What does The Sun mean in tarot?
The Sun upright represents Positivity, joy, success. It is one of the 22 Major Arcana cards, marking a significant theme in your current path. When this card appears, it invites you to pay attention to what is unfolding — something meaningful is in motion.
Upright & Reversed Meanings
✦ Upright
The Sun is joy, success, vitality and clarity. Upright, it’s the warmest card in the deck — a wholehearted yes. Things are working out; happiness, confidence and truth are flowing toward you. Let yourself feel good, shine openly, and trust the light.
↓ Reversed
Reversed, the sun still shines but partly clouded — a temporary dimming, a delay in joy, or difficulty letting yourself feel it. It reminds you the warmth is there; you may simply need to step back into it and stop dimming your own light.
The origin & symbolism of The Sun
✦ Where this card comes from
Card XIX shows a radiant, human-faced sun over a child riding a white horse, joyful and unguarded, beneath a wall of sunflowers, a red banner streaming behind. The naked child is innocence and the authentic self. It is the simplest, brightest card — joy, success and vitality — ruled, fittingly, by the Sun.
Reading the picture: the symbols in The Sun
✦ What the Rider–Waite card shows
A huge bright sun with a serene human face beams down at the centre of a clear blue sky, its straight and wavy rays pouring out warmth, life and pure joy. Below it a small naked child rides a calm white horse, arms open wide, holding a large orange-red banner that streams behind in the breeze. The child stands for innocence, freedom and honest happiness with nothing to conceal, and the white horse speaks of strength, purity and nobility carrying that joy forward. Behind them a wall is topped with four tall sunflowers turning toward the light, symbols of nature flourishing and of following what nourishes us. The whole scene glows with golden colour. Everything here speaks of vitality, success, clarity and the simple, radiant gladness of life going well.
The Sun in Love, Career & Spirituality
Love
Joy, warmth and radiant happiness; a relationship that genuinely lights you up.
Career
Success, recognition and clarity — things are working out; let yourself shine.
Spiritual
Pure joy and vitality; living openly and unguarded as your authentic self.
Questions to sit with when The Sun appears
Wooly suggests journaling on these prompts after drawing The Sun:
- Where in my life do I feel the energy of positivity right now?
- What would change if I fully embraced joy?
- Is there something I am resisting that this card is gently pointing to?
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