One number, four suits
The Sixes in tarot
Recovery. What comes after the Five, and it is not always a clean recovery.
Six restores what Five broke, though rarely to the same shape.
Six of Cups is memory and nostalgia, which is a comfort with a hook in it. Six of Pentacles is charity, with a scale in the giver's hand and a real power imbalance in the picture. Six of Swords is the crossing to calmer water, leaving somewhere rather than arriving anywhere. Six of Wands is the public victory parade.
Only the Wands is uncomplicated. The others each restore something at a price, which is the honest version of recovery and the reason the Sixes are more interesting than they look.
The four Sixs
The same idea in four elements. Reading them side by side is the fastest way to see what the number is doing and what the suit is doing.
Six of WandsWands · Fire read the full meaningvictory, recognition, confidence
Six of CupsCups · Water read the full meaningnostalgia, innocence, memory
Six of SwordsSwords · Air read the full meaningtransition, moving on, passage
Six of PentaclesPentacles · Earth read the full meaninggenerosity, charity, fair exchange
The rest of the sequence
Ace through Ten, then the four court ranks. Reading down this list is reading the minor arcana as one story.
Number crossed with element
This is the whole trick to the minor arcana. Forty numbered cards look like forty things to memorise and are really ten numbers crossed with four suits. Learn what a Five does and what Cups are, and the Five of Cups is constructible before you have ever read its page.
The lesson on the numbers, Ace through Ten teaches the sequence properly, and the one on the court cards covers the sixteen that need their own study.