Eight of Cups: from limitation to abundance

You’ve worked hard for all you’ve achieved till now. But you’ve grown up. You wake up one morning and realise that you’re wearing a pair of shoes that are too small for you. You’re not giving up – you’re growing. And with that you realise that you’ve outgrown certain people, situations and circumstances. 

There are barriers and boundaries all around you. No matter how hard you try, you can’t overcome or break them. What you have is good – but it isn’t what you want. You’re ok – but you’re not happy. Things are structured such that no matter how hard you try – there is no longer anything to be gained. You’ve grown all you can. You can grow no more. 

In the Goddess Tarot Deck, we see a woman, walking away from the eight cups that she’s acquired. She looks back on all that it took to get there – the hard work, the dedication, the good and bad choices, the times that she nearly landed on her face and fate showed up and lent a helping hand. 

But then one morning she wakes up and realises that those are no longer the cups she wants. Those cups can only carry so much. The journey she went on was preparing her to take on the bountiful ocean – which holds far more than the eight cups ever will. 

Unlike the Six of Swords where a person goes through a painful yet necessary rite of passage – in the Eight of Cups, the woman willingly walks away with no remorse. She knows that the time has come to leave the cups as they have nothing more to offer her. 

Why settle for eight cups when you can have the ocean?