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When we think about deity or spiritual communication, many people's first thought is tarot. And while there are a plethora of ways to communicate with entities without it, tarot remains one of the most popular.
This guide will be separated into 3 core sections; The makeup of tarot decks, the meanings of the suits, and how to read the cards. This will be long but I'll try to break everything down as digestible as possible.
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Tarot is well known as a great starting point for entity communication, and easily accessible. There are millions of different styles of decks, but throughout all of them the meanings stay essentially the same. This means you can essentially use the same guidebook/guide for almost every deck. Some decks do have specialized cards that they add to their major arcana, or some will rename suits (the suit of pentacles may be called the suit of coins or the air of cups may be called chalices, etc). But for the most part, things are fairly similar.
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A tarot deck will typically have 78 cards, with 2 types. The Major Arcana, and the Minor Arcana. The Major Arcana is made up of 22 cards, numbered 0-21 starting with The Fool. These 22 cards can be considered the most important cards in the deck, even if they're not drawn during your readings.
The cards detail a story, aptly named The Fool's Journey, which paints the picture of a fool (0) on a journey enduring trials and life lessons until he rejoins The World (21) with newfound knowledge and understanding of themself.
The Fool's Journey represents us, the holders, and our journey through life and drawing a Major card during readings are typically important and indicative of a pivotal moment in the reading. Readings can actually be conducted entirely with just the Major Arcana because of how significant they are.
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The Minor Arcana make up the bulk of a tarot deck, with 56 cards divided into 4 suits. Swords, Wands, Cups, and Pentacles. Despite the suit names, each suit is made up of 14 named cards. 1-10, the page, the knight, the king, and the queen. This is the standard for each suit.
If the Major Arcana is the Fool's journey, then the Minor Arcana are the details of that journey. Each suit represents a different aspect of a person's life. It can also be representative of the 4 core elements, involve numerology, and align with astrology, however for this guide we'll stick with the meanings of the cards themselves and how to read them.
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I won't go over the meanings of all 78 cards simply because this post would be egregiously long, however I will go over the meanings of the Minor Arcana suits.
โ Pentacles Sensation and the Material
This suit deals with the material world, both internally and externally. This includes finances, stability, and health.
โ Swords Thinking and Truth
This suit deals with logic and ambition, as well as shedding light on situations for conflict and communication.
โ Cups Feeling and the Unconscious
This suit represents your emotions and relationships, as well as peeks into your Intuition.
โ Wands Intuition and Will
This suit represents your drive and passion, as well as your internal introspection.
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So you know the makings of your deck, and you know their meanings. But how do you read the cards? I'll ask some questions to my own deck, draw cards, and discuss how I decipher them!
"What is an emotion I should be aware of today?" This is the question I've decided to ask for this example! When suckling the cards, I keep this question in mind, but also like to clarify my meaning. "What emotion should I be conscious of today, positive or negative? What do I need to become aware of?" These kinds of questions while shuffling can help get a bit more of an accurate read on your original question. The card I drew for this was:
The Nine of Wands reversed
This card represents exhaustion and emotional burnout. This is a very clear sign that I need to take a moment to relax, and not force myself to do everything all at once, lest I burn myself out and kill my passion. This resonates because it's what's kept me from posting as often as I'd like. Now that I've recuperated though, my cards want me to remember not to reach that point again. To take breaks.
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As I write this, I've done my "daily reading." This is a simple 3 card reading I try to do every morning just to get a feel of my day and the mindset I should try to keep throughout it. The cards I drew were:
Lucky for this example, we've got a Major card! So how do we read this?
Well the King of Pentacles represents abundance, while also representing accountability. This tells me that I need to be aware of my resources, and treat them with care. The King of Pentacles represents a sort of provider, and as a provider it's important to be responsible with the assets you have and provide for others.
Next we see The Emperor. This is another card that represents an authority figure and responsibility. So we see a recurring theme between these two cards already. The Emperor represents a firm hand and the creator of structure.
Finally we see the Ace of Cups. This card represents something completely different than the other 2 cards; instead focusing on the emotional path of life and the joys that come with it. The cards can also represent the start of a new beginning.
It can be confusing to decipher the meanings of these cards when reading just the meanings, so this is where we start to look at the core of these cards, and apply them to our original question/intent.
Responsibility and abundance
Responsibility and authority
The joys of a new beginning and emotional fulfillment
When we look at my original sentiment "how will my day go today?" we can see that it speaks of being responsible, especially as someone considered an authority figure (i.e. the owner of my discord server or even a blog many people come to for guidance and help). Lately I've noticed I haven't been wholly responsible and it's led me to neglecting this blog in a way I don't enjoy and procrastinating a lot of work on my server. The cards are telling me to take responsibility for the communities I've cultivated. But the Ace of Cups tells me this reading isn't a condemnation, but rather, the start of an exciting new beginning. That is time to shed my old insecurities and fears and to start anew!
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Sometimes your readings will have multiple meanings, and it will be up to you to decipher which meaning is relevant to what you asked, or if all of them should be headed.
We'll use my 3 card reading as an example.
While this reading represents my need to take responsibility, it can take on other meanings as well. One meaning can be about the relationships I currently have, as the Ace of Cups can also represent the start of a new love. This can change the meaning of me being the responsible party, and instead represent my newfound partner, who is a very large figure of authority.
It can also represent my father, who loves me dearly but is incredibly stern with me.
It's important to see which meaning resonates with you most. For me, the third message doesn't resonate very well, so I won't consider it the intended message. The first two meanings however resonate deeply, and while the first one is much more in depth, I can pull clarifying cards for the second.
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Clarifying cards are simply additional cards you draw to clarify your main reading. Sometimes things will seem a bit confusing, or you'll need some extra information. Clarifying cards are used exactly for that. We'll continue off of my previous example in terms of my reading representing my partner, and see what additional information we can gather. Once again, I speak my intentions into my shuffling. "Can I please have some clarification on the meaning of that reading in terms of me and X? Any clarification would be greatly appreciated." The cards I drew was yet another Major Arcana:
This card speaks about a lack of control and direction. This card once again resonates, as for the past week or so I've been incredibly insecure and spiraling over the specifics of this relationship and the aspects of it I can't control. This card reminds me to understand that I can't control every situation and narrative, and part of life is the unknown and the scary.
With this, we've gotten 3 meanings of one reading, 2 of which resonated, and managed to break them down effectively!
Tarot is much easier than you may think, especially when getting down the basics! You don't need to memorize every card right off the bat, using your guidebook or an online guide works perfectly fine. After a while, you'll naturally start to recognize the meanings of each card.
I hope this has helped you understand tarot a little better! Feel free to ask me any questions at all, and safe travels โก
