Six of Cups · Cups · Water

The yard of an old house: pale blue sky, VI in the border, an ochre keep and grey-tiled gable behind. Six golden cups, each holding green leaves and a white star-shaped flower: four in a row on the bare ground, one raised on a stone pedestal cut with a saltire shield, one held low between two figures. The taller stoops in a deep red hood and pale blue robe, red hose, one bare hand around that cup just below the bowl. The smaller is wrapped head and shoulders in red, gowned in yellow printed with black dots, a white mitten hanging at its side, a red shoe below the gown, face turned to the flower. At the left, a figure in blue climbs the stone steps away, a pole gripped in an outstretched hand at about waist height, leaning up and away. Pamela Colman Smith drew no threat into this picture.

The past does not come back. It sends flowers.

The Golden Dawn seats this decan with the Sun in Scorpio and keeps the title Lord of Pleasure: the same deep water as the Five, with the light changed. Waite called the two of them children and read the card as memory, happiness arriving from behind you, out of someone who knew you early.

Upright, that sweetness is taken as safe to accept: a kindness returned long after it was given. Nobody stands over the exchange; the only other figure is walking away.

Reversed, the reading turns. Nostalgia becomes a residence, the old garden tended so well nothing new can root in it. Or the yard is walked out of: cups set down, present entered empty-handed.

Cut flowers, in a cup, at a child’s height. Whatever garden they came from, the tradition calls them a gift.