As the Fool continues his journey through the Realm of Cups, he meets a couple who seem to be very much in love.
“I am Eros, the god of love,” the man tells him, “It is my power that creates the world. Even I am not immune to it, for this is my own love, Psyche. Because Psyche was human, my mother Aphrodite forbade our marriage, and so I refused to shoot my arrows of love into the world, which meant that no one — man or beast — could fall in love, marry or mate. The earth grew old and cold and began to die.”
“I had to prove myself to Aphrodite,” Psyche says. “She set me a series of frightening and seemingly impossible tasks, but even the smallest creatures of nature helped me, for when love is true and pure we become more than human and our souls can fly to the heavens.”
“Thus we proved our love. Aphrodite relented and gave us permission to be together,” Eros says. “I quickly restored the world to how it should be, shooting arrows of love everywhere as fast as I could. People fell in love, animals mated and the Earth was restored. This is the power of love. Without it, nothing exists. Love (Eros) and the soul (Psyche) must exist in union.”
This is one of the easiest cards to read. Love, and the impulse to seek union with another, is the most powerful force in the world. When two people come together in love, they can achieve something in their lives far beyond what either alone is capable of. This may be a supportive friendship, partnerships based on mutual understanding, a new and loving romance, a marriage, the reconciliation of quarrels, working productively with others, or even two ideas or groups that come together to create something greater than the sum of their parts.
In the face of suffering and despair we can easily give way to anger and bitterness and wallow in a black hole of helpless despair. Spiritual teachings tell us that the answer to pain and difficulty is love and compassion. That anger and bitterness only increase suffering, in ourselves and throughout the world. We must find love and compassion not just for the people we know, but must widen the circle of compassion to encompass every being – the two-legged people, the four legged people, the winged people, the swimming people, the crawling people, the rock people and the rooted people, to perform acts and rituals of healing for all beings – and to widen this circle by teaching others to do the same.
© Anna Franklin, Pagan Ways Tarot, Schiffer 2015
