The Six of Cups is the sixth Minor Arcana card in the tarot deck’s suit of Cups and transports us to an idyllic past, symbolizing the emotions and memories associated with one’s childhood. This card evokes themes of safety, love, innocence, and nostalgia. It speaks to the ways that we relate to the passing of time and to the sense that our bonds of love and friendship leave indelible imprints on our memories.
Astrological associations for the Minor Arcana cards typically involve both a planet and a zodiac sign. The attributions established by the Order of the Golden Dawn (OGD) are by far the most commonly used. However, some Tarot decks use a different set of associations. As a professional astrologer, I find it interesting to compare and contrast these associations from deck to deck. The use of astrological associations with Tarot is completely up to the reader.
This article is meant to briefly cover the connection between astrology and tarot in the Minor Arcana only. We’re going to assume here that you have an intermediate understanding of both astrology and tarot.
General Correspondences
Before diving into the specifics of the Six of Cups, let's establish some general correspondences between Tarot and astrology:
- Cards 2, 3, 4 - Correlated to cardinal signs (Aries, Cancer, Libra, Capricorn).
- Cards 5, 6, 7 - Correlated to fixed signs (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, Aquarius). Fixed signs are reliable and stable; they are dedicated with strong follow through.
- Cards 8, 9, 10 - Correlated to mutable signs (Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, Pisces). Mutable signs are adaptable and versatile.
The aces are the source of power for each of the elements, meaning that aces instead represent the entire element itself, and therefore 3 entire zodiac signs.
Read also: Understanding the Nine of Cups
Various Astrological Systems and the Six of Cups
The systems described above vary widely in their astrological associations for the Six of Cups. Several link this card with Scorpio (Mars/Pluto) and the Sun.
Anna Cook's TD System
In Anna Cook's TD system, cards 2 through 10 are known as Subject Cards. They are viewed as having a strong impact on our immediate agenda, on situations, moods, opportunities or obstacles that pass quickly. The number on the card reveals the situation. The suit of Cups represents Emotion, including dreams and that which gives meaning to your life. This is a fairly standard Tarot association.
To interpret the number Six, we can look at the astrological Sixth House, which is considered to be the house of service to others, work, and health. In a birth chart, this house helps us understand how we express our need to help others or to be useful. It also reveals information about our state of health and illness that is brought on by worry or emotional upsets.
The Sixth House is associated with the zodiac sign Virgo (a mutable Earth sign known for being industrious, dedicated, discriminating, attentive to detail, logical, analytical, and critical). Virgo is ruled by Mercury (representing the mind).
Crowley and the Order of the Golden Dawn (OGD)
Six of cups Tarot card meaning.
For Crowley and the Order of the Golden Dawn (OGD), the Six of Cups represents the energy of Sun (ego, individuality, power of self, conscious will) in Scorpio (a Water sign ruled historically by Mars and/or Pluto, for many modern astrologers). Scorpio is known as a sensual, secretive sign, intensely emotional and imaginative, and possessing psychic ability. Scorpio rules the Eighth House (house of sex, death, psychic powers, and the afterlife) in astrology.
Read also: Page of Cups Interpretations
Crowley titles the card "Pleasure." He notes that this means "Pleasure. . . in its highest sense: it implies well-being, harmony of natural forces without effort or strain, ease, satisfaction." Hajo Banzhaf and Brigitte Theler (in Keywords for the Crowley Tarot) describe the energy of the card as: "deep, self-renewing (Scorpio) joy of life (Sun)." As Crowley points out, "the Cups. . . are not yet full to overflowing, as they are in the corresponding card below; the Nine." Osiris Snuffin offers a modification to the title of the Six of Cups, calling the card "Beginning of pleasure.
Crystal Love associates the Six of Cups with the second subdivision of the sign Scorpio, with Mars/Pluto as the natural ruler and the Sun as the subruler.
A.E. Thierens, PhD
Thierens describes the Six of Cups as follows: "The Water of the soul on the house of Taurus, the Second, house of exaltation of the Moon." He goes on to write, "The latter is no doubt responsible for the addictions concerning memory and the past." In astrology, the Second house is associated with the zodiac sign Taurus, ruled by Venus.
