The deep dives are officially in the Minors, and the Majors have been completed. Now, we move on to the cards that meet us at the ground floor, and may be more immediately present or understood in our lives.
If the Majors represent “As Above,” then the Minors represent “So Below.” These are the cards that we have more say in their integration into our lives when they come forward in a reading. We might see more immediate cause and effect from their presence.
My deep dives will stay the same. I will be highlighting how I read these cards in both the light and in shadow. I will be showcasing the different depictions of the card from across my collection, highlighting symbolism and imagery that speak to the card’s invitations.
I will be starting with the Ace of Cups, and then covering all the Aces, moving on to the twos, and so on. The numerology of One, here as our Aces, represents initiation, opportunity, new beginnings or potentials, and powerful independence. Aces are the seeds of the tarot. They represent the power within that emerges when placed in a setting that allows us to thrive, grow, and strengthen ourselves.
Initiating New and Ancient Emotions or Intuition with the Ace of Cups
The Ace of Cups represents a new beginning with the space of the heart. We now know that the Aces bring the power of initiation, independence, and potential, and the Cups speak to how we connect or relate to others from the space of emotions and intuition. At the very beginning, I feel the need to address the fact that the Cups does not speak to romantic love. The cards CAN speak to romantic or sexual love, but so can any other card in the tarot, so let’s drop that narrative here, and for good.
The Cups speak to intuition, emotions, the flow of your heartspace, and your connection to yourself, and others, including places, things, or moments. Water is the element associated with Cups and represents the gift, and flow of life. Water softens, brings growth, cleanses, and has the power to carve through things as hard as rock. With the Cups, you are being asked to connect to your intuitive flow, and consider how you’re emotionally relating to the world at large.
Main invitations with the Ace of Cups:
Initiation into the heartspace- taking a fresh step into the emotional river within
Creating new emotional and intuitive capacity within
Return to the heart and intuition, and let flow new emotional awareness
The first way that I read the Ace of Cups is that it speaks to an initiation into the heartspace. When this card comes forward, we are asked to step into our emotional waters, and find the flow. We are asked to connect to the internal spring of emotions, and understand what emotions are coming through.
Are we tired, sad, joyful, listless, or more?
Where does this emotion connect to a situation?
What truth follows this emotion, or what does this emotion want to say?
These are all things that can help us create a new, more aligned, positive, or empowered beginning going forward. When we take the time to simply open into our emotions and intution, we find there is much more there than we may have previously thought. That is because we often shove a LOT of emotions down and away so that we can simply move through the moments in our lives, survive the day, and get back to the comfortable spaces that hold us, so that we may numb out the rest of the world.
I don’t say any of this with any sort of judgement. I also feel and do this. It is how we are surviving the many personal and collective struggles that we face. However, the problem with this sort of despondence is that when we deny our emotions, we are simply burying them, and sooner or later, they will surface.
Emotions are like that. They have a way of coming out into the open, even in moments that we trying hard as hell to keep them down. The Ace of Cups invites us to open into our hearts in ways that suit us. It could be journaling, divination, nature, meditation, exercise, connection to others, and so on. When this card comes forward, we are being asked to gently step our feet into the emotional waters within, and feel the emotions in a loving, compassionate way so that we go forward in loving, compassionate ways.
The next way that I read the Ace of Cups is that it speaks and invites us to create new emotional or intuitive capacities within the self. To put it another way, this card says where can we grow a little bigger in the heartspace. Think of the Grinch, but not as extreme. His heart grew three sizes because he found the true meaning of Christmas and connected in emotional ways (ways that he avoided for years) to others, which made his heart grow.
What is way that when this card comes forward, you can grow a little in the heart through connecting to your emotions or intuition? To clarify, intuition is the ability to acquire knowledge or understand something without going through the channels of logic or consciousness. Intuition is the ability to “know” something that may not have even happened yet. It is often talked about as a gut feeling. In reality, intuition is with the whole of the body, but I place it here because that gut feeling is a feeling. Our hearts react subconsciously to this data or gut feeling, and for that reason alone, I place it within the Cups, but it cross-pollinates into the other suits.
Symbolism and Imagery of the Ace of Cups
The last way that I read the Ace of Cups is that it speaks to a return to the heart and intuition, and let flow new emotional awareness. When this card comes forward it is a beautiful opportunity to rewrite new emotions that serve us into old spaces. Everyone has the right to be able to express their emotions in a safe space. Intuition is a birthright. Intuition is said to be the voice of the heart, allowing us to express truths and understandings that did not come from conscious reasoning or logical integration.
