The Sun Tarot Card Meaning

The Sun upright

A naked child rides a white horse out of a walled garden, carrying a red banner under a great sun. Waite links the child to simplicity and innocence and the light to a clear, awakened mind. In a reading: clarity, success and the confidence to be open and generous.

The Sun reversed

Waite reversed gives the same, in a lesser sense. Good things still come — perhaps more slowly or modestly than hoped.

A reversed card (What does Upright / reversed card mean?) is one drawn upside-down.

Is The Sun a yes or no?

Upright: Leans yes. One of the clearest yes cards in the deck.

Reversed: Reversed, The Sun reads as a soft yes: joy delayed, smaller success, overconfidence.

The yes/no lean is BornClock’s reading convention drawn from the card’s meaning — Waite himself did not assign one.

Symbolism in the The Sun card

What appears in the 1909 Rider–Waite–Smith picture, as Waite describes it:

• Child on a white horse — Waite: simplicity, innocence, a childlike heart
• Red banner — Waite: the light leading the procession of humanity
• Great sun — Waite: the light of an awakened mind
• Walled garden behind — Waite: he comes out of the garden of the senses

In Waite’s own words (paraphrased)

Upright: material happiness, fortunate marriage, contentment.

Reversed: the same in a lesser sense.

Source: A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910, public domain). Some of Waite’s 1910 fortune-telling meanings are old-fashioned; the plain-English reading above is ours.