The Overturned Cups: Half Full or Half Empty?
AUTHOR’S NOTE: There is a wonderful metaphor that speaks directly to our attitude about life’s occasional downturns and hints at whether we are naturally optimistic or pessimistic in our outlook: “Is the glass half full or half empty?” As a lifelong skeptic, my first thought when confronted with this conundrum is “What’s in the glass?” before I decide how to react to its status. But I’m not here to talk about me (this time, anyway), I want to discuss the reversed suit of Cups and a few other cards that partake of the element of Water or its esoteric equivalent, Spirit. (All images are from the Thoth Tarot, copyrighted by U.S. Games Systems, Inc, Stamford, CT.)
I’ve written previously about the phenomenon of reversal as implying an “unloading” of a card’s energy rather than merely obstructing or diverting its flow, and specifically about the RWS 4 of Cups in this regard. (See the link below.) But now I want to address the Cups as a whole. There are a couple of cards in the Waite-Smith deck that beg this question even when upright. The 5 of Cups is the best example because three of the five chalices have already been spilled, making for a “mostly empty” scenario. The 8 of Cups is another, but in that case the liquid in the cups has already disappointed the departing man, who has lost all interest in their state of fullness, while in the 7 of Cups we may wish that some of them were empty. In those instances, embracing reversal may complete our dissociation from an unpleasant experience.
But my objective here is best fulfilled by the Cups of the Thoth deck. Many of them are overflowing with water and one or two are positively “gushing;” on the other hand, one is completely dry, reflecting its arid emotional state, one is entirely self-absorbed with not a drop to spare, and two are barely oozing. While turning them upside-down might be seen as shutting off the spigot and conserving the contents “for good or ill,” I prefer to see this event as accelerating the outflow similar to dumping over a barrel rather than waiting for it to drain. A picture will illustrate this better than any number of words. (Before anyone asks, unlike many esoteric readers, I use reversal with the Thoth deck because I believe it serves a different purpose than the application of Elemental Dignities.)
The first four cards exhibit a surplus of liquid that achieves its most extravagant abundance in the Four, but also appears to be “returning to the source” in an endless, self-renewing cycle reminiscent of a public fountain. This strikes me as “the gift that keeps on giving,” and I would be inclined to see the upended chalices as more than “half full” at all times. The energy here is still relatively pure, so even a drop goes a long way.
The 5 of Cups depicts a total withdrawal of that enthusiastic cascade; nothing is moving except the petals falling (or floating up) from the dreary lotus blossoms. This is the most “empty” of all the Thoth Cups.
The 6 of Cups is turned inward, letting none of its self-satisfaction escape. From a conservation of energy standpoint, this is the “fullest” of the Thoth Cups. In the “half full/half empty” paradigm I envision it as a “thing apart,” perfect in its symmetrical wholeness and not at all compromised by reversal.
The 7 and 8 of Cups display the “oozing” that suggests the outcome of trying to squeeze “blood from a stone” (that is, the 6 of Cups). Crowley made much of the alchemical implications here: the 7 of Cups portrays the “corruption” and the 8 of Cups the “putrefaction” that are both essential for ultimate “purification and sublimation” of the Alchemist’s consciousness. Here we’re scraping the bottom of the emotional barrel so, until the feat of transmutation is accomplished, any glass more than half full of such stagnant swill would be a truly dismal prospect. In other words, we should strive to empty it with great vigor and as much self-mastery as we can muster.
The 9 and 10 of Cups display a refinement of the now-diminished energy, and return its momentum to a steady if restrained rate of flow. Some of the lethargic taint remains, but a verdict of “half full” would seem to be justified.
The reversed cards of the Cups court require little deliberation. The zestful, expressive Knight and Prince fall firmly into the “half full” bin due to their emphasis on renewal (“Another round, boys?”), while the impassive Queen straddles the line, maintaining a flawless “half full/half empty” equilibrium that keeps the level “just right,” neither sloshing over nor getting down to the dregs, and the compassionate, eager-to-please Princess gives away more than she retains, so “half empty” seems reasonable if one is interested in “saving a little for later.”
The cards of the Major Arcana that come under this “water-management” model are an interesting bunch. These are not all of the “watery” trumps but they are the ones that best exemplify the premise I’m chasing here, while the non-Water trumps have a definite “fluidity” about them. I intentionally left out the Chariot (Cancer), Death (Scorpio) and the Priestess (Moon) because they don’t quite take me where I wanted to go with this (respectively, they are more decisive, reductive and retentive by nature).
While the reversed Hanged Man might be considered the epitome of “half empty,” we need to take a closer look. When inverted, the figure is rising head-first to the surface and returning to the light with the wisdom he has acquired in the depths. There is hidden symbolism in this image that only a few occult tarot books mention: the crossed legs of the rising man form the astrological glyph of Jupiter, the “Greater Benefic” and a planet of buoyant, expansive energy, suggesting that the glass in this case is on “auto-fill” and will never recede to the halfway mark. I welcome this card when it shows up reversed in a reading.
Temperance (Thoth’s “Art”), although it is a card of elemental Fire, shows the mingling of mystical ingredients that in the RWS deck I characterize as the “Water of Spirit.” Its action resembles that of the Queen of Cups, so it never strays into either “half full” or “half empty” territory on its own but requires only a little finesse to nudge its even-handed influence across the line on an uptick. On balance, I’m going to say “half full.”
The Star is technically an Air card, but its astrological sign Aquarius is called the “Water-bearer” and the woman in the image is indeed dispensing water. She is a bottomless well of inspiration that is perpetually full of universal hope and joy. Reversal does nothing to reduce that munificence but might make it less readily attainable. However, in that “there’s always more where that came from,” I would still place it in the “glass half full” category.
When the Thoth Moon is reversed, the inverted chalice formed by the two towers offers a convenient channel by which the scarab can re-enter the night; the descending solar disk suggests the setting Sun and symbolizes “draining the glass” at the end of the day. There is little cause for celebration here.
The goal of this exercise has been to examine whether we should feel marginally optimistic or pessimistic, and to what degree, when we encounter one of the cards described above in a reversed condition. Speaking for myself, I believe it has clarified a few points for my own practice.
Originally published at http://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com on December 17, 2022.
