Six of Cups Tarot Card Meaning: Upright & Reversed
Keywords, Symbols, Colors, Astrology, Love, Timing & Yes or No
In the courtyard of an old village, an older child bends to offer a younger one a cup filled with white flowers. Six cups bloom around them, and in the background a guard walks away, leaving the two of them to their small, sweet exchange.
This is the card that turns up when a smell, a song, or a handwritten note carries you straight back to being small.
Welcome to the forty-fifth entry in my tarot glossary, and the twenty-third card of the Minor Arcana.
Every Six is the calm after the storm. The Fives broke the pattern, and I once heard the Sixes described as a gift, which is exactly how this one feels in Cups.
Below you’ll find the card’s symbols, its color psychology, upright plus reversed meanings with keyword lists, what it means in love or as feelings, how other cards amplify or diminish it, its element, its astrology, timing, whether it leans yes or no, and my own intuitive read after years of pulling it for clients.
Stay to the end for the one sentence I use to keep this card sweet instead of sticky.
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THE SIX OF CUPS AT A GLANCE
SuitCups, the heart and everything it holds
NumberSix, harmony and the gift after the storm
ElementWater
AstrologySun in Scorpio
TimingEarly November, the season of memory
Yes or noYes, softly, with a nod to the past
UprightNostalgia, tenderness, childhood memories
ReversedStuck in the past, growing beyond it
JUMP TO A SECTION
MeaningSymbolsColorsUprightCard CombinationsYes or NoTimingAstrologyLove & FeelingsLife LessonsReversedQuick Answers
What Does The Six of Cups Tarot Card Actually Mean?
The Six of Cups is tenderness with emotional autonomy.
Nostalgia is the usual keyword, and it fits. What I see underneath it is a heart that can visit an old sweetness without needing anyone to hand it back.
Childhood memories, the first person who loved you well, the smell of a kitchen you haven’t stood in for years: all of it lives here.
A small gift, freely given
In the Rider Waite Smith image, an older child offers a younger child a cup of white flowers in an old courtyard, while a guard walks off in the distance.
Look at who is giving and who is receiving.
Sometimes I see two children. Other times I see a mother handing her child something beautiful, and the card reads as the first lesson in love most of us ever got.
The suit descends from the cups of the older Latin decks, where vessels held love, devotion, and the feelings we carry from one season of life into the next.
Rachel Pollack’s 78 Degrees of Wisdom pays close attention to the protected, enclosed feeling of this courtyard, which is a useful way into the safety the card describes.
What Are the Symbols on The Six of Cups Tarot Card?
Every detail here is about care given at a small scale.
Pamela Colman Smith drew no grand gesture on this card, only a cup of flowers passed from one pair of hands to another.
- The older child: whoever first showed you what love looked like, a sibling, a parent, a friend down the street.
- The younger child: the part of you that still remembers how to receive without suspicion.
- The white flowers: innocence and kindness, offered with nothing asked in return.
- The six cups: a heart that’s full enough to share, after the losses of the Five.
- The old courtyard: a remembered place, safe and enclosed, the home your memory keeps tidy.
- The departing guard: protection stepping back, because nothing here needs defending.
- The stone pedestal: one cup raised on a base, a memory set somewhere special.
- The old houses behind them: where you came from, and the warmth you were raised inside.
- The number six: harmony after disruption, the calm that follows the storm.
What Do the Colors on The Six of Cups Tarot Card Mean in Psychology?
Color does its work on you before a single meaning gets read.
Researchers have long tied specific hues to specific responses, and this palette is the warmest in the suit, closer to a storybook than a storm.
THE SIX OF CUPS COLOR PALETTE
Each color is pulled from the card itself, with what it tends to stir in you.
Sky yellow seen behind the whole scene
Warmth and optimism. Yellow reads as cheerful in most color psychology research, the colour of afternoons that seemed to last forever.
Flower white seen in every cup
Innocence and a clean slate, kindness with no strings tied to it.
Cup gold seen in the six vessels
Something precious kept safe over many years.
Warm red seen in the children’s clothes
Affection with a pulse in it, the warmth of being looked after.
Courtyard stone seen in the old buildings
The solid walls of a remembered home.
Leaf green seen in the stems and garden
Growth rooted in old soil, the person you became because of who loved you.
↑ UPRIGHT
What Does The Six of Cups Tarot Card Mean Upright?
Upright, the Six of Cups is a sweet memory arriving at exactly the right time.
Old friends resurface, a childhood place comes back into view, or a kindness you received years ago suddenly makes sense.
The heart gets to rest here after the losses of the Five.
The gift of emotional insulation
What this card gives you is a layer of warmth you can carry into colder weather.
Remembering who loved you well becomes a kind of padding around the heart. It doesn’t stop hard things from happening, though it changes how they land.
That warmth was always yours to keep, whether or not the people who gave it are still beside you.
