The Astrology of the Tarot

The Minor Arcana:

The Minor Arcana reflect experiences in our day to day life.  Divided into four suits, the Minor Arcana evoke the four elements or four psychological types.  In alchemy, it is believed all life is created through these four elements   Through them we experience the world of love and relationships through the suit of cups, ambition and creativity through the suit of wands, ideas and conflict through the suit of swords, and our relationship to our values and the material world through the suit of pentacles (also known as coins).   In many ways, the Minor Arcana address the issues we experience on the outside as reflective images of the process that occurs on the inside, and the issues on the inside projected onto physical life.  This concept was first coined by Hermes Trismegistus laid out in the Emerald Tablet,  “that which is below corresponds to that which is above, and that which is above corresponds to that which is below, to accomplish the miracles of the one thing. 

The Suit of Wands:

The Suit of Cups:

The Suit of Swords:

The Suit of Pