The deck · Cups · Water

Ace of Cups, from the 1909 Rider-Waite-Smith deck

Ace of Cups

True heartJoyContentAbundance

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.

A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911), Part III §2

The picture

The waters are beneath, and thereon are water-lilies; the hand issues from the cloud, holding in its palm the cup, from which four streams are pouring; a dove, bearing in its bill a cross-marked Host, descends to place the Wafer in the Cup; the dew of water is falling on all sides. It is an intimation of that which may lie behind the Lesser Arcana

A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911), Part III §2

Older readings

Inflexible will, unalterable law. Reversed: Unexpected change of position.

A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911), Part III §4. Waite collected these and says they often disagree with the main meanings.

Waite wrote in 1911 and some of his meanings show it. Tarot is a tradition of reflection, not a prediction, and no card decides anything for you.