Barbara Walker Tarot - Eight of Cups: Loss

The Goat God weeps for his lost rites. The Willow-maid yearns to comfort him. Helice the Willow, virgin form of Hecate, once joined the Horned God Pan on Mount Helicon, home of the Muses. Their cult was declared devilish and was suppressed, but nineteenth-century romantic poets continued to regret the passing of their Arcadian nature worship. Pan’s eight spilling cups speak of loss, sadness, melancholy, rejection of Nature’s gifts, desertion of old loyalties, regret at parting from something that was beautiful.