The Thoth Tarot-QUEEN OF CUPS:
To an Astrologer, this Queen rules from 21 degrees Gemini to 20 degrees Cancer.
To a Hermetic- Qabalist, She is Water of Water, i.e. Specific Water in the World of Primal Water which can be translated into meaning she is a specific part of the Collective Unconscious, a transmission of Intelligence we call -Imagination.
On the Thoth Queen of Cups, there is a Crayfish in her cup and she has her right hand with lotus on an Ibis.
- The Crayfish relates to the Moon and one of the characteristics of this card is that its flow changes to the influences around it. The crayfish shell in her hand, also shows that she chooses integrity over illusion.
- The Ibis is in the Egyptian tradition, a bird associated with Thoth-Hermes who has an aspect of being The Moon God.
- The lotus in her right hand is a flower sacred to Isis. These waters on which the lotus float are a means of transmission of Forces (emotions). As a court card the Thoth Queen of Cups can mean: a mature, motherly woman, with deep sexual powers and fertility that may manifest as actual motherhood or through a creative line of work. Her ability to give birth to new forms, new talents, new identities and new life is symbolized by the stork on the Thoth card.
The Queen of Cups;
represents a "womb-with-a -view", Creative Imagination, who is the expression of emotional authenticity and congruity about motherhood issues and issues surrounding maternal or female authority figures in one's life. She does not use feelings to attack nor does she feel the need to apologize for her feelings.
The double water reflection, on the Thoth Tarot Card, symbolizes "as above so below" which is the axiom of western metaphysics and simply points out that she expresses inner and outside feelings as well. Her outer self is always the accurate reflection of her inner self. This Queen, is one who reflects the image of the one who looks at her, just as does the Soul, who reflects the personality that looks into it. In her hand is the ubiquitous cup, not only symbolizing the suit of the card, but also the "wholly womb" .
The Queen of Cups is the Macrocosmic Animus (Latin for-Spirit) Womb of-time-space, that encloses all form. The Great Mother Intelligence-Understanding- and/or Sanctifying Intelligence. The Queen of Cups sits on the Thrones of the Waters; and rules the Undines and Nymphs. Her symbols are:
- The Yoni
- the Triangle
- the Cup
- She is the Supernal Mother-Binah.
The organizer and counterbalance of Chokmah. She is the requiter.
She is also the dark Sterile Mother-The Crone.
- As the Queen of Cups-She is the bright fertile Mother.
- She is the Great Sea- The Mari.
- She is the Blood: The Great Whore of Babylon.
The Principle symbol of Binah, is the Yoni, a Sanskrit word for female vagina. I know her as, "The womb with a view", indicating that she is the "all understanding" Will to Form, from which all Life emerges. This Great Womb, is known to every culture, with many names. She is the completion of the Upper Supernal Triangle, which began as a Point, in Kether, and a Line in Chokma and a Triangle in Binah.
Now before you get all Victorian, overcome by social flesh-o-phobia, and/or shudder at the sexuality of the Divine, think upon this: The Primary Female, Binah, stands at the head of the Pillar of Severity, while the Primary Male Sephira is Chokma and he stands at the head of the Pillar of Mercy. In our Patriarchal society, one would think it the other way around, for the male is said to be of a sever nature and is supposed to be the disciplinarian and the female is the merciful one. However, the Qabalistic definition of sexuality is about qualities rather than static forms of sex. The Soul is ultimately hermaphrodite. The Male quality is called because it is unrestricted, energy ejaculated outward; Electric. The Female qualities of Energy are restrictive, thus form is made out of energy-in-motion enclosed in a pattern, a type of oppression we call Magnetic. Thus a Severe limiting quality is applied when building a form.
However, some confusion may yet again form, as beneath Binah on the Pillar of Severity we find the Male God Mercury in Hod. And at the base of The Pillar of Mercy, we find the Goddess Venus in the Sephira Netzach. So the "left hand path" is not entirely feminine, nor is the "right hand path' entirely masculine.Yet there is only severity on the left hand path, this is because Time/Saturn shows no mercy. The anthropomorphism of the qualities of Intelligent Energy, binds us to Sexual figures as energy is at once expressed and then confines. By understanding the 1st Law of Thermodynamics, you may see the problem of sexing the qualities of energy.
The Law states:"There is only one Energy that cannot be created nor destroyed, only transformed (and Transmitted)." These Transmissions and Transformations, are caused by Qualities of expression-He and repression-She. I find it best to say that She is Magnetic and He is Electric. Thus, the value statements of the mundane are not involved in any misunderstanding. So the restrictive nature of Will to Form (Binah) is a discipline imposed on the ejaculation/expression of Chokma who is Will to Force . At the same time She is the Great Unconscious Sea from which all life emerges. Binah is described in the Qabalistic Mysteries of the Golden Dawn, as "The Dark Robe of Concealment", "the Great Dark Sea". Many of us know that "our dark-side" resides in the Unconscious; yet as The Queen of Cups, Binah is the Bright Fertile Mother aspect of Creation(Understanding) that gives life by restriction---the First Law of Form. However, as Crone- Law giver- she is the Dark Sterile Mother of Death as well. This duality is found in Yesod--The Moon, who reflects the "illusion" of Sunlight into Malkuth-the material plane. Mythology has given us the Bright Moon-Diana and the Dark Moon-Hecate, one is the adverse of the other.
