
Minor Arcana, Cups
Ace of Cups
love, joy, abundance, openness
Upright
A hand offers a cup spilling five streams into a pond of lilies, while a dove descends toward it. Waite calls it the house of the true heart: joy, content, nourishment and abundance.
In love or friendship, this is a good card for saying what you feel and letting someone care for you in return. Try one honest sentence. Waite's word fertility is symbolic here and predicts no pregnancy; a doctor is the right person to ask.
Reversed
Waite reads the reversal as the house of the false heart, with change, instability and upheaval. The cup is tipping, and feelings may be pouring out faster than anyone can take them in.
Ask whether you are saying you are fine while feeling otherwise, at home or with a close friend. Moods may swing during a big change. Hold off on major promises until things settle.
A card is a prompt for reflection. It cannot promise a result, and it is no substitute for medical, legal or financial advice.
In Waite's words
Upright: House of the true heart, joy, content, abode, nourishment, abundance, fertility; Holy Table, felicity hereof.
Reversed: House of the false heart, mutation, instability, revolution.
From A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910), Part 3, on Wikisource. The meanings above are by Cast & Chart.
Card art by Pamela Colman Smith, 1909, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.