The Suit of Cups ☕️
Illustrating our Emotional Journey
The next phase of my Tarot of These Times illustration project is to create the Suit of Cups. These ten cards in the tarot represent the emotional dimension of our lives. The element associated with cups is water.
In this post, I share:
How my own emotional literacy has evolved;
My interpretation of the Suit of Cups in the tarot; and
How this informs my method for illustrating them.
Let’s dive in! 💦
Emotional illiteracy, interrupted
Emotional literacy is a relatively new concept to me. I grew up in the 80’s and 90’s, in the Midwest. In this time and place, we did not talk about our emotions, ever.
While we didn’t talk about our emotions, we did act them out. Literally. We were a theater family so we expressed our emotions on stage. Here is a photo strip of me and my parents, acting out some emotions (2017).
Me any my parents acting our emotions: joy, anger, trust, surprise.
I was well into my 40’s when I was forced to faced my emotional illiteracy. I was participating in a workshop on understanding whiteness and how it shaped my life. I learned that relying heavily on logic and ignoring emotional signaling in our own bodies is actually very common in socialization of whiteness. (See footnote for more on this topic).
This made it difficult to have conversations about racism with other white people, without triggering strong emotions. Worse, I could barely identify these emotions, let alone understand where they came from or how to handle them in myself or others.
This was a revelation. I now understood that there were core emotions at play in every area of my life. And, that if I didn’t make an effort to understand them, my own emotional reactions would quickly derail my efforts to work for justice.
Emotions 101
In 2018, a year into a journey with chronic eye pain, I was a bundle of painful nerves and even more painful emotions. I was introduced to the Wheel of Emotions by my therapist. Being on an emotional roller coaster was making my pain worse. By slowing down to identify my emotions as I was experiencing, I could dial down the volume on that pain.
I drew the eight core emotions in my sketchbook to help me memorize them. The Wheel of Emotions was created by psychologist Dr. Robert Plutchik to show the relationship between eight basic emotions that are the foundation for all other emotions. These core emotions include:
Joy
Sadness
Trust
Disgust
Fear
Anger
Surprise
Anticipation
I re-created the diagram on my own, the eight core emotions in watercolor. Seven years later, I illustrated the wheel of emotions again, as a navigational compass. Here they are:
Water + color = watercolor
In the tarot, the suit of cups is associated with the element water, which makes sense to me. Emotions flow like water. They are difficult to contain, they can move quickly, have depth, or be still and calm.
I love the way that Michelle Tea describes the suit of cups in her book, Modern Tarot: (see footnote)
“The Cups are all emotional energy - both uncontrolled emotion and emotion you have a grip on - crying jags and meltdown, glee and hope and unconditional love.”
One of the reasons I use watercolor as my primary medium is because it flows on the paper in unpredictable ways. While there are ways to control it, I prefer to think of watercolor paint as a partner in the creative process. What does it want to do, where does it want to flow? This curiosity practice leads to some really interesting results, which I would not achieve as an artist if I tried to control the paint.
Liquid watercolor, salt, and halloween webbing on 100% cotton watercolor paper, Molly Chidsey, 2022.*
TLDR:
Cups are all about our emotions and understanding our emotional journehy
Cups also represent the element water
I am using watercolor to illustrate the Cups suit
Emotional literacy resources below
Join my notification list
Next up: The Ace of Cups
The beginning of an emotional journey.
Be sure to subscribe to be notified when I post each illustration this fall.
Footnotes & resources
Curious about the concept of whiteness mentioned in this post? Read this book: What Does It Mean To Be White? Developing White Racial Literacy, by Robin DiAngelo, 2012. https://www.robindiangelo.com/publications/
“The Emotion Wheel: What It Is and How to Use It”, Positive Psychology. Accessed September 30, 2025. https://positivepsychology.com/emotion-wheel/
“Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions: Exploring the Feelings Wheel and How to Use It”, by Six Seconds, a non-profit organization whose mission is to increase the world’s emotional intelligence. https://www.6seconds.org/2025/02/06/plutchik-wheel-emotions/
I learned this watercolor texture technique from Portland-based artist Anji Grainger. https://www.bluepansycottage.com/
Another great resource to build emotional literacy is the book Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience by Brené Brown. https://brenebrown.com/book/atlas-of-the-heart/