To reiterate:
Astrologically,
the Queen of Cups is in the last Decan of Gemini and the First two Decans of Cancer.
The Queen of cups
is Specific Water (Imagination) in the Realm of Primal Water (Unconscious). Here the "Will to Form" of Binah is
"reflecting on consciousness"
.
Crowley's card shows
this reflective nature in an abstract way. Here The Queen is enthroned on still Water, her image is of purity and beauty and is robed in veils of pure light. The Truth of her is not seen by the observer, who can only see themselves in reflection.
In her ethereal hand
is a shell like cup with a crayfish climbing out of it, a symbol relating to the Moon and its reflective qualities. Truth being, one of the characteristics of this card is that like water (consciousness), the flow changes according to the influences around it.
There is also an Ibis
in abstraction shown on this card, Here, we see the influence of Thoth-Hermes . The Ibis is a traditional Egyptian symbol of this Moon God. Thus again the Male and Female influences are never separate.
Chokmah the 2nd Sephiroth on the Tree of Life, is often represented as Python, the First Husband, thus as a snake or Serpent Force, i.e. a Spiraling Force. In Mythology, the Ibis eats the eggs of the Snake, which relates to Binah's "consuming the seeds of ideas" (understanding) from Chokmah who is represented as
Wisdom.
However, in Egyptian theology, the Ibis also consumes the corpses of the dead. This may seem contradictory, but the corpses of the dead are "Conscious seeds", and/or personalities, which are recycled so that data is consumed and recycled in the Universal Unconscious. Thus, we have reference to the Great Sea of Binah (Universal Unconscious) from which life flows out, and also flows back into. Here the understanding of the Moon and the cycle of tides add to the knowledge the image conveys.
The Lotus which is shown in the art of the Thoth Tarot,
is the Eastern Rose, and is the Sacred flower related to Great Mother Isis an Egyptian form of Binah. The Western sacred goddess flower is the 5 petal Rose that is also shown on the Night Sun Tarot. Rather than through the touch of her hand, as the Queen of Wands is shown controlling the Leopard, the Queen of Cups uses the intermediary of the Lotus (Womb) to cause the Ibis to do its work. The Tranquil waters, on which the Lotus float, are the means of force transmission.
The key characteristics
associated with The Queen of cups, are dreaminess, illusion and tranquility.
As is Water the perfect agent and patient solvent, the Queen of Cups, is able to receive and transmit everything without affecting herself in so doing.
If the Queen of Cups is caused to be ill dignified by the accompanying cards in a reading, then everything is refracted and distorted, as she is directly affected by surrounding influences.
The chief pleasure of this type of Archetypal personality:
- Is to lead and attract others.
- Such a person seems not to have a great character of their own as they are reflecting those around them. Of course, to do so requires a skill in receptivity.
If ill dignified
Ill dignity is dependent on the influences which affect her.
- Often, fantasy becomes more popular in her mind than reality----making it difficult for her to deal with "real world" problems.
- She is also mainly unseen, as she reflects the feeling, emotion and image of the one examining her.
- This card is usually well defined, especially if other Cup or Wand cards are around her. She mixes well with Sun-light, and preens to male attention.
- Such a woman, if not ill dignified, would easily be receptive to a mans wants and reflect his passions, seemingly the perfect reflection of her husband.
- Her inner fantasies and dreams totally unaffected by him.
- She is the "Moon Pool" of the Oracle or Seer as she is receptive to their seeking and reflective of forms past, present and future.
- Since She is extreme in "surface reflective", most of us fail to see the depth of Her but there is more than one side of a Mirror and Her dark, depths , called the Dark Isis, should be avoided by the frivolous for only well trained initiates of Gnosis, can find their way back from such a journey!
- The Dark Night of the Soul is on the "other side of the Mirror" that reflects form and the nature of the observer....on the dark side, there is no reflection only endless reception and we lose our self-image and become the Darkness observing itself!
- If the Querent is male, he is viewing his Anima.
Personality wise
- The querent is showing issues surrounding motherhood.
- Suggesting emotional empowerment, as the querent is able to express feelings honestly, blamelessly and without judgment.
- Implies too much imagination about issues and not enough action taken to solve them.
- Emotional and Intuitive capabilities that show highly evolved interpersonal interactions and psychic abilities.
- Implies the querent is extremely empathetic and thus must watch out for moodiness and fluctuating feelings.
- Suggests that one inspires from within and could be a time of Deep inner musings, thoughts focused within where the mind is engulfed in Imagination.
- That a mature woman of deep sexual and fertility powers, where everything in her life is related to nourishment, sexual exchange, passionate giving and receiving maybe involved in the life of the querent or is the querent.
- Motherhood, or new ideas formulating for a creative line of work.
- An ethereal person of the highest ideals imagined....sometimes an unattainable high in this the physical world of constant change.
- Wisdom and virtue, Can denote a perfect spouse and a good mother.
- One is either experiencing emotional or intuitive maturity.
- Or too much imagination is focused on our life while no action is being taken by that person to acquire or solve the imagined errors.
- The Queen of cups is the emotional reflector.
- Often our emotional reaction to others, is a self-reflection.
