In all my years of reading and studying the Tarot, I have come across many ways to interpret the various multi-layered meanings of the cards, some more helpful than others. One of the most helpful practices I've come across consists of examining the ten numbered cards of a particular suit as a philosophical narrative. I first saw something like this done by Dr. Lisa Freinkl of Mindful Tarot, one of my favorite Tarot thinkers and YouTubers, in her video SBD: The Six of Cups. I highly recommend this video (and indeed her whole channel) for further study (or, if you prefer, as a prerequisite) as my ponderings below were seeded by her thoughts and ideas, although I believe I have managed to generate some additional insight of my own).

As part of my Tarot study and practice, I've been viewing the Ace of each suit as illustrating a particular archetypal concept (Cups as Spirit or Soul, Swords as Truth, Pentacles as the Material and/or Talents, and Wands as Inspiration and Vital Energy--more on this later) and the progression through the suits as different qualities of relationship to and among that archetype as it is essentially split into a greater and greater number of pieces. (This isn't quite as dark as horcruxes, but the concept is admittedly similar.) This approach has granted me a new perspective which now adds new depth of meaning to all my readings.

Soon I hope to have my Journeys through the other three suits of the Tarot available for your edification and entertainment, but for now, please enjoy this Journey Through the Suit of Cups.

The cards pictured are from the Ethereal Visions Tarot Deck by Matt Hughes.
Click here to purchase the deck on Amazon (this is an affiliate link).

Click on each Pip Title to expand the text.

ACE

The Ace of Cups is the Universal Soul, the whole and undifferentiated Soul of the Universe, of which each of us is a single individuated material manifestation. The Ace is the Overflow that comes from within and/or is fundamentally mysterious. It is the source of joy and fulfillment. We don't really get to meet the Ace itself in the material, although we meet many manifestations of it and drink of its healing waters often throughout our lives. If we are touched by the Ace directly, that is meeting God, meeting the divine, or dissolving into total ecstasy to the point of losing the boundaries of our beings. That IS ecstasy, but the boundaries of our beings are necessary for existence in this world. It is in the nature of this world for us to be separate.

TWO

The Two of Cups is what happens when you split the Universal Soul into two pieces, or when you have two individuated manifestations of that Universal Soul (i.e. two people) come together and meet each other in the material world. This is the Soul of the Universe meeting itself. The Divine Masculine meeting the Divine Feminine. Each figure in the Two is a manifestation of the Ace, of the Divine, and so they are each whole and the same; but each has manifested individually into different matter in a different pattern, and so they are different. At a higher archetypal level they are the same--in this material world they are separate, complementary. Two people together alone can get to know each other quite intimately, even to the point of blurring their boundaries to a certain extent, but you can't ever inhabit someone else's vessel, and you can't ever know what it's like to be someone else. There is something totally unknowable about another person. It is just like we are mirrors of each other: exactly the same, but opposite in every way, and you can never see what's hiding right behind the other you. How do you fill in the blind spots--by asking questions, or by making assumptions?

THREE

When the Universal Soul is split into three pieces, three people have less in common than two people can, just because there are more of them, and people are different; the more people are involved, the less niche the highest common denominator between them can be. This isn't a bad thing--the things we all have in common are how we determine our values as a culture, and building connections between more people rather than fewer can help us distill what's really important. Sometimes the most intimate that three (more than two) people can be together is in joyous celebration, but sometimes that's enough, and that's what's called for. And again, these are three separate souls, but they're three manifestations of that one Universal Soul. This is the [Holy] Trinity: The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit; Source, God, Self; Maiden, Mother, Crone; Mother, Father, Child; Creator, Sustainer, Destroyer; take your pick.

FOUR

With the Four of Cups comes stability--think of a four-sided box or a rectangular table. The figure in the Four of Cups has seen it all, so to speak. He has seen and appreciated the beauty of the world around him, and he has integrated the things which have brought him joy and fulfillment into his habits and daily patterns... but it's not enough. What once was expansive and inspiring is now just another part of the daily routine and no longer brings joy or fulfillment. Bounty transforms into a sense of loss, longing, and not enough. The figure in the four is so ingrained in his routine that he takes the beauty in his life for granted and fails to see the abundance of new opportunities for exploration, expansion, transformation, and fulfillment. As Waite says, though the "fairy enchantments" are being offered up to him, he does not see them or appreciate the potential of their value, and therefore is not open to receiving them.

FIVE

In the four we observed an innocent blindness, the fact of the existence of beauty and opportunities for fulfillment beyond what we can currently see or recognize. If the Four of Cups represents what you don't know you don't know, the Five of Cups represents what you kind of sort of know you don't know--or perhaps, what you know is there but are refusing to see. The Five of Cups is a guilty blindness, a refusal to see the opportunities which are available to you to improve your own situation and to manifest your own abundance, your own fulfillment, your own sense of joy and enough-ness. I can suspend my disbelief for long enough to entertain the thought that perhaps the figure in the Five does not see the two remaining upright cups behind him, but I don't believe that he hasn't noticed the river. If he's crying over spilled water, I don't buy his sob story and I respectfully decline to attend his pity party. Pick up your cups, carry them to river, and fill them with water. It's not that hard.

SIX

In the Six of Cups, we look into the past for manifestations and visions of what fulfilled us in the past, as if to say "I know I've been happy before, what did it look like then?" And it's true that you can reach into the past and find inspiration there, but you can't ever pull things out of the past and just simply place them in the present or in the future. You have to draw out the archetype from them and manifest that as something new in the future--but we're not there yet.

SEVEN

So if the Six is looking back into the past, the Seven is visualizing the future--the process of envisioning all the potential futures that could be yours. Some of these visions are treasures, some are monsters, some are harder to define. None of them are real yet, but any of them could become real depending on the choices that you make and the steps that you take in the material world. Perhaps the most real is the future that's hidden and totally unknowable.

EIGHT

If the Six and the Seven are representative of the acts of looking into the past and the future for fulfillment, the Eight of Cups is the recognition that neither the past nor the future are real right now, and that fulfillment could never possibly come from anything outside yourself. The Eight is the walking away from the temptation of illusions and temporary distractions.

NINE

If the Eight is walking away from the idea that fulfillment comes from outside oneself, the Nine of Cups is the act of filling your own cup and making the choice to find your own fulfillment from within. When a person embodies the Nine of Cups and is fulfilled from within themselves, the people in their sphere can receive some of the Overflow. A person embodying the Nine gives off a light that serves as a beacon and a shining example to those who are still learning how to walk away from the Six and the Seven.

TEN

If the Nine of Cups is fulfillment from within the individual, the Ten of Cups is fulfillment from within the individual across individuals. It is the shared understanding throughout a community (ideally someday the global community) that we are all mirrors of each other, we create our own happiness, and fulfillment of our soul's purpose can only possibly come from within ourselves.

Hopefully this has offered you a new and inspiring perspective into the Tarot cards in the suit of cups! Check out the video below if you'd like to hear me explain this out loud, and don't forget to subscribe to my newsletter (at the bottom of the page) to be notified when I post the Journey Through the Suit of Swords.

Love you!