nisaba
From the Granny-blog:
~~~~~~
Today I'm having a day at home, by myself, enjoying all the good things in my life: comfortable furniture, a friendly pet - so it was little surprise that I pulled this card. The Ten Cups, seen by many people to be the expression of emotional comfort and enjoyment, is just a beautiful image in most decks, and Granny's deck is no exception. A down-to-earth person, Granny Jones designed a down-to-earth image to express this pinnacle of happiness.
Dressed in her shawl of spiritual purple and her pilgrim's hat, she is seated on a purple lounge in front of a roaring fire, enjoying its warmth and the ever-changing images conjured up by the flickering of its flames. Grandpa Jones, whom we will meet again in The Lovers and the Emperor, sits with her, his farmer's hat on his head, which is lovingly tilted towards her, keeping her safe in the curve of his arm. The border-collie which seems to be his symbol, or at least a symbol of the masculine principle, is in a mated pair also: one asleep blissfully behind them, another happy and ready to play. The orange tabby cat who walks alone as an observer through this deck sits on the floor beside Granny watching the fire closely, and two of her beloved Siamese are warming themselves on a mantle above the fireplace. On either side of the fire are a row of hanging Cups: five per side, ten in all.
There is nothing else in the scene. After all, how much more do you need in life? A sense of belonging: warmth, comfort, the love of those whom you love just as deeply as they love you, and enough freedom from anxiety to have the time to watch the hypnotic, ever-changing flames in the fireplace. A bushfire is terrifying: a tame, controlled fire is fascinating. Mankind and his precursors have gathered around firepits for hundreds of thousands of years, have cooked their food, warmed their bodies, told their stories, gathered together in tiny or larger communities of loving individuals. Fire is primordial and essential to the human being - fire brings us together. We are most deeply human when we meet by fire.
And watching fire (real fire, not "artificial logs" or gas-fires) is endlessly fascinating: whilst I don't have a fireplace I have three friends who do, and I love nothing better than visiting any of them on a cold evening and simply sitting with them watching the fire as it burns. It is much more interesting, and much more soothing to the human spirit than watching TV - and in fact I have a suspicion that most people are so addicted to TV or DVDs because the flickering of the screen is a dim reminder of the primordial meaning of the flickering of fire, and just draws humans in. And while non-human animals have a built-in terror of fire, whose who have chosen to walk alongside humankind on the long evolutionary journey - dogs and cats - have learnt to put aside their fear of wildfire, and draw closer to the nurturing warmth of the hearth.
So how does this reconcile to a "Water" card? Quite easily. Fire is fluid and it flows. Fire is what creates soup out of scraps of food and Water: soup, and coffee, and tea, and hot milk and other self-nurturing, Watery things are all warmed by Fire in its many manifestations (currently in my house they manifest via an electric jug and an electric stovetop). When you want to tell your friend how great (or lousy) you feel, you go out for a coffee: Fire and Water. When you wish to show caring to a sick friend, you make them soup - Fire and Water.
This card is essentially about the heart: about fullness-of-heart, about small, intimate communities (mother-and-children, or woman-and-husband-and-pets), the communities that make us feel most cared-for and most nurtured. When this card shows up, we know we no longer have to pine for that sense of belonging and of loving and beiong loved: it is right there, even if we can't really recognise it in the chaotic surfaces of our lives. Deep under those surfaces, if we allow ourselves to ignore them, we will find that the well of our hearts are filled with ten cupfuls of the warmest, deepest, most liquid of loves, even if it is just love-of-self or a spiritual love. This card doesn't have to promise marriage and babies: I just pulled it as a single - but very happy - woman who has no children at home.
Do you miss feeling loved? Do you have access to an outdoor firepit or an indoor fireplace? On the cold winter nights that are closing around us now, why not light yourself a fire (or if you don't have the ability, a number of candles), and just sit in your most comfortable chair wrapped up in something warm, watching the flames? Pretty soon, you'll start to notice how nothing you've been worrying about is really worth all that angst, and that true, deep happiness is always possible no matter what concerns you have out there in the world.
And that is the gift that the Ten Cups offers us every time we pull it.
