Tag: major arcana

I Want to Believe

I want to believe anyone can become a student of tarot. Learning tarot is an intimate process of discovering how you relate to life, death, your fellow humans, and basically everything in this worldly existence. Although it can be helpful, rote memorization of the cards is not a must. In most decks, the cards offer pictures that communicate the meanings to you through the use of symbols and colors. Intimacy is involved when you apply your personal experiences to your interpretations of the symbols and colors used.

A journey through belief

When we speak of personal experiences, we have to talk about beliefs. We all have beliefs. Even atheists have beliefs, namely that higher powers or gods do not exist. As tarot readers, we are influenced by our beliefs whether we are conscious of them or not. In learning about tarot and more about ourselves, we can strengthen our abilities by examining our own belief systems. Therefore, at this point, I would like you to take a brief moment to name five of your own beliefs. You can write them down (perhaps in your tarot journal), or say them aloud.

Here are five of my beliefs I want to share: I believe life is precious. I also believe that there is more to this life than what meets the eye. I hold it for true that tarot is a tool for self-discovery. It is my conviction that the future is not written in stone, or in a tarot reading (cards in the future position provide a glimpse of the most likely future from the time of the reading). Lastly, I believe that tarot shows you where you can take agency in your life either to make the changes you desire or to adapt successfully to external influences.

Diving deeper

Now I invite you all to join me in a little tarot practice. In this exercise, we will use only the major cards, but I also encourage you to continue on to the minors and courts if you feel a desire to do so. Here’s how it works.

Separate the major arcana from the deck. Go through each card by putting yourself into the scene depicted on the card. Then finish the sentence, “I want to believe…” using the image on the card as a prompt. You can be as elaborate or brief as you like. Keep in mind that your responses may vary depending on which deck you are using. (You may also want to try this with different decks to come up with a variety of answers.)

Below are my beliefs for the archetypes of the major arcana. Before reading on, you may want to stop and work through the majors yourself. Once you are done, you can come back and compare your responses. Remember, there is no right or wrong. Your outlook on life will be different than mine, and I trust your responses will be too. Through diversity in responses, we can better understand the archetypes behind each card.

I want to believe…

0 The Fool: …that I have nothing to fear, not even fear itself.

I The Magician: …that I have the ability to manifest change.

II The High Priestess: …that the secrets reside within me.

III The Empress: …that love is the most magnificent expression of creation.

IV The Emperor: …that all good kingdoms are built on solid foundations.

V The Hierophant: …that the gate to the bridge between the earth and the heavens is unlocked by compassion and reverence.

VI The Lovers: …that love is about choices.

VII The Chariot: …that only by mastering balance will I be destined for greatness.

VIII Justice: …that regardless of which of the sides you’re on, a coin can still way heavy in your heart.

IX The Hermit: …that life is ultimately about going your own way and following your personal guiding star.

X Wheel of Fortune: …that what goes up must come down.

XI Strength: …that befriending the beast does not require brute force.

XII The Hanged Man: …that struggling is not the way to freedom.

XIII Death: …that there is no going back.

XIV Temperance: …that by rectifying opposites, I can pursue the trajectory of divinity.

XV Devil: …that pleasures are ever so delightful.

XVI The Tower: …that drastic change can be perilous, but it is you who decides how to come out of it.

XVII The Star: …that there is renewal after the storm.

XVIII The Moon: …that shadows harbor illusions.

XIX The Sun: …that light brings joy.

XX Judgment: …that people will wake up.

XXI World: …that in time, all things will come to an end and birth new beginnings.

Many Blessings,

Violet

Four Corners of the Earth

Fitting for this forth post is a topic we have not covered yet: the structure of the tarot. (In numerology, the number 4 represents secure foundations.) Knowing the structure of the tarot helps us gain a clearer understanding of the overarching energies prevalent in the tarot.

The 78 cards of the tarot are divided into two parts: the major arcana and the minor arcana. The word arcanum (plural arcana) means secret knowledge. The major arcana consist of 22 cards, numbered 0 The Fool to XXI The World. The 56 cards of the minor arcana are divided into four suits: Wands, Cups, Swords, and Pentacles.

The minor arcana

We’ll start with the minor arcana. Within each suit of the minor arcana, there are 10 numbered cards (Ace to 10) and four court cards (Page, Knight, Queen, and King). The four suits in the minor arcana correspond to the four elements: fire = wands, water = cups, air = swords, and earth = pentacles. Note: These correspondences may change depending on which system you are using. The only right or wrong answer when it comes to tarot is what feels right or wrong to you.

Here are some keywords to help us remember what each suit represents.

Wands (fire): passions, desires, drives, ambition, purpose, job

Cups (water): love, emotions, feelings

Swords (air): thoughts, the mind, the ego, conflict, challenges, truth, knowledge

Pentacles (earth): the physical world, finances, the body, security, the home

Take out each suit of your deck and flip through it. Do you see where these themes are expressed in the illustrations throughout the suit? For example, the grief and hurt felt in the Five of Cups stems from love, or the loss of it, in this case.

Knowing the general mood of each suit can help us when it comes to interpreting the cards in a reading. If we get a majority of one suit, this tells us that the qualities of that suit are having a strong influence on the situation. For example, if we are asking about something related to career or work and a lot of cups come up, we could infer that a lot of emotions are involved in whatever is going on. Perhaps strong personal feelings overshadow the work, or there may be drama in the workplace.

Here is another example. If we are asking about our romantic partner and get a lot of swords, maybe the problem is not love or the emotional connection, but certain thought patterns. There could be different ideas about where the relationship is headed. A well-devised strategy and good communication may be exactly what are needed to make things work out. We could try thinking of new ways to approach the bumps in the “relationship” road.

The major arcana

Now that we’ve taken a look at the 56 cards of the minor arcana and talked about the elements associated with each suit, let’s go back to the 22 cards of the major arcana. The major arcana are sometimes considered the fifth element (spirit). Through the story told from 0 The Fool to XXI The World, these cards illustrate the path to individuation. It can help to think of the minor cards as life’s day-to-day activities, and the major cards as life’s bigger lessons. The major arcana teach us how to grow as individuals and become true to who we are.

We’ll go back to our examples above to see how the major arcana can affect the same readings. Say we are asking about work again, but this time we get a majority of major arcana, followed by cups as the next most common suit. In this case, whatever may be going on at work will have a major impact on our lives. We will want to pay close attention to how we are processing the situation and our emotions towards it. These are the greatest opportunities for intimate, personal growth.

Or we have a majority of major arcana followed by swords in a reading about a romantic relationship. This would be an ideal opportunity to work on becoming a better communicator about our getting our needs met, while making sure the other person’s needs are met too. The lessons we learn from developing this strategy will be extremely important in how we approach future situations.

As always, these interpretations will depend on how the cards interact with the others in the reading. The more we work with tarot, the easier it will be to make the leap from having an understanding of the basic meanings to interpreting how the cards affect a particular situation. Our intuition is what allows us to pinpoint the meaning of the cards in each particular reading. By developing our sense of what feels right and learning to trust it, we will see our accuracy improve and confidence soar.

Blessings,

Violet