When the Ace of Cups comes forward, we are coming home to the emotional evolution and ancient ways of understanding. We honor the emotions, ancestors, history, and our future by creating a wholesome awareness around our emotions. The work of adjusting and integrating will come in future cards. For now, it is enough to simply open our hearts and discover the emotions we are carrying. The Aces often do not require any sort of work or action. Much of the work will be energetic or intentional. With this card, we open to the heart and become aware of what song, poem, or eulogy our heart wants us to hear.
In shadow, the Ace of Cups operates in the space of refusal, stubbornness, or denial.
These aspects are normal, as everyone has engaged with or done them at some point in life. The problem is when these attributes become chronic ways of processing ANY situation because we don’t want to get really real about the emotional truths that we are holding within our bodies. We deny our more vulnerable sides to avoid being hurt.
The problem is that we cannot be vulnerable and closed off at the same time. The Ace of Cups is all about building awareness and letting our emotions/intuition flow so that we can experience and the embrace the world from an authentic place. If we stop the emotions from flowing forward, that doesn’t mean that they go away. They have merely faded from our immediate awareness. It is far better to use the Ace of Cups as a seed towards integrating better ways of handling our emotions from a more vulnerable place.
Another aspect of the shadow side of the Ace of Cups is that when we create that initiation into the heartspace, we can start to feel the harder emotions that we have been pushing down. Again, they don’t go away. They will come through, and when they come through because we have taken the time to open into the heart, we now have a more weighted or hard emotion that we need to sit with. This can make us not want to do the work of the Ace of Cups, but it is important that we do because those emotions need witness. It may be disrupting, but it will ultimately serve us.
Going forward and as I have mentioned in the past I am only going to reference one or two images or cards in order to discuss the symbolism that speaks the most directly to the card’s meanings. I invite you to look at the rest of the cards within my collection, and then look to your own collection, so that you may form your own intuitive understanding. My collection has simply become too large for me to discuss every card image that I own.
The image that I will be referencing will always be the first one at the very top of the blog, and if I feel like including any others I will usually put them more towards the top so that they are more immediately seen by the viewer. For this reference the image that I’m using is the Ace of Cups from the Rider-Waite Tarot. Let’s see what this image holds and how it speaks to the themes of the Ace of Cups that I have already discussed.
The image of the Ace of Cups from the Rider-Waite Tarot shows a hand emerging from a cloud. In the hand is a goblet with water pouring out from five different streams. The streams flow into a body of water below with lily pads and flowers. There is also a dove at the top of the goblet holding a coin, token, or medallion of some kind in its mouth. Everything is set against a gray background
- The Hand represents an offering of some kind for a new beginning. The hand is giving of gift for us to take. As we begin this new journey, the gift that we have been given should be used and integrated into the process.
- The Goblet symbolizes the container of our emotions. This is our heart space. The golden color speaks to the capability of the heart to form emotional and intuitive connections that are golden, radiant, and abundant. The upside down M on the goblet can symbolize or represent the mother which is the nurturer. It can also represent the mysteries of living and emotional or intuitive life, and can also speak to the Hebrew word (Maim).
- The five streams represent the four physical elements and then ether and our intuitive connection to these elements that form the building blocks of life.
- The dove represents Purity and a connection to the divine. The token in the Dove’s mouth is usually seen as the wafer of the body of Christ from the Eucharist. Again, showing the how the Divine comes into our heart and we use that divinity to guide us in the spiritual and material of our lives.
The body of water below represents our deeper emotions or our sub or unconscious. The lily pads and Lotus represent emergence from the depths into awareness, or beautiful things coming from the murkiness of self.
Thank you for reading. Let me know your thoughts on this card, or your favorite depiction from my collection, or yours.
Howl!
Ashlie McDiarmid
Hello there! I hope you liked this blog post. As a tarot and oracle reader, my goal with my blogs is to offer you content, resources, and access to the tools that have transformed my life.
I believe that your own intuition is the deepest form of knowing, but here in my little corner of the internet, I share insights based in intuition and instinct. I share my love for nature, witchcraft, and the wild spirit.
- If your spirit is at home in wild places
- If you feel the need to claim your autonomy as ritual
- If you want to more deeply trust your own intuition
- If you want resources or connections to tarot, oracle, witchcraft, and wild sovereignty, then welcome!
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