Tarot in Fiction- The Queen of Cups: The Goddess of Love by Alayna Williams



The Queen of Cups: The Goddess of Love
by Alayna Williams

I use Tarot cards a good deal in my writing, to give me ideas about creating characters and develop plot points. Sometimes, I pick cards on purpose that catch my eye, but more often, I deal them out at random. I let my imagination roam over the pictures to generate situations and connections among characters.

One of my perennial favorites is the Queen of Cups. She's usually depicted as a fair-haired woman gazing contemplatively into a chalice. She's cloaked in artifacts of the sea: her garments resemble fish scales, and her throne has the shape of a shell. In the background, we can see the ocean waves. She's the ruler of water, the element of emotions. And she's lovely.

Is it any wonder that she's often associated with Aphrodite, goddess of love?

Aphrodite was born of sea foam, arriving upon the shores of Cyprus in a sea shell. Her beauty inflamed the passions of gods and men alike; though she was married Hephaestus, her affairs with Ares are legendary. Hephaestus adored her. As god of forges, he made her jewelry, girdles, and crowns...but still, she wandered. Often, she wandered into the arms of Ares, the god of war, and even bore one of his children, Eros.

She is like the sea. She can be tempestuous, cruel. One myth tells of how she jealously interfered with her son's love of the beautiful Psyche. She thwarted her son's love at every turn, jealous of Psyche's beauty..even to the extent that she sent Psyche to the Underworld.

But she can also be kind. Tender, and full of mercy. She took pity upon Pygmalion, who had never found a woman worthy of love. She whispered to him to fashion a statue of ivory, which he fell in love with. He named his statue Galatea. Aphrodite brought Galatea to life, to be a wife for Pygmalion.

Aphrodite is ruled by passion, by the storms of her emotions. And that's part of the lesson of the Queen of Cups. The Queen of Cups, read upright, can be about empathy, nurturing, and devotion. She can be the best of love and beauty, showing the compassion that Aphrodite showed Pygmalion.

Reversed, though, she can be a jealous force to be reckoned with. She can absorb the negativity of others, becoming the sea that reflects a storm in the sky. She can be capricious and meddlesome, as shown by Aphrodite's affairs and interference with her son's relationship.

The Queen of Cups, like Aphrodite, is an eternal archetype. She gives us the positive, passionate face of love...and the dark, negative side. Like love itself, she's a complicated elemental force. She's a woman to be reckoned with.


~Author Laura Bickle writes the Delphi Oracle Series as Alayna Williams.




Dark Oracle
Delphic Oracle
Book 1
Alayna Williams

TARA SHERIDAN HAS A GIFT . . . AND IT ALMOST KILLED HER.

As a criminal profiler, Tara used science and her intuitive skill at Tarot card divination to track down the dangerous and depraved, including the serial killer who left her scarred from head to toe. Since that savage attack, Tara has been a recluse. But now an ancient secret society known as Delphi’s Daughters has asked for her help in locating missing scientist Lowell Magnusson. And Tara, armed with her Tarot deck, her .38, and a stack of misgivings, agrees to try.

Tara immediately senses there is far more at stake than one man’s life. At his government lab in the New Mexico desert, Magnusson had developed groundbreaking technology with terrifying potential. Working alongside the brusque but charismatic agent Harry Li, Tara discovers that Magnusson’s daughter, Cassie, has knowledge that makes her a target too. The more Tara sees into the future, the more there is to fear. She knows she has to protect Cassie. But there may be no way to protect herself—from the enemies circling around her, or from the long-buried powers stirring to life within. 




Rogue Oracle
Delphic Oracle
Book 2
Alayna Williams

The more you know about the future, the more there may be to fear.

Tara Sheridan is the best criminal profiler around - and the most unconventional. Trained as a forensic psychologist, Tara also specializes in Tarot card reading. But she doesn't need her divination skills to realize that the new assignment from her friend and sometime lover, Agent Harry Li, is a dangerous proposition in every way.

Former Cold War operatives, all linked to a top-secret operation tracking the disposal of nuclear weapons in Russia, are disappearing. There are no bodies, and no clues to their whereabouts. Harry suspects a conspiracy to sell arms to the highest bidder. The cards - and Tara's increasingly ominous dreams - suggest something darker. Even as Tara sorts through her feelings for Harry and her fractured relationships with the mysterious order known as Delphi's Daughters, a killer is growing more ruthless by the day. And a nightmare that began decades ago in Chernobyl will reach a terrifying endgame that not even Tara could have foreseen…











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