A beautiful exchange
This is what it looks like to be generous and vulnerable. This is how it feels to open up your heart and offer its contents to another. To give of yourself, and to receive, too.
The Two of Cups is an exchange. You offer your cup – a container for all the love and pain and mystery in your heart – to someone, to something. In return, you receive their cup. There is so much trust here, so much willingness to be naked in this way.
Though falling in love is not the only interpretation of this card, it’s a good metaphor for its message. Falling in love is a risk, saying “I love you” is riskier still. How often do we hold back what we really feel, for fear of rejection, or ridicule, or simply not fitting in? How often do we push down what we really feel, unable to accept our own desires?
The Two of Cups is the opposite. Feeling the fear, maybe, but reaching out all the same. Saying yes, I’m up for this. I’ll show you my heart, if you show me yours. These are the few tentative and bold first steps into a new relationship built on love and trust.
In a reading…
If you have a partner, this card may be pointing to that relationship. If you have multiple lovers, it points to your relationship with one person in particular. The number two here is important – this is about an intimate exchange between two people. It’s about that bond of love or friendship that enables us to be truly open and comfortable with someone else.
This needn’t be about another person though – such relationships may also exist between you and something else – for instance a practice, a role, or a place. The Ace showed us an opportunity for you to take a new spiritual path, to listen to your heart and follow its desires. The Two shows us what it looks like to take that opportunity, to take those first steps. You may be falling in love with yourself. You may be entering into a new spiritual practice that asks you to be vulnerable, to make an offering. You may be making any kind of commitment based on love and trust.
In all cases, this card highlights the trust that is necessary for this to happen. Be vulnerable. Be truthful. Express yourself. Be generous with your emotions and remember that wonderful rule of give and take: you reap what you sow, and receive from the Universe what you are prepared to offer it. Give freely of yourself, understanding that this is a beautiful exchange.