Queen of Cups

Element: Water

Upright

·compassion
·emotional intelligence
·intuition
·nurturing

Reversed

·emotional overwhelm
·codependency
·martyrdom
·insecurity

Upright

She sits in the back of the apothecary at dusk, a chipped enamel cup warm in both hands, steam rising past her face into the candlelight. The Queen of the suit of cups is the deep listener, the one you tell the real thing to while the kettle ticks and the dried lavender sways overhead. She does not reach for a fix. She holds the cup, she holds you, and she lets the feeling be exactly as large as it is. Sit by her a while. You are allowed to feel this much.

Reversed

Drawn reversed, the cup tips and the tea runs dark across the wood, soaking everything, no edge to hold it. This is feeling without banks, the heart that soaks up the whole room and forgets which ache is its own, or else the cup sealed so tight nothing warm gets in. Ask, with the same softness you pour for everyone else, where your own rim is.

In the imagery

A robed woman on a low velvet chair holds a closed pewter cup beside a basin of still water at the shelf's edge, candle gold pooling on dark wood. Around her hang bundles of dried botanicals, comfrey and rose, the plants of tending and grief. The water and the held cup say the same thing, that her depth is a craft, a steadiness she pours out without spilling herself.

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Others in the cups