Scorpio in the Druidcraft Minor Arcana: The Five of Cups

Just for a change, let’s start our exploration of Scorpio in the tarot in the Minor Arcana.  In the astrological correspondence system that I follow, Scorpio is linked to the Five, Six and Seven of Cups. Today I’m going to look at the Five of Cups, which corresponds to the first ten days of Scorpio (this year, the 23^rd October to 2^nd November) – and to Mars in Scorpio.

Scorpio is the fixed Water sign, so we’re looking at maintaining our emotional resources, delving into the depths to get at the heart or root of what’s going on. 

Mars, the traditional ruler of Scorpio, is associated with the element of Fire.  Mars is the warrior, the Roman god of war – powerful, passionate, driven by strong desires, and very likely to take the initiative.  Mars is decisive, and needs to express himself freely – which could come into conflict with the Scorpio preference for keeping things hidden, buried away in the depths.  Mars likes to be in control but when combined with Scorpio’s energy, this is likely to manifest through an intense transformation of emotional power at a very deep level, often experienced as a loss of some kind.

So how might this play out in the Five of Cups?  We’ve come to associate this card with loss and disappointment.  Often we feel things aren’t going our way, and we experience disappointment. Mars is often linked to anger, that very strong emotion, so it could also be that we’re now forced to face the consequences of our (or someone else’s) anger. 

I think the image in the Druidcraft’s Five of Cups captures this beautifully.  

 

Five of Cups: Druidcraft Tarot
©Philip and Stephanie Carr-Gomm, Will Worthington

Here we see a figure facing away from us, looking down into the water – or is he watching the otter chase the salmon?  Three overturned cups lie on the grass beside him - the losses, the emotions that have been spilled. Behind him, unseen, two upright cups, full of possibility and potential, sit on the rock.   Juliet Sharman-Burke uses the words ‘regret’ and ‘sorrow’ for this card. So we have someone who feels deep sorrow at what’s happened (the three cups emptying), but who’s ignoring or overlooking at what still exists (the two full cups).  The decisiveness and freedom of expression that Mars would usually exert is being held back by the compulsion to look only at the loss and the emotions that accompany it – to become lost in the emotion itself perhaps?

The otter and salmon come from the story of Taliesin, representing the element of water in the shape-shifting chase of Gwion by Ceridwen. It’s a story of transformation – the theme of Scorpio.  The card warns against allowing the potentially aggressive, potentially destructive Martian energy to spill over.  That energy can be used usefully though, by transforming it – by shifting the emphasis from what’s lost to what’s still available to us. We can learn from disappointment – nothing is ever wasted. Remember that Scorpio represents cycles, endings and beginnings – and is the ultimate recycler!

Druidcraft Tarot created by Philip Carr-Gomm and Stephanie Carr-Gomm, illustrated by Will Worthington, published by Connections

Virgo in the Druidcraft Major Arcana – part 2: The Magician

Mercury has been mentioned in more than one of these explorations of Virgo in the Druidcraft, as ruler of the sign, so I thought perhaps it would be a good time to look the card associated with Mercury in the tarot – The Magician - and to see if we can see any links to Virgo in it.

Druidcraft Tarot (trimmed)

The Druidcraft’s image of The Magician is relatively traditional – he stands with one arm raised to the sky, the other one reaching downwards to the earth. The four ‘tools of the trade’ are set before him on a stone altar. The setting is different – it looks like he’s at Stonehenge at either sunrise or sunset . A black hen stands by one of the stones, a reference to the Taliesin story that forms the backbone of learning in Druidry, where Ceridwen shape shifts into a hen in the fourth stage of her pursuit of Gwion. 

This Magician looks very grounded – in touch with the Earth beneath him as well as the stones around him.  The stones and lintels symbolize the idea of a gateway to the Otherworld, from where he can bring back knowledge and healing – two things that Mercury, and hence Virgo, is linked with.

 

He wears a cloak of raven’s feathers – Mercury/Hermes, the winged messenger, has wings on his ankles – symbolising the ability, and perhaps desire, to return to the wild, to walk between worlds, to bring back ancestral memory. He uses his everyday tools – a link to practical, 6^th house everyday service of Virgo, perhaps - to do extraordinary things, linking the inner and outer worlds. As we’ve said before, Virgo is the sixth sign in the zodiac, the last to focus on the individual and our inner world; after her, the emphasis turns to the outer, public domain.  

Druidcraft Tarot created by Philip Carr-Gomm and Stephanie Carr-Gomm, illustrated by Will Worthington, published by Connections,2004  

Taurus in the Druidcraft court cards

Our final foray into Taurus in the tarot – Taurus in the court cards. Again, we have the question – which court card?  Many decks follow the Book-T system, where the fixed signs are assigned to the Kings.  This gives us the King of Pentacles – with the bull being represented quite clearly on the throne in the Universal Rider-Waite deck, for example. 

Druidcraft: Queen of Pentacles (trimmed)

Having looked through the Pentacles court cards in the Druidcraft, it seems to me that the creators have followed a different tradition, one which assigns the Queens to the fixed signs – can you see the bulls carved into her throne in this image? So here we have the Queen of Pentacles maintaining what the Kings have set in motion.

The Queen of Pentacles in this deck is very connected to the earthy reality of Taurus – her foot resting on the stone symbolizes her link to the earth.  The Druidcraft, like many other tarot decks, associates the Pentacles with winter, and with night.  In this image, the trees are bare – but clumps of snowdrops surround her throne, the first signs of the earth awakening and the promise of the spring.  Taurus, in the northern hemisphere, is one of those spring months – the one in which we start to see the blossoms appear on the trees...

Behind her, the night sky is giving way to dawn – another indication of the light returning after a long winter.

Behind her we see a hare, a symbol of fertility and of the Goddess – representing promise and fulfilment. It’s one of the first animals we look for in the spring – the boxing March hares!  In the legend of Taliesin, the hare is the first creature that Gwion shape-shifts into to escape Ceridwen, in the form of a greyhound (both animals of the Earth) – and in some parts of Britain, hare-hunting was allowed on the day of Beltane.

I like to think of this Queen of Pentacles maintaining and supporting what’s been started by the cardinal energy of Aries through the slow and steady beat of her drum, waking the earth from its winter slumber, delighting in the promise of the abundance to come.  She’s the guardian of the land, of hearth and home, of work and well-being. She will find a way to make things grow.

Druidcraft Tarot created by Philip Carr-Gomm and Stephanie Carr-Gomm, illustrated by Will Worthington, published by Connections