~~~~~~
Today I'm having a day at home, by myself, enjoying all the good things in my life: comfortable furniture, a friendly pet - so it was little surprise that I pulled this card. The Ten Cups, seen by many people to be the expression of emotional comfort and enjoyment, is just a beautiful image in most decks, and Granny's deck is no exception. A down-to-earth person, Granny Jones designed a down-to-earth image to express this pinnacle of happiness.
Dressed in her shawl of spiritual purple and her pilgrim's hat, she is seated on a purple lounge in front of a roaring fire, enjoying its warmth and the ever-changing images conjured up by the flickering of its flames. Grandpa Jones, whom we will meet again in The Lovers and the Emperor, sits with her, his farmer's hat on his head, which is lovingly tilted towards her, keeping her safe in the curve of his arm. The border-collie which seems to be his symbol, or at least a symbol of the masculine principle, is in a mated pair also: one asleep blissfully behind them, another happy and ready to play. The orange tabby cat who walks alone as an observer through this deck sits on the floor beside Granny watching the fire closely, and two of her beloved Siamese are warming themselves on a mantle above the fireplace. On either side of the fire are a row of hanging Cups: five per side, ten in all.
There is nothing else in the scene. After all, how much more do you need in life? A sense of belonging: warmth, comfort, the love of those whom you love just as deeply as they love you, and enough freedom from anxiety to have the time to watch the hypnotic, ever-changing flames in the fireplace. A bushfire is terrifying: a tame, controlled fire is fascinating. Mankind and his precursors have gathered around firepits for hundreds of thousands of years, have cooked their food, warmed their bodies, told their stories, gathered together in tiny or larger communities of loving individuals. Fire is primordial and essential to the human being - fire brings us together. We are most deeply human when we meet by fire.
And watching fire (real fire, not "artificial logs" or gas-fires) is endlessly fascinating: whilst I don't have a fireplace I have three friends who do, and I love nothing better than visiting any of them on a cold evening and simply sitting with them watching the fire as it burns. It is much more interesting, and much more soothing to the human spirit than watching TV - and in fact I have a suspicion that most people are so addicted to TV or DVDs because the flickering of the screen is a dim reminder of the primordial meaning of the flickering of fire, and just draws humans in. And while non-human animals have a built-in terror of fire, whose who have chosen to walk alongside humankind on the long evolutionary journey - dogs and cats - have learnt to put aside their fear of wildfire, and draw closer to the nurturing warmth of the hearth.
So how does this reconcile to a "Water" card? Quite easily. Fire is fluid and it flows. Fire is what creates soup out of scraps of food and Water: soup, and coffee, and tea, and hot milk and other self-nurturing, Watery things are all warmed by Fire in its many manifestations (currently in my house they manifest via an electric jug and an electric stovetop). When you want to tell your friend how great (or lousy) you feel, you go out for a coffee: Fire and Water. When you wish to show caring to a sick friend, you make them soup - Fire and Water.
This card is essentially about the heart: about fullness-of-heart, about small, intimate communities (mother-and-children, or woman-and-husband-and-pets), the communities that make us feel most cared-for and most nurtured. When this card shows up, we know we no longer have to pine for that sense of belonging and of loving and beiong loved: it is right there, even if we can't really recognise it in the chaotic surfaces of our lives. Deep under those surfaces, if we allow ourselves to ignore them, we will find that the well of our hearts are filled with ten cupfuls of the warmest, deepest, most liquid of loves, even if it is just love-of-self or a spiritual love. This card doesn't have to promise marriage and babies: I just pulled it as a single - but very happy - woman who has no children at home.
Do you miss feeling loved? Do you have access to an outdoor firepit or an indoor fireplace? On the cold winter nights that are closing around us now, why not light yourself a fire (or if you don't have the ability, a number of candles), and just sit in your most comfortable chair wrapped up in something warm, watching the flames? Pretty soon, you'll start to notice how nothing you've been worrying about is really worth all that angst, and that true, deep happiness is always possible no matter what concerns you have out there in the world.
And that is the gift that the Ten Cups offers us every time we pull it.