Most upright Six of Cups keyword lists settle on revisiting the past, childhood memories, innocence, and joy.
My own reading adds autonomy, since the strongest version of this card is a heart that can hold the memory without needing the past to come back.
The Six of Cups upright at a glance
- Core meaning: tenderness, sweet memories, and love remembered without grasping.
- Relationships: an old flame or friend returning, or a bond that feels easy and familiar.
- Career and finances: work with children, family business, or a project rooted in something you loved early on.
- Health: comfort, rest, and the nervous system settling in familiar company. Read it as care rather than diagnosis.
- Spiritual: inner child work, plus remembering love that outlives its original form.
UPRIGHT KEYWORDS
nostalgia tenderness childhood memories innocence kindness reunion inner child a small gift emotional autonomy calm after the storm
CARDS THAT STRENGTHEN IT
- Ten of Cups widens the memory into a whole family’s happiness.
- Three of Cups brings old friends back around the same table.
- Page of Cups speaks for the inner child directly.
CARDS THAT DIMINISH IT
- Eight of Cups chooses the road ahead over the courtyard behind.
- The Tower removes the old structure, so there’s nowhere to go back to.
- Ace of Wands pulls the attention toward a brand new spark.
“God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December.”
J. M. Barrie“I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.”
Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
How Do Other Cards Amplify or Diminish The Six of Cups?
No card reads alone. In every spread, the neighbouring cards either deepen the sweetness of the Six of Cups or call you forward out of the courtyard.
This is called adjacency: two or more cards working in unison, building one cohesive story instead of a list of single card definitions.
When the Six of Cups gets amplified
An amplifier here makes the memory warmer and more present. Someone or something from the past steps back into the room.
+Six of Cups + Ten of Cups
family happiness, a holiday at home, the people who raised you gathered close.
+Six of Cups + Three of Cups
a reunion with old friends that feels like no time has passed.
+Six of Cups + Page of Cups
a tender message from the inner child, or a sweet surprise from someone younger.
When the Six of Cups gets diminished
A diminishing card loosens the grip of the past. It honours the memory and points you toward what comes next.
−Six of Cups + Eight of Cups
walking away from an old comfort that no longer fills you.
−Six of Cups + The Tower
the place you’d return to has changed for good, so the memory has to travel with you instead.
−Six of Cups + Ace of Wands
fresh energy arriving, asking you to build rather than revisit.
When two cards disagree, don’t pick a winner. Acknowledging the disagreement is the reading.
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Is The Six of Cups a Yes or No Card?
It leans toward yes, gently.
The Six of Cups favours anything rooted in kindness, familiarity, and good intentions, especially when someone from your past is involved.
Its yes is soft rather than loud, more of a warm nod than a green light.
Joan Bunning reads this card as good will, innocence, and childhood, and those qualities tend to open doors.
Reversed, the answer leans toward not yet, since looking backward too long can keep the next chapter waiting.
In a live reading I steer away from flat yes or no answers anyway, since your free will does the real work and no card gets to choose on your behalf.
This card simply reminds you that the kindest option is usually the right one.
What Is The Six of Cups’ Timing in a Tarot Reading?
Timing under the Six of Cups often loops back on itself.
Something from earlier in your life returns, or a familiar pattern comes round again at a gentler pace.
Six is the number clue, showing up as six days, six weeks, or six months.
When memory comes home
Sun in Scorpio places the card in the second decan of Scorpio, roughly the second to the twelfth of November.
Early November suits it well, with the clocks turned back, the evenings drawing in, and the holidays starting to stir old memories.
When this card shows up for timing, I ask which anniversary, birthday, or family tradition is around the corner.
There’s usually one the client was already thinking about before they shuffled.
What Element and Astrology Rule The Six of Cups?
The Six of Cups is Sun in Scorpio, which is light shining into the deepest rooms of memory.
Scorpio keeps everything. The Sun warms whatever it touches, so the old feelings stored here come back lit from within instead of shadowed.
Water is the element, here calm and clear enough to see all the way to the bottom.
Each numbered Cups card takes a decan, a ten-degree slice of a water sign, and this one holds the middle third of Scorpio.
Keepers of family photo albums, people who still have every birthday card, anyone who can name their first best friend’s phone number, all live under this light.
Worth noting that Scorpio rules endings too. This card often arrives once something has ended, carrying the best of it forward.
What Does The Six of Cups Mean in Love, as Feelings, and as a Person?
The Six of Cups is the most innocent love card in the tarot deck, sweet and unhurried.
Here’s how it tends to read in the questions people ask most.
- In love, if you’re single: an old flame reaching out, or someone new who feels instantly familiar.
- In love, in a relationship: playfulness returning, revisiting where you first met, or remembering why you chose each other.
- As feelings: fond, tender, a little wistful. They think of you warmly and often.
- As a person: gentle, generous, sentimental, often with Scorpio depth and a long memory for kindness.
