“Where you stumble there your treasure lies” ~ Joseph Campbell
The Five of Cups in a love reading can look like you have been unlucky in your relationships. But looking deeper, the essence of the message is that you are being given an opportunity to learn. The opportunity may be a painful one; however, this card indicates that you need to reflect on what you have learned rather than focus your losses. The goal is not to place blame but look for the root cause behind why it didn’t work. When you are able to see the incompatibilities, they become the markers for compatibilities in your future relationships. Another element to the Five of Cups is that it is also and indicator for you to see the broader perspective of love and evaluate what you currently have.
Love is all about connection and relationship to others. And this is something the Five of Cups teaches to be very clear about in learning about relationships as you move forward in them. There are three broad categories that Plato defined for love: Agape, Philia, and Eros.
Agape is the general love you have for your fellow human beings. It is the kind of love that you have for yourself and for which you have for others. This love is present in all relationships. If you or another person has experienced pain, and self-love is diminished, then your global sense of love for others will be diminished. When this love is less than optimal, activities involving charity or random acts of kindness can help fluff it back up.
Philia is a reciprocal friendship love. With this love, exchange is involved. “So long as you like me, I like you. As long as you are nice to me, I will be nice to you.” With this kind of love, you may also share a common interest. If the other person no longer shares the same interest, your relationship may become more of an Agape type of love. When couples have children together, it develops Philia between them, if they didn’t have it before.
Eros represents the desire to be as physically connected to a person as you possibly can. This is romantic love. And it is what most people refer to when they even think of the word love. The most ideal and balanced “romantic” relationship would encompass all three of these kinds of love rather than focus merely on the Eros dimension. Eros alone could really be nothing more than a one-night stand.
“It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes for unhappy marriages” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
Tannenfolletti 