CUPS · V
Five of Cups
Mourning what spilled. The loss is real; so are the two cups you have not turned to yet. Do not be hurried, and do not live only in the puddle.
- ELEMENT
- water
- NUMBER
- Five — disruption: three spilled, two standing, a cloaked figure at the loss.
- SYMBOLS
- a cloaked figure, head down, three cups on their side in the foreground · two cups still upright behind, the uncounted remainder · a river and a small bridge to a house, passage still possible · a grey sky, grief as weather, not as the only climate forever
UPRIGHT
- +honest grief without performance
- +the later turn toward what remains
- +a bridge that exists even if you are not on it today
- −identity as the one who lost
- −refusing the two standing cups as betrayal of the three
- −bitterness poured on whoever is still offering water
- IN LOVE
- A disappointment, a leaving, a hope that broke. Grieve. The two cups are not a command to date; they are a fact of remainder.
- IN WORK
- A failure, a deal down, a team that dissolved. Count the whole field before you burn the house on the far bank.
- IN SELF
- You are allowed this weather. You are not required to become it.
REVERSED
The cloak is lifting — or the figure will not look up at all. Acceptance beginning, or grief sealed so tight nothing can evaporate.
- Blocked — the upright current exists and is dammed.
- Internalized — the drama is inner rather than worldly.
Reversed Five of Cups often starts the turn toward the two cups. Blocked Five refuses the bridge. Inner Five grieves where no one can see.
- PAIRS WELL WITH
- DeathThe StarSix of CupsEight of Cups
- TENSES WITH
- The SunNine of CupsThree of CupsFour of Cups
WHAT WE WILL NOT SAY ABOUT THIS PLATE
- look on the bright side, two cups are left
- they're not coming back, get over it
- you attracted this loss