The Sun: tarot card meaning

In A. E. Waite's Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910), the Sun upright means: Material happiness, fortunate marriage, contentment. Reversed: The same in a lesser sense.

The picture

“The naked child mounted on a white horse and displaying a red standard has been mentioned already as the better symbolism connected with this card. It is the destiny of the Supernatural East and the great and holy light which goes before the endless procession of humanity, coming out from the walled garden of the sensitive life and passing on the journey home. The card signifies, therefore, the transit from the manifest light of this world, represented by the glorious sun of earth, to the light of the world to come, which goes before aspiration and is typified by the heart of a child. But the last allusion is again the key to a different form or aspect of the symbolism. The sun is that of consciousness in the spirit: the direct as the antithesis of the reflected light. The characteristic type of humanity has become a little child therein, a child in the sense of simplicity and innocence in the sense of wisdom. In that simplicity, he bears the seal of Nature and of Art; in that innocence, he signifies the restored world. When the self-knowing spirit has dawned in the consciousness above the natural mind, that mind in its renewal leads forth the animal nature in a state of perfect conformity.” A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, 1910

Upright

Material happiness, fortunate marriage, contentment.

Reversed

The same in a lesser sense.

In one line

Contentment and plain happiness: a child rides out in the light. (Esbat's own summary of Waite's meaning and picture.)

Where it sits in the deck

The Sun is card XIX of the 22 Major Arcana, the trumps. Before it comes The Moon; after it, Judgement.

In Esbat

Esbat deals a card of the day, face down until you turn it, and holds all 78 cards in the 1910 pictures with Waite's meanings, upright and reversed. The Sun can be shared as a picture. All 78 tarot card meanings.

Sources

Meanings and picture descriptions: A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (London: Rider, 1910), public domain, checked against the Wikisource transcription. Picture: Pamela Colman Smith, 1910, public domain. Like the app, this page records what the book says; it does not promise outcomes.

Last updated October 25, 2026.

Esbat: Tarot & Book of Shadows, on Google Play

A card of the day, face down until you turn it, and all 78 cards in the 1910 pictures with Waite's meanings, upright and reversed. For Android.

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