36-Ace of Cups – Upright Golden Deck

Your Chosen Card – Ace of Cups Upright Golden Deck

When upright, the Ace of Cups suggests new beginnings in your emotional life. You are experiencing a period of joy, contentment, camaraderie, feasting, affection, and creativity. Love and fertility are in the air. It is possible to deepen a current relationship or to start a new friendship or love interest. Artists find themselves full of creative ideas. The nurturing waters of the Ace of Cups represent a fertile time, able to produce offspring of the body or the mind. Moving spiritual experiences and opportunities for compassion also accompany this card.

Keywords Upright: Pleasure, feasting, enjoyment, love, friendship, receptivity, fulfillment, fertility, pregnancy, nurturing, healing, creative inspiration, a new relationship, the beginning of romance, good cheer; ‘eat, drink, and be merry.’

Timing: Astrologically, Water is linked to summertime.
Astrology: Root-force of elemental Water, the element associated with the season of summer.
Number Symbolism: 1 – initial spark, will, creation, beginnings, new life.

In Llewellyn’s Classic Tarot, a hand comes out of a cloud on the right-hand side of the card, holding a chalice upright in the light blue sky. Of the four Aces in the Classic Tarot, only the Ace of Cups is offered by a hand emerging from the right-hand side of the card. Inside this chalice sits a dove bearing an olive branch, a symbol of peace. Water overflows the brim of the chalice creating five streams pouring into the body of water below, on whose surface rest five lotus blossoms. In Christian symbolism, the dove represents the Holy Spirit sent by God the Father as a symbol of divine love after the sacrifice of Christ on the cross to save humankind. The five streams and five lotus blossoms – symbols of redemption through sacrifice – are a reference to the five wounds Christ endured during his crucifixion. The Catholic Mass still makes use of the chalice to commemorate this event. There is a noticeable absence of dry land in the image on this card, as water and clouds dominate the scene.

When Ace of Cups is upright you can pretty much take it that life is going well but that’s when life takes us by surprise.  If Ace of Cups is unclear it may help to choose a card from the Major Arcana to provide more insight into what it is Ace of Cups is trying to tell you.  If you had a particular issue in  mind, or want to seek clarification on something else, you can also choose again to get more guidance.

This chosen card is part of your upright card reading for Ace of Cups using cards from the Golden Tarot Deck. You will find many more tarot pages that will be of great help if you need tarot card meanings. Use the search at the bottom of the page. We have some amazing tarot books for you to browse. Please see below.


Here are some snippets from a few of my favorite books

Complete Book of Tarot
Book Details
Complete Book of Tarot: In Llewellyn’s Classic Tarot, a hand comes out of a cloud on the right-hand side of the card, holding a chalice upright in the light blue sky. Of the four Aces in the Classic Tarot, only the Ace of Cups is offered by a hand emerging from the right-hand side of the card. Inside this chalice sits a dove bearing an olive branch, a symbol of peace. Water overflows the brim of the chalice creating five streams pouring into the body of water below, on whose surface rest five lotus blossoms. In Christian symbolism, the dove represents the Holy Spirit sent by God the Father as a symbol of divine love after the sacrifice of Christ on the cross to save humankind. The five streams and five lotus blossoms—symbols of redemption through sacrifice—are a reference to the five wounds Christ endured during his crucifixion. The Catholic Mass still makes use of the chalice to commemorate this event. There is a noticeable absence of dry land in the image on this card, as water and clouds dominate the scene.

Tarot Books

Complete Book of Tarot: Crowley/GD: Peace, a quarrel settled and resolved, peace restored but some tension remaining. Crowley objects to the Golden Dawn’s ‘peace restored’ because he says there has been no disturbance, and he likens this card to the negative form of a positive idea and the masterful chastity of an honorable knight.

Portable Magic: Build the triangle of realization in the manner already described on the western side of the circle so that the triangle points toward the west. If you are seated in the west facing east, the triangle will point toward you. The west is the appropriate quarter for the location of the triangle in the ritual of union because the west is the quarter of elemental Water in the system of the Golden Dawn, and Water is the element associated with psychic activity.

  • Do get in touch if you looked for Ace of Cups and we don’t have it listed. We would be more than happy to source the information for you. We hope you visit again for more online tarot information!

Portable Magic: Build the triangle of realization in the manner already described on the western side of the circle so that the triangle points toward the west. If you are seated in the west facing east, the triangle will point toward you. The west is the appropriate quarter for the location of the triangle in the ritual of union because the west is the quarter of elemental Water in the system of the Golden Dawn, and Water is the element associated with psychic activity.