Tarot Card Meanings
The tarot, with its ancient and mysterious origins, is much more than just fortune-telling. It’s been used for millennia to ask about the future and gain all sorts of insights into life. It’s a wonderful tool for personal growth, clarity, and understanding. It’s a powerful symbolic system of personality patterns (archetypes) that can give you deeper clarity about your life.
Tarot card meanings don’t create inevitable events or situations. Instead, they highlight possibilities and point to certain factors that could influence the outcomes you experience. Therefore, the messages from the tarot are not set in stone. Everything can be changed at any moment by using free will.
You can read more about what tarot really is at The Tarot: What it really is and how it works.
Major Arcana Meanings
Let’s start with the meanings of the tarot cards by exploring the main characters: The Major Arcana, represented by 22 cards in the tarot deck. These cards are linked to vital, significant, and long-lasting events in a reading. They symbolize core archetypes of the human psyche, and their meanings often involve learning important life lessons or going through impactful experiences.
To learn more, read “What are the Major Arcana in Tarot.” Or click on a card below to discover its full meaning, both upright and reversed.
The Minor Arcana consists of 56 cards, divided into the traditional “suits” we see in Spanish and French decks—four in total. In tarot, their meanings reflect scenes from life in general, with a focus on daily events and experiences. They emphasize the occurrences in everyday life that people go through.
To learn more, read “What are the Minor Arcana in Tarot“.
Meanings of the Suit of Cups (Minor Arcana)
The meanings of the tarot cards in the Suit of Cups: This suit represents emotions and the human spirit. It embodies love and hate, the connections we have with others, and the relationships we build on an emotional level. It’s about how we interpret the world, how we live, and how we see life in its entirety.
To learn more about the symbolism of the Suit of Cups, read “The Suit of Cups in the Tarot Deck” and also “The Phase of Your Journey through the Suit of Cups.” Or click on a card below to discover its full meaning, both upright and reversed.
Meanings of the Suit of Pentacles (Minor Arcana)
The Suit of Pentacles symbolizes everything related to the material aspects of life—money, work, business activities, savings, property, and possessions of any kind in the material world.
To learn more about the symbolism of the Suit of Pentacles, read “The Suit of Pentacles in Tarot” and also “Tarot Advice for Your Phase through the Pentacles.” Or click on a card below to discover its full meaning, both upright and reversed.
Meanings of the Suit of Swords (Minor Arcana)
The meanings of the tarot cards in the Suit of Swords: This suit represents logic, the mind, and thoughts. It deals with problems, difficulties, planning, communication, ideas, intellect, and how it’s used. It represents the struggles and challenges of everyday life.
To learn more about the symbolism of the Suit of Swords, read “The Suit of Swords and its Meaning in Tarot” and also “The Phase of Your Journey in Swords.” Or click on a card below to discover its full meaning, both upright and reversed.
Meanings of the Suit of Wands (Minor Arcana)
The Suit of Wands is the primal force, the first energy, the seed from which things are born. It’s instinct in action, inspiration, spirituality, the power that comes from it, firm determination, desires for expansion, ambitions, and inspired creative force—it’s the original thought.
To learn more about the symbolism of the Suit of Wands, read “The Suit of Wands in Tarot” and also “The Wands in Your Phase of the Journey.” Or click on a card below to discover its full meaning, both upright and reversed.
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Other Tarot Card Meanings You Might Find Interesting
When interpreting tarot, we don’t just stick to the meanings of the cards themselves. There are other factors that come into play during a reading, like colors, numbers, patterns, and of course, the court cards.
Below, you’ll find links to different articles that explore these topics further.
Meanings of Numbers
