Cult of Tarot Forum

I'm always a little suspicious of scenes that look cheerful on the surface.

At first glance, Pamela Coleman Smith's 6 of Cups looks awfully sweet. Nearly every time I have ever heard this card discussed people always say it's two children, one child presenting the other with a cup of flowers.

I do not see that.

The person on the right looks to me like an old woman. An old woman in a slightly tattered coat.
And I think she is selling the flowers at a village market, maybe just outside the town wall, or just within it in a marketplace.



And the one on the left is buying the flowers, maybe as a kindness. They look directly into each other's faces. There is a purity of deed here.

I think this card is about kindness, but not only about being kind, but also about accepting kindness. And whether showing kindness or accepting it, doing so with grace and being mindful of the grace and dignity of the other person. Doing it well.

Think of your favourite childhood memory. Perhaps it was a holiday by a beach; or playing in a beautiful garden with a little friend. Maybe it was grandma's soft hands playing with your hair, or a Christmas singing carols around a tree, or even when lightening struck your school and it closed for a week!. (i hope it's not like a friend of mine ... whose treasured memory is when playstation brought out a certain game). Or perhaps it was a little later when you are well into adolescence, when we have fewer problems and time seems to stand still in the moment, and you are with your sweetheart drinking wine and eating strawberries in a cornfield on a beautiful June evening, and you are drowning in the honey of the summer of your youth. What if you dug a small hole near an old tree and buried a little tin with a few keepsakes of that day .... a piece of jewelry, a lock of your young lovers hair, a wine cork, a poem from the heart. ...and carve an X (X marks the spot) into the tree so you won't forget. Then what if you were to come back 70 years later when you are old, grey, lonely and miserable, and dig up the treasure. You/we would be overwhelmed with sweet memories, drowning again in honey. This is an exaggerated/romanticized meaning, but you get my drift. Yes this card is about nostalgia, and those halcyon days, but also so, so much more!

There are no words that can explain that nostalgia feeling, not even to oneself. It's childhood bliss revisited; a return to charming innocence. I had a 6 of cups moment earlier this year (the first time i had ever related a feeling to a card...it was a sign of progress!) My grandfather would, once in a blue moon, take me to the football on a saturday afternoon when i was a small child. Earlier this year i was visiting a friend who lives near a football ground just before a match (it's a poorer lower league side, still traditionally strong ... not these monstrous obscene clubs supported by stock-brokers). i heard the sounds of hawkers selling their scarfs & fanzines, smelt the smells of fags and booze and hotdogs, heard some chanting, saw the excitement on some small boys faces who were draped in blue & white scarves, felt the icy wind in my cheek blow down from the docks, and i was back there, 7 years old with my granddad, i felt the excitement of the moment inside, and i thought this is it ... the 6 of cups experience. I could have spent a thousand days trying to revive that feeling (not that i even remembered it) but i had to be there, at that moment, and it just triggered a response of pleasure laid dormant all those years. And that's the thing about the 6 of cups, it's often something forgotten to time and the hard elbows of life that desensitizes our ability to relive the innocent joy. It remind us that we will never quite experience the highs of childhood, because they are pure joys, pure simple enchantments, they are the real McCoy. It is not the false happiness of adulthood with hedging our bets that someone else will come along and make us happy (if, like many people in our society, we believe this then we will wait a long time); happiness doesn't exist in a drugs high, or making money, buying a car, going on holiday..these are all momentary euphoria's; not saying our abilities to gain & remain happy and content stop at a certain age, it just becomes harder. First World happiness is a difficult treasure to find. Ironically, it will probably be when we have children ourselves that pure happiness will be resumed, but then you've got the teenage years to come, and having been one a massive teenage dickhead myself, i'm not looking forward to that experience

All the 6's are very spiritual. If you are into past lives, incarnations of the soul, and soul mates, then 6 of cups is your bag! Within the Kabbalah the 6 of cups is in the Sephira of Tiphareth, the sun, the equilibrium, where the spiritual experience of the sphere is the meeting with your Holy Guardian Angel - the goal of an occultist's lifetime. Waite was an avid Kabbalist, and may have even completed the Abramelin. This card is also ruled by sun in Scorpio in the 2nd decan. But look at the card...how can this have anything to do with planets as destructive as Mars and Pluto? One of its keywords is Pleasure after all. We all know what happens when we cross a Scorpio, we could be on the receiving end of instant retribution or the vendetta could last many years. In fact, if you cross a person with a dangerously aspected mars in scorpio, then you could end up with your severed head in his/her fridge. But Scorpia is not all about sex, stagnation, and revenge; they are about the unfathomable, infinite depths of the magic waters of the soul.

