The Sun
Song Pairing
“Walking on Sunshine” by Katrina and the Waves. Playful, unabashed joy. Yeah of course it's corny, but it always peps me up and makes me smile! 😊 It radiates the same carefree energy of basking in the light.
Astrology
The Sun rules Leo, the sign of bold radiance, playfulness, and heart-centered confidence. Like Leo, this card shines with vitality, visibility, and the courage to be fully seen. In my illustration, the woman even bears a Leo tattoo, anchoring her joy to this fiery, sun-ruled energy.
Historic Interest
Across nearly every culture, the Sun has been honored as the source of life, clarity, and renewal. Ancient Egyptians worshiped Ra as the solar creator, while the Aztecs built temples to Tonatiuh, the sun god at the center of their cosmology. In many traditions, the Sun’s daily rising became a symbol of victory over darkness and the promise of rebirth. Sunflowers, with their radiant faces turning toward the sky, have long echoed this devotion, embodying fidelity to the light.
The Sun tarot card represents joy, success, and vitality. It brings clarity, optimism, and warmth after hardship, reminding you that happiness doesn’t need to be earned. When The Sun appears, it encourages openness, confidence, and the ability to fully embrace life’s blessings. A card of pure positivity, it’s a welcome sign of alignment, fulfillment, and radiant energy!
Vibe
Radiant joy and blissful ease
Affirmation
"I open myself to joy and let the light within me shine without fear or apology."
Card Pairing
The Sun + Ten of Cups. Pure bliss. The emotional fulfillment of the Ten of Cups amplified by the radiant joy of The Sun points to harmony in relationships and family.
Kindred Spirit
The Empress is The Sun’s radiant match. Where The Sun brings warmth and vitality, The Empress adds sensuality, pleasure, and the fullness of embodiment. Together they glow with passion, intimacy, and the kind of love that feels both nourishing and irresistible. This is the pairing of sunlit skin and fertile ground, joy that blossoms into touch, romance, and desire.
Esoteric Connection
Sunflower. Aligned with the card’s imagery, sunflowers symbolize devotion to light, vitality, and growth. Keeping them nearby channels positivity and resilience.
Element
Fire. The element of vitality, warmth, and creative spark. The Sun radiates fire’s life-giving energy, illuminating truth and fueling joy, passion, and confidence.
Misconception
Because The Sun is such a positive card, people sometimes assume it guarantees perfection or a “happily ever after.” Its gift is actually simpler and more powerful: the reminder that joy is available now, even in small, ordinary moments. The Sun doesn’t erase life’s challenges...it illuminates them, showing you how to meet them with clarity and warmth.
Full Interpretation
“The Sun is a pause, a breath between struggles, a moment to stretch out in the grass and let time slow.”
Walking into the Light
The Sun is a card of brightness, joy, optimism, and clarity. It’s always a welcomed sight when it turns up in a tarot reading; an instant vibe shift. It feels like a reminder after a period of heaviness, that life is still really good. It’s like you’re being told to just relax and embrace the sunshine.
If you’re familiar with the traditional Rider-Waite-Smith tarot deck, you’ll notice how I deviated quite a bit from its imagery of a naked child waving a red banner on a white horse. Along with a smiling sun, it's an image meant to evoke a sense of innocence and playfulness. Instead, I wanted to make this an image about surrender as much as joy. To me, this feeling of utter abandon and bliss is better expressed by a person basking in a grassy field under a warm and reassuring sun. It’s a mental image I’ve always conjured when I’m feeling particularly stressed.
Symbols in the Sun
I don’t think The Sun requires a lot of cryptic symbolism in its illustration. Its message is best conveyed in simplicity. By not giving the sun a face, I wanted it to feel more like a universal presence than a character smiling down. It should evoke feelings of a lazy summer afternoon. Its rays stretch outward, radiating warmth that is simply there, constant and reliable. It’s life itself, and you’re part of it.
