Welcome to My Tiny Tarot Practice. I'm Amelia Hruby, and on this podcast,

I share my journey exploring the tarot card by card, starting with each suit of the minor arcana.

Today's card is the Queen of Cups.

In the Rider-Waite-Smith version of the tarot, the Queen of Cups is seated on a throne on the seaside,

and the throne is on the sand with pebbles scattered across its base,

and the queen is seated on this throne and her garment is kind of merging and flowing into the

water. We see her holding a very elaborate cup, the most elaborate cup that we've seen in these

cards, in the Rider-Waite-Smith illustrations of the cups. She's gazing intently at this cup.

There's a crown on her head and we can see that there are cherubs on her throne. When I imagine

the Queen of Cups, divorced from the Rider-Waite-Smith edition of the tarot, I always imagine the

Queen of Cups as swimming in the ocean, as like a mermaid, submerged in the water, belonging

to and being of the water. But I think that the Rider-Waite-Smith illustration here, where

the queen is at the sea, on the seaside,

firmly planted on the seashore, seemingly sovereign over the water

while also being deeply connected to it,

I think that actually provides a lot of insight into what the queen of cups can represent for us.

The queen of cups is a mermaid as fully submerged in the water might represent a person or a moment

of being fully submerged in our emotions, fully submerged in our intuition,

fully submerged in our psychic powers.

But I think that the Queen of Cups isn't full submersion because I think that we're invited

to remember that we're only ever aware of the subconscious or the unconscious through,

our consciousness. We are never simply only our feelings. That is a core part of our humanity,

consciousness. And of course, other creatures have consciousness. I'm not trying to say

There's a human superiority in consciousness by any means, but I am trying to invite in the way

that the Queen of Cups is seated by the side of the sea, perhaps rather than being fully

submerged in it, because she has found a way to both be conscious of her emotions and connected

to them. I often think of this card as a card of beautiful boundaries. Not boundaries like a wall

that keeps others out, but boundaries like a beautiful barrier that encircles us and therefore,

is where we meet the world in every moment. But without collapsing in on ourselves,

A beautiful permeable barrier.

It makes me think about how our experience of the world is our experience of our inner

and our outer meeting all of the time.

The Queen of Cups to me is much like our skin.

It makes us who we are and it encounters otherness at every single moment.

And so there again I get back to this idea of the Queen of Cups submerged in water where

where water is touching every pore of our skin,

but I still once again am pulled back to the seashore,

where her awareness of that submersion, her awareness of this permeable,

beautiful barrier and boundary,

and her relationship to it are so full of love.

And again, it's also about that relationship to the boundary.

The Queen of Cups, I think, is so loving.

She loves her boundaries. She loves the otherness that rubs up against them,

the people, the feelings, the world, all of it is there.

But she maintains her energetic sovereignty, no matter what the world of her unconscious,

her subconscious, or the external world brings to her.

When I pull this card, I find myself always wishing I understood it better.

Always feeling like there's something about it that eludes me.

But I do truly love how Rachel Pollack interprets it in 78 Degrees of Wisdom,

and I find myself returning to this interpretation, this brief passage,

again and again as this card unfolds in my own experience. So I'll end this interpretation with

Rachel Pollack's words. She writes, A vision of life as joyful can only come as a gift,

gift, but love can open us to receiving such a gift, to recognizing that it exists.

With intelligence joined to love, we return the gift by taking that vision and making

something real and lasting from it.

Thank you for listening to my Tiny Tarot practice. If you'd like to get your own copy of Rachel Pollack's 78 Degrees of Wisdom, or any of

other books I've referenced on this show, you can head to my bookshop link in the show notes,

where I've curated a list of tarot books and magical resources for you. If you make a purchase

through that link, I'll receive a small affiliate payment that helps me keep this podcast going.

I hope that you too can find yourself seated by the seaside,

internally or externally, and I wish you a wonderful day.