“The past beats inside me like a second heart.”
— John Banville
Nostalgia, memories, childhood, emotional safety, revisiting the past
Overview
Feels like Home
Nostalgia is defined as “a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.”. The Six of pentacles pictures a memory exactly of that caliber. You’re brought back to a moment when everything felt perfect, and you yearn to relive that.
Most notably, this can be seen in childhood when we had no recollection of responsibility, there alway seemed to be enough, and we feel the safety of ignorance towards the grown up world— that is if we’re lucky. Nostalgia can appear later in life too. Most notably, it’s when you live in a person as they were in a moment instead of a they are now. Such as revisiting the honey moon period of a relationship, or a partnership before you got in deep enough that the comfort allows their shadows to seep through to the forefront.
Symbolism
There are two children standing in the village square facing one another. In front of them are 4 chalices, and behind the hooded figure is a fifth. The Sixth chalices is in the hand of the taller child. They are handing it to a smaller child. Each of the goblets holds a white flower, indicating innocence and purity. Both wear red cowls adorned with long red tips.
The Blue sky sits beyond the buildings. Behind the two figures, on a platform is a guard pacing ad keeping watch, adorned in blue and with a spear.
Meaning
Over-romanticizing the past
All our memories have a filter on them do make them resonate more with our light and dark sides. On the dark side you’ll find weapons of personal warfare, edited to torture us. On the light, memories are saturated in the smell of roses and nostalgia and remind us why we’d hate to leave the world behind.
Happy memories
The happy memories we create are enraptured in this card. The light they provide us fill us with healing light which restores us. You may have experienced or have the opportunity to experience a moment, or person like this. Someone who will fill you with child-like enthusiasm like elementary school crush, or a situation you will recall on for years to come.
This can also speak to a time where happy memories will be created to look back on for years to come.
Chance to experience fondness in another
When seeking love, a lot of people talk about the qualities they do not want in a partner but hardly ever refer to qualities they would like to see. This is an opportunity to experience a relationship or experience which will fill you with happy memories for years to come. It will give you something positive to look for in future romantic pursuits. This person will restore your faith in humanity and touch your heart with one of their qualities.
Location, hometown
This card can symbolize your local or home-town area. It can speak to reminiscing on memories, experiences, or finding a positive nugget of humanity from the universe. It can also say you are reconciling your experiences and coming to terms with it all.
Innocence, Naivety
This is the card of childlike innocence, and can be seen as your inner child coming through. It asks you to be as tender as you were before the first time you felt heartbreak. Or tasted disappointment in mankind; the day you lost all faith in humanity.
Lighten Up
It calls for a need to be more realistic. You maybe living for tomorrow instead of today. Face up to the times, and the ever-changing world.Embrace things that make you nervous. Trust people to come through when they promise to. It’s ok to trust people. Just keep a realistic perspective and don’t let your rose-colored goggles stain red.
Stop being so serious, having some fun will do you good. Life is only melancholy if you take the excitement out of every day.
The Six of Cups Reversed
“Don’t let yesterday use up too much of today.”
— Will Rogers
Stuck in the past, idealization, emotional immaturity, difficulty, emotional evolution
Overview
There are a few ways to interpret this card in a more positive way. There’s an opportunity in the future to make fond memories for years to come. Or potentially, you are seeing something for what it is instead of for the thing it used to be.
Moreover it’s a shattering of something that used to be perceived as an ideal, but has tarnished into something different. Either you can learn to live with the change, you can keep living in the past or you can move forward in life. There are always chances to make positive memories, with new people who are suited for the person you are becoming.
You can find this most notably in relationships, but it can also pertain to anything else which has at one point provided you positive reinforcement.
Meaning
Seeing something for what it is / Emotional Evolution
You’ve finally stoped romanticizing a situation as if it were what it used to be. Things are not supposed to stay the same. Situations, people and places change, they either grow with us or fall to the wayside.
Humans are the scientific variable of life. There’s no way around it. Either you can go with the flow or go find something different.
Stuck in the past
In reflection we can learn a lot about ourselves, and our projections in life. But if you’re stuck reliving your glory days, it will do you no use. This is a card symbolizing your refusal to leave a situation or place because of the memories that are tied to it. Even though you have grown and evolved, you are scared for what lies beyond the garden gates.
Idealization
Once upon a time, this place seemed like fairy tale. It was the place you felt safe and comfortable. Overtime, this place may have squelched the fire in you with comfort or toxicity. Yet you still stay . This is a sign you are idealizing a situation based on the way it used to feel.
Emotional immaturity
Just like Peter Pan, you refuse to grow up. You or someone else shrinks at the insistence of responsibility, or managing yourself. There is no desire to grow, evolve, take the next steps or reach beyond this point or position. It’s comfort to a fault, and saturated in stagnancy.
Difficulty
These memories are not the ones you want to look back on— but they will become memories nonetheless. This is a time of difficulty which will be hard to look back on, but ultimately become a pivotal moment as to why you will become who you are meant to be in the future. Don’t cover your eyes and look away; remember this just as though it were good. This is the start of the story of your rising.
