8 is a number of setting priorities and goals, organizing your life, systems, regeneration and structure, practicality, balance and symmetry. On its side 8 resembles the lemniscate - a symbol of infinity. Cups are associated with the element of water, with emotions, love, pleasure in life, matters pertaining to the unconscious, intuition and inner planes. This card is sometimes seen as indicating a period of disillusionment; a time to walk away from it all and reflect upon what matter to you.  Reversed it can indicate looking at psychic or intuitive experiences and re-evaluating them; deciding which psychic tools are most appealing to you.  It may also be warning against over-organizing and warning that you need to trust your instincts and psychic intuition.

Reflecting on relationships and thinking over what you like and don't like about them.  Putting your emotions into some kind of order and finding ways of categorizing or analyzing your feelings.  Establishing emotional priorities  among several relationships or within a single relationship. - Gail Fairfield

On the Enchanted 8 of Hearts there is a feminine looking face glancing upwards.  Below her face is a heart shape trimmed in red and full of reversed hearts seeming to flow downwards towards the water.  It is as though the woman is looking ahead, the direction in which she is traveling.  She is not focusing on the hearts that are flowing back into the water.  Perhaps she has reconciled herself to their loss and accepted that it is time to release them and move forward.  It's almost as if she is releasing this emotional, intuitive energy to return to the universal source as she moves onto the next phase of her journey.

On the Celtic 8 of Cups we see a warrior dressed in tattered battle gear holding onto his spear as he moves away from the 8 cups lining the path behind him.  This warrior reminds me of the one appearing on the 5 of Cups but he looks as though he has fought quite a few battles since then.  He is more tattered and worn looking.  He leans on his spear for support as though he cannot hold his body up anymore.  He has obviously traveled a long, emotionally harrowing road and it has depleted him.  And yet he keeps putting one foot in front of the other as though he knows he must keep moving forward.  I have to admit this is one of the grimmer 8 of Cups cards I've ever seen.  It appeals to me on a deep level.  Like this warrior, I am more comfortable with straightforward combat than dealing with emotional stuff. 

Looking at these cards I realized that this is me, right now.  I am that beaten and worn warrior who isn't always sure he can support himself but is determined to keep moving forward because he knows that what is laid out in those cups along the path isn't helping him anymore.  After getting "downsized", laid off terminated - whatever you want to call it, I felt like I was awash in a 5 of Cups moment.  Now, a few months later, I am having an 8 of Cups moment and realizing that it was time to release my connection to PAL and move forward.  My work there was no longer meeting my needs for growth and personal satisfaction and I was clinging to my emotional connection as a reason to stay.  Now that they broke that connection, I realize that it wasn't healthy for me.  I'm a bit bruised and battered but I know I'm moving forward and getting closer to what I really want to do and what I was truly meant to do in life.  That may not be a corporate type of job but it will something that allows me to express myself creatively and fulfills me on an emotional as well as material level.  I will be happy and joyful and making enough money to support myself.  That will be a truly joyous moment that will put all of this soul-questing and loss into perspective.