divinatory meanings-- friendship, deep connections, sharing, celebration.
reversed-- difficulties between friends, loss of harmony. but sometimes independence, doing things by yourself.
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the three of cups
the most famous image for the three of cups comes from pamela colman smith's rider pack -- three women dancing together, their arms entwined, each one holding a cup, raised before them like people about to drink a toast. dave mckean gives us a similar image here, though only of hands. as a result, we cannot tell if they are male, female, or a mix. friendship and sharing are not gender-specific qualities. the hands do not entwine the way they do in the classic image. instead, they come from different directions, only to blend into each other and their environment. if we think of this symbolically, it describes people from different backgrounds, even cultures, joining and working together while keeping their individuality.
like the two and the four, the cups here have a greenish tinge. traditionally, green signifies life and growth.
if we look carefully, we can see writing in the water below the cups, and in the colors above them. the writing is distorted, watery, especially below. if writing signifies rationality, the distortion implies that emotional bonding counts more in friendship than rational judgment. however, another interpretation (or "reading") might see the writing as the communications that develop our feelings for each other and make them explicit.
© 1995 dc comics
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