A naked child rides a white horse under a face-bearing sun, arms open, holding a red banner, no saddle, no fear, nothing concealed.The Sun

The Sun · As Feelings

What does The Sun mean as someone's feelings?

The Sun drawn to describe how someone feels, with an honest note on what a card can and cannot tell you about another person's inner life.

As feelings

Happiness, warmth, and a relationship in the open. Honesty is easy here, which is not a small thing and is mostly what the card is describing.

It is the clearest card in the deck for a relationship that is uncomplicated, public and enjoyed. Where the Lovers weighs and the Two of Cups meets, the Sun is the part afterwards where the two of you simply have a good time.

Reversed, a happiness being performed rather than felt, which is the reading that gives this card its only real teeth. A couple who look wonderful and cannot say anything true to each other is the Sun reversed, and it is usually visible only from inside.

As somebody's feelings, it is about as good as this position gets: warm, uncomplicated, and not hiding anything. The card offers no timeline and makes no promises, which applies to every good card as much as to every bad one.

What a card can honestly tell you here

A card drawn to represent another person's feelings does not read their mind. What it can do is describe the dynamic as it reaches you: what is being expressed, what the shape of the connection is from where you sit.

That is a real answer and a smaller one than the question usually wants. Readers who promise more than that are not being straight with you.

A better question with the same card: what is this connection actually like, and what do I need from it?

Upright

Joy, vitality, success, and the confidence that comes from being seen accurately. Things go well and are what they appear to be, which is rarer in the deck than it sounds.

It is particularly strong for anything that has been in the dark: a project finally launched, a truth finally told, a person who has been managing something privately and no longer has to. Also the traditional card for children.

Its one demand is exposure. The Sun does not offer success that is kept quiet, and where somebody is hoping for a good outcome that nobody notices, this is not the card providing it.

Reversed

Temporarily clouded. Delayed success, dimmed enthusiasm, or unearned optimism papering over a real problem.

It is rarely a bad card even reversed, and is better described as a good one running late. The tradition treats the reversal as an obstruction between the thing and its visibility rather than as a reversal of fortune.

The version worth watching is the third: cheerfulness doing the work that a conversation should be doing. That is easy to sustain and expensive over time, and the card reversed is often pointing at it.

Keywords

Upright: joy, success, clarity, vitality, warmth, visibility

Reversed: delayed success, dimmed joy, false optimism, clouded clarity

Journal prompts

  • What is going well that I have not let myself enjoy?
  • Where am I hiding something that would be fine in the open?
  • What did I love doing before I worried about being good at it?

Draw it for yourself

Reading about a card is not the same as drawing one. A single-card reading takes about a minute and answers your question rather than a general one.

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