The Six of Cups Tarot Card Meaning
The Six of Cups tarot card meaning: The Six of Cups represents nostalgia, childhood memories, and emotional innocence. It encourages you to reconnect with your inner child, reflect on the past with warmth, and find healing through kindness and simplicity. 
Six of Cups Card Imagery & Symbolism
In the traditional Rider-Waite-Smith deck, the Six of Cups depicts two children in a quaint medieval village. One child offers a cup filled with flowers to the other, symbolizing innocence, kindness, nostalgia, and the purity of childhood emotions. There are six cups in total, all filled with white flowers—symbolic of purity, memory, and emotional warmth. In the background, an older figure walks away, perhaps signifying the departure of adult responsibilities or concerns.
Six of Cups Symbolism Overview:
Children: Innocence, youth, emotional sincerity.
Cups with white flowers: Harmonious memories, emotional gifts, kindness without agenda.
Village/home setting: Familiarity, safety, comfort.
Departing adult figure: Letting go of burdens, detachment from the present, or transitioning away from childhood.
The imagery transports us into a space where emotional simplicity and sincerity take center stage—offering a contrast to the complexities of adulthood.
The Six of Cups Upright Meaning
Six of Cups Keywords:
Nostalgia, Innocence, Childhood, Emotional healing, Kindness, Past influences, Reunions, Sentimentality and Happy memories.
Six of Cups General Interpretation:
The Six of Cups tarot card meaning, when upright, is a card that evokes emotional memories, particularly those rooted in childhood, family, past relationships, or simpler times. It may appear during moments of reflection on the past—whether you’re reminiscing, reconnecting with old friends, revisiting your hometown, or longing for emotional purity and connection.
This card can signify acts of kindness, both given and received. It often marks a period of emotional warmth, generosity, or heartfelt exchange. On a deeper level, it suggests that healing can come from reconnecting with your inner child, integrating past lessons, or embracing lost parts of yourself.
However, the Six of Cups also carries a cautionary note—if you remain too immersed in the past, you may miss opportunities in the present. Nostalgia can be beautiful, but also seductive or misleading if it prevents forward motion.
Six of Cups Love & Relationships (Upright)
In love readings, the Six of Cups is a deeply romantic and sentimental card. It can signify:
A reunion with a past lover or someone from your past returning with genuine intentions.
Emotional healing within a current relationship, often through acts of kindness or shared memories.
A soulmate connection that feels familiar, like “coming home.”
It can also point to childhood sweethearts, young love, or relationships rooted in emotional innocence and trust.
For singles, it may indicate you’re still emotionally tied to someone from your past, or that a new connection will feel familiar in an uncanny, soul-deep way.
Six of Cups Career & Finances (Upright)
In career readings, the Six of Cups can signify:
Revisiting a past career path or job opportunity.
Working in an environment that feels emotionally fulfilling or reminds you of something meaningful.
Involvement in childcare, education, healing, or creative fields that evoke nostalgia or emotional connection.
It can also suggest financial generosity—either receiving help from someone with kind intentions or offering support to others without expecting anything in return.
You may also be drawn to passion projects rooted in earlier dreams or ambitions—something that brings you joy, not just income.
Six of Cups Spirituality & Personal Growth (Upright)
Spiritually, the Six of Cups invites you to:
Reconnect with your inner child and revisit what once gave you joy.
Explore past life connections, soul contracts, or karmic bonds.
Use memory as medicine—honoring the past as a source of healing rather than an anchor of pain.
It’s also a reminder to live from a place of emotional authenticity and openness, shedding the layers of cynicism or guardedness that may have built up over time.
The Six of Cups Reversed Meaning
Six of Cups Keywords:
Stuck in the past, Letting go of nostalgia, Emotional maturity, Living in the present, Repressed memories, Childhood wounds and Growing up.
Six of Cups General Interpretation:
The Six of Cups tarot card meaning, when reversed, often indicates a shift away from the past—you may be trying to move on from a memory, relationship, or emotional pattern that no longer serves you. It can also represent a difficulty in releasing nostalgia, or being overly idealistic about “the good old days” to the detriment of your current growth.
Sometimes, it reveals buried childhood wounds or unresolved emotional experiences resurfacing, asking to be healed with adult wisdom and compassion. In some contexts, the reversed Six of Cups can also show emotional immaturity, clinging to fantasy, or avoiding responsibility.
Ultimately, the reversed card signals a call to reclaim your emotional autonomy—to learn from the past without being defined by it.
Six of Cups Love & Relationships (Reversed)
In relationships, the reversed Six of Cups may suggest:
You’re holding onto an ex or comparing current relationships to idealized past ones.
A need to let go of emotional attachments that are preventing new love from flourishing.
Struggles stemming from childhood conditioning or unmet emotional needs resurfacing.
It may also point to one partner maturing emotionally, while the other stays stuck in a more childlike emotional pattern, creating imbalance.
Advice: Release outdated emotional attachments and embrace love that exists in the here and now.
Six of Cups Career & Finances (Reversed)
Professionally, the reversed Six of Cups may indicate:
You’re longing for a past job or career path, even if it no longer aligns with your current goals.
A need to let go of idealistic expectations about work.
Issues rooted in past experiences affecting your current workplace dynamics—especially if authority figures mirror childhood roles.
Financially, it may warn against repeating patterns—like emotional spending or reliance on financial support rooted in dependency rather than mutual exchange.
Six of Cups Spirituality & Personal Growth (Reversed)
Spiritually, the reversed Six of Cups points to:
Unresolved childhood wounds or trauma needing inner work.
A tendency to romanticize the past, preventing forward movement.
A call to grow beyond limiting beliefs instilled early in life.
This card invites you to examine the difference between healing through remembrance and escaping through fantasy. It encourages mature self-reflection and conscious inner reparenting.
Six of Cups Astrological Correspondence: Sun in Scorpio
The Six of Cups is associated with the Sun in Scorpio—a powerful combination of emotional depth (Scorpio) and illumination (Sun). This pairing brings light to emotional memories, past life influences, and the inner transformation that occurs when we integrate past experiences with conscious awareness.
The Sun in Scorpio reveals truths hidden beneath the surface, particularly those tied to emotional memory, intimacy, and psychic bonds. It reflects the card’s ability to both warm and heal, or wound and trap, depending on how the past is approached.
Six of Cups Psychological & Archetypal Themes
The Inner Child: Innocence, curiosity, and the need for emotional safety.
The Nostalgic Self: Seeking emotional refuge in memory—whether to escape or heal.
The Emotional Alchemist: Transmuting pain or innocence from the past into wisdom.
The Wounded Child: Facing emotional wounds stemming from early experiences.
Six of Cups Advice from the Six of Cups
Reflect—but don’t dwell. Let the past inspire you, not imprison you.
Reconnect with joy and wonder. Ask yourself: What used to make me happy?
Let go of emotional comparisons between the past and present.
Kindness is a strength—offer it freely, and receive it gratefully.
The emotional past is part of you—but it doesn’t have to control your future.
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The Six of Cups Tarot Card Meaning