MAJOR ARCANA

The Sun Tarot Meanings

The Sun, arguably the most positive card in the tarot. Its positivity, abundant energy, and sense of achievement and joy radiate at the highest level. It is a card of confidence, of ego, and of success. It’s the brightest light that bursts in after The Moon card and sends us on our way forward in the best of spirits.

The Sun is represented by the element of Fire and is the card of the sun itself, our brightest star that gives us life here on Earth. It’s always welcome energy in any tarot reading and leaves us feeling uplifted and ready to tackle anything that comes our way.

The Sun Upright Meanings

In the upright position, The Sun symbolises the most positive aspects of everyday life, whether it’s achievement, success, happiness, joy, or confidence. The main upright meanings of The Sun are:

Joy
Achievement
Success
Confidence
Positive energy

Just like the way we perceive the actual sun, The Sun card also inhabits the same energy of motivation and renewed energy. It is the first card in a while that actually illuminates everything in equal measure, we’ve come out victorious and overcome everything that has been thrown our way recently.

The Sun Reversed Meanings

In the reversed position, The Sun can take things a little too far, the feelings of confidence and achievement can warp into arrogance and vanity. Although being high energy feels great at the time, if we are always in this state we can easily burn out. We need the balance of dark and light to remain healthy.

Arrogance
Vanity
Failure
Negativity
Poor health

I like to think of The Sun in reverse as too much of a good thing. Everything in moderation, even the awesome stuff. If we burn at our brightest for too long, we’ll run out of energy, it’s not a sustainable place to be in long-term, so that’s worth keeping in mind if The Sun comes to you in the reversed position.

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Reading The Sun in a Tarot Spread

Usually, the appearance of The Sun is a welcome one, but it’s worth placing it into context before making any final decisions. Sometimes, The Sun in the lower levels of a reading, if you have positions that represent subconscious and unconscious energy, can symbolise the ego, overconfidence and taking that Sun energy a little too far.

I always like to see if there’s anything in the spread that could lead to a win for my clients, or if there is any reason why they may get a boost of confidence. More often than not, it’s a positive energy that comes in after a tough period.

The Sun as An Invitation

The Sun is a beautiful invitation to celebrate, whether it’s yourself, others or just celebrate the day and being alive. It’s an invite to the party and the chance to really let go and just allow the feeling of joy to flow through you.

For The Sun, this invitation could be the following:

An invitation to celebrate any successes you may have had, big or small
An invitation to see the new day as a chance for a new perspective
An invitation to just feel the pure energy of joy without allowing limiting beliefs and ideas to piss on your parade… so to speak
An invitation to see where you have achieved, especially in areas that you may have discounted

The Sun as Sage Advice

As advice, The Sun is a card that indicates a time to relax, unwind and let go. There is a lot of freedom in The Sun card and the chance to just celebrate and be completely present.

Some advice The Sun may offer is:

Never be afraid to celebrate when you’ve achieved something you’ve been working on
Always spend time giving yourself the recognition you deserve
Embrace confidence and allow it to carry you to new and amazing opportunities
Never be afraid of failure, it’s only through failure that we can learn how to win

The Sun as a Lesson

We’re almost at the very end of the major arcana cycle with The Sun and at this point, we’re learning lessons about authenticity and what true freedom is. As we age, we care less about what others think and this helps us to really allow our authentic selves to shine through.

Some lessons that The Sun may offer you are:

To learn how to be authentically you without fear of judgement
To learn how to celebrate yourself
To learn how to identify the difference between arrogance and confidence
To learn about failure and what it really means to win

The Sun as a Redirection

As a redirection, The Sun often pops up to make us pause and be more present. It’s a card of forward movement, but slow forward movement, so if we’re rushing through and not paying attention to all the amazing things we should be celebrating in the here and now, then The Sun may show up to remind us to take a second.

As a redirection, The Sun could symbolise a need to:

Allow yourself to receive the praise you deserve instead of being self-deprecating
Find your confidence from within and from a place of gratitude
Take some time to just enjoy where you are right now

The Sun - Number 19

The Sun is number 19 in the Major Arcana and this number gets its properties from the collaboration of the number one and the number nine. With this collaboration we get that initial spark of creation with the number one and the deep fulfilling abundance of the number nine.

With this in mind, the number 19 and The Sun represents a spark of joy, usually after a big achievement or even just the realisation that you have everything you could ever want or need. It’s that overwhelming feeling of joy and happiness that can only come with intense gratitude for what is.

The Sun - Sun

Unlike The Moon, The Sun card’s astrological is indeed the sun itself. It’s intense solar energy is what gives power to all life on earth. We need it as humans to get Vitamin D, the happy hormone. It’s what keeps our mood lifted.

This is very much the motivation we need to keep pushing forwards. It reminds us of the rewards that lie on the other side of the darker times. When the sun has set we can find hope and reassurance that it will rise again and a new day will start. The Sun Tarot card offers us a similar message of hope and optimism. With every dark day there will be a bright one to follow it.

The Sun - The Hero

The Hero archetype is linked to mastery, it is achievement and success. It’s victory over the challenges thrown our way. That’s what The Sun represents, being the victor in our own story.

With The Sun Tarot card, we start to bring the Major Arcana journey to a close. We are just two cards away from bringing this cycle to its conclusion and The Sun marks a time to celebrate. It is a time to forget responsibility and expectation, return to a childlike sense of freedom and fun and just enjoy the moment.