TAROT

Strength § Three of Cups § Queen of Cups

Strength says, there is more power within you than you might think, just look over the years behind you. Strength advises us to dig for the events in our lives when we relied on our own strength to navigate a difficult experience. As you do this, consider your style of strength. Both bravery and patience are equal expressions of inner fortitude. Strength is both speaking up and biding our time. It is taking control or choosing to follow. We become an embodiment of strength when we put aside fear to step into what we must do, be it asking for a raise or confronting a family member about a serious concern. Only your personal style of expressing integrity will serve you. Strength implores us to become intimate with our own ways of standing up for ourselves and our sense of justice. Strength is a fully conscious archetype with access to the kind of wisdom that keeps a person company, and she wants all of us to come to understand what that means. Strength is in communication with the world around her at all times. She is in conversation with her own thoughts and forms of knowledge. Strength is your guide and she will remind you when to leave your ego at the door.

The Three of Cups means it’s time for casting spells of mirth and joy. Call the coven for a gathering because projects need to be planned, songs need to be sung, and dances need to be danced. This card highlights relationships between women and the processes by which decisions are made within groups. There is more to creating dynamic collective futures than our most readily available models of majority rule or consensus processes will offer us. Experiment with gifting and gossiping and excessive complimenting. Actively refuse to stagnate around fear and uncertainty. The Three of Cups means getting involved with other people in real time to tell stories, let all the feelings mingle, and hear each other’s voices. Joy is our birthright. It is the ultimate reason why. We were born to know joy and to create more of it. The Three of Cups tells us to be diligent in remembering that our birthright is joy and to pass it on and down through the coming generations.

The Queen of Cups says: There is no need to fear how you feel. Let it all wash over you like rain. The Queen of Cups teaches us to allow our emotional life to live on its own terms. We can not control our feelings, only our thoughts around those feelings and the actions that we take based on them. When we treat our feelings as if they only surface in response to something exterior to ourselves we will never gain a sense of reality, at all. Instead, we will justify the actions we take as motivated by necessity. The Queen of Cups reminds us that our emotional lives are an entire universe of their own. They belong to the realm of water and cannot be contained by our illusions of control. Only self-knowledge and a willingness to engage in a continuous conversation with our feelings allows us to make clear-headed choices. The Queen of Cups has felt every feeling there is to feel. She has loved until she cracked and she has plummeted to the deepest grief. She has known awe and tenderness and she will again—and again. May we embrace the tide.