The Sun

A card of open, direct light, read plainly by Waite as happiness, a good marriage, and contentment, and read inwardly as a more direct, undivided kind of awareness.

Upright

naked child
white horse
red standard
the great light
material happiness
restored world

In Waite's telling, this card is less about a sunny mood and more about a passage: from the ordinary daylight of the world as it is, toward a clearer, more inward kind of light, one he associates with a child's directness rather than an adult's guardedness. The straightforward, this-world meaning he gives is material happiness, a fortunate marriage, and contentment. Alongside that, he describes an inner state where a more direct awareness has 'dawned' above the ordinary, habitual mind, so that instinct and reflection stop pulling against each other and move together instead.

Traditional meaning.

Waite reads this card as the transit from the manifest light of earth's sun to the light of a world to come, a light typified by the heart of a child, going before the endless procession of humanity. In his stated divinatory meanings the card is simpler: material happiness, fortunate marriage, contentment. He also gives a more inward sense: the sun of consciousness in the spirit, direct rather than reflected, in which the self-knowing spirit has dawned above the natural mind and the animal nature is brought into perfect conformity with it.

Symbolism

A naked child rides a white horse and carries a red standard. Waite calls this figure the destiny of the 'Supernatural East' and the great, holy light that precedes humanity as it comes out of the walled garden of the sensitive life on its journey home. The child stands for simplicity and innocence, but Waite is specific that this innocence is also a form of wisdom: the child 'bears the seal of Nature and of Art' and 'signifies the restored world.' The sun itself is described as consciousness in the spirit, the direct light as against the reflected light, with the natural mind, once renewed, said to lead the animal nature into perfect conformity with it.

In this context

A relationship: Waite names 'fortunate marriage' directly as one of this card's meanings, alongside contentment. The imagery of a journey 'coming out from the walled garden' toward open light may also be read as movement from something enclosed or guarded toward something more exposed and direct.
Work or direction: The source gives no work-specific meaning; its divinatory sense of material happiness and contentment can be considered in relation to a work situation without the source itself naming one.
A decision I am weighing: Waite's distinction between 'the manifest light of this world' and 'the direct as the antithesis of the reflected light' may offer a way to consider whether a decision is being approached plainly and directly, or through reflection, caution, or indirection.
Something about myself: Waite describes the self-knowing spirit dawning above the natural mind, with the child as a figure of innocence that is also wisdom, bearing 'the seal of Nature and of Art.' This can be read as a traditional image of maturity that does not abandon simplicity but folds it into a more direct kind of awareness.

Sit with this

Waite pairs the child's simplicity with wisdom, not naivety, where in your life might plainness itself be the wiser choice?
The source contrasts 'manifest light' with a more 'direct' inward light, does your current contentment feel like the first, the second, or both?
Waite describes a journey out of a 'walled garden' toward open light, is there an enclosed or guarded part of your life this might speak to?

Reversed

diminished light
lesser degree
the child
consciousness in spirit
simplicity
innocence

In this source, reversal doesn't flip the Sun's meaning into something dark, it simply turns the volume down. Upright, the card is about a direct, hard-won clarity: an innocence that comes from wisdom rather than naivety, and a natural, instinctive part of the self finally aligned with a more awake, self-knowing part. Reversed, that same clarity, alignment or arrival is described as present "in a lesser sense", partial, muted, or not yet fully realised, rather than absent or reversed into its opposite.

Traditional meaning.

Waite gives reversed Sun almost no independent meaning: he writes only "The same in a lesser sense," pointing back to the upright reading. The source therefore treats reversal here not as a different or opposing meaning but as an attenuation of the upright light, the same transit from the light of this world to the light of the world to come, the same consciousness of spirit typified by a child, but present or attainable in a lesser degree. Anything more specific than that is not supplied by the source, and this record does not invent it.

Symbolism

The card depicts a naked child mounted on a white horse, bearing a red standard, which Waite calls the great and holy light going before the endless procession of humanity as it leaves the walled garden of the sensitive life and journeys home. The sun signifies the transit from the manifest light of the natural world to the light of the world to come. Waite reads the sun further as consciousness in the spirit, direct light, as against reflected light, and the child as the type of humanity restored: simple in the sense of bearing the seal of Nature and of Art, innocent in the sense of wisdom, so that when the self-knowing spirit dawns above the natural mind, that mind in its renewal leads the animal nature into perfect conformity with it.

In this context

A relationship: A lesser degree of the openness or simple, direct warmth this card can represent, something present but held back, or not yet fully expressed between two people, rather than its absence.
Work or direction: Progress or clarity about direction that is real but partial, a sense of things aligning without yet feeling complete or fully lit.
A decision I am weighing: A useful reading here is that the clarity needed may be available only in a lesser degree right now, enough to take a step, perhaps not enough to see the whole path.
Something about myself: The source's imagery of the natural mind being led into conformity with a more awake, self-knowing spirit can, in this lesser degree, describe a process still underway rather than finished, an alignment being approached rather than arrived at.

Sit with this

Where in your life might this 'lesser degree' of clarity or warmth already be present, even if it doesn't feel complete?
The source ties this card's light to a kind of innocence that comes from wisdom, not naivety, does that distinction land anywhere for you right now?
Is there a part of you the card's imagery might call the 'natural mind' that still feels out of step with something more awake in you?

Sit with this

Each meaning is written by us and grounded in A. E. Waite’s The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910), which is in the public domain. Nothing appears here until a person has read it.

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Source: Arthur Edward Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910), public domain. XIX. The Sun (p. 45). Knowledge version 0.1.0.