The 8 of Cups reminds me of that song by the Eurythmics, Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This),
I travel the world and the seven seas
Eurythmics, Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)
Everybody’s looking for something
Hold your head up, keep your head up, movin’ on
Hold your head up, movin’ on, keep your head up, movin’ on
Today both my former students and I are moving on. One is heading to Fiji, another to Okinawa; one to Hawaii, and so on, so there is an “empty space” in my heart, just as there is between the second and third cup on the top row in depiction of the 8 of Cups.
However, like (9) The Hermit we cloak ourselves and move away, but unlike his, our cloak is red as we accept our emotional vulnerability and with our staff to help us persist in moving forward along the rivers of waters, hemmed in on the other side by a cliff and walking in the subdued light a solar eclipse.
That is to say that to live well is in part to love well and to accept that to love well is to be vulnerable and also to enter into a radical freedom in which we seek not to possess but to flow with the water of life along the channel that accords with our purpose.
I say “we” and “our” and speak of “purpose” as if suggesting that our collective Saturnine egos are or should be in control, but,
Ego does not take the initiative except to prepare itself to receive the spirit. In this sense the constellation of lunar consciousness might temper the tyranny of the usual Saturnian ego, which always wants to build and rule. One of the two feminine planets, Luna offers a necessary complement to ego’s potentially useful but easily destructive Saturnian tendencies. Open to the influence of Luna, the ego would by nature receive energy and direction from the depths instead of the surface, and those depths would be varied, for Luna channels the spirits of all the planets through her zone.
Thomas Moore, The Planets Within, p.161
In the 8 of Cups, the “planet” that is being channelled through Luna is Sol.
Yesterday was the third night of the new moon and today the first crescent of the waxing moon may be seen. That is, today we begin to emerge from the process of lunar kenosis, of psychic self-emptying:
In lunar consciousness personal life is emptied as well as filled, a round that has as much darkness as light. Luna would empty us of those purposes and plans, as well as the interpretations and explanations, that keep life busy on the surface with no guarantee that there is movement within. Emptying naturally does not feel as good as filling up; it seems uncreative and unproductive; nevertheless, the cycle of the psyche’s moon requires an acknowledgment of decay and death.
ibid, p. 162
The moon in the 8 of Cups is eclipsing Sol and at the same time absorbing his influence. Our own moon right now is waxing and will reflect back to us more and more of the light of the sun as the vernal equinox approaches.
As Apollonian light returns it brings with it a renewed intellectual as well as physical vigour kept supple and moist by the waxing moon. And as our pilgrim traverses his path the landscape may well open up for him to view new vistas of opportunity.
Certainly in my case, I anticipate the arrival of new students and the return of last year’s first years, as well as new contracts and progress with my online projects too.
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