Four sunflowers stand tall in the background, reaching upward. They’re symbols of vitality, growth, and turning toward the light no matter what. Sunflowers aren’t shy about what they need. They just follow the sun, unapologetic in their devotion. I like the idea of them representing the four seasons. The sun shines on spring’s awakening, summer’s abundance, autumn’s harvest, or winter’s rest. In this card, they feel like a promise: even when the seasons of your life change, there will always be light to turn toward.
The woman’s arms are spread wide, palms open, chest exposed to the light. There’s no shield, no guardedness, no tension in her body. She is choosing vulnerability, which in this card reads not as danger but as deep trust. To lie back and open yourself to the sun is an act of surrender. It says, “I am ready to receive. I am not hiding from joy.”
I wanted her tattoos to be permanent reminders of cycles and change. The crescent moon reminds us of cycles, of darkness and renewal, that joy is always paired with shadow. The infinity loop speaks to continuity and flow, that bliss isn’t a one-time gift but something we can return to again and again. The stars remind us of perspective, that even in the vastness we carry light within. And the sun across her chest is a reminder that the radiance of this card isn’t only overhead; it burns inside her too. On her arm is the zodiac sign of Leo, which is ruled by the Sun itself. Leo energy is bold, playful, radiant, and unapologetically present. It feels like her little anchor to courage and a reminder that she’s meant to shine.
All of these symbols shift the story from childish innocence to lived experience. Joy not because you’ve never known sorrow, but because you have, and you’ve chosen joy anyway.
The Fool’s Journey Nears Its End
By the time the Fool reaches The Sun, they’ve been through the darkness of The Tower, which stripped everything away. Then the glimmer of hope offered by The Star. The Moon tested perception and pulled them into uncertainty. And now, finally, the day breaks.
The Sun is that first morning when you step outside after a week-long storm has passed. The air is clean, the sky impossibly blue, and you can feel warmth on your skin again. It’s not that the storm didn’t happen, but it no longer defines you. The Fool (and you) can rest here. For once, it’s not about striving or learning or testing. It’s just about being.
A Moment of Bliss
When I was a child, I would visit my aunt and uncle in the midwest for a couple weeks in the summer. For some reason, those days went on forever. To this day, I like to think about lying in their backyard. There was no rush to be anywhere. No scrolling or anyone demanding my attention. Just the grass scratching at my legs, the sun hot on my face, and that timeless feeling that the moment could last forever, untouched by clocks or responsibilities.That’s the energy of The Sun.
As adults we forget how to let ourselves feel that way. We get caught up in goals and expectations, convinced we need a reason to be happy. The Sun laughs at that idea. It says joy doesn’t have to be earned. You’re allowed to be happy just because you’re here, breathing, and alive.
That’s the gift of this card. It reminds us that bliss isn’t naïve, it’s powerful. Especially when it comes after you’ve survived shadows and darkness. The woman in the card doesn’t erase her past; she wears it on her skin in ink and still chooses openness. That is what real joy looks like.
What The Sun Means in a Tarot Reading
Love & Romance: This is one of the most positive signs you can draw. If you’re partnered, expect warmth, honesty, and playfulness. If you’re single, The Sun points to a relationship that feels natural and easy, the kind where you laugh without trying and trust comes quickly.
Sex & Passion: There’s sensuality here too. The Sun is about embodiment, about feeling at home in your skin. Sex under this card is playful, unashamed, sunlit. Not about performance or control, but about letting go and enjoying every sensation.
Work & Career: Recognition and success. This isn’t hustle energy: it’s when things finally align and your work shines. If you’ve been putting in the effort, The Sun suggests others will notice. It can also point to clarity: seeing your next steps with ease instead of confusion.
Money & Finances: Abundance and stability. The Sun is a harvest card, the season when your efforts bear fruit. It’s a sign that you don’t have to obsessively worry or hoard. You can enjoy what you’ve created.
Family & Relationships: This card radiates warmth into family dynamics. It can symbolize the joy of children, playfulness in the home, or old tensions giving way to understanding. Under The Sun, things come into the open, but in a way that heals.
