Tarot card meanings · Cups
What does Six of Cups mean in tarot?
In A. E. Waite's Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910), the Six of Cups upright means “A card of the past and of memories, looking back, as—for example—on childhood; happiness, enjoyment, but coming rather from the past; things that have vanished”, and reversed “The future, renewal, that which will come to pass presently”.
Upright
A card of the past and of memories, looking back, as—for example—on childhood; happiness, enjoyment, but coming rather from the past; things that have vanished.Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, Part 3
Reversed
The future, renewal, that which will come to pass presently.Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, Part 3
What does the picture show?
Children in an old garden, their cups filled with flowers.Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, Part 3
Where does the Six of Cups fall in a reading?
Six of Cups belongs to the suit of Cups. On this site you draw three cards, which take three of the places in the ten-card method Waite describes: “This covers him”, “This crosses him”, “This is before him”. The same card reads differently in each place, and the I Ching cast beside it may agree or disagree.
Ask one question. Draw three cards, and cast an I Ching hexagram beside them to see where East and West agree. Free.
Draw three cardsWaite's words are quoted as printed, and left out where they speak of money, law, illness or disaster. The pictures are the 1909 deck drawn by Pamela Colman Smith. For entertainment and self-reflection.