Illustration by Pamela Colman Smith, 1910. Public domain in the US since 1966 and in the UK since 2021. Vector digitisation of the Rider–Waite–Smith deck by OpenClipart contributor "klaatu-tarot", released public domain.
Six of Cups
Nostalgia and the Inner Child
Waite's 1911 key also gives the opposite: another reading means new relations, knowledge and surroundings, and reversed the card means the future.
A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911), Part III §2, Cups, Six
Two children in an old garden, one handing the other a cup of white flowers.
More context
In Pamela Colman Smith's design for Waite's 1910 deck, two children stand in an old garden among cups filled with white flowers, the taller handing one to the smaller. Waite's Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911) gives a brief account: a card of the past and of memories, looking back, for example, on childhood. It means happiness and enjoyment, but coming rather from the past; things that have vanished. He adds that another reading reverses this, giving new relations, new knowledge and a new environment, with the children at play in an unfamiliar precinct. Reversed, the card means the future and renewal.
Light
Waite's meanings: memories and looking back, as on childhood; happiness and enjoyment, though coming rather from the past.
Shadow
The happiness Waite names belongs to things that have vanished; reversed, he turns the card to the future and renewal.