Queens are associated with inner and personal control, competency, maturity, introspection, self-awareness, nurturance, healing and fulfillment.  Cups are associated with the element of water, with emotions, love, pleasure in life, matters pertaining to the unconscious, intuition and inner planes.  The Queen of Cups may be devoted to the needs of family and friends, and at her best shows a radiant, compassionate heart.  She is intuitive and able to tune in to the emotional needs of others.  She's a dreamer who can turn her imaginings into creative activity.  Reversed she can symbolize someone who indulges in emotional outbursts and a martyr complex in a quest for sympathy.  She can also become manipulative on an emotional level if she is unable to channel her energies into a productive outlet.

"Reversed:  Your psychic or intuitive abilities are well-developed and may feel like second nature to you.  You have reached some level of maturity and competency in dealing with your unconscious awareness.  You can rely on your intuitive inspiration." - Gail Fairfield

"Ill-Dignified:  A petulant, demanding woman, who considers her own emotional needs before others. Using her shrewd assessment into the emotions and characters of others, she may deliberately place others at a disadvantage, or undermine their efforts through spite. A miserable mother-in-law, or a woman whose family has no use for her any more. May be sad and grieving for a lost spouse - a widow or unwilling divorcee." - Whispering Tarot companion book

"Experience without reflection could be completely useless." - Spirit World LWB

This ties in nicely with the message I received yesterday.  The Queen of Cups is letting me know that I need to look within myself for the answers I seek - no one else can give them to me.  I like Gail Fairfield's take on the reversed Queen of Cups.  Maybe it is time for me to accept this and work with it.  I've often brushed off the idea that I have any intuitive abilities.  On some level it makes me feel like a fraud to claim I'm psychic.  However I think the reality is more subtle.  We all have "hunches" or "feelings" about various situations in our lives.  We might not consider them psychic or intuitive but in reality they are.  They connect us to a side of our nature that is not so clear cut and easy explainable.  Naturally my Queen of Swords nature resists giving in to this intuition crap.  She prefers things to be easily explainable and rational.  Of course life is rarely rational or explainable.  As I mature and grow more comfortable with my intuitive side I realize that is not necessarily a bad thing. 

Of course acknowledging that side of my nature and actually embracing it are two different things.  I'm working towards the latter but I'm not quite there yet.  I guess the Universe is telling me it's time to start working on it a bit more.  Isn't it ironic to say one has to be disciplined about building up one's psychic and intuitive muscles, but the reality is that I do.  If I didn't work on strengthening them and building my trust in them, they would soon atrophy and fade away.  This is not something I want to happen - I've worked too long and hard to get where I am, I'm determined not to lose what I've worked so hard to acquire.