Ten of Cups

Identity

Symbols

• Ten-Cup RainbowA full cycle of emotional water turned to light — not new feeling, but the crystallization of what already is.+

  Waite calls it "the prodigy." Genesis 9:13 makes the bow "a token of a covenant," and Waite wished the old Lovers card of "conjugal faith" had carried that sign instead of Cupid; here it arches over a married pair.

• Family Beneath the RainbowCompletion is not on the summit — it lies between the few people standing close enough to touch.+

  Waite sets the gestures down precisely: "His right arm is about her; his left is raised upward; she raises her right arm." One arm holds, two lift, so the pair greets the sign almost as a single body with two raised hands.

• Children DancingThe next generation's right to use stability as backdrop, not destination.+

  Waite is explicit that the two "have not observed the prodigy but are happy after their own manner." The adults look up at the sky; the children keep their eyes at their own height, so the picture holds two joys at two levels.

• Distant RiverbankThe water once pursued in youth — still there, no longer in need of reaching.+

  In the Golden Dawn system the Ten sits in Malkuth, the Kingdom at the foot of the Tree, where Book T glosses the card "matters definitely arranged as wished." Fittingly, the suit's water lies on the ground here, a river running through open land below the cups.

• The House on the HillA small house among trees on a distant hill: the home stands far off, while the family stands in the open.+

  Waite gives it one clause, "There is a home-scene beyond," and his meanings for the card close on a place: "the town, village or country" one lives in. The house is that place, yet the picture keeps everyone outside it.

Story

The upper half of the card belongs to the sky, and the eye meets the arc of cups before it finds anyone below. Then it drops to the meadow in front: a man and a woman seen from behind, each with an arm lifted toward the sky, and beside them two children in mid-dance who pay the sky no attention. Behind them the land opens wide toward a small house on a far hill among trees, so distant it seems to wait rather than enclose. Two tempos share the ground, the adults' still wonder and the children's quick play, under one broad daylight; no one here is indoors.

Correspondences

Elemental Dignity

Shadow

Related Cards

Ten of Pentacles

Nine of Cups

The World