A Cup of Tears

I have a funny old relationship with the Ace of Cups. For many, it is a card of new beginnings and love, which is an interpretation I sometimes bring into my readings. But more often than not, the card symbolises a surge of emotion in me. Be that happiness, sadness, tears, or rage. I am never entirely sure which way the card will tip when it turns up in a draw. It's a little bit like that old question 'Are you a happy or miserable drunk?'. The Ace of Cups can provoke emotion via both ends of the spectrum. Once you have begun to drink from it, you could be rolling around the floor in laughter. But equally, it might move you to tears.

I haven't cried in a while. At least, I don't think I have. But I have come pretty close to it a few times this week. This morning, I shed a few tears over a film that someone posted on the internet. A friend of mine is ill at the moment, and I think that she is the real reason behind my upset.

I had wanted to write about my friend here before, but didn't know how appropriate it would be. Since this is a blog about my life, I try to keep the details of other people's lives as minimal as I can. But sometimes, like now, I feel a need to write something. I met this woman quite a few years ago at a party. I had drunk too much and the party was having trouble containing me. She and I had struck up conversation in the kitchen and had fallen upon the subject of tarot. We eventually left the rest of the guests and spent an hour or so in a room by ourselves. I read her cards and we talked about all different stuff. I saw her at some other gatherings after that and I read for her again professionally. Before I pulled the plug on my personal Facebook page, we had communicated through email there. This was all before I found out that she had become ill.

It had seemed that everything was beginning to go right for her. Just under a year ago, she and her husband had moved to a new home to start afresh with their new baby girl. It was only then that she found out that she has cancer. To cut a long story short, there has been little that the doctors can do for her since then, and she has been told that she may not make either her daughters first birthday in January or even this Christmas. Every time I hear news of how things are going, it is like a punch in the stomach. She is such a kind, beautiful, and talented woman, and I find it absolutely heartbreaking that all of this is happening.

This is where the Ace of Cups flows over abundantly. It's contents crash to the ground like tears. I want to do something to let her know that I care, but I don't know what I can do. I did write to her some months back, but what with the time she has spent in a hospice and the fact that she is heavily sedated, it is not surprising that I have not received a reply. She lives too far away for me to visit. From what our mutual friend has said, I don't think a telephone call would be an option either, so I guess that my love in a Christmas card might be the only way to go. A friend of mine died last Christmas. And another one died a year or so before him. Like this mate, they were in their 30s too. I really didn't expect to start losing friends to death at this age.

Today has been a simple day at home. I slept in for a while and awoke from a very vivid dream. It seemed to go on for ages. After coming out of a tube station, I had witnessed crowds of people watching video screens that had been erected around the city of London. On them were clips of Madonna in her various guises. It soon became obvious that the clips were from a live news flash, and at first, I thought she had died. But after asking someone in the crowd what had happened, I was told that she had shot her husband and had been arrested for murder. I know that Guy Richie is an annoying, cocky little mockney, but even I think shooting him is a little extreme.

It's funny how dreams can take over your day. They totally absorb me, long after I have awoken from them. Sometimes, the weirdest components of a dream can feel so real or intimate. Until I met my boyfriend, I had never seen an episode of the X-Factor, so I didn't know who any of the previous contestants were. However, the night before last, I dreamt that I had been serenaded by Joe McElderry. It's interesting how someone who we know little to nothing about and have seen on television only once or twice can slip through the dream net and stir our thoughts and feelings. With today's cup of water, emotion and dreams are easily whipped up, I guess.

I have things planned for my weekend, but my boyfriend and I intend to keep it relatively quiet. My friend is going to her work 'do' tonight, so we are going up to hers to babysit her two children. They are lovely well-behaved kids, so it should be fine. Tomorrow, we are Christmas shopping. I went out for a couple of pints with my friend, Sarah, yesterday evening, and my boyfriend went for a night out with his friends in London, so neither of us really need any more of that. By the time we have done our Christmas shopping, I doubt I will have the money to afford anything else anyway.

Illustration from The Tarot of the Vampyres by Ian Daniels