This is the card of meeting someone for the first time, but "knowing" them too from somewhere else; this is the card of karma. This is the card of not only a person returning in the physical sense, but also the soul return, to either help with a person's incarnation or teach that person a lesson whether good or bad (in karmic terms a lesson is good even when bad, as it's the learning that is important). Joan Marie asked a very important point about this card: is that the face of a young girl or an old lady? In my view, and considering the standpoint of the soul card, it is both young and old. Look at how she looks at him and her stance; her arms are greeting the boy like a long lost friend (but who knows if a knife is under the glove ready to stab him in the back once they hug?...like the vendetta of the karmic mafioso) This is a card where nothing is what it seems, things are obscured; just like karma itself is very, very complex, esp with Scorpio at the helm.

Waite was very secretive and pompous about the real meaning of the cards, thinking the people wouldn't be able to deal with the absolute knowledge. But he left clues in the minutest detail. Now, at the time when these cards were drawn, the late Victorian house and the church were fairly modern. But look at the colour Coleman uses; it is not the yellow of tarot or spiritual symbolism seen in other cards, it is a washy, otherworldly colour. The houses are made from the same material as the ground, they are the same colour. This to me suggests that it is set on the astral plane (something waite was very interested in) especially as near their feet resembles the shifting sands of time....but who knows? Look at their clothes. He is dressed how an early Tudor child of aristocracy would be turned out. While she is dressed like a Dickensian flower girl. I think all this alludes to Waites obsession with metaphysics, and the infinity of the universe where everything exists - the past, present and future - at the same time. He was also a scholar of Ancient Egypt (i think) and they had a better grasp of quantum mechanics than us.

And what about the Soldier on patrol. He looks so out of place...he looks like a ghost. He reminds me of a song by David Bowie i listened to the other night (five years ...i think it's called). Where Bowie sings about a girl he is watching drinking milkshakes in a cafe, and what she is doing, but then sings "...don't think you knew you were in this song.." He doesn't appear to notice the children, he's walking away. What is he guarding? it is a village square, it doesn't have noble means. Is it symbolic of guarding the memories? And doesn't his clothes look similar to the little boys.

One more thing. I think i've read someone else write this on a website, but this card hardly or very rarely turns up in divination. Adding to the mystery of this elusive card!

What a lot of fascinating observations and connections.

Vox Populi wrote: ↑10 Sep 2018, 14:38 Waite was very secretive and pompous about the real meaning of the cards, thinking the people wouldn't be able to deal with the absolute knowledge. But he left clues in the minutest detail.

I think we are going to find this is true with all the cards. For example, this was the first time I noticed the old woman's (or little girl's) coat is just a bit tattered.

Vox Populi wrote: ↑10 Sep 2018, 14:38And what about the Soldier on patrol. He looks so out of place...he looks like a ghost.

I'm glad you mentioned this guy. I thought his presence indicated, or rather confirmed my assumption that this was a market and that these flowers were being sold by the old woman, not presented to her as a gift by the young man.

Vox Populi wrote: ↑10 Sep 2018, 14:38One more thing. I think i've read someone else write this on a website, but this card hardly or very rarely turns up in divination. Adding to the mystery of this elusive card!

So true. Much is made of the Trumps and Court Cards but real discussions about the pips are far rarer.

I'm really looking forward to more of this.

Hi Joan Marie,

I'm very pleased you gave me feed back & liked it. I'm aware i can get a bit carried away with my interpretations & some of them are naive, but i feel everyday i'm learning.

Yes, it's very interesting card, so much there; i've always thought too about the old lady, so i was pleased when you brought that up. And yes, the great thing about these cards is that they keep on giving, like y'day i saw the glove on her for the first time.

I look forward to the next card!

note that the house behind the children [i don't ascribe to the old woman idea] is the most domestic of all the structures depicted in the deck (save perhaps for the little house on the 10 of cups card). this ties in with the homey, simple pleasure theme of the card.
to me, the guard suggests that this innocent exchange is able to happen because the troubles of the outside adult world are being kept from intruding into the children's idyllic world.

chiscotheque wrote: ↑14 Oct 2018, 05:34 note that the house behind the children [i don't ascribe to the old woman idea] is the most domestic of all the structures depicted in the deck (save perhaps for the little house on the 10 of cups card). this ties in with the homey, simple pleasure theme of the card.
to me, the guard suggests that this innocent exchange is able to happen because the troubles of the outside adult world are being kept from intruding into the children's idyllic world.

That's interesting about the purpose of the guard. This also makes me look at the structure behind and wonder if that tower next to the house conveys something similar.

