cannot be satified with what you have you stop your ability to have more. In the traditional depiction if he was more pleased with the three he could have noticed that Spirit wanted to grant him more — but his attention was focused on the lack of. Think of it like this — If you decided to surprise your coworkers with coffee and once everyone grabs theirs they say, “What, no sandwiches?” would you feel more likely to go out of your way for them again? Not really, right?

The second thing that I’d like to raise about this is to add more perspective. Tarot tells a story which is why I prefer to add a bit of context to every experience. It’s unrealistic to be in love with the less is more perspective at all times. The story I usually paint is: Say you see something you really like on a Wednesday while you’re out. You don’t get paid until Friday so it’s easy to feel frustrated by the fact that it is in your face today but you don’t have the access you would like. Obviously, we know it’s not the end of the world and that you could just go buy it in 2 days when your deposit is available, but in the mean time you’ll sulk and experience discontentment. What I want to emphasize is that in the present yes there is discontent, but usually just like feelings and thus the cup suit— that is temporary. Ask yourself is it really even worth fussing about?

Now of course if this card comes up in response to something that is more fixed like “what is the outcome of xyz?’ then dissatisifaction should be heeded at face value and I would say abandon ship since you will not be poured into how you feel you deserve. Outside of that remember that the 4 of cups says taking on a present focused grattitude attitude will cause bounty. Imagine you’re so annoyed about your 3 cups that you accidentally knock em over and you have none, part of being grateful is acknowledging that there is something instead of trying to pretend that what you currently have is enough to glorious.

Okay everyone that’s all from me this week!