Tarot Card Comparisons: The Thoth Tarot- 3 of Cups- Abundance & The Wild Wood Tarot- Three of Vessels- Joy

The 3 of Cups or Vessels Tarot card represents emotional abundance, joy, celebration, and sharing the wonder of life. This is a wholesome sharing experience and can represent the flowing of love and positive feeling toward three significant people in your life. Also Sharing pleasure together,  having fun with others. 

The pomegranate cups that are presented on the Thoth card represent the fruit of Persephone to whom, along with Demeter, the goddess's Mother, the card is attributed. The abundance of Spring and the flowing emotional love of the Great Nurturing Mother, as the 3rd Sephiroth, Binah-Understanding, rules this card.

The only real significant symbols of the goddess presented in the Wild Wood Tarot card is the obvious 3 cups, one white, one green and one gold, showing her many states. However, the dance of the cranes is also her symbol, as she is the "Dancing Dakini", the Divine Feminine part of the Divine Creative.

In the Thoth Deck, The 3 of Cups represents Binah (All Mother) in the suit of Water and is the the card of Demeter or Persephone. Binah is symbolized by the calm dark Sea, from which arises a  multi-bloomed single Lotus (many states of the One Goddess) that fills the Cups to overflowing. Being the Spiritual basis of fertility, this card is the fulfillment of the Will of Love in abounding joy.

Since the Pomegranate Cups of the 3 of Cups, represents the fruit Persephone ate in the realms of Pluto/Hades, thereby allowing him to hold her in the lower world even after the most powerful influence was brought to bear, so there she staid, coming to the surface of the earth once a year, bringing Spring. There is a subtle message here, that the good things in life should be enjoyed, but with a level of distrust in its permanency as everything in life is cyclic.

This sounds familiar to all of us who have experienced the Joyful pleasure of Love, for it rises and recedes, from the Inner Self who is in the inner dark of Pluto/Hades where we also store our "inner demons".  Imagination, is our Divine Creative Mind, who is the Great Sea in which collective emotions school as fish, and the currents of moon-tides (moods) carry the paradox of equal and opposite, ever uniting and transforming, creating something we've never conscious thought of. Therefore, to those who fear life, true joy is impossible, for it must be expressed fully and not held back for fear of losing it.

 The Emotional feelings of Abundance, may sound frightening to someone whose emotion basis for operation is fear. But to those of us who Know the Will and the Word, E-motion, is Energy- in- movement, and such abundance, applied with Loving Will, is the most fertile way to create and a joy to be.

Because this Cup card is a Nurturing 3, it can represent the conclusion of a happy matter; even a healing of wounds. There is a sense that it is important to enjoy the moment of rejoicing for there is hard work ahead. The 3 of Cups represents a "grace period", and in fact, the Rider-Waite-Smith deck shows three dancers [the Graces] to explain this theme.While the Wild Wood  Tarot shows 3 Dancing Cranes flying about.

Therefore the 3 of Cups, or Three of Vessels, is an all around pleasant and positive card that quickly flows into another state (the Fours) and is to be enjoyed and celebrated now rather than in the future. This is always true with "overflowing" emotion that fills the three vessels of your Psyche (Spirit, unconscious, consciousness). Just "go with the flow" as is often said, is not about following the crowd, but rather about releasing that inner creative emotion ( which flows as water) called Creative Passion and let it start"painting" new images for you. 

The Three of Cups or Vessels also reminds us that as Spirit, we are E-Motion, the first  flowing Passion of Kether, than of Chokmah (Father God) and Binah (Mother God) in communion. It all began with "I Will Be", Eheieh- in Hebrew, the meaning of Kether, and became  the "Dance of Will to Force"-Chokma and "Will to Form"-Binah and this threesome of Create Passion gave birth to "I AM ME", i.e. manifested Self (Kether being the Motion itself, makes 3).

