Card 40 • cups

Five of Cups

Brief Description

The Five of Cups highlights grief and the emotional response to loss, emphasizing mourning and isolation rather than the mere fact of loss. It points out that while there is sorrow, some resources or comfort remain, symbolized by the two upright cups. The card also indicates a path back to community and everyday life, though that life may be altered by what has happened. The guidance is to process feelings honestly rather than repress them, and reversed meanings warn against obsession, self-pity, and avoiding grief.

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Divinatory meaning

This card looks like loss, but it is more about the emotional reaction to loss. There is the mourning of what is gone and isolation, the natural desire for privacy with one's grief. Two upright cups show that something still remains, something that can comfort and sustain when the time is right. Finally, there is the path back to community, connection, and what we may think of as "normal" everyday life.

Advice

Take the time to process your feelings because that is the only way to return to "normal" life, but know that even normal life will be different now.

Reversed

Obsessing about the past, self-pity, repressing grief.

Visual Description

A cloaked figure stands with their back to the viewer, looking out over a dark, clouded shoreline toward a distant castle. Three goblets lie toppled on the ground with a red spill visible nearby, while two cups remain upright a short distance away. A series of stepping stones crosses the water toward the rocky shore and castle. The sky is heavy with swirling clouds and a small black oval at the top center displays the Roman numeral V.

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Mystical Manga tarot

✍️ Deck author(s): Barbara Moore, Rann

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