Six of Cups Tarot Card Meaning
Minor Arcana · Cups · 6
Keywords: nostalgia, childhood, innocence, reunion, past
Upright meaning
Sweet nostalgia, reunion with the past, and the innocence and joy of childhood revisited.
Two children stand in a garden, the older offering a cup of flowers to the younger — a scene of pure, uncomplicated giving and receiving. The Six of Cups is saturated with warmth, nostalgia, and the sweetness of the past. Someone or something from your history may be returning. Old memories are surfacing with comfort and longing. The innocence and joy of childhood are available to be revisited. This is also a card of unconditional giving — sharing what you have simply because it makes someone else happy.
Reversed meaning
Living too much in the past, or releasing old memories to move forward freely.
Reversed, the Six of Cups suggests being stuck in the past — idealized memories preventing you from engaging fully with the present, or old wounds from childhood affecting current relationships. It can also indicate being ready to move past nostalgia and let old chapters close so that new ones can begin.
In love
A reunion with a past love, or a relationship with qualities of genuine warmth, sweetness, and innocence. Someone from your past may reappear.
Longing for a past relationship that is truly over, or childhood wounds affecting your current ability to love freely.
In career
Reconnecting with the work that first inspired you, collaborating with someone from your past, or returning to a previous professional environment.
Clinging to outdated professional methods or romanticizing a past job that was not as good as remembered.
Spiritual meaning
Within you lives the child who knew joy before the world taught you to doubt it. Return to that innocence — it is not lost, only forgotten.