The Tarot of Eli 2, LLC: Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot- Six of Cups & The Ocean Tarot - Six of Cups

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The Rider-Waite-Smith Six of Cups presents a gentle and sentimental image of pleasure, memory, and emotional innocence. Six golden cups overflow with blooming flowers, suggesting simple delight, kindness, and the sweetness of past experience. The bright yellow background implies the warmth of the Sun, while the two children in the garden evoke childhood, nostalgia, and the emotional impressions that remain within the soul long after the original moments have passed.

On the mundane level, this card often speaks of pleasant memories, childhood influence, old friendships, acts of kindness, and a return to emotional simplicity. It may also suggest that the past is influencing the present. The question is whether memory is being used as a healing wellspring or as a sentimental escape from current responsibility.

Arthur Edward Waite, being bound by his Golden Dawn oath, revealed only fragments of the deeper Mysteries in the Rider-Waite-Smith deck. Pamela Colman Smith’s imagery is beautiful and evocative, but much of the esoteric structure remains veiled, especially in the Minor Arcana. Therefore, the Six of Cups may appear merely nostalgic to the casual reader, while the initiated eye sees a deeper doctrine of the Solar Child, emotional harmony, and the Soul’s pleasure in incarnation.

In Western Hermetic Qabalah, the number 6 belongs to Tiphareth, the sixth Sephirah on the Tree of Life. Tiphareth means Beauty and is the central Sun of the Tree. It is the sphere of the Solar Self, the Christ-Buddha consciousness, the Higher Self, and the harmonizing intelligence of the Soul. All paths either radiate toward or through this center, making Tiphareth the great mediator between the Supernal Divine and the lower personality.

Therefore, the Sixes in Tarot are not merely cards of accomplishment. They are cards of Solar harmony, where conflict has been reorganized into beauty. In the Suit of Cups, this becomes emotional pleasure, healing memory, and the restoration of the heart. The Six of Cups is not simply “remembering childhood”; it is the Soul recalling its original innocence before the personality was hardened by social conditioning.

The child shown in the card may be read as the inner child, but in Hermetic terms this child is more than a psychological fragment. It is the pure Self sent into Malkuth by the Solar Self of Tiphareth. This child is curious, playful, receptive, and alive with wonder.

The adult personality, however, is often shaped by fear, trauma, indoctrination, social expectation, and collective belief. In this way, the adult persona may become the oppressor of the very child it was meant to protect.

The true healing of the Six of Cups occurs when the conscious adult personality takes the hand of the inner child and restores communion with it, as shown on the Ocean Tarot. This is the embrace of the profaned persona and the Solar Child. The personality must stop acting as a prison warden and become the guardian of innocence. Then memory becomes a sacrament rather than a wound.

The Western Hermetic astrological attribution of the Six of Cups is Moon in Taurus. The Moon rules emotion, memory, instinct, intuition, and the subconscious. Taurus, ruled by Venus, gives stability, sensuality, beauty, endurance, and the desire for material and emotional security. Together, Moon in Taurus describes the pleasure of stable feeling, the comfort of familiar beauty, and the emotional nourishment found in touch, nature, food, music, affection, and peaceful surroundings.

This attribution explains why the Six of Cups often feels gentle, sweet, and comforting. It is not the wild passion of Water, but Water made stable by Earth. Emotion becomes fertile, peaceful, and embodied. The soul remembers pleasure through the senses. A scent, a song, a garden, a childhood home, or a simple kindness may awaken an entire world of feeling.

Yet Moon in Taurus also has a shadow. It can cling to the familiar, resist change, and confuse comfort with growth. The Six of Cups may therefore warn against living in the past, idealizing childhood, or seeking emotional safety in memories that no longer serve the present life. What once nourished the Soul may become a garden wall if one refuses to move forward.

Metaphysically, the Six of Cups teaches that memory is not dead. Memory is a living astral substance. Every sincere feeling leaves an impression in the subtle body, and these impressions continue to shape perception, attraction, and behavior. Parapsychologically, this card suggests that the emotional field stores images, sensations, and psychic residues that can be reawakened by symbol, place, sound, scent, or relationship.