Self & Spirituality: At its heart, The Sun is about alignment. It’s a moment when you feel like yourself again. Spiritually, this is clarity and illumination: not the mystical fog of The Moon, but a clear day where everything is visible.
Letting the Warmth In
The Sun is a pause, a breath between struggles, a moment to stretch out in the grass and let time slow. It reminds us that joy is not some prize waiting at the end of effort, but something you can feel right now, in this exact second, without needing to earn it. Think about the way childhood summers seemed endless, how you could lie on your back with the sky so wide above you and believe the world would never change. That feeling never had to leave! It’s still here, just waiting for you to notice.
This card is an invitation to remember that. To set down the need to prove, achieve, and hustle. To open your arms to the light, even if your skin carries scars and ink and memory. To let yourself be warmed simply because you’re alive. Your body carries your history, but your openness carries your light. Sometimes joy itself is an act of courage and the bravest thing you can do is allow yourself to feel good.
"The Sun says joy doesn’t have to be earned. You’re allowed to be happy just because you’re here, breathing, and alive.”
Reversed Interpretation
When the light feels muted
The Sun reversed can be very frustrating because it’s clearly wanting you to experience joy, but something is holding you back. It doesn’t mean the light is gone: something is between you and the sun, casting a shadow. You want to relax into happiness, yet a veil of self-doubt or guilt pulls you back. This is the feeling of standing in a beautiful yard and realizing you are under the only patch of shade. The reversal asks a gentle question: what would it take to step a few feet into warmth?
What The Sun Reversed means in a reading
The Sun reversed can feel like you’re holding back a little, especially in love. You want the warmth, but maybe you’re playing it safe, keeping things light instead of vulnerable. It’s less about the absence of love and more about the hesitation to really step into it.
Sex can feel the same way under this reversal. You might be in your head instead of your body, self-conscious or distracted, which makes pleasure harder to sink into. The Sun reversed nudges you to slow down and let sensation lead instead of expectation.
In work and career, this often points to burnout. Things might look good from the outside, yet you feel drained or overlooked. The Sun is about visibility, so reversed it can highlight the places where you’ve been hiding, or where you’ve been working so hard that you’ve blurred into the background. It’s a reminder that shining is part of the work too.
With money, this card often brings up scarcity fears. Even if your finances are stable, you may still feel uneasy about enjoying what you’ve earned. The Sun reversed says gratitude and trust can sit alongside prudence.
Family and friendships under this card may feel like they’ve gotten bogged down in logistics or routine. The playfulness is there, but it needs a little coaxing. Sometimes the simplest thing such as sharing a laugh at dinner or telling an old story that still makes you smile, will bring the light back in.
And on a personal or spiritual level, The Sun reversed can show up in seasons where optimism feels dim or energy runs low. It’s not failure, it’s a cycle. The light is still here, but you may need to step a little closer, open a little wider, and let yourself feel it again.
Finding your way back to warm
The Sun reversed is an invitation to soften what blocks your joy. Move your chair a few inches. Let your body open a little. Let your mind admit that happiness can be simple. Your history is written on your skin, yes, but your glow is written in how willingly you receive. The light hasn’t abandoned you. It’s sunlight breaking through the clouds, waiting for you to notice.
Pause and Reflect
When was the last time you let yourself feel joy without needing to "deserve" it? Think back to a small, ordinary moment that carried the same ease as lying in the grass on a summer afternoon...unhurried, unpolished, and complete in itself. What keeps you from trusting those simple moments now, and what would it mean to let them matter as much as your milestones?
Take Action
We walk in sunlight every day while running errands, commuting, or crossing a parking lot, but how often do we pause to actually feel it?
Step outside and deliberately stand where the sun hits your skin. Close your eyes, lift your arms, and let yourself just receive warmth for a full minute. This small act transforms routine into ritual. Let the sun soak into you, not as background, but as gift.