Cups

Cups correspond to the element of water: emotion, relationships, intuition, and inner feeling. They answer the question of how you feel and how things stand between you and other people — love, intimacy, family, and inner weather all fall under this suit. If Wands push outward into action, Cups register what the pushing does to the heart, and what it costs.

The Cups curve is a curve of the heart. A single overflowing cup (the Ace) opens feeling; Two through Four run from meeting, to celebration, to the weariness that follows having; Five through Seven are loss, old dreams, illusion, and choice, turning the heart over again and again; Eight through Ten move deeper — letting go, contentment, shared fulfillment, until ten cups are stacked into a home. Among the court cards, the Page holds up a cup and watches a fish rise, the Knight carries his cup at a walking pace, the Queen is absorbed in the visions inside hers, the King sits steady above the water: one water, four depths.