This is a card of…

Memory

Nostalgia

Safe Haven

Upbringing

Right relationship to the past

“Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart.”

-Haruki Murakami

The Six of Cups is about our relationship to the past, particularly childhood. This could mean nostalgia for an idealized ‘back when’ we keep polishing in our imagination and comparing unfavorably with the present. Sometimes it is a rumination on the misfortunes and injuries of the past, a longing to correct them and find the life we believe we could have if only they had never happened.

Memory can be a snare. No matter how much we long to return to the past, we cannot. No matter how badly we wish it was different, it cannot be changed. There is nothing more detrimental to emotional growth than trying to go back in time.

While nostalgia, regret, and resentment are certainly swamps in which we can mire ourselves; the past is still a precious resource. The RWS illustration for this card shows a dwarf gifting a cup of flowers to a happy child within a walled city. It speaks of the strong desire to create a protected haven for the young and vulnerable, or for the most vulnerable parts of ourselves. It also speaks of viewing our earlier selves with compassion. This card wants us to take the emotional lessons of our past and move forward with them.

Cups being a suit of spiritual as well as emotional feeling, this card also calls us to think which spiritual or religious teachings in our past are serving us well today, and which are not. It may be a good time to think of the spiritual tradition in which we were raised, and to consider how it has shaped who we are today.