Thierens writes that the Six of Cups can indicate "Happiness, feeling of riches in oneself, joy, enjoyment, love of Nature and country life. . . Taurus, the everlasting, may indeed produce impressions of the past as well as of the future."
The Mandala Astrological Tarot by A.T. Mann
Like the OGD, Mann's deck associates the suit of Cups with the element Water. Mann describes Cups Five, Six, and Seven as "The Sea of Scorpio" and associates them with the time period from 23 October to 22 November. On the King Scale of Color, the color linked with Neptune is pale green. The color for the sign Scorpio is blue-green.
Read also: The Queen of Cups in Tarot
Mann's keywords for Neptune are "divinity, idealism, spirituality, dreamlife, clairvoyance, sensitivity." For the sign Scorpio, his keywords are "death of vegetation; life of the seed; survival; endurance. Regeneration; passion; separation; emotional intensity; dependency; losses; inheritance; the occult."
Mann's divination meanings for Cup Six include "intuition leading to separation, great emotional intensity and pressure creating tension in sexual life. . . depression caused by difficult and stressed mental states.
Liz Hazel
Liz Hazel's suit of Cups is the suit of the Water element, embodying "emotions, feelings, relationships, love, as well as the nature and consequences of emotional attachments." The Six of Cups represents Sun/Scorpio energy. Hazel notes that this card can suggest "romance. . . memories of the past. . . things that evoke nostalgia. . . music, art, food, and clothing associated with sex and seduction." Ill-dignified the card can indicate "living in the past. . . mourning for lost relatives or friends. . . dubious motives in relationships. . .manipulating a lover with sex.
In general, I typically see the Sixes of the Tarot as representing reconciliation, reciprocity, communication, resolution of tensions, an understanding of what is real and what is illusion, morality, or social responsibilities. The idea of the Six of Cups as a "nostalgia card" relates well to the need for distinguishing reality from illusion.
Six of Cups Keywords
The Six of Cups is associated with the element of water and the second decan of the astrological zodiac sign Scorpio (10-19 degrees), and the Sun is its ruling planet. The Sun card in the Major Arcana also depicts a child reveling in innocent play within the safety of an enclosed garden, illuminating the relationship between childhood, innocence, and purity found in both cards.
Here are some keywords associated with the Six of Cups:
Upright Keywords
- Nostalgia
- Security
- Idealizing the past
- Transience
- Opening the heart
Reversed Keywords
- Fixation on the past
- Re-parenting oneself
- Seeing through the idealization of the past
Upright Meaning
The Six of Cups upright signifies nostalgia and a time of reunion with one’s childhood memories. You may be reminiscing on your role as a parent or a child, thoughts of an old friend or childhood friends, past loves, your upbringing, or feelings of warmth and safety connected to your childhood. This walk down memory lane may be cut with a bittersweet awareness that you cannot ever return to this time, and you feel a visceral sense of life’s transience with a mix of longing and appreciation for your present position and new beginnings.
When the Six of Cups appears upright in a tarot spread, it may be a signal to connect to the part of yourself that is unafraid to share your heart openly with others, despite the known risks. It is an encouragement to share your gifts of love and friendship and seize moments of opportunity to express gratitude and appreciation for those you love.
With this card can also come an awareness that through memory’s mirror, old memories of past events can become softened and idealized, the afterglow of nostalgia wiping away the sharpness of painful experiences. If you’re feeling stuck around making a change of some kind, this card may suggest that releasing your idealized vision of the past will help you engage with the task of the present.
Love and Relationships (Upright Meaning)
In a love tarot reading, the Six of Cups upright is an encouragement to embody a child-like willingness to share one’s heart freely without strings attached and to have the courage to share the valuable gift of your love and affection. Like the flowers in the vase, the moment will not last forever, so it is a reminder to seize the day.
