Symbolism & Imagery:
A man in black with his head hung down, stares at three overturned cups. The landscape around him is muted yellow with a gray, desolate sky. To his left, he is a bridge and in the distance a building or village surrounded by green trees.
The three overturned cups have spilled the colors red and green. Red is the color of action, it is associated with the element of fire. It therefore also connects with sexuality and ambition. Green is connected with the element of earth and is connected to being grounded and one with the planet. This man has lost his energy, his ambition, his grounding. He is completely alone and drained.
The only blue in this card is the river in front of him. It symbolizes his subconscious and the bridge is his hope for moving forward. The body of water depicted as a river is important because it has movement: rivers are all going somewhere. The man must move on from the loss that the three spilled cups symbolize. He must cross the bridge or grieve alone forever.
The keys of hope in this card are the bridge and the two cups standing upright behind the man in black. The man must stop focusing on what he has lost (the overturned cups) and pick up the pieces of what he still has (the upright cups) in order to move on and cross the bridge.
Crossing the bridge brings greenery and structure as we can see in the building surrounded by green trees and grass across the river.