Tarot Card Combination
The World+Five of Cups
世界 & 聖杯五
A profound completion arrives, yet you fixate on what's lost rather than what's gained. The World's triumphant cycle closes, offering wholeness and cosmic success, but the Five of Cups mourns spilled blessings, creating a sacred tension between achievement and grief. This is the karma of fulfillment—a masterful ending that demands you honor sorrow while stepping into your earned sovereignty.
The World represents the ultimate achievement, a cycle completed with mastery and integration. Paired with the Five of Cups, this triumph is shadowed by a profound, watery grief for what was sacrificed or lost along the journey. You stand at the pinnacle, holding the laurels of victory, yet your gaze falls upon three overturned cups—the relationships, dreams, or versions of yourself that did not survive the ascent. This is not failure, but the sacred cost of evolution. The two remaining cups behind you hold potent, unrecognized blessings: the wisdom earned, the strength forged, the new identity born from the old. The universe acknowledges your completion while asking you to tenderly mourn what the transformation required.
Elemental Analysis
Stable Earth (The World) meets deep Water (Five of Cups). Earth seeks manifestation, conclusion, and tangible results. Water seeks emotional truth, memory, and purification. Here, the solid ground of your achievement is softened and eroded by the tides of regret. This can be fertile—water nourishing earth to create lush growth—or swampy, if grief stagnates. The alchemy lies in allowing the water of feeling to seep into the earth of your accomplishment, making it richer and more humane.
Numerology Insights
The World (2+1=3) and Five of Cups (5) sum to 8, the number of power, karma, and abundance. Eight is the infinite loop, echoing The World's cycle. This karmic 8 suggests this completion is a direct result of past actions and carries immense generative power. However, power must be wielded consciously; the grief present is part of the karmic ledger, asking for acknowledgment before the abundance can fully flow.
Reversal Meanings
The World Reversed
The World reversed suggests a completion delayed, a sense of being stuck at the threshold of success. The integration is partial, leaving you feeling unfulfilled even as a cycle ends. You may resist the conclusion, clinging to a familiar chapter out of fear of the unknown wholeness awaiting you.
Five of Cups Reversed
Five of Cups reversed indicates a turning point in grief. You begin to lift your gaze from the spilled cups, finally ready to acknowledge and reach for the two that remain full. The emotional tide is receding, allowing for acceptance and the first steps toward emotional re-engagement.
Both Cards Reversed
With both reversed, a stalled completion meets emerging acceptance. A major cycle is frustratingly incomplete, yet your fixation on its losses is beginning to loosen. The message is to actively release the old grief (5 of Cups Rx) to unblock the final integration (The World Rx). Progress comes from consciously turning around.
Spiritual Guidance
Your soul has completed a significant karmic cycle, achieving a hard-won integration. The spiritual grief of the Five of Cups is for the selves you've shed—the identities, beliefs, and comforts that once defined you. This mourning is a holy process, the water that cleanses the old earth before new growth. You are being initiated into a more authentic wholeness, one that includes the wisdom of loss as part of its completion.
Yes/No Reading Guide
Tendency: Yes, but with a bittersweet quality. The outcome is successful, complete, and positive in the grand scheme. However, it will arrive with, or require you to process, a significant emotional cost or poignant sense of loss. The 'yes' is earned, not given freely.
Meditation & Reflection
Sit as the figure in the Five of Cups, feeling the cloak of grief. Then, feel the laurel wreath of The World materialize around you. Breathe into the paradox: the weight of the crown and the pull of the spilled cups. Ask: What must I mourn to fully inhabit my victory?
Daily Affirmation
"I honor my grief as the sacred soil for my wholeness."
Practical Advice
Fully honor your grief for what is lost. Hold a ritual of mourning for the spilled cups. Then, and only then, physically turn your body and attention to the two full cups behind you. Integrate this loss into your wholeness; let it be the fertile shadow that gives your success depth and compassion.
Things to Watch
Do not let the mourning of what did not survive the journey poison the celebration of what you have masterfully built. To dwell forever in the shadow of loss is to reject the light of your own completion.
Individual Card Meanings
The World
世界
A figure dances within a wreath of victory, holding two wands, surrounded by the four fixed signs of the zodiac. The World represents the successful completion of a cycle, the integration of all you have learned, and the fulfillment that comes from achieving your goals. This is the final card of the Major Arcana—the triumphant conclusion of the Fool's journey through all the lessons of life. When the World appears, celebrate your accomplishments. A chapter is coming to a satisfying close, and you stand at a place of wholeness and completion. Yet the World is also a doorway—as one cycle ends, another begins. What new journey awaits?
View full meaning →Five of Cups
聖杯五
The Five of Cups shows a cloaked figure mourning over three spilled cups, while two upright cups stand behind them, unnoticed. This card represents grief, loss, and focusing on what went wrong rather than what remains. It suggests a period of mourning and disappointment, but reminds you that not all is lost—there are still opportunities for emotional recovery.
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