The Sun tarot card meaning: upright, reversed and symbols

The Sun is card XIX of the Major Arcana, and it may be the happiest card in the deck. After the uncertain night of the Moon comes full daylight. In the 1909 card a child rides a white horse under a huge smiling sun, with sunflowers growing over a wall. The card is about joy, success and warmth. Here is what the Sun means upright and reversed, the symbols in the card and its history.

At a glance

• Upright keywords: joy, success, vitality, clarity
• Reversed keywords: muted joy, delayed success, forced positivity
• Number: XIX (19) in the Major Arcana
• Element: Fire Later tradition
• Astrology: the Sun Later tradition
• Yes or no: Yes Modern

The element and astrology come from the Golden Dawn system of the 1880s and 1890s, not from the first tarot decks, and the yes or no lean is a modern reading habit. Use them if they help you remember the card, and skip them if they get in the way.

The card: what Pamela Colman Smith drew

The 1909 card shows a naked child on a white horse holding a red banner, under a large smiling sun and in front of a wall of sunflowers. Waite described “the naked child mounted on a white horse and displaying a red standard”, and wrote that the child is “a child in the sense of simplicity and innocence in the sense of wisdom”.

The sun

A huge sun with a face shines over everything, its rays alternating straight and wavy. Nothing is hidden in this light. What was complicated under the Moon becomes simple enough to celebrate.

The child on the white horse

A child rides a white horse without a saddle, arms open. It is joy without fear, trust and freedom. Waite saw the child as the restored, simple heart.

The sunflowers and the wall

Four sunflowers grow over a gray wall behind the child. The wall is the safe garden of the past, and the child has ridden out of it. The sunflowers turn toward the light, as we do.

The red banner

The child carries a long red flag. Red is life and action. It is a banner of celebration, held high.

Upright meaning

Upright, the Sun means joy, success, vitality and clarity. Warmth returns. Growth is visible and shared. It is a time of energy, good health and progress you can see in daylight.

In a reading, take up the space that is honestly yours. Enjoy what you have done without apology. Let yourself be glad in specific terms: name what is good. The Sun can also mean children, play and the simple pleasures that make life feel whole.

Reversed meaning

Reversed, the Sun can mean muted joy, delayed success or positivity forced while sadness waits underneath. The warmth is there but out of reach for now, like a sun behind clouds.

Name what blocks the light: tiredness, comparison, unfinished grief. Look for real sources of energy rather than performing cheerfulness. Success postponed is not the same as failure. Keep tending what still grows.

Reversals are optional. Many readers never use them and read every card upright, and that is a complete way to read. If you do use them, decide before you shuffle what a reversed card will mean for you, and keep to that choice for the whole reading.

In love, work and spirituality

Love

Upright, easy, warm and happy connection, love in the open, sometimes a celebration. Reversed, difficulty receiving good care after a long struggle.

Work and money

Visible success, recognition, a project that shines. Reversed, achievements that feel hollow or keep getting delayed.

Spirituality

Simple gratitude, embodied joy, feeling at home in the world. Reversed, spiritual sunshine that will not allow honest sadness.

As feelings

As feelings, the Sun shows real happiness, warmth and openness. The person feels good around you.

The Sun as past, present, future and advice

• Past: A happy time that still warms you.
• Present: Joy and success. Enjoy it.
• Future: Brighter days, success and energy.
• Advice: Let yourself shine and share your light.

A Major Arcana card names a theme, not a sentence passed on your life. When the Sun shows up among mostly Minor cards, give it extra weight: the theme of joy runs under the whole question. If it keeps coming back over several days, write down what was happening each time. Patterns like that teach you more about the card than any list of keywords.

Is the Sun a yes or a no?

In modern yes or no readings, the Sun leans yes. It is the brightest card in the deck, so it is a clear yes. Tarot is better at showing the shape of a situation than at handing down verdicts, so if the question really matters, turn it into an open question such as “What do I need to know about this?” and draw again.

Affirmation and journal prompts

Affirmation: I welcome clarity, vitality and joy I can stand in openly.

Reversed affirmation: I honor sadness where it is real and still turn toward available light.

Journal prompts:

• What is going well in my life right now?
• When did I last feel simple joy?
• How can I share my light this week?

The history and art behind the card

In the Tarot de Marseille pattern the card is called Le Soleil, the Sun. The early Italian Sun cards show a winged child holding up a sun’s face, or a figure spinning thread under the sun. The Marseille pattern shows two children standing together in front of a low wall under a sun dropping colored tears.

Waite and Smith changed it to a single child on a horse. Waite wrote that the child on the white horse was “the better symbolism connected with this card”. The children by the wall in the Marseille pattern are often read as twins, perhaps Gemini, and the change to one child on a horse is one of Smith’s most loved designs.

For most modern readers the Sun is simply the most positive card in tarot. Many beginners find it a relief to learn one card that needs no softening at all.

When A. E. Waite published The Pictorial Key to the Tarot in 1910, he listed these divinatory meanings for the card: “Material happiness, fortunate marriage, contentment.” Reversed, he gave: “The same in a lesser sense.” Waite himself called the fortune-telling meanings of the trumps “artificial and arbitrary”, and on this site I read the picture first and treat lists like this as history.

In the modern teaching map called the Fool’s Journey, this card belongs to the third stage, seeing through and returning (roughly the Devil to the World): bondage, upheaval, hope, uncertainty, clarity, reckoning and completion. This map is a teaching aid made popular by twentieth-century guidebooks such as Eden Gray’s, not a medieval doctrine. Use it when it helps.

A spread for the Sun

Use this spread when you want to celebrate and build on what is going well.

1. What is shining? What is going well right now.
2. What helps it grow? What feeds my energy and joy.
3. How can I share it? Who or what I can bring into the light.

Lay the three cards in a row, read each one on its own first, then read them together as a short story. Write one sentence for each position and one small action you will take.

Common questions

Is the Sun always a positive card?

Almost always. Even reversed, it usually means joy delayed or muted rather than gone.

Is the Sun a yes or no?

Yes. It is one of the clearest yes cards in the deck.

The Sun with other cards

• With The Star: hope fulfilled: joy and healing.
• With The World: great success and completion.
• With The Empress: growth, creativity and, for some, family joy.

Related cards

• The Moon: the night before the Sun
• The Star: hope that grows into joy
• The World: completion and celebration

Keep learning

The Sun is part of the lesson The Devil to the World in my free Tarot for Beginners course. To keep walking the Major Arcana, read the card before it, The Moon or the card after it, Judgement, or go back to all the card meanings. For every card with keywords, affirmations and examples, see my book The Novice’s Guide to Tarot. If you would like a printable cheat sheet for all 78 cards, my 45-page Tarot Workbook is on Etsy.

Sources

• A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (London: Rider, 1910), Part II and Part III, section 3.
• Pamela Colman Smith and A. E. Waite, the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot (London: Rider, 1909).
• Nicolas Conver, Tarot de Marseille (Marseille, 1760).
• Eden Gray, A Complete Guide to the Tarot (New York: Crown, 1970), epilogue “The Fool’s Journey”.
• Lauri Mukkala, The Novice’s Guide to Tarot, entry for The Sun.