Six of Cups Tarot Card Meaning

One figure hands another a cup of flowers. The exchange has no calculation in it, which is what makes the card feel the way it does: this is kindness without an expected return.

It carries nostalgia, often for a simpler arrangement — childhood, an old friendship, a place you used to live. The past is being remembered fondly and not, for once, painfully.

It can also indicate someone from earlier in your life reappearing, or a reason to reconnect with a version of yourself you have not thought about in a while.

Learn Tarot: A Beginner’s Guide

Reversed, the Six of Cups can describe a past held on to at the expense of the present — an idealized version of how things were, measured against which nothing current can compete.

It can also mark the healthy end of that: putting a memory down, or seeing an old situation more accurately than the softened version you had been keeping.

Reversed Tarot Cards: How to Read Them

In relationships, the Six of Cups favors tenderness and small kindnesses, and can indicate someone from the past returning. Judge any reunion on what is true now rather than on what it used to feel like.

At work, this card can point to an old contact, a former colleague, or a return to something you used to do. It also favors mentoring — passing on freely what someone once gave you.