Cosmologically, the Six of Cups reveals the universe as a field of remembered pleasure. Creation itself is the Divine remembering Itself through form. The Soul descends into incarnation not merely to suffer and strive, but to taste, touch, love, and know the sweetness of existence. Tiphareth, as the Solar center, harmonizes these experiences into meaning.

Theologically, the Six of Cups may be understood as the pleasure of the Divine Child within creation. The Christ-Buddha consciousness is not grim, rigid, or life-denying. It is radiant, compassionate, playful, and beautifully alive. The innocence of the child is not ignorance; it is uncorrupted presence. It is the state before the false soul of social programming replaces direct communion with life.

In practical readings, the Rider-Waite-Smith Six of Cups may indicate nostalgia, emotional healing, childhood memories, reunion, kindness, gifts, old friends, family patterns, or the need to recover joy. It may also ask the querent to examine whether the past is blessing the present or quietly ruling it.

In Western Hermetic Tarot, this card teaches that the adult personality must be reorganized around the Solar Self rather than around social fear. The Six of Cups is the pleasure of remembering who you were before the world told you what to become.

Numerological and Qabalistic Meaning of Six

The number 6 represents harmony, balance, beauty, love, service, healing, protection, and responsibility. In Western Hermetic Qabalah, it is far more than a simple number of domestic harmony. It is the number of Tiphareth, the Solar center of the Tree of Life and the highest state of consciousness the ordinary personality can directly approach before undergoing deeper initiation.

The number 6 is also the number of the Dying Gods, for the movement into Tiphareth requires sacrifice. The false personality must be deconstructed so that the Solar Self may be revealed. This sacrifice is not punishment; it is spiritual reorganization. Even in business and mundane life, true success requires the sacrifice of disorder, laziness, and immature habits so that skill, discipline, and beauty may emerge.

In Hebrew, the letter Vav has the numerical value of 6. Vav means “and,” making it a letter of connection, continuity, and joining. This beautifully reflects Tiphareth, which joins the higher and lower worlds, Spirit and personality, heaven and earth, memory and present awareness.

The number 6 is also reflected in sacred geometry through the hexagon and the six-pointed star. These forms express harmony, balance, and the union of opposites. Even the carbon atom, foundational to organic life, contains six protons, six neutrons, and six electrons in its common form. Thus, the number 6 is intimately linked to life, embodiment, and the beauty of manifested consciousness.

Moon in Taurus: The Astrological Key

The Six of Cups is attributed to Moon in Taurus.

The Moon represents:

• Emotion
• Memory
• Instinct
• The subconscious
• Psychic receptivity
• The maternal and reflective principle

Taurus represents:

• Stability
• Sensuality
• Beauty
• Endurance
• Material comfort
• Fertility
• The pleasure of embodiment

Together, Moon in Taurus gives emotional steadiness, sensual pleasure, loyalty, patience, and a deep need for comfort and security. It is the feeling of being safe in the body, safe in the home, and safe in the arms of memory.

Its shadow is attachment. Moon in Taurus may resist emotional change, cling to the past, and prefer familiar comfort over necessary transformation. Therefore, the Six of Cups can be both a blessing and a warning. It blesses us with emotional sweetness, but warns us not to become trapped in yesterday’s garden.

Brief Numerology Guide for Readers

For readers interested in numerology, the number 6 is commonly associated with harmony, care, beauty, responsibility, family, healing, service, and protection. It is often called the number of love and balance.

A person’s primary numerology numbers may be calculated through their birth date and birth name:

Life Path Number:
Add the digits of your birth month, day, and year, then reduce them to a single digit.

Expression Number:
Use the full birth name, assigning each letter a number, then reduce the total.

Heart’s Desire Number:
Use only the vowels in the full birth name, then reduce the total.

Birthday Number:
Use the day of birth, reducing it if necessary.

These numbers can offer insight into personality, motivation, life direction, and inner desire. However, from a Western Hermetic perspective, numbers are not merely personality labels. They are living principles of consciousness. They describe the architecture by which Spirit becomes Soul, Soul becomes mind, and mind becomes embodied life.

