A Four of Cups Story
This morning, the official house cat found the water bowl of the (most unofficial, as OHC considers her) half-in, half-out footloose neighborhood feline, sitting near my desk.
Ignoring the fact that his own bowl had been cleaned and refreshed just hours before, OHC showily lapped up the day-old water set out for Neighborhood Feline. Spite and dominance made it extra delicious, and surely his throat was sore from all that earlier yelling at NF, which drove her under the bed.
Nothing on the surface has changed; the Fancy Feast cans pop morning, noon, and night; the pet beds are soft and warm, laps are available and affection is generous. But OHC fails to be completely happy, simply because he doesn’t have things precisely as he thinks they should be.
What OHC does not understand is that NF had a claim on the household long before he strayed into the scene. NF practically owned the place, and there was no hiding under the bed when she was queen here. But for feline considerations unknown to me, NF ceded her position to this large, rambunctious younger cat and she has yet to regain her senses and give him the one hearty smack that would settle the matter for good.
Official House Cat’s sulking, on full display, continues.
This is how Four of Cups plays out in real time. Four is a great vibrational number, and especially good to get in the very functional Minor Arcana cards that create the architecture of our daily lives. Four is sturdy, durable, and solid. This table needs no matchbook or folded up piece of paper takeout menu stuffed under a pedestal base to make it level. Four good legs do the job.
We should be immediately reassured when any four comes up in a reading; only when it is reversed, and so unable to perform its rightful function, should we frown at it. But just look at the Four of Cups, traditionally a card of discontent. What went wrong?
Two things: four, and appetite. Four because we so often find what is steady and consistent to also be boring. Our appetites, particularly in the very fast modern world where we want refreshed content and yummy dopamine hits of fresh information, are put off by the same old thing every day.
When we get Four of Cups in a reading, know that boredom has set in somewhere. In Cups, this directs us to matters of emotional life, feelings, spirituality, and the nonphysical world.
Is the boredom justified? Ummm… is boredom ever justified? Boredom is the opposite of drama, and many days I would gladly trade fraught situations for some restful boredom.
So if boredom is the longing for drama, what is Four of Cups when it comes up in a reading or daily draw really trying to tell us? What does it say about our current appetite for histrionics or excitement?
What does it convey as far as the ability to be content without theatrics, the resources to make life interesting while not relying on the behavior of others to do it for us, and what is lacking in our emotional lives? Why would we turn away from what is offered unconditionally with our needs in mind from long familiarity, considering it unworthy compared to our fantasy of perfect gifts from a mysterious stranger?
That fourth cup, in traditional illustration, sometimes reminds me of a hand holding out an apple.
Nothing’s wrong, but nothing’s right, when you get Four of Cups in a reading. Tread carefully in this emotional climate; the situation probably doesn’t need any more sympathy, having gone too far down that road already.
What it probably needs is a good cat smack across the snout.