Towers like that were typically either used at "look-outs" (to protect the city or village) or for storage or both, for example in Riga or Prague. Often they were used to store gunpowder. So it's juxtaposition with a domestic dwelling is similar to your idea of the juxtaposition of the Guard and the children.

On first looking at this card I don't get any impression of childhood or fond memories, which I've seen as some interpretations.

I think it's a very weird card the more I study it. The figures are odd in their relative proportions. The bigger child figure reminds me of a giant compared to the smaller figure, who might or might not be older - it's a bit hard to tell, but her clothing suggests she is older. However, the way some decks are coloured and printed that figure can look young too. The child to me does look like she is offering the flowers to the older smaller lady, or maybe she's just smelling them?! Her nose looks to be right on the flowers:) Perhaps moments before the older lady gave the flowers to the child who bent down to take them and smelled them in the process, hence her stance.

I've wondered why the setting is as it is - a town setting rather than perhaps a pretty rural one. There is very little greenery or 'growth' except for the flowers, one of which is being given. One interpretation I've read is that the tower and watchmen represent protection. The watchman looks like he is walking away to me, so this could imply a time of harmony or troubles past ( a progression from the unhappy 5 cups).

I've also read that the flowers my be white datura or apple-thorn which bloom early in the day and so represent youth, childhood or the past. Also apple thorn was used as a hallucinogen suggesting detachment from the moment, perhaps dreaming or looking back? I personally don't know anything about these flowers, but I find this interesting.

I think the card is about innocent,selfless generosity, as shown in the act of giving child to child. The X-Cross and star-flowers together suggest to me the cosmic Christ, the 6th sephiroth on the Kabbalah tree. In the back left is a mysterious man walking away with a spear in hand towards a tower. This could be a grail knight, which would link to the Ace of Cups as the Grail cup. Maybe so, maybe not so. Most importantly, this Image is more than just a recollection of the past; it is the "Be ye as little children "card. Yet there is infinite depth here. Pamela expressed this beautifully and truly.

there are a few curious aspects to this card. namely, why does the older child wear a liripipe? this was often worn by academics or clergy; one of the 3 figures on the 3 of Pentacles card wears one too.

i wouldn't say the older child looks like a giant as has been suggested, but there is something off about the scale of the 2 children to each other. could it be the older boy is a dwarf?

why does the girl wear a white glove - is she a Michael Jackson fan?

what is the shield at the foot of the stair's parapet? is it a st. andrew's cross? a saltirewise in heraldry? it can indicate an error, something toxic, something banned, or a crossing - such as a railroad crossing.

neither structure in the background looks quite right. notice how their edges touch exactly, blocking the sky, and their scale (like the kids) is off - with the tower we are looking upward and with the house we look straight on. and is the roof of the house falling in, dilapidated?

what are the single white flowers? someone suggested datura, which i'm sceptical of. but one aspect of datura is it's hallucinogenic, in the nightshade family, known as one of the witch's weeds with names such as hell's bells, moonflower, and devil's weed. at core, it's highly toxic. this certainly puts a different spin on the implications of the card.

chiscotheque wrote: ↑05 Apr 2019, 06:07 there are a few curious aspects to this card. namely, why does the older child wear a liripipe? this was often worn by academics or clergy; one of the 3 figures on the 3 of Pentacles card wears one too.[...]

what is the shield at the foot of the stair's parapet? is it a st. andrew's cross? a saltirewise in heraldry? it can indicate an error, something toxic, something banned, or a crossing - such as a railroad crossing.

Oooh thanks for this. Are you an English major? I love when English majors get a hold of a Rider-Waite and start talking.

All y'all are helping me want to look closer at this. Because I couldn't see how the hell this correspondended to Sun in Scorpio. Especially with Cancer being the nostalgic sign.

It almost makes me wonder if 5, 6, and 7 are supposed to correspond with Cancer (cry, nostalgia, daydream) (Venus, Mercury, Moon) but that wouldn't quite work either with the two of cups.

Unless they were all shuffled around and Pisces had the two of cups.

(5, 6, 7 of cups are Mars, Sun, Venus in Scorpio), shifted to 8,9,10?)
(Saturn, Jupiter, Mars in Pisces are 8,9,10, shifted to 2,3,4?)

But it's hard to see Saturn in Pisces as the two of cups. Or if the planets stay but the zodiac shifts. So, Venus in Pisces as 2 of cups, Sun in Cancer as the 6).

Also it messes up the wheel obviously, but idk, sometimes I wonder about the degree of obfuscation in this deck and I try to shift stuff to see if it makes more sense. I've never heard of nostalgic Scorpio (maybe grudge holding, but not nostalgic??)

i would be wary of trying to rearrange the zodiacal assignations for the pips. if anything, discrepancies likely have more to do with Waite's interpretation and Smith's execution.

