Description
Queen of Cups, Archetypal Mother of the sea, walks through her elemental home carrying her chalice. The seabed is a garden of hidden treasures and obstacles. Her courtly entourage are fish and undines. The moon smiles upon her in a sunset sky. Her throne faces her watery home. She is water of water.
Symbolism
Sea/Ocean/Stream: Walking
in the sea represents the symbolic journey through, within and
across "sea of life." Elementally, water is symbolic of all
potential, all unformed universal principles. Filled with hidden
things, it represents chaos and calm, controlled and uncontrolled
emotions, the known and unknown, the personal and collective
unconscious.
While oceans symbolize potential, seas, with their shores and
their inflowing streams of watery life can indicate known quantities,
limits which can be set,
boundaries that contain and stabilise emotional, imaginative and dreamy chaos. Nonetheless,
shores symbolise the fluidity between the metaphysical and the factual.
To
we short-lived creatures, the ever-moving tidal oceans appear to be unchanging
over the eons. Thus oceans represent a paradox between ever-changing
emotion and the still pure life of soul. Both in flux and still, formless
and formative, they are ever-present reminders of universal truths, and
moment-by-moment
changes of feeling, dreams and imagination. We
may experience oceanic impulses and tsunamis of the soul, and yet the
stream of life flows into the seas and oceans continuously maintaining
its waters
via metaphorical, metaphysical and meteorological processes.
Fish: Fish cannot, symbolically or actually, be separated
from water. These colourful beings represent both the Queens
court as well as elements moving within the depths of our psyches. Related
to fertility because of their abundance of eggs, they also symbolise
the Queens fecundity. They are symbols, too, of dedication
to the life of the spirit.
Moon: A feminine symbol of reflection, the subconscious psyche,
emotions, intuitions and illusions. Universally, it represents
times rhythms embodying phases symbolising birth, growth, pregnant
fullness, withering, dying, and rebirth. Since it controls
the tides, it is a water symbol, connected to the Queens elemental
world. In astrology, it is a symbol of the soul, the inner person.
Water-filled Chalice: represents the womb in which relationships,
feelings, imagination and intuition grow into fulfilment. It
is a vessel of transmutation, in which the persona is transformed
into the Self. The five streams represent humanity. The
water provides the Queen with a mirror through which she can
skry out the secrets of the personal and collective unconscious,
of hopes and dreams.
Crown: Made of silver moon metal, linking
it to the Queens home realm. A five pointed star fish
sits on her brow representing her role in reigning over human
emotions and relationships. Crowns
represent mastery, attainment, power and royal authority.
Throne: Symbol of royal power. Its scallop shell back
hints at luck symbolism. Wandering monks and mendicants
on pilgrimage carried such shells. This, Queen moves. Her
life is a pilgrimage of the soul, of the cycles of life, of
the maiden, mother, crone.
Undines: Water spirits - the Queens handmaidens.
Stones, rocks, sea weed and shells underwater: These represent
hidden obstacles and/or things of beauty the unknown - from
free-floating anxiety to hidden treasures.
Card Meaning
Upright: The nurturing powerful mother; receptive, loving, intuitive, sensitive, compassionate, empathy, pregnancy.
Reversed: The destructive mother, self-deception, being lost in illusion, emotionally cold and insensitive.
Artistic Media
Mixed media: acrylic paints, pastel, crushed rock, stones, seed pods, shells, pot pourri, Indian silver anklet, dried star fish on canvas.
Artist's Bio
mythos (Shirley Jackson) has worked her way through many incarnations in this life. Currently she is a wannabe tarot deck creator.
Go back to the project index, read the traditional card meaning, or get a free automated reading with this deck.
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