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Six of Cups
The Six of Cups is the card of memory. It looks back to childhood, to home, to simpler times and to the people who were there. It is often read as nostalgia, a reunion, an old friend reappearing, or a small act of kindness given without calculation.
The image
Two children stand in an old village courtyard. The taller one offers the smaller a cup filled with white flowers; other flower-filled cups stand nearby, and a guard walks away in the background. The flowers are usually taken as innocence and gentle affection; the old buildings as the past and the safety of home.
Upright
Memories, nostalgia and simple pleasures. Waite calls it "a card of the past and of memories". It can describe revisiting old places or old feelings, kindness between people, or a playfulness that has been forgotten. Waite also notes a second reading: new relations and new surroundings.
Reversed
Waite reads the reversal as the future and renewal, "that which will come to pass presently". Modern readers often see being stuck in the past, idealising it, or, on the contrary, finally leaving an old story behind. Some readers do not use reversals.
Correspondences
The Six of the suit of Cups, element water. The Golden Dawn, whose attributions most English-language decks follow, calls it the Lord of Pleasure and gives it the Sun in the second decan of Scorpio, 10°–20°. On the Tree of Life it sits in Tiphareth, the sixth sephirah.
In a reading
In the past position it reads very naturally, as roots and early experience. As advice, it can invite kindness or reconnecting with someone from before. As an outcome, it tends to mean a warm, uncomplicated situation. Beside the Five of Cups it can show memory mixed with regret.
In astrology
The Golden Dawn's correspondences, which most English-language decks follow (French, Marseille-based tradition differs for some Major Arcana).
Decan: Sun in Scorpio, 10°–20°
Element: Water — the element of Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces
Mode: Fixed — Scorpio is a fixed sign