Card of the Day: Three of Vessels (Cups)

Also known as the Three of Cups, this is one of my favorite cards. When the internal water of our deep feelings makes contact with like-minded others, big magic can happen. Our “chosen family” are the people we trust with our tenderness, with whom we can say things out loud that we’ve never said before and come to know ourselves better, that we feel safe enough to take risks with, complexifying our sense of who we are. I want to feel loved and safe and seen, and I also want to grow and learn and surprise myself.

Good friends can hold my messiness and also push back and challenge me. They are catalysts for my connection to the erotic, or aliveness. I was talking to a friend yesterday about how busy my schedule feels and how I don’t have enough “alone time,” and yet, I need to process my deepest feelings in relationship. I often don’t know what I’m feeling until I’m in conversation with someone I trust, saying things out loud and letting the articulation stir my insides. Oh, I’m sad. I didn’t know! Or: I’m not actually anxious; I’m excited.

I’ve also been musing about what forms the basis of friendship. Are we connected through exploration, creativity, shared feelings and joy? Or are we connected through crisis, complaining, gossip, and dissatisfaction? Do my friendships reinforce and help me grow through my integrity and intentions? Or do they reinforce unhelpful habits and codependency? Can we surprise each other? Or are we relating through old scripts?

These don’t feel like idle, abstract questions to me. I wake up each day wondering if today will be the day that everything changes, that life becomes about negotiating a climate disaster, or just an ordinary tragedy of being alive in a human body. What keeps me feeling grounded and strong is knowing that when the inevitable happens, I will not be alone. In the meantime, feeding at the table of reciprocal nourishment, love, and inspiration makes for a good life.