Ace of Cups

Minor Arcana · Cups · number 1 · Asso di Coppe

Ace of Cups, plate by Pamela Colman Smith
Pamela Colman Smith, 1910

Upright

The Ace of Cups is the house of the true heart: joy, contentment, nourishment, abundance, fertility. Waite also calls it the Holy Table, and the felicity that comes of it: a joy that feeds like a shared meal, an abode to return to. It is the card everyone hopes to find when asking about love, and it does not disappoint: a new feeling, or an old one flowing again, a family growing, a serenity filling the home. If these days your heart feels more open than usual, it is no accident. It applies to work too, where something arrives that feeds you beyond the salary. The practical advice: do not keep the cup to yourself. Invite, offer, tell someone you love them, today.

Source: Arthur Edward Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910) · read the original passage
«House of the true heart, joy, content, abode, nourishment, abundance, fertility; Holy Table, felicity hereof.»

Reversed

Reversed, the Ace of Cups becomes the house of the false heart: mutation, instability, revolution. The water spills, and what looked like nourishment turns out to be empty. If these days a feeling changes direction, yours or the other person’s, or if the family is turned upside down, it is no accident. Beware of promises of love made too quickly and of people who say they will give you everything and then vanish. It is not a sentence: some revolutions set things right. The practical advice: do not refill the cup at once with someone else. Let the wave pass, and see what is left at the bottom.

Source: Arthur Edward Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910) · read the original passage
«House of the false heart, mutation, instability, revolution.»

Source

Arthur Edward Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910) Part III, § 2, The Lesser Arcana, Ace of Cups https://archive.org/details/a.-e.-waite-the-pictorial-key-to-the-tarot