ACE OF CUPS
Flow -- Emotionally open. Truth. Healthy emotional state. Rise and fall without attachement. An open heart receiving gifts. The pleasure of emotional freedom. Empathy. Love. An outpouring of emotion.
SHADOW: An inability to experience emotions. Feeling closed off. Held hostage by recurrent emotions. Lack of empathy. Chemical imbalance. Depression. Slave to emotions. Extreme remorse and sadness. Despair. Melancholia that won't dissipate. Take any emotion you feel and bring it out of your body and into the mind's eye. Examine it. Learn from it.
Tarot suits are an unfolding story progressing from the ace to the ten. Tarot aces sparkle with unique magic. Aces are the seed of their suit. The infinite possibilities of each suit exist inside the ace just as everything you are, were, and will be is tucked inside of you. Understanding how the ace is a seed, like a flower, fruit, or vegetable seed, will help you interpret the ace when it appears in a reading. It is true beginning.
The Ace of Cups is the font of the world of cups. A mysterious hand appears through clouds. Clouds appear on every ace because they are the threshold and entry point to reality. What was hidden is now visible. What was unseen is now seen. Aces reflect the gateway of manifestation. First there is nothing. Then there is something. Aces reflect the beginning, the start. It is the birth of their suit.
A bewitched hand holds a cup. The hand is the symbol of human ingenuity and potential. Hands suggest invention, creative ability, and expression. Hands can be used lovingly to comfort another or oneself. Palms and fingers caress and nurture. Alternatively, hands can be used for violence, in anger, or even to kill. Hands remind us of how we "handle" things in life. They are used for communication via sign language. Hindu and Buddhist traditions make use of mudras, hand gestures creating a specific energetic flow in the body. Interior thoughts move through our fingers when drawing, texting, and writing. The hand of an ace asks you to consider how you are currently handling their particular suit.
The Ace of Cups is an emotional outpouring. Five streams of water flow from the magical cup and into the water below like a fountain. A crow descends to the cup. The shapeshifter crow is a symbol of the shadow self. The crow feeds an offering to the cup. It is communion from the invisible world into the physical world. Dark lotuses float on the gentle water, a symbol of transformation. The lotus roots in the depths to blossom in the sunlight.