The Suit of Cups

The Cups represent the element of Water, the world of Briah, Neshamah of the soul.

Briah translates as "creation", and like Neshamah, Briah is the stage where the human soul creates individual personality and identity, to define a specific form and function from the amorphous energies of Atziluth. The creation done in Briah is not the creation of a conscious thought like in Yetzirah, let alone any physical creation like in Assiah, it's rather the first creation of a precondition that is needed to create anything at all.

The Cups like the Water also represent the qualities of passivity, dependency and receptivity, typical for emotion, passion and desire, because those feelings are always dependent on outside influences, they need a goal or an impulse to come alive.

In the field of the Elemental Dignities Cups don't go all too well with Wands since Water and Fire weaken each other. They do go well with Disks and Swords where the Disks are a bit more familiar to the Cups due to their earthy passivity.

In common Tarot, the Cups are mostly taken for the emotions or definitions regarding human relations, and this is somewhat understandable when our human emotions most often aim at someone else. Nevertheless, a Cup card should not be viewed with any restriction such as this, because sometimes we really might miss the point when wondering all the time 'What the hell has Keith got to do with it??' ...