The Six of Cups reminds us that memory is sacred when it restores the Soul, but dangerous when it imprisons the personality. Its highest message is simple: recover the innocence, but do not retreat from life.

The Ocean Tarot – Six of Pearls

The Ocean Tarot Six of Pearls beautifully expresses the gentle and restorative current of the traditional Six of Cups. A mermaid offers a glowing pearl to a mermaid child as they sit together on a great scallop shell, surrounded by colorful coral and the quiet abundance of the sea. In the distance rises a towering spire crowned by a six-pointed star, emphasizing harmony, balance, and the beauty of loving exchange. The entire scene radiates peace, innocence, and joyful sharing.

On the mundane level, this card speaks of nostalgia, comfort, kindness, family affection, reunion, and the sweetness of early memories. It often points to emotional security, familiar bonds, and the healing power of simple acts of generosity. The giving of the glowing pearl suggests not only a gift of love, but also the passing on of emotional wisdom, tenderness, and protection.

From a Western Hermetic Qabalistic perspective, the number 6 is the number of Tiphareth, the sixth Sephirah on the Tree of Life, called Beauty. Tiphareth is the Solar center of harmony, compassion, and the Higher Self. Therefore, the Sixes are cards of balance, integration, and restored order. In the watery suit of Cups or Pearls, this balance becomes emotional pleasure, heartfelt sharing, and the healing of the inner life.

The six-pointed star shown in the background reinforces this Tiphareth symbolism. It is a sign of union, equilibrium, and the meeting of higher and lower forces. In this card, that union appears as the meeting of the adult and child, the giver and receiver, the past and the present. The mermaid child may be understood as the inner child, while the older mermaid reflects the nurturing and protecting current of the Soul.

Astrologically, the Six of Cups is attributed to Moon in Taurus. This combination gives emotional steadiness, pleasure, affection, sensual memory, and the desire for comfort and peace. It supports love expressed through care, security, and familiar surroundings. Thus, this card often carries a feeling of emotional safety, sweetness, and cherished remembrance.

At a deeper metaphysical level, the Six of Pearls suggests that the heart is healed when innocence is not abandoned but integrated. The pearl is a fitting symbol here, for the pearl is formed through patience and inner refinement. It represents the beauty that grows from experience and the soul treasure carried within memory.

Upright Meaning

The Six of Pearls indicates nostalgia, familiarity, comfort, pleasure, sentimentality, purity, creativity, compassion, charity, protection, family support, reunion, and early memories. It suggests emotional warmth, the joy of giving and receiving, and the healing influence of loving connections. It may also point to longing or melancholy, especially when the past is remembered with tenderness.

Reversed Meaning

Reversed, this card may suggest independence, leaving home, maturity, and moving forward, but it can also indicate being stuck in the past, monotony, immobility, unresolved childhood issues, lack of imagination, or difficulty with forgiveness. It asks whether memory is helping you grow or quietly preventing you from doing so.

Divinatory Message

The Six of Pearls reminds us that the past can be a source of nourishment when it restores innocence, compassion, and emotional balance. Its highest teaching is that true maturity does not destroy the child within—it protects, honors, and listens to it.

When the 6 of Cups or Six of Pearls is thrown in a divination, it implies:

• Emotional pleasure, in a period of 6 weeks or 6 months of giving to and receiving pleasure from others.
• A period of innocence and taking immense pleasure in one's childlike qualities.
• An orgasmic rush of feelings, a wave of ecstasy that even when sad feelings are being actively expressed, the release feels pleasurable.
• Sweet memories of the past, as past efforts bring present rewards.
• Wellbeing, harmony of natural forces without effort or strain.
• The "adorable Fire", a flowing of deep spiritual warmth in a relationship.
• Ease and satisfaction on a deep inner spiritual plane of pleasure.
• Note: Foreign to the Western Hermetic Qabalistic idea of this card, is the gratification of artificial or natural desires, as it is pleasure understood in the highest inner sense.

If Reversed:

• The future.
• Renewal.
• That which will happen presently.
• Moodiness, withdrawal from friends.
• Masochistic behavior. 

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