- As advice: bring the sweetness of the past into the present, without asking the present to become the past.
- Reversed in love: idealising an ex, or finally outgrowing a relationship you’d been holding onto for old times’ sake.
What Does the Six of Cups Actually Feel Like?
Here’s the part no keyword list covers, learned from pulling this card for clients rather than from a book.
For me, this card feels like Christmas time. The particular glow of it, the feeling Charles Dickens captured in A Christmas Carol when the past comes to visit and shows you who you used to be.
Every time I see it, I think of the very first person who ever showed you what love looked like. That feeling is the one you get to carry forward.
Tenderness lives here, along with emotional autonomy. You can love the memory fully without needing anyone to recreate it for you.
Researchers who study nostalgia have found it can lift mood and strengthen our sense of connection, which matches what I see in readings.
Memories of people who have passed often surface with this card too. Form changes; the love they gave you does not.
A place to visit
Nostalgia is a beautiful place to visit, and a horrible place to live.
That’s the sentence I hand every client who draws this card.
The caution is spending a little too much time looking back, yearning for something that has already gone by. What’s gone doesn’t need to come back to keep giving you warmth.
Take the memory with you instead. Let it be the insulation, then turn around and walk into the life you have now.
↓ REVERSED
What Does The Six of Cups Tarot Card Mean Reversed?
What Does The Six of Cups Tarot Card Mean Reversed?Reversed, the courtyard starts to feel like a waiting room.
One version is living in the past, replaying the good old days so often that today feels thin by comparison.
The other is growth, the moment you realise you’ve outgrown a place, a role, or a version of yourself, and you’re ready to leave home in some way.
Leaving the courtyard
Both versions ask the same question: what are you waiting for the past to give back?
Sometimes the answer is nothing, and the realisation sets you free.
When this card reverses in a spread, I ask which memory the person keeps returning to, and what they’d be facing if they stopped.
The standard reading of the Six of Cups reversed frames it as being stuck in the past, moving forward, leaving home, and independence.
The Six of Cups reversed at a glance
- Core meaning: holding the past too tightly, or finally outgrowing it.
- Relationships: idealising an ex, a reunion that doesn’t match the memory, or independence chosen with care.
- Career and finances: leaving a family business, or letting go of how things used to be done.
- Health: old patterns from childhood resurfacing, worth exploring with someone qualified. Symbolic, never diagnostic.
- Spiritual: releasing an old version of yourself with gratitude.
REVERSED KEYWORDS
stuck in the past rose-tinted memories moving forward leaving home independence yearning outgrowing growing up
CARDS THAT SHARPEN THE WARNING
- Seven of Cups turns memory into fantasy, prettier than it ever was.
- Four of Cups ignores what’s being offered now while gazing backward.
- Eight of Swords keeps you inside old stories that no longer fit.
CARDS THAT SOFTEN IT
- Six of Swords carries you gently from the old shore to the new one.
- The Star lets the past become a source of hope instead of longing.
- Two of Wands turns your gaze toward the horizon.
“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”
L. P. Hartley, The Go-Between“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
Attributed to Søren Kierkegaard
The Six of Cups Tarot Card: Quick Answers
Is the Six of Cups a good card?
Mostly, yes. It brings warmth and kindness, with one gentle caution about staying too long in the past.
Does the Six of Cups mean an ex is coming back?
It can point to someone from your past returning, though just as often it means a familiar feeling coming back into your life.
What does the Six of Cups mean in the future position?
A reunion, a homecoming, or a kindness that reminds you who you are.
What element is the Six of Cups?
Water, under Sun in Scorpio. Deep memory brought into warm light.
Save this card for later
Where The Six of Cups Might Be Pointing You Now
If the Six of Cups keeps turning up for you, in a reading, a dream, a tarot deck you shuffle at midnight, it’s worth listening.
This card tends to appear right when an old memory is asking to be honoured.
Somebody taught you what love looked like, and that lesson is still working in you.
When you’re ready to look at your past with someone who’ll hold it gently, your reading is waiting.
Click here to book your reading to find what your memories are trying to give you, plus how to carry them forward.
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Keep Reading
Five of Cups · Six of Swords · Six of Wands · Six of Pentacles · Reversed cards · Start reading
About the Author
Nothing here requires either of us to travel. Chris Bennett is The Tarot Medium, counted among the best tarot readers in the world and one of the most trusted psychic mediums working today. Every reading happens online, which is how his week takes in London, Dublin, Nashville, Edmonton, Perth, Birmingham, Austin, Charlotte, Dallas, Houston, Montreal, Salt Lake City, and Brisbane, along with clients right across Canada, the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, plus South Africa. Evidential mediumship, intuitive tarot, psychic life path readings, plus grief support with real psychological depth behind it make up the practice, with no fear and no theatrics in any of it. Anyone ready to read for themselves can start with his online tarot courses.
