Cups In The Spanish Tarot: The Emotional Suit

Cups are the suit of emotions and feelings in the Spanish tarot. Tied to the element Water, these 10 cards tell the story of the heart — from the home taking shape to fulfilment, by way of temptation and melancholy.
When Cups dominate a spread, your love life takes centre stage.

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Cups: the emotional suit

In the Spanish tarot, the 40 cards fall into 4 suits of 10. They carry the whole structure of the deck on their own: since it has no major arcana and no queens, nothing else takes the symbolism on.

A cup is a vessel: it holds, it receives, it fills up or runs dry. That is exactly the image this suit carries — a heart that takes emotions in, sometimes overflowing, sometimes empty.

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The 10 cards of the emotional suit

From the Ace to the King, each card marks a stage in the theme of its suit — a beginning, an ordeal, a culmination. Here are the keywords of each one.

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What Cups reveal in a spread

When Cups come up in numbers, the question almost always touches on the heart. The number cards, from the Ace to the 7, tell a progression:

• The Ace and the 2 bring the bond to life: a new love, a home, then true love and fertility.
• The 3 brings the message or the piece of news that moves the situation along.
• The 4 is the card of temptation: instincts take over, with the slip that implies.
• The 5 celebrates, the 6 falls back into melancholy — the heart does not move in a straight line.
• The 7 crowns the suit with fulfilment, that of desires met.

The court cards of Cups (Jack, Knight, King) stand for sensitive, loyal people — a lover, a confidant, a relative who listens — or for your own capacity to feel and to love, at three degrees of emotional maturity.

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Your questions about Cups in the Spanish tarot

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Discover the other suits

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