Major Arcana
The Sun
The Sun makes what is present easier to see, including the pleasure already alive within it.
- clarity
- warmth
- vitality
- joy
- visibility
Read the card in its own right, then follow its meaning through the spread.
Two orientations
The card’s meaning
The Sun describes life becoming more visible and available to enjoyment. The experience may be immediate and modest; a Major’s broad meaning does not require exceptional achievement or constant happiness.
Upright
The Sun makes what is present easier to see, including the pleasure already alive within it.
The Sun brings warmth, vitality and clarity into experience. What was uncertain can become easier to name, and a pleasure or accomplishment can be more fully enjoyed. Its joy is direct: feeling at ease, sharing good news, or recognizing that something is working. Success and enjoyment belong to the card without making every difficulty disappear. The light allows a real part of life to be seen and appreciated on its own terms.
- clarity
- warmth
- vitality
- joy
- visibility
Reversed
The Sun reversed keeps warmth present but obscures it from full view.
The Sun reversed describes warmth that is present but less visible or harder to receive. Pleasure may be private, an accomplishment difficult to register, or vitality uneven. Mixed feelings can accompany something worth enjoying; the presence of warmth does not require gratitude on cue. This orientation concerns the gap between a positive experience and how clearly or fully it is felt, expressed, or acknowledged.
- obscured warmth
- private joy
- muted vitality
- partial clarity
How the reversal changes the emphasis
Warmth and visibility still belong to this card; notice what keeps them from being fully received or acknowledged.
The question changes the emphasis
Reading this card in context
Each spread gives its cards different roles. The examples below explore this card as an influence, a situation or challenge, and advice or support. Begin with the question your position asks, wherever it falls in the spread.
As an influence
Upright
A period of greater clarity, visible support, or uncomplicated enjoyment may have made the present question easier to meet directly.
Reversed
An overlooked success or a period of muted joy may still influence what feels safe or possible to celebrate.
As a situation or challenge
Upright
Notice what becomes clearer in direct view, including any pleasure, success, or simple fact that deserves acknowledgment.
Reversed
Look for any warmth or clear fact that is difficult to receive or acknowledge, and consider what gets in the way.
As advice or support
Upright
Name what is genuinely working and let yourself receive it without turning one bright fact into a promise about everything.
Reversed
Make room for an unforced pleasure or honest acknowledgment, allowing mixed feelings to be present as well.
Read through a particular life focus
Open reading
Consider what direct attention makes clearer or more enjoyable. In reversal, look at how warmth is experienced or expressed rather than assuming its absence.
Love & relationships
Explore where a connection allows warmth, ease or open enjoyment. Private joy and mixed feelings are possible; the card does not establish mutual affection by itself.
Work & direction
Look at what is working, what can be stated clearly, and what success deserves recognition. Reversal can concern a result that is real but hard to register or share.
Home & family
Consider the ordinary conditions for warmth and shared enjoyment at home. A bright moment can have value alongside unresolved family concerns.
Self-growth
Notice how readily pleasure, energy or an accomplishment is allowed to register. Explore any difficulty receiving it without making that difficulty a personal failure.
Look a little closer
The imagery
Large golden sun
A round gold sun with a calm face sends long straight and wavy rays across the upper sky.
Direct light makes the scene legible; clarity can be a fact of visibility before it becomes a feeling of confidence.
Child on a white horse
A smiling child rides the unbridled white horse while lifting a bouquet overhead.
The child’s visible delight associates vitality with ease, openness and the freedom to enjoy an experience.
Sunflowers, roses, and butterflies
Yellow sunflowers and pink roses surround the horse while two pale butterflies cross the scene.
Vitality is recognized in what responds to warmth, not announced as a promise that every season will remain bright.
Similarities & differences
Related cards
Tradition & Lunaire’s interpretation
The traditional foundation
Waite’s symbolic Sun presents the simplicity and innocence of a child on a white horse as an image of direct spiritual consciousness, contrasted with reflected light. Lunaire retains the clear, enlivening quality without requiring that metaphysical account.
Lunaire’s reading
The card’s warmth becomes ordinary clarity, vitality, enjoyment and recognizable success. The reversal keeps warmth present but less visible, private or difficult to receive, closely related to the historical idea of the positive meaning being reduced in degree. It allows complexity alongside pleasure.
Read the source in The Pictorial Key to the Tarot ↗
Arthur Edward Waite. The Pictorial Key to the Tarot. W. Rider; [1911]. Illustrations by Pamela Colman Smith. Source edition details ↗