The 56 cards that make up the Minor Arcana may not be as romantic, dramatic, and inspiring as the Major Arcana. Still, they are often the backbone of a reading — even sometimes the only cards in a particular pull — so they deserve the reader’s attention.
My introduction to the Tarot came in 2005 from the unlikely source of a 12-year-old boy (admittedly, he was a precocious 12-year-old) at a Wooden Boat Festival.
We were showing our boat in the show, and he and a friend were wandering around giving Tarot readings to anyone who would sit still for a few minutes. The readings consisted of pulling a few cards and reading the guidebook, which wasn’t what caught my attention.
Gilded Tarot ©2004 Barbara Moore
I loved the artwork on the cards and decided I wanted a deck for that reason alone. I went down to the local metaphysical store the next week and purchased the deck—The Gilded Tarot by Barbara Moore, and the luscious artwork by Ciro Marchetti. I took the cards home, opened the box, looked through the guidebook and decided that the Tarot was much too complicated for me. It didn't seem as if there was a good reason to spend time learning all of those cards—so I put the cards away, taking them out on occasion to shuffle through them, because I still loved the artwork.
There were STILL 78 cards in that box and I found out that was true of all Tarot decks. Then I learned that 22 of those 78 cards were called Major Arcana—something we'll delve into in another article—and 56 were the Minor Arcana.
Here are a few of the tips and tricks I've learned through the years to help me remember the meanings of those Minor Arcana cards.
First of all, there are 4 suits in the Minor Arcana just like a regular deck of playing cards. It's accepted (albeit contested) history that Tarot was originally developed as a card game called tarrochi in Italy back in the 15th century. It was played by the nobles because the hand-painted decks were not available to the common man. There are many other stories and speculations but for this exploration, we'll leave it here.
The four suits in Tarot are Wands (Clubs), Cups (Hearts), Swords (Spades) and Pentacles (Diamonds). There are 10 cards—Ace through ten and four Court cards for each suit. The Court cards are usually Page, Knight, Queen and King. These names can vary by deck but these four are the most common.
The Four Suits
Each of the four suits corresponds with one of the four elements and you can correlate those elements to our daily lives. And you can further relate the suits to astrology by looking at the signs associated with the elements.
The element associated with Wands is Fire. When Wands show up in a reading they can be pointing to:
- Passion and creativity
- Spirituality
- Career or projects
- How we want to be seen in the world
Since Wands are associated with the element of Fire, the astrological correspondences are with the Fire signs—Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius.
The element associated with Cups is water. When Cups show up in a reading they are all about:
- Emotions—Happy and Sad
- Relationships
- Creativity
- How we deal with our emotions
Cups are associated with the Water signs in astrology—Pisces, Cancer and Scorpio.
The element associated with Swords is air. Swords in a reading represent:
- Thoughts and mental beliefs
- Intellect
- Challenges
- How we perceive ourselves and others
Swords are associated with the Air signs in astrology—Gemini, Libra, Aquarius
The element associated with Pentacles is earth. Pentacles in a reading are all about:
- Manifesting material things
- The physical world
- Money, possessions, our resources
- How we take care of material things
Pentacles are associated with the Earth signs in astrology—Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn
Another way to interpret the Minor Arcana is to look at the numbers of the cards themselves. Here's a quick breakdown on meanings of the numbers.
- Ones (Aces) —New: Beginnings, opportunities, passions
- Twos—Challenging decisions, partnerships, options, balance
- Threes—Creativity, Communication, Cycles (i.e., birth, life, death)
- Fours—Stability (think 4 legs of a table), structure, stagnation
- Fives—Chaos and conflict, change, travel
- Sixes—Communicating, problem-solving, transitions
- Sevens—Deep thinking, reflection, assessment
- Eights—Power, strength, authority, speed
- Nines—Completion, abundance, strength of will
- Tens—Completion of a cycle, endings, full circle back to new beginnings
To sum it up, using the elements that correspond to a suit in the Minor Arcana can let you easily see what kind of energy is associated with that suit and see where the card fits in the reading.