Card of the Day: Daughter of Cups

The Daughters (or Pages; any gender) are the young ones of the court. They are messengers, risk-takers and students of the energies in their suit. In this case, the Cups—emotions, relationships, creativity, the unconscious, dreams, visions and intuition.

I’ve been thinking a lot about imagination and fantasy, the realm that this Daughter swims in and explores. From what I can gather, the distinction lies in whether the mind’s creations bear any resemblance to reality and action in the real world (imagination), or whether they are unmoored from that realm (fantasy). Both have their power and uses.

We get into trouble when we don’t recognize our fantasies as fantasies. We think we know what’s going on in other people’s minds. Or, we don’t know what’s going on in our own minds. We create worlds and stories whose only function is to keep us out of our bodies, out of reality and troublesome feelings.

On the positive side, tuning into fantasy can give us information about our desires, what we’re truly longing for. This can have tremendous power for taking action that aligns with what’s most important. Fantasy can also activate our imagination—the wellspring of our creativity and intuition.

I haven’t been doing art practice lately, and it doesn’t feel good. My materials sit in towering stacks—practically within reach. In one way, I know that art practice is 80% butt-glue: just show up and do it. No big deal. In another way, I feel like I’m gestating or incubating something. Something is percolating. I can’t tell which is the true one yet, if I’m trying to put a positive spin on dogging it, or if there’s really something nascent, about to emerge. I’ll keep you posted.