The Sun Tarot Card Meaning
The Sun General Meaning
The Sun upright: This is genuinely good, plainly. Take the win without hedging it or waiting for the catch — there isn't one.
The Sun reversed: The good outcome is delayed, not denied. Don't mistake the wait for a no.
The Sun Love Meaning
The Sun upright: This relationship is in a genuinely happy, uncomplicated phase. Enjoy it instead of waiting for something to go wrong.
The Sun reversed: The warmth here is muted right now, not gone. Give it a little more time before you read too much into the quiet.
The Sun Career Meaning
The Sun upright: You're in a strong, confident phase professionally, and it's earned. Take the recognition instead of deflecting it.
The Sun reversed: The success is coming, just more slowly than you hoped. Keep going — the delay isn't a verdict.
The Sun Money Meaning
The Sun upright: This is a genuinely good financial stretch. Enjoy it without the guilt — you don't need to earn permission to feel good about it.
The Sun reversed: Good financial news is delayed, not cancelled. Stay patient a little longer.
The Sun Health Meaning
The Sun upright: You're in a strong, energetic phase. Use it — this is a good window to push forward on something.
The Sun reversed: This low energy is temporary. Don't restructure your life around it — it will lift.
The Sun Decisions Meaning
The Sun upright: Choose with confidence. This is genuinely a clear, favorable moment — trust it.
The Sun reversed: A temporary low mood is trying to talk you out of the right option. Don't let it — the option is still good.
Deeper Meaning
Symbolism
A radiant sun with a strong, direct human face dominates the sky, its rays alternating between straight and wavy lines — a traditional alchemical marking suggesting both spiritual and material forms of energy pouring down together. A nude child rides a white horse beneath a wall of sunflowers, arms open, entirely unguarded and joyful. Unlike the veiled, partial, or uncertain figures found throughout much of the rest of the deck, nothing here is hidden — this is the deck's most direct, unambiguous image.
Correspondences
Numbered 19, associated directly with the Sun itself — vitality, clarity, unclouded success. The Hebrew letter Resh (head, or face) is traditionally linked here, fitting a card whose central image is literally a face radiating outward.
Waite's Reading
Waite calls this 'the destiny of the illuminated' and reads it as one of the most straightforwardly fortunate cards in the entire deck — material happiness, a marriage well-founded (in the older sense some earlier decks gave it), and a release from the doubts and shadows of the two cards immediately preceding it (Moon, and further back, the Tower's aftermath). He notes the child's total lack of self-consciousness as central to the card's meaning: this is joy without the need to justify or qualify itself.
Combinations
Beside The Moon, the sequence completes a movement from uncertainty into full clarity. Near The Star, both cards build toward hope and joy, with the Sun as the fuller realization of what the Star only promised. Next to difficult cards (Five of Pentacles, Ten of Swords), the Sun often signals that whatever hardship is shown will resolve into genuine good fortune, given time.