The Queen of Cups
Symbolism
This Queen is the owner of the emotional realm, a very feminine kingdom of sensitivity and subconscious connection. She represents the inner communication to all desires and feelings.
She stares intensely at her cup which is the only highly intricate and ornate cup in the deck. Her cup has two angelic forms on it and it is closed showing how uplifting her emotions can be and that her feelings are contained.
She connects strongly with that cup in a declaration that her feelings, her subconscious and her desires are the most important qualities in her life.
She sits on the ocean shores with water all around her. She is connected through empathy and sensitivity to the whole world around her.
Keywords
Upright: Devotion, love, passion, desire, sensitivity, empathy, sensuality, psychic, imaginative and affectionate, creative and intuitive, healer, counsellor, artist, poet and the Queen of dreams.
Reversed: Drama, oversensitive, jealousy and envy, intense emotions, irrational, longing, obsessive desire, BPD, DPD, sulky and depressed, shallow.
Upright meaning
This Queen is in touch with her subconscious creativity and emotional body bringing out gifts of the artist, musician and poet, She is emotionally abundant and she relishes in the intensity of deep feelings. This gives her an amazing awareness of her desires, her passions and self-love. She communicates clearly with her body making her clear about what she wants and needs.
Her empathy and sensitivity allow her to pick up on people’s feelings, and her intuition channels through her feelings and heart. She is a great listener and can guide others to become more aware of their suppressed feelings. She is that empathic counsellor in us.
This Queen is highly sensual and attractive because of how comfortable she is with her feelings. When we embody this feminine side, we will light up a room and become attractive to more masculine energy. This Queen inside of us seeks to be stimulated emotionally by life and we will naturally be drawn to whatever feels good. At the same time, we can uplift the emotional vibration of our surroundings.
Embodying the Queen makes us so connected to what we want. We will naturally be true to what is important for us at the moment and similarly, we will be conscious of others’ needs as well. This is when we feel and respect other people’s boundaries.
The Queen is the dreamer and the psychic inside us. She taps into her astral senses and perceives energy and vibration on subtle metaphysical levels.
Reversed meaning
The Shadow Queen of Cups has the same emotional intensity and huge potential as the upright Queen, but she holds a dual love/hate relationship towards her feelings. This creates a dilemma for her because she can repress and fight what is key to bringing out her greatest gifts.
With this reversal, our trauma may have come from some kind of emotional or physical abuse. Because simple abuse comes consciously or unconsciously from family most of the time, we develop a twisted relationship towards love and love may even feel inappropriate. Self-love is difficult because we lose this intimate communication to our bodies. We may abuse ourselves through overeating, drugs and other stimulants.
Our boundaries are weak and we easily attract relationships that mirror the old abuse stories that we haven’t yet healed. Whatever we suppress will be seen in the way others treat us. We may fear abandonment and rejection mirroring our rejection towards our own emotional body. This Queen inside us easily flips 180 degrees emotionally and she will be dramatic and have strong mood swings. Codependency and Borderline Personality disorder stories are common and this Queen is asking for us to look into healing our past traumas.
We can feel overwhelmed with our intense sensitivity as we absorb the emotional energy of life around us. With unhealthy boundaries, we can feel over-stimulated and easily stressed. On the positive side, this Queen in us is capable of the deepest transformational healing through shadow work due to her intense emotional connection. With guidance, she has all the potential to find a profound sense of self-love.