Scorpio is associated with the scorpion, the eagle, and the Phoenix; perhaps this is the Phoenix aspect. the Phoenix is a solar symbol, worshipped at Heliopolis (sun city). the Phoenix represents rebirth, time, & metempsychosis. as we know, Scorpio is connected to the Death card, where it often means a new life, a new dispensation. therefore, perhaps the 6 of Cups is not only a somewhat creepy and distorted nostalgia, but a new experience - the creepy distortedness that is childhood the 1st time around a second time.

further, because of the distortion, the idea the boy may be a dwarf - or conversely that the girl is a faerie, along with her duck/rabbit head - and the psychoactive properties of datura, perhaps this card alludes to the twisted vision arrived at through potions and drugs, the ego-death which occurs with LSD and the liminal space between death and rebirth called bardo in the Book of the Dead.

just as the scorpion is said to sting itself, the Phoenix rises from its own ashes. the sun is essential for life, but one very real aspect of it is it destroys - get too close, like Icarus, and it destroys you. there may be something of this lurking in the card, as in a Brothers Grimm story.

as for the flower - it could be a narcissus. this alludes to the narcissus myth of self-love and reflection and the narcissistic personality disorder. the common term daffodil is derived from asphodel, the plant of the underworld, growing on graves and comprising persophone's crown.

chiscotheque wrote: ↑05 Apr 2019, 06:07 neither structure in the background looks quite right. notice how their edges touch exactly, blocking the sky, and their scale (like the kids) is off - with the tower we are looking upward and with the house we look straight on. and is the roof of the house falling in, dilapidated?

what are the single white flowers? someone suggested datura, which i'm sceptical of. but one aspect of datura is it's hallucinogenic, in the nightshade family, known as one of the witch's weeds with names such as hell's bells, moonflower, and devil's weed. at core, it's highly toxic. this certainly puts a different spin on the implications of the card.

This made me think, if this suggestion is correct, i.e. the scale is off and flowers are hallucinogenic, and the card is about fond childhood memories, those parts of the card imagery may suggest a false/illusory perspective of the memories as being a possible interpretation depending on reading context (and looking this up further I see this is indeed one interpretation for the card reversed)

Waite himself refers to the scene as having children, but I was reading Rachel Pollack's Seventy Eight Degrees of Wisdom the other day and she used (dwarf) in parenthesis to refer to the older child and that had sparked something in my head. So did reading in this thread that the headpiece worn by that figure is a liripipe- that created a moment of "A HA!" right now.

So suddenly I am seeing a figure of great wisdom who has taken on a childlike guise in order to bestow a white daffodil (flower of purity, innocence and a desire for transformation) to someone young and doing so not as a sage would for an adult; they have opted to present themselves more like a cousin or older sibling because for that ensures they are not authoritarian or overwhelming. This is a card of giving and receiving what is wanted, in a non-overwhelming way. Something precious is being offered and taken but it is not anything like the alms in the Six of Pentacles, its practically the reverse. The benefactor has first shrank themselves and is now bending to deliver the gift to the receiver who is standing straight rather than crouched on the ground.

Likewise, I feel like the benefactor is taking from the Ace of Cups on the stone dais to deliver it to the younger recipient and the four cups along the bottom are lined that way to evoke the sense of foundation, balance, harmony.

There is probably symbolism intended by the coat of arms, by the figure in the background walking towards the tower capped with a pyramid holding a spear. I am very sure in that in the Universal Waite at least, the colors of the garments worn by the two central figures has specific significance. I feel like it means something special and specific when a figure in this Rider-Waite-Smith wears red or blue or both as an example.

Certainly the picture is that of an act of loving giving. It is the creation of harmony between the giver and the receiver, a scene of natural beauty as well. The mysterious man with the spear may very well be a grail knight, walking into the grail ceremony away from the children, another picture of harmony-- the grail knight receives the gifts of the grail in the grail ceremony. There is the X cross as well. All in all, not just a picture of nostalgia, much more shown than just that.

What I see is the inner sacred marriage (the fusion of the male and female energies) that takes place at the sixth chakra (six cups) during a spiritual awakening. The color red (male) and blue (female) of the clothes the boy wears, and the cross on the stone, also refer to the sacred marriage.

The five petalled flowers on the card refer to "the Rose of Venus", which in turn symbolises the kundalini energy. The color white of the flowers refers to the purification of the six chakra's (cups) by the ascending kundalini energy (Venus).

The spear in the background is a metaphor for the spine with the pineal gland.