Six of Cups
Fixed water: alchemy, memory, distillation
SIX OF CUPS
The Six of Cups is gold and sunshine. It is homecoming and caretaking and gift exchanges.
The chalices in this card, unlike the mournful image of the Five of Cups, or the whimsical and illusory one of the Seven of Cups, seem sturdy, robust, and practical – they are holding flowers, they are being used as vases.
But look a little more closely, and the image begins to waver – this is not the suit of pentacles, and the chalices belong to the watery realm of emotion rather than the earthly one.
There are loving emotions here; a gift is exchanged between two people – something unexpected is shared. But this is also a card of nostalgia; memory made sweeter and more painful by the desire for something lost.
SCORPIO II + SIX OF CUPS
This card correlates with the second decan of Scorpio. You can learn more about the decans here.
The decan is ruled by the Sun and Jupiter. That golden light that pours over the scene is all Sun, and Jupiter’s benevolence is present in the gift-giving.
The chalices, too, are gold, and Ali A. Olomi in his translation of Abu Ma’shar reminds us that those who are born in this decan, ‘will find wealth when they are aligned with their blessings and when upon a righteous path. Gold will come their way and they shall hold on to it.’
But all of this is taking place in the ‘heart of the Scorpion’ as T. Susan Chang describes it. So Mars’s heat and darkness colour the mood of Scorpio II.
The 'philosopher's stone,' it was said, could transform any substance into gold. I believe something similar is happening here in the heart of the Scorpion. The present is transforming into the past, taking on value as it passes from awareness to memory. Famously, the 6 of Cups signifies nostalgia; the light is flattering when we look back from our own sunset hours - as if our hearts place a golden filter of affection over the past. In turn, everything we created in life - affection, resentment, love, longing, hatred - carves the hearts of those we knew, coloring their pasts, altering their futures.
– T. Susan Chang
Nostalgia can colour the past with golden light and make us forget realities and hardships. This card asks whether what is being given is too good to be true – is the gold real or a mirage? Is the golden light something that has been added through nostalgia and memory?
The idea of gold emerging from the process of alchemy is present in this card too. Austin Coppock likens the image of the two children to the ‘alchemical process of mutual distillation, wherein the matter passes back and forth between one alembic and another, growing increasingly rarefied and potent.’
Kira Ryberg also uses the image of alchemy, and the gold of the Sun.
It speaks to a moment in the Sun where we merge with another and alchemize into something else entirely and in doing so, we become whole. This doesn’t necessarily mean merging with another human, although it certainly can be. Instead, it oftentimes looks like an all-consuming passion that both drives us and breaks us. Creatives are no stranger to the harrowing realities that can arise out of dedication to one’s craft — the gut-wrenching process of putting the deepest parts of your soul into something and then sending it out into the world.
– Kira Ryberg
Alchemy can create something new; a gift that shines like gold. But it also requires painful transformation, and loss.
I’ll leave this card, and decan, on a poem by Robert Frost, via T. Susan Chang, that describes the beauty, pain, and nostalgia of this moment in Scorpio, and of the Six of Cups.
Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Frost
Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
TAROT PROMPTS
What is the true gold of your creative project?
Where are you adding a gold filter of nostalgia?
What can be alchemized into something new in your project?