I would say the Ace of Cups stands for the Grail’s castle, and through it, to the Grail. Of course, the Grail’s Castle is also a temple, and symbolizes any church, which is, above all, the container of the Eucharistic particle, or… the Grail. Temples are NOT supposed to be open, contrary to what Jodorowsky says; they are fortresses even when they are not fortified. The entrance of a temple is always, and by nature, a frontier between two worlds. Not everyone, or in every moment, is supposed to enter a temple – and less to cross the whole length of its nave, to the altar. Anyway, we can enter a temple but not having entered it in fact. It is a sacred place, where Heaven and Earth meet (and thus a passage), and only in the right disposition can one be really “inside” it, and not only physically so. The temple in the Ace of Cups is not open, but is calling us anyway. To get there and open its door, well, that will probably be as hard as it was for that valiant prince to fight the forces of evil trying to keep him from awakening (and marrying) Sleeping Beauty. And the feminine symbol of the mandorla-like entrance would fit here perfectly, too…
The little castle in the Ace of Cups is made of six towers, and, even if we understand that six can be read as a simplification of twelve (the 12 gates of Heavenly Jerusalem), the number has got to be read by itself. A double triangle, or the six-pointed star, is the symbol of union between the triangles of Heaven and Earth, representing the macrocosm. In
http://hypermetrics.com/misc/six.html, we read that “6 is a triangular number, meaning that it is the sum of a group of consecutive integers starting with 1 (in this case, 1+2+3). Other triangular numbers are obviously 10, 15, 21, and so on”. Being the sum of 1, 2 and 3, it resumes the notions of Unity, Duality and Trinity.
In
http://www.wisdomworld.org/additional/ancientlandmarks/PythagScienceOfNumbers.html, we can also read, “The number six illustrates the six directions of extension of all solid bodies. The interlaced triangles picture the union of spirit and matter, male and female. The Pythagoreans considered this number as sacred to Venus, since "the union of the two sexes, and the spagyrisation of matter by triads are necessary to develop the generative force ... which is inherent in all bodies." (Rayon: Potency of the Pythagorean Triangles.)” Well, all this refers to the world God created in six days. And a perfect world it is: “6 is called a perfect number since it has the unusual property that the sum of all its factors (excluding itself) equals itself, i.e., 1+2+3 = 6. Only a handful of perfect numbers are known to exist.” So, this is what six is all about: it is “the sum of all its factors”.
Just another curiosity to add on the symbolic of this “liquid contained”: water crystallizes in the shape of a six-pointed star, the snowflake we all know.
I will also post a link to a text I wrote about the Cups suit; I think it fits here too, and also relates to the wonderful text by Ross, where the notion of a “water of life” is implicit. It also relates to Jewel-ry’s post on Christ’s blood, and on the alchemical transformation of water / milk / blood, or the mysteries of red and white…
http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?s=&postid=309228#post309228
When Yaboot001 talks about a feminine shape in the card, well, all is feminine in this symbol. Every symbolic container is a uterus, although this symbology can be referred to, and analyzed, in many different ways.
As to Camoin-Jodo’s interpretation… well, I guess we could all write a different interpretation using this same elements… and I do not really trust the colours and the minutiae of the drawings in the deck, at least not enough to accept them as simply “true”.
When I pull the Ace of Cups, I usually read it as an aim, a vision, a promise. As I wrote in a thread in Reading Exchange, it comes to me as an image of wholeness, a comprehensive and all-inclusive perspective of Life. The confirmation of my hopes and dreams. Compassion and support. And. above all, a promise of fulfilment.