Major Arcana · 19
The Sun
Le Soleil (Tarot de Marseille) · Il Sole (Italian tarocchi) · Lord of the Fire of the World (Golden Dawn)
A naked child riding a white horse beneath a radiant sun, sunflowers rising above a wall behind. In the Waite–Smith tradition the Sun stands for joy, success, vitality and clarity.
Upright joy · success · vitality · clarity · warmth · confidence · celebration
Reversed temporary setbacks · dimmed enthusiasm · overconfidence · delayed success · sadness · inner child neglected
- Astrology
- Sun
- Element
- Fire
- Hebrew letter
- Resh
- Number
- 19
- Golden Dawn title
- Lord of the Fire of the World
- Yes or no
- Yes
Upright
The Sun is the brightest card in the tarot. In the Waite–Smith tradition it signifies joy, vitality, success and the clarity of full daylight after the shadows of the Moon. Things can be seen as they are, and what is seen is good.
Love and relationships: happiness, warmth and openness; a relationship that brings out playfulness and confidence. Readers also associate the card with children and family joys.
Work and money: achievement, recognition and well-earned success. It favours public roles, creative work and any enterprise that benefits from energy and optimism.
Advice: enjoy what is going well and let yourself be seen. Readers often describe the Sun as encouragement to act with simple confidence, to share your warmth generously, and to approach life with something of the child's directness and delight.
Reversed
Reversed, the Sun is still the Sun; most readers see its light dimmed or delayed rather than extinguished. They describe temporary setbacks, success that arrives more slowly than hoped, or low spirits that make good things harder to enjoy. Plans may need a second attempt before they shine. A further reading is overconfidence, the glare that blinds.
In relationships it can suggest a cloud passing over an essentially happy bond. In work, recognition postponed rather than refused.
Reversals are a matter of choice, and plenty of readers simply leave them out of their practice.
The image
Smith's Sun fills the top of the card: a great golden disc with a calm human face, its rays alternately straight and wavy. Below, a naked, fair-haired child rides a white horse bareback, arms flung wide, wearing a wreath of flowers with a red feather. In one hand the child holds a long staff from which a large red banner billows. Behind the horse runs a grey stone wall, and above it tall sunflowers turn their faces toward the child.
History
Italian Sun cards of the fifteenth century show a winged child, or a putto, holding up the sun's face, or sometimes a philosopher such as Diogenes beneath it. The Tarot de Marseille's Le Soleil shows two children, often taken as twins, standing before a low wall under a sun that sheds drops. Court de Gébelin related the Sun card to the light that fertilises the earth.
Smith and Waite replaced the twins with a single child on horseback, a change Waite discusses in his Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910), where the child and the sun together become a picture of consciousness illuminated by the spirit. The Golden Dawn attributed it to the Sun and the letter Resh.
Symbolism
The sun is the source of life, light and consciousness; its face shows that this light is personal as well as cosmic. The naked child signifies innocence and freedom, and the white horse a vitality held without saddle or reins. The red banner is the energy of life displayed openly. The wall marks the cultivated, protected garden of the self, and the sunflowers — plants that follow the sun across the sky — represent the natural world turned toward the light. The Fool, with his white sun, is often compared to this child: both are pictures of beginnings and trust.
Resh, "head" or "face", suggests intellect and recognition. In traditional astrology the Sun rules Leo, giving the card a kinship with Strength. On the Tree of Life its path joins Hod and Yesod. Nineteen reduces to ten and then to one, linking the card to the Magician and to the idea of a new cycle beginning at a higher level.
In a reading
Readers find the Sun one of the most favourable cards, able to brighten difficult neighbours. With the Ten of Cups it suggests family happiness; with the Six of Wands, public success; with the Moon, uncertainty resolving into clarity. In an outcome position it is a strong sign of a positive result.
Sources and further reading
- The Pictorial Key to the Tarot — A. E. Waite, 1910
- The Game of Tarot: From Ferrara to Salt Lake City — Michael Dummett, 1980
- The Tarot: History, Symbolism, and Divination — Robert M. Place, 2005
- Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom — Rachel Pollack, 1980