All Aces are new beginnings. The Ace of Cups is a new chapter in your life regarding love. This card indicates a new romance – the meeting of your future partner. There is an exciting gushy feeling that comes with this card! We all love love, let’s be honest – the rose indicating to us that this could be true love. The 2 of Cups is the card that we all search for in life. This is the soul mate card, the one that tells us that this is a good partnership and a long term commitment. The picture shows us a mature couple, indicating that they have made it through the rough and the smooth of life and survived together. This card says that we have now taken the Ace of cups initial meeting one step further and committed to a relationship with this new person.  Look closely and see how they are holding onto each other for support and fit each other’s contours beautifully. The 3 of Cups is celebration time. It is party time! We have now committed one step further and made it official to the world. This could mean an engagement, moving into together or even marriage. We are blissfully happy at this stage and can see no wrong with our new partner at all. This card often means news of a baby too, especially when directly next to a birth card. The four of cups shows us a slightly different story. Here our couple look rather fed up, sitting with their backs to each other and look to me as if they have had a lovers tiff. So what’s gone wrong? Has reality kicked in? Has she got fed up with realising that he doesn’t put the toilet seat down after he has used it? Has he realised that she doesn’t bother to dress up any more? She doesn’t wear make-up as often as she did in the early days, she used to make an effort, yet now here she is wearing green wellie boots??? The meaning of this card is being fed up, but the gypsy meaning for this one is an offer of an affair – so be careful! If you don’t want to lose what you have – start making an effort. The five of cups shows us a picture of our lady thinking about walking away. But it’s crucial to see that she hasn’t actually gone. She has yet to decide. Things are going wrong for our couple – lack of communication is now making one of them feel unloved, unwanted. This card indicates that this relationship is one sided. There is still a way of making it work – but both parties need to cooperate. The six of cups shows our lady looking at happy memories on the wall. She is thinking back to the good old days – back when the relationship was wonderful, new and fresh. This card says that things can get better – there is hope for the future with this one. However, it is also the card of depression for me. Be aware how upset someone can be, if this card appears in their reading. The seven of cups is all about choices and is known as the card of confusion. A simple question mark sums it up for us in a reading. What do you want to happen in this relationship? Do you want to make it work? Do you want to give it all up? Pleasant surprises can come with this card and a happy ending is possible if both parties work at it. But what will they decide? The eight of cups is a sad card. Now we have the man deciding to give up. He seems to be marching out that door at a rate of knots. He has had enough and has packed his bags and is leaving. The room looks empty indicating that there is not much left to work on. But wait! Things can be sorted, if only the woman would stop him, promising him one more chance! The message with this card is a miserable situation but do NOT give up just yet. Totally unrelated to the main meaning for this card, the gypsy meaning for this card is quite simply blonde woman. This can be a helpful piece of information when trying to describe someone you are reading about in the cards!!! The nine of cups in the Faulkner tarot deck is a picture of a newborn baby. A dream come true for this couple.  (The gypsy meaning for this card is birth of a child) Does this mean that they have resolved their problems? Well, it looks like things are much better for them in this journey of love! This card is the wish card in the minor arcana – it says your dreams are real and there is definitely a cause for celebration finally. It tells me they have worked through their problems, they did not give up at the eight of cups stage and we are nearly at our happy ending! The ten of cups is my wedding photo. This was one of the happiest days of my life, when I married Dave Faulkner. The meaning for this card is a happy ending – complete happiness in a marriage and   complete and utter contentment. Our couple have made it through everything and they are finally celebrating. Do we stay at the 10 of cups? I think not, instead, I think we repeat this cycle as shown in this suit over and over again during our relationships with people in life. We go back to the Ace of cups card – a new chapter, and work our way through the ups and downs together and hopefully ending up each time at the 10. I hope this has explained the suit of cups to you in an easy and simple way. I have a new 2 hour DVD – in both UK and US formats. It teaches you how to read these cards for yourself. The DVD is available through my website and also at amazon.com and amazon.co.uk. If you have any questions related to reading the tarot, or suggestions as to what you would like to see in this column next month, please contact Rhiannon at Thefaulknertarot@aol.com www.rhiannonfaulkner.com]]>