Tarot - Six of Cups

^z 19th June 2023 at 10:43am

Six of Cups

Children in an old garden, their cups filled with flowers. Divinatory Meanings: 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. Another reading reverses this, giving new relations, new knowledge, new environment, and then the children are disporting in an unfamiliar precinct. Reversed: The future, renewal, that which will come to pass presently.

A. E. Waite, Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911)

Discovering of unconditional love, the love for everything This true love allows the harmonious uniting of the conscious and the unconscious, the masculine and the feminine. Initiating energy together with receptivity can make it happen, the evolution, birth, life and death. At peace with yourself love has become reality, thus you have something to build upon. And after a tense period there is relief of emotional calm, some effortlessness and satisfaction, the positive turn towards the goal. The dream is experienced as still possible and is even near achievement.

6 of Water: The Dream

Some enchanted evening you're going to meet your soulmate, the perfect person who will meet all your needs and fulfill all your dreams. Right? Wrong! This fantasy that songwriters and poets are so fond of perpetuating has its roots in memories of the womb, where we were so secure and "at one" with our mothers; it's no wonder we have hankered to return to that place all our lives. But, to put it quite brutally, it is a childish dream. And it's amazing we hang on to it so stubbornly in the face of reality. Nobody, whether it's your current mate or some dreamed-of partner in the future, has any obligation to deliver your happiness on a platter–nor could they even if they wanted to. Real love comes not from trying to solve our neediness by depending on another, but by developing our own inner richness and maturity. Then we have so much love to give that we naturally draw lovers towards us.

This card is the only one in the Tarot that refers explicitly to the past, and of memories and good times experienced there. After losses such as those on the Five we sometimes have to take a time out to heal, to look back on the past and all the good that lies there. And during such times it's never the right thing to focus on the negative, and that's why this card is so positive and full of light. The fallen cups are now full and upright again, but with blooming flowers that cannot be spilled or washed away. Now that you have looked back, maybe now the way will be clear to look forward.

Often, people tell others to concentrate on the present and not get stuck in the past, but this counsel only applies when a person stops looking back at his past and starts dwelling on it, wishing he could change it and make things better. There is nothing wrong with looking back at the good times for inspiration when things aren't going so well. In the midst of change and crisis, looking back at what you have endured is often a good way to assure yourself that, whatever trials lay ahead, you will meet them and you will overcome them as you overcame others. Take a look at your emotional trophy case, then go out and win another cup!

The Six of Cups almost radiates an aura of joy, because it represents the past with all its memories, the present with all its gifts, and the future with all its wondrous opportunities. It has ties to all kinds of pleasure, particularly sexual pleasure, but it can also refer to smaller, everyday pleasures. Simple gestures of affection, such as the gift of a cup pictured on the Rider-Waite version of this card, are still meaningful despite our modern world and its frantic pace. The Six of Cups can thus signal a gift given or received, or some other similar gesture.

Since the Six of Cups has ties to sex, it follows that it is associated with fertility, childbirth and childhood. Children are a good role model to follow when this card's energy is about. They see the world as a completely perfect place, and their hearts are totally open to experience all the myriad pleasures of the world around them. When the Six of Cups suggests a path to follow, it tells you to open your heart to all the possibilities of life. Live in quiet harmony with those around you. Live in constant peace and joy. Live in the moment, remember the past, dream for the future.