Meditations on Spilled Milk: The Five of Cups

While Fours in tarot are all about stability, the Fives are focused on what happens when change and loss hit a suit. Fives are a time of crisis, of imbalance. For instance, it seems like everything is just great in cup-land, and then the five hits.

Youch.

This tarot card was insistent to be contemplated — it was in my daily draw and my husband’s on the same day. I was taught by my tarot teachers that if a card comes up repeatedly or jumps up out of the deck at you — it’s a good card to think about.

The cups are a suit focused on relationships and emotion, but in this case there’s a solitary, cloaked figure in the frame. The figure’s head is held low in a posture of grief as they look at three spilled cups at their feet. Two have spilled red liquid and one water. Across the river that rushes under a bridge, a castle is nestled against rocks and trees, jutting towards the gray sky. As the figure grieves for the spilled cups before them, two cups sit upright behind them.

There’s a lot of story here. The main story and theme of the five of cups is disappointment and regret, and Smith’s art is amazing at evoking that. The five of cups is a card that speaks to putting everything you are into something and finding out that it’s just not going to work. It’s a failure.

But there’s a lot more to this card than just disappointment. I think my favorite detail is in those two cups behind our friend there. Those two upright cups are an important piece of this card for me. Those cups indicate that in their grief, the figure is missing something. If you look at the bridge, that leads to the castle in the distance — well, it seems like there is a lot our friend is missing.

Disappointment and failure is hard, and it’s why people don’t talk about it nearly enough. Failure is an important step towards success, and understanding how to process and move on from failure is an important lesson to learn in life.

When I hurt and am frustrated from failures, I’m not always in the best mindset to take in all of the opportunities around me.

It’s not just disappointment that is being spoken to here — it’s how disappointment and failure can blind us to all of the things that are possible. We must embark on the five stages of grief — and move on.

The Tarot of the New Vision, a tarot deck that re-imagines the Rider-Waite-Smith deck from a different point of view, is exceptional at showing this aspect of the card. Here, we can see the main figure’s face — but we can also see others that are moving past the cups and on with their life. The main figure, grieving over the spilled cups, is completely missing the beautiful vista behind him, his companions’ company on the road ahead, and the two perfectly good and upright cups right there behind him. I know I’ve been there a lot.It’s easy to get lost in thought, in grief, and in our feelings. While they are important to process, it’s also an important thing to be able to recognize that it’s time to move on.

Barbara Walker’s Tarot is always exceptional at challenging me to reconsider a lot of the meanings in tarot cards — and it’s no different for the Five of Cups. Walker’s card shows two figures, their backs to each other. The man facing us is cradling their midsection, a grimace on his face. Between them are five cups — one is spilled. Behind them, the woman is facing the sea. On the wall is a star.

In Barbara Walker’s deck, the emphasis is not on loss, but on regret. Walker’s vision of this moment elevates isolation to a main theme. Here — there is even more potential, less spilled, and still there’s potent pain.

The Deviant Moon depicts that relationship angle in more detail. In this interpretation of failures within relationships, the man grieving the cups is also being berated for their loss. Near the spilled wine is a lone red rose — indications of his romantic feelings. Once again, the action takes away from the characters noticing the two cups, full of potential. Once again — the sea rolls in the background of the card, reminding us that the cups are the suit of water.

While fives are low points in the tarot cycles and can represent change, instability, and difficulties, fives can also be helpful guides — after all we have five senses. In this case, the Five of Cups emphasizes that there are paths to move on towards what we are seeking, if we can manage to see past our own feelings of loss.