Two of Cups from Isabel Kliegman
msesheta
As we move now to Chochma, which is the second Sephira on the Tree, the supernal father, wisdom, we see the lovely card for the Two of Cups. We will recall that the position of the Two represents the place of relatedness and introduces the possibility or relationship. In Keter, the place of the One, or Ace, everything is everything else, and everything is one and we're all united. There is no possibility of relationship. Only when we get to Chochma, the place of the Two, does relationship become possible. I-Thou becomes possible. The Suit of cups is the most hospitable place for the energy of the To. Relationship is natural to the suit of feeling. We consequently see here a very comfortable card in the place of Chochma, a balanced and beautiful one.
We see in the Two of cups an expression of the magic that can take place when two come together, not just in passion but in spiritual love. We see a man and a woman; the woman magnetic, remains still; the man, dynamic, approaches. Each, handsomely dressed, is crowned with a garland, the woman's distinctly the laurel of victory. Each then is a winner. This explains why the two are not sharing a cup: she has hers, he has his.
The suggestion here is that this is not a codependent relationship. The woman does not come to the man saying, “I'm desperate! Still my terror, ease my pain, or I'm not going to make it! Let me drink from your cup because I don't have one.” The man does not say, “At last! Someone in worse shape than I am! Compared to her, I'm a bloody hero! She can't even tie her own shoelaces. She needs me. If I have her in my life, I don't have to deal with my own stuff. Dealing with her crises – just ensuring her survival – will take all my time and energy. So what if I can't get through a day without a couple of six-packs? I function great compared to her!” What we see, rather, is that the man approaches the woman saying, “I have a full cup, and I would like to share it with you.” We may imagine her reply to be, “I too have a full cup and I would like to share it with you.” The relationship suggested is that between two independent people. Chochma means “wisdom”; the wisdom they have achieved as individuals has prepared them for the relationship.
Because of their mutual independence, a cordial distance that is almost chivalric can be maintained between the two. There is a gentleness and caring; rather than risk intrusion or offence, the two keep a respectful distance. In recent years, we have seen a return to the gradual development of relationships. The madness of the late sixties through the early eighties seems to be gone. People no longer think that instant physical intimacy is an expression of freedom. We seem again to recognize the need for preparation, whether in cooking or spiritual development or relationship. We cannot achieve true intimacy without putting in time and work.
Over the figures in the Two of Cups we see a winged lion head, the red leonine energy of passion. The spread wings unite the two as one so that the relationship is more than the sum of its parts. The whole is something entirely different. A fiery angel has been created by the feeling between these two: there is the suggestion of being uplifted as well as merging in passion.
Finally, between the two we see the caduceus, the symbol of the medical profession; and therefore the symbol of healing. This is an important and lovely concept, that relationships have the power to heal. The caduceus, for those of you who may not be aware of it, was created when the Greek god Hermes was walking down a dusty road and saw two snakes tangled in battle. He three his staff down between them to keep them from harming each other, and they wound around his staff in the now familiar pattern. By virtue of having prevented harm, Hermes became the god of medicine and healing, and the caduceus a symbol of the healing arts.
The suggestion of healing is particularly interesting when we consider an old Hebrew midrash, or interpretive story, about the creation of Adam and Eve that Rabbi Steve Robbins tells most beautifully. It is similar to the more exoteric forms of the myth in the Bible, but different enough to make a lot of us (especially feminists) very happy. The original creation myth is that God, having completed the rest of creation, made a being in His/Her own likeness and called it Adam. Because everything that was in God was also in Adam, it was possible for Adam to communicate with God at any time. But Adam wandered around the Garden of Eden and saw that each creature had a mate unto its own kind, and Adam alone had no mate. The earthling was lonely and said to god, “Of all the creatures in the world, I alone am without a mate, and I cannot function in this world.” (Interestingly, the word in Hebrew for sexual intercourse has the same root as the verb “to function”. So much for any notions of sexuality as sinful)
God replied, “I can make a mate for you, but if I do this, our relationship will never be the same because then you will be only half of what I am, and you will not be able to relate to me in the same way as you do now.” Adam said, “It would be worth it. I must have a mate. I must feel that I am a part of this world.” so god put Adam into a deep sleep and divided his first human down the centre and, as the story goes, the two danced apart. Adam the androgyne was divided into two beings, the male and the female. (This story is very different from the version in which woman is created from only from Adam's rib, the implication being that his heart, or even a lung, of which he had two, was too valuable to sacrifice for the creation of a mere woman. Apparently, even a finger would have constituted too great a cost to Adam's dexterity. So what does Adam have so many of and so little use for that he'll never miss one? The suggestion is that a woman is worth the concession of a single rib, and not an earlobe more).
This moving midrash enables us to understand in a new way the tremendous yearning we each have within us to find our mate, because what we are really looking for is our own other half. This is what we feel when we talk about looking for our soul mate. We are looking for the one who will make us feel complete, whole.
Now, I want to stress here that this is, of course, metaphor. We each have male and female energies within us. It may be that my other half also takes the physical form of a woman. Or it may be that a man's other half takes the physical form of a man. That doesn't matter. When we talk about male and female, we're talking about male energy and female energy. It's very important to remember that. All varieties of love are valid to the heart. What is important is that two come together as one and create a relationship through healing and love that is both passionate and spiritual, the whole of which is greater than the sum of its parts. Between the two figures of the Two of Cups we see mutual respect. Recall for a moment the Six of Pentacles. That is an image of domination. This is an image of partnership.
We have said that Tarot cards all have both positive and negative charges. What could be wrong withe the Two of Cups? Perhaps it is a little too good to be true. There is something so idealistic, so pristine, so perfect about the partnership represented that it sets people up for disappointment. You know, when you have this kind of entirely lovely relationship, you don't want to be around the other person when your hair needs washing. Yet sooner or later everybody's hair needs washing. And if you're actually going to set up house with someone about whom you feel this way, inevitably that person is going to see it all, and so are you. He will see you, bloated and short tempered with a touch of acne, roughly once a month. You will watch in horrified fascination as he laughs at moronic jokes on his favourite sitcom. He will wonder why you can cook only three different dishes. You will wonder why he drives ten minutes out of his way to save three cents a gallon on gas. And everyone has some personal habit fit only for total privacy in which we can be surprised, to our mortification and out mate's disillusion, if only perfection will do. Laughter at such moments is not an option for the figures in the Two of Cups.
The Two of Cups, then, is a card often associated with the beginning of relationships, because as they develop it becomes clear that no one on this earth can be our perfect counterpart. That is our ideal, but it is not realizable. We begin to find the little flaws and to see the grating inconsistencies between our image and what that person really is. That's when the highly romantic love gets tested. In “The Road Less Traveled”, M. Scott Peck actually goes so far as to say that you can't begin loving someone until you fall out of love with them! You can't begin loving someone until you see and accept that person as they genuinely are.
There is another aspect of the Two of Cups that can be seen as negative; it is, as you have probably noticed by now, a separation card. As idyllic as the little house and rolling green hills of the background may appear, the couple pictured have separated themselves from it. They are in the early stage of their relationship that involves what John Bradshaw calls “primal gazing”, the kind of mooning absorption appropriate to nursing babies and their mothers. This state of total infatuation separates the couple from everyone else. They are in their own little world, which, like a cocoon, spares them any awareness of troubles and sorrows “out there”. We will see more mature images of love as our work progresses, but the couple in the Two are complete unto themselves. May they savor the exquisite fleeting moment. May we all.
Pages 80 to 84
Tarot and the Tree of Life
Isabel Radow Kliegman
ISBN 083560747X
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