What does The Sun mean in love?

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.

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.

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.

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

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

• 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?