The Sun
General
Upright: Clarity, vitality, and genuine good fortune — this is one of the most straightforwardly positive cards in the deck.
Reversed: A temporary dimming of that brightness — delayed joy or success, not denied, just not arrived yet.
Love
Upright: Warmth, joy, and openness in a relationship — a genuinely happy, uncomplicated phase.
Reversed: A relationship's usual warmth feeling muted or delayed rather than absent.
Career
Upright: Recognition, success, and energy at work — a strong, confident phase professionally.
Reversed: Success that's coming, just more slowly than you'd hoped — don't mistake delay for denial.
Money
Upright: Financial matters brightening — a genuinely good stretch, worth enjoying without excess guilt.
Reversed: Good financial news delayed rather than cancelled — patience pays off here.
Health
Upright: Vitality and good energy — a strong, healthy phase in body and mood alike.
Reversed: Low energy that's temporary rather than chronic — it will lift.
Decisions
Upright: Choose with confidence — this is a card of clarity, and the positive outcome is genuinely likely.
Reversed: Don't let a temporary low mood convince you the good option isn't still the right one.
Deeper Meaning
Symbolism
A radiant sun with a strong, direct human face dominates the sky, its rays alternating between straight and wavy lines — a traditional alchemical marking suggesting both spiritual and material forms of energy pouring down together. A nude child rides a white horse beneath a wall of sunflowers, arms open, entirely unguarded and joyful. Unlike the veiled, partial, or uncertain figures found throughout much of the rest of the deck, nothing here is hidden — this is the deck's most direct, unambiguous image.
Correspondences
Numbered 19, associated directly with the Sun itself — vitality, clarity, unclouded success. The Hebrew letter Resh (head, or face) is traditionally linked here, fitting a card whose central image is literally a face radiating outward.
Waite's Reading
Waite calls this 'the destiny of the illuminated' and reads it as one of the most straightforwardly fortunate cards in the entire deck — material happiness, a marriage well-founded (in the older sense some earlier decks gave it), and a release from the doubts and shadows of the two cards immediately preceding it (Moon, and further back, the Tower's aftermath). He notes the child's total lack of self-consciousness as central to the card's meaning: this is joy without the need to justify or qualify itself.
Combinations
Beside The Moon, the sequence completes a movement from uncertainty into full clarity. Near The Star, both cards build toward hope and joy, with the Sun as the fuller realization of what the Star only promised. Next to difficult cards (Five of Pentacles, Ten of Swords), the Sun often signals that whatever hardship is shown will resolve into genuine good fortune, given time.