The Six of Cups upright can also speak to a desire to recapture an aspect of your childhood (real or longed for) within your romantic relationship. You may be seeking the feeling of comfort, safety, and security that you either did or did not feel in your youth or with a childhood sweetheart. This may be an encouragement to reflect on the ways that your experiences in early life inform your current motivations in partnership.
Career and Finance (Upright Meaning)
The Six of Cups upright can signify a desire to reconnect to what brought you joy as a youth. You may be consumed with the demands of adulthood and all its attendant responsibilities or overly focused on achievement and external metrics of success. This card is a reminder to also make space for your inner child, who longs for play and freedom of expression.
The Six of Cups also represents that you can find success in your work when you approach it with a spirit of love and generosity. To increase the flow of abundance in your work, consider what you can give away for free or share with others from your heart. Approaching your work with a spirit of open-heartedness will attract others to you and build feelings of trust and a desire for reciprocity.
Reversed Meaning
In the reversed position, the tarot meaning of the Six of Cups represents difficulty accessing the joy, freedom, and security that you felt in the past with close friends or past lovers. It may feel hard to access this child-like part of you that once felt unafraid to share yourself with others. You may feel the desire to peel back the layers of accumulated social and cultural conditioning to access your pure and uninhibited inner self.
The reversed Six of Cups can also speak to a complicated relationship to one’s upbringing and the sense that you did not receive the nurturing or permission for freedom of expression that you needed. You may be getting in touch with a desire to re-parent yourself and to hold yourself with the tenderness, love, and compassion that you needed as a child or young adult.
The Six of Cups reversed can also signify a fixation on the past or on your childhood. You may be stalled from moving forward in some aspect of your life because you are caught up in a narrative about the past that is preventing you from growing and maturing. This card may be an encouragement to see through your idealization of the past in order to reckon with the reality of the present.
Love and Relationships (Reversed Meaning)
The Six of Cups reversed can signify that your romantic relationship is experiencing the ripple effects of tension from unresolved childhood pain or wounding from a past love. If there are lingering issues from the past that are influencing your current dynamic, you may benefit from reflecting on how your unmet childhood needs are impacting your current relationship. Your inner child may need love, attention, and care in order to heal.
The reversed Six of Cups can also speak to a feeling of being stuck in the past and unable to move forward with a new relationship. You may be idealizing a previous relationship and are unfairly comparing each new connection to this romanticized ideal. This card is an encouragement to release unhelpful attachments to the past so that you may invite new relationships into your life.
Career and Finance (Reversed Meaning)
In a career reading, the Six of Cups reversed suggests that you may be experiencing creative blocks or frustrations. You may be inhibiting your creativity and your ability to experiment and discover new solutions by focusing solely on the end goal. In order to reconnect to your creative flow, you may benefit from creating a metaphorical walled garden for your creative spirit to play and create inside of.
The reversed Six of Cups may indicate that you are having trouble moving forward in your work because of idealized attachments to the past. Whether you are focusing on past losses or past gains, your fixation on the years gone by is preventing you from taking important steps in the present.
The Six of Cups in Practice
The Six of Cups brings a feeling of nostalgia and remembering the past, especially your childhood. Of course, this card is coming up for a reason. You’re invited to examine how the past may be influencing your current situation. Have you found yourself musing about your childhood a lot recently? If so, why is that? And what role is that connection playing in your life right now?
This minor arcana card can also have a connection with a physical return to the past, such as visiting where you grew up, reuniting with childhood friends, or moving back to your hometown. The Six of Cups may indicate a connection to a childhood sweetheart-perhaps the person is the one you chose to be your life partner. If you’re single and looking for a romantic connection, you might even begin by perusing your yearbook-or looking up an old crush on social media.
If you’re struggling in your relationship, immaturity or childishness could be at the root of the problem. You’re invited to find ways to take a more responsible approach while also appreciating the happy times you’ve enjoyed together. Set boundaries with a partner who is acting out and forcing you to “parent” them by being the mature one. Conversely, if you’ve been playing games or creating messes in the relationship, this is a cue to clean up your act.
Depending on the other cards in your spread, this minor arcana card might be a positive signal about having children-or spending quality time with the ones you already have.