tarot card meanings · minor arcana · cups

five of cups tarot card, original ink-line art

five of cups — tarot card meaning

Three spilt, two standing; grief that faces the wrong way.

reversed

Turning toward the standing cups; mourning completed.

two philosophical anchors, cited

What grief adds · Seneca, Letters 63 (tr. Gummere)

“Let not the eyes be dry when we have lost a friend, nor let them overflow.”

Sorrow from clinging · Dhammapada, v.213 (tr. Mueller)

“From affection comes grief, from affection comes fear; he who is free from affection knows neither grief nor fear.”

the question we would ask

If you turned around, what would the two remaining cups ask of you?

how a reading is composed — and why it ends with a question, not a prediction.