The 78 Cards
Ace of Cups
Minor Arcana, the suit of Cups, the Ace. Element: water.
Love pouring in. A new beginning in the heart.
The picture
A hand reaches out of a cloud holding a golden cup. A white dove flies down towards the cup with a small round wafer marked with a cross in its beak. Five streams of water spill over the rim and fall into a still pond covered in water lilies, and drops of water float down all around.
Upright
Every Ace is a seed, the whole suit in its first and purest form. In Cups, that seed is feeling. New love, a friendship that opens up, a creative spark, or simply the heart softening after a long time closed.
Look at where the cup comes from. The hand reaches out of the cloud, which means this is offered to you. You did not earn it or make it happen. The only thing asked of you is to hold the cup steady and let it fill.
The water does not stay in the cup, either. It overflows into the pond and feeds everything growing there. Love that is real always runs over into the rest of your life.
Reversed
Reversed, the cup tips, and the water that should be filling it runs away. Most often this is the blocked reading: the feeling is there and you are not letting it in. It can also be turned inward, love you give freely to everyone else and will not pour for yourself.
To tell which, ask where the water is going. If it is spilling away before it reaches you, something in you is refusing to receive. If it is all going out to other people, the cup you have forgotten to fill is your own.
When it turns up
What would it take to let yourself be filled for once?
Ace of Cups has also been a Tarot Card of the Week. Read that post to see the card at work on a real week.
If you would like the cards read against your own chart, my readings are here.
Related pages
The Number 1
The 78 Cards
Every card in the deck, upright and reversed.
See every page and post in the Contents.
The Members area has songs, Moon pages to print, the Sunday article a day early and a first look at new Library pages.