Now you may have noticed that when you are passionately focused on what you are doing, that you experience a flow of timelessness, and often find that many hours went by so quickly that it felt like minutes to you. That is the dance and flow of Abundance. Sure, it is momentary; However, moments can be created every movement of inner expression flowing outwardly as your creative skills towards meaningful work. Meaningful work is relative to the individual, if it gives you peace it is meaningful, and is notice by that individual as the abundant flow of timeless bliss. The great momentary rewards for doing meaningful work, that is relative to the individual, leads to even greater rewards of future abundance!

Abundance is experienced by being true to yourself, and not seeking approval from some imagined authority. You, by your own inner definitions, are the author of your-self---the only real authority over you. Thus, is the "burden" or "dance"of freedom of choice. Your Divine Parents, The Divine Creative, thinks you are good enough to be the expressed and manifested Passion of Divinity. Hence, in this flow of Divine Frenzy; of passion is the knowledge of you. The thoughtless focus, where time seems to stand still, is the place of our creative inheritance; our core bliss. Those who love being themselves in whatever they do, experience the positive flow of abundance daily. Meaningful emotion, feels good and is pleasing, as Energy-in-Motion is exactly Spirit's nature.  Love is a boundless energy flow, not a thing that happens to us, but rather a flow that is the core of Us! We may have met the enemy and it is us but we have also met the Lover and it is also Us! I am the love of you----is not just a nice thought. It is your spirit expressing you!

The Three of Cups zodiacal reference is  the influence of Mercury in Cancer.  Mercury, is the Will or Word of the All Father, and here it is descending on the most receptive of Signs---Cancer.

 To reinstate: In the Thoth Tarot, the 3 of Cups: Abundance;

represents Persephone and/or Demeter. This is the Qabalistic 3rd Sephira- Binah, Great Mother Ocean, united in her suit of Water.  This is shown by the Pomegranate Cups Overflowing from the Lotus (Wombs) blooms that sprout from the single Lotus of Binah on her Great calm Sea. Here resides the Trinity of Will to Love, Maid, Mother and Crone. The Will and the Word of the 2 of Cups, is now the abounding joy of Love that only the sensual experience of Union can produce. In a hidden sense, this is the Spiritual  basis of fertility.

The lesson represented by the 3 of Cups, seems to be that the good things in life, while being enjoyed, should also be easily released. There is a catch to fulfilling Joy, and it is the shadow- opposite of fulfilling joy; empty sorrow.

This our Souls must remember:  When enjoying the Sensual Domain or "Mirror World of self- reflection"; when psychoanalytically operating a human body, which is a simulation of Self, operation comes with action/reaction, beginning and end, dark and light, hot and cold, alpha and omega etc.. Sometimes we forget and then emotionally create for ourselves  a depressive mental state because we are unable to "hold on to " yesterday's joy and have only memories of yesterday's joy, while facing today's puzzling challenge. Yet, we forget that each and every moment of time, is but a simulation of that moment's self identity, and never will it be the same at any moment. Hence, Life is but a fractal of moments.

Just remember, that Joy makes you laugh, dance, expressing emotion in great gouts of abundance and seems to fog all reason, which is good, but it is also mercifully temporary, as creation needs focus to continue evolving "self-awareness". Besides, the joy we feel is because we forgot to fear the moment, as does our daily self-conscious. This fearless approach to life, is that of the Universal Collective Unconscious, of Spirit and therefore, a moment of union with our Spirit. However, Life depends on us going back into the lower/objective world of  action/labor, so that we can arise, fertile with the next Spring of fruitful- identities. However, we can do labor without stress for it can be done joyfully as well; just remember why you are doing it (for some it just for the money so they can enjoy other moments in life). When we En-Joy being ourselves, no matter the environment, a core of joyful flame tends to warm the winter's chill of any factory job.

Subtly, the Three of Vessels card of the Wild Wood Tarot also reminds us that the good things in life are not to be trusted as stationary, rather they are temporary items., such as the dance of Cranes, whose cups also hold a limited amount of water/emotion.  Here we have the implied cycles that make joy temporary: The Spring of Maid, the Summer of Mother, and the Winter of Crone.

Therefore this cup or vessels card represents emotional or intuitive clarification; clarity about what your feelings and intuition are saying to your self-consciousness.

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