Playing Cards and Decans: Cancer II — The Three of Hearts
See the master post on my 2024 decan walk and playing cards
Three of Hearts
Cancer II is the decan of Cancer 10° to 19° (inclusive). Astrologically, it is ruled by Mercury, in a sign ruled by the Moon.
The traditional English method divinatory meanings for this card are:
- A kiss.
- Poverty, shame and sorrow, caused by imprudence. A card of caution.
- shows that your own imprudence will greatly contribute to your experiencing the ill will of others.
- Sorrow caused by your own indiscretion.
- Sorrow caused by a person’s own imprudence.
Reflection
We start with a kiss. Moving from Cancer I to Cancer II changes Venus to Mercury, and we begin to flitter back and forth, with the querent in some way causing their own sorrows through ‘imprudence’. The indication of a kiss in the first source here gets right to the point: this is potentially a card of the querent (not the querent’s partner!) being unfaithful in a monogamous situation. This may be metaphorical, in the case of questions about business or other situations, but the pleasure is transmuted by cerebral Mercury into sorrows.
Agrippa’s image remains optimistic, with some rather nice concrete magical purposes for this decan:
in the second face ascendeth a man cloathed in comely apparrel, or a man and woman sitting at the table and playing; it bestoweth riches, mirth, gladness, and the love of women
This is a binaristic reversal of Cancer I, which featured a woman and was good for ‘the love of men’, although one of the options for the image being both a man and a woman begins to slide Mercury back into the picture. The Rider-Waite card displays this forthright:
Three of Cups
A card of celebration, and generally a very positive card to draw in Tarot, this is also a card of three people. If they are all agreeing and happy to be there, fantastic. If not, then problems will arise — to say the least.
One way to work with the movements of this card is to resolve it in a Mercurial fashion: communication with the other people in the situatoin.
Peace,
⭕