The Ace of Cups is the Root of the Powers of Water. Like all Aces, it is of Kether, but where the Ace of Wands was Force or the first motion, the Ace of Cups is the first Form. The Ace of Cups is the feminine counterpart to the Ace of Wands; the yoni to complement the phallus. You can see they are pairs if you compare them, as the Ace of Cups was built on the same sacred geometry structure as the Ace of Wands (a series of Golden Ratio circles), only inverted.
Here we have Kether acting upon Binah; ripples form in the great dark ocean of matter. The point and the crown are emblems of Kether, and we see a point or droplet fall creating a splash in the form of a crown. The Cup is formed from a great shell encrusted with pearls and a glowing emerald or ruby crystal. It is meant to suggest the Grail (emerald), the Cup of Babalon (ruby). It is the Cup of the Stolistes which is shown below in various forms, all of which encapsulate the nine sephiroth exclusive of Kether:
In the illustration of this new Ace of Cups, the middle pillar is hinted at, with Malkuth and Yesod as the base and the apex of the cup’s lower triangle formed by the roots, and the eye in the tree hollow is in the position of Tipareth. (This is the same eye as seen in the Hanged Man; Mem, the card of elemental water.) The dark space in the hollow is Daath, where Binah and Chokmah are united. Also per Book T, the falling water on either side of the cup is meant to in essence suggest the shape of the letter of the Supernal Mother, Heh primal.
This card took a lot longer than I expected to form. Which is interesting, because Briah is the world of creation. Not conscious thought (Yetzirah), not physical creation (Assiah), but the first creation of the prerequisites or pre-conditions needed in order to create. And that is exactly the part that took so long, waiting for the conditions to arise, the idea to gestate. It just took a lot longer than I’d hoped. It is one of the most frustrating things artists can face. The good news is, I already have the concept for the next Ace (Swords)…
Mel Meleen you are nice with the cards. The talk you and T. Chang did on this card shed so much light on my understanding of this card and the circumstances that surround a Tarot reading I had done on Valentine’s Day (2022) and this card came up twice…from two separate readers…we had a little speed dating Tarot salon, where we were paired with other readers for 10 minutes before we switched to a new reader. We each worked with our own personal favorite decks. I am introducing your Tarot to the club. The artwork on your deck is provocative on so many levels. I am enamored by them and can’t believe I’ve waited this long to get the deck. I purchased your beautiful Majors of this deck to use in sympathic magick, but I need to develop a personal relationship with deck because of how drawn to it I am. Appreciate you!
Thanks Gina – so glad to hear it and appreciate that you took the time to write!
Mel Meleen you are nice with the cards. The talk you and T. Chang did on this card shed so much light on my understanding of this card and the circumstances that surround a Tarot reading I had done on Valentine’s Day (2022) and this card came up twice…from two separate readers…we had a little speed dating Tarot salon, where we were paired with other readers for 10 minutes before we switched to a new reader. We each worked with our own personal favorite decks. I am introducing your Tarot to the club. The artwork on your deck is provocative on so many levels. I am enamored by them and can’t believe I’ve waited this long to get the deck. I purchased your beautiful Majors of this deck to use in sympathic magick, but I need to develop a personal relationship with deck because of how drawn to it I am. Appreciate you!
Beautiful!!
Gorgeous!