Understanding the card meanings

There are 3 main sections of the Tarot - the Major Arcana, the Minor Arcana and the court cards.

The Major Arcana are referred to as the Trumps in the Tarot and they will generally denote big important events or issues that will need to be dealt with.

The Minor Arcana are offshoots of the Major Arcana from 1 to 10 and will denote smaller events and issues, although still important.

The Court Cards are similar to the court cards in regular playing cards. They are people and may represent this when you are doing your reading.

Click here for the card meanings 

These meanings are from Aeclectic Tarot, a very good Tarot website, but I will try and put my own meanings up in the future.

 

Figuring out the card meanings

This is probably the most intimidating aspect of first learning to work with the Tarot cards. Perhaps the meanings will make sense to you individually, but when you try to combine them into a reading it doesn't seem to work.

For instance, you might ask a question about love and instead of cup cards you get wands. This can be confusing for the new Tarot reader and it might seem as though you can't make sense of the spread or that the cards are wrong. The negative part of this experience is that it might make you feel as though reading the Tarot is too hard, or that for some reason, you are not good at it. I remember struggling with this when I was a new reader and looking for an answer to how to best combine card meanings.

Now that I combine meanings naturally, I couldn't come up with a single or consistent way to achieve this for someone else. The truth is that combining the card meanings is a skill that you will master in time. The best way to learn how to do this it to practice on yourself and to see what works. One way to learn how to do this is through Tarot Journaling - where you record your readings card by card and then evaluate in a few weeks what the outcome was.  However even if you are not that consistent with your journalling, it is still possible to learn how to combine your card meanings in time.

I can give you some easy tips though that might make your learning process a bit easier:

1. Your card meanings should be supported by the rest of the cards in the reading.  The meanings will not be haphazard even though they may appear to be at first glance.  Although there may be several meanings to a particular card, focus on the ones that overlap.  Eg. The Sun and the World both indicate happiness.  This theme will therefore be reinforced by your reading.

2. Tell a story with the cards.  This might seem easier said than done, but it is a good idea to get a bit of a time frame happening with your reading.  Your story will vary depending on the spread that you use, but generally, you should view the reading as a logical chronology (eg. the World and then the 4 of wands may show first moving overseas and then setting up a new home). 

All it takes is patience A LOT of readings!  You will begin to see patterns in your cards that will represent meanings as you work through your learning of the Tarot.

 

Working with reversals

This is another confusing aspect of first learning how to read the cards.  Personally, I don't work with reversed cards, however some readers do and find this to be effective.  I don't work with them because I found the reversals to not be specific to the person that I was reading for and the Tarot's upright meanings provide me with more than enough of the information that I need.

I would suggest working with the deck for a while first and then seeing what feels right for you.  It may be that sometimes you use them, and sometimes you don't (which can sometimes be the case with me).  

Don't feel that you should read the cards reversed because the book says that you should.  Do it only because you feel that it makes sense in the reading that you are doing.  At first it may be easier for you to work with upright cards only, particularly given how daunting it is to learn each of the individual card meanings.

 

Figuring out the Court Cards

This is another challenge faced by the beginner!  This is particularly difficult if the Court Card is an outcome and it doesn't seem to resemble the person that you are reading for. 

There are a few ways that you can work with the court cards, but you first need to understand the basic dynamics and what they may represent.  For instance a court card can either represent:

1. An actual person (not the person you are reading for).

2. The person that you are reading for.

3. An energy of that card and not a person at all.

Therein, lies the confusion for the newbie.  However, you should find that your court cards will start to make sense if you read them along with the rest of your cards and keep in mind your question that you have asked of the deck. 

The Court Cards are context cards and you will need to read them in this regard and not as a solitary outcome.  You will need to take into account the story that all of the other cards tell you in order to deduct its meaning.  Thus, in order to understand them, you will need a good understanding of the rest of the reading.

You will need to learn this one the hard way through practice and it will be good when faced with court cards as you are learning to ask the person you are reading for what they may represent for them.  

If you have many, many court cards in your reading, don't panic - usually this means that many people are affecting the outcome and that as a result, it will be difficult to predict.