Four of Cups: Notice the Cloud
Why do we stop cloud-watching when we reach a certain age? We become so self-involved, don’t we? Like the figure in the Four of Cups, we sulk, perhaps believing that all enchantment and playfulness belongs to the supposed ‘carefree’ days of childhood (as if peace is the domain of the young).
Four of Cups from the Tarot of Marseille-Waite by Emmanuelle Iger/Alice Laverty.
The Four of Cups figure in many of the Waite-Smith-type decks looks seriously frustrated, bored. Arms folded, they inhabit a beautiful landscape upon a hillock; the tree that they lean against is in full bloom against a clear sky backdrop. But they wear an angry vibe, there is rage. There is an invitation here to turn things around. That invitation is to look at the opportunities that the cloud holds – and that is my invitation to you.
Next time you feel like this person in the card, catching yourself folding your arms like that, spitting the dummy, do what they refuse to do. Look at the cloud. Give the sky all of your focus for several minutes, allowing thoughts to come and go, allowing distraction, and just coming back to the simplicity of what you see and feel in response. It’s not easy, but it’s simple, and we have lost the art of simplicity.
Three cups stand perfectly upright before the figure in the card. All is well here. If they look up from their self-imposed misery, they will notice that the heavenly cloud from the Ace of Cups holds out its miraculous offering. Sometimes, the offering may be quite literal – the cloud itself, what is above us, the floating water particles above your head. Water that makes up the clouds does so with unique shapes and movements that will never be repeated. The clouds announce the uniqueness of this moment that you will never have an opportunity to relive. These particles will never take shape in this way again, in this place, acting as they do against this very particular force of the air. Perhaps the clouds make wispy shapes of animals or boats; whatever your unconscious mind projects onto cloud shapes is a fascinating game connecting your inner world with the most far-off thing you can see in your outer world.
‘But the sky is grey! It’s raining! I hate it’, I hear you call from your misery. ‘…And now it’s been snowing for weeks!’ But that sheet of grey covering the blue of the atmosphere is not forever. And besides, have you ever spent time just standing in the rain or the snow, not judging it as good or as bad, simply allowing water to fall from the sky onto your skin? Noticing how it feels against your skin, meditating on the gift of it? Try it once in a while, just for a little while. This wet stuff is miraculous, and if you are lucky enough to live in a place where it is abundant (without causing floods!) then spare a thought for people experiencing droughts. Take the time to look up and reflect on this life-giving liquid that is floating inside the body. The water inside your body will soon find its way up there, floating in a cloud; perhaps a child will look up and identify an animal or a boat shape in the water that once escaped with your urine. One day it will fall as snow or rain or hail, down onto an umbrella or an animal in need of a drink. I happen to think that’s beautiful.
Four of Cups from the Old Fellow/Keishobou Tarot by Gaichi Muramatsu/Anna Krømcke
When I find myself grumping my way through the day, it is these moments with Nature that turn things around for me. When I become that whiney, grumpy person in this card, folding their arms when something so beautiful is on offer, sometimes all I need to do is to look at the clouds. Sometimes that’s enough. The gift is inside the cloud, just like it is in the card.
To watch the clouds, and to identify with the clouds, is to find peace. To be with the drifting of a cloud as it passes over the Moon like soft silk is a pleasure we must gift ourselves more often. If you are wise enough to give yourself enough time to be ‘bored’ in this world that wants your constant attention, then look up. The offering, like the one in the Waite-Smith Four of Cups, is pure gold.
That’s all for now, friends. Thank you for being here – and please check out my Therapeutic Tarot Sessions and my courses embracing Tarot and Nature if you’d like us to work together. You can also sign up for the Tarot Blog newsletter (different to my main newsletter) below to receive occasional email updates (roughly monthly) with the latest posts.
Smiles from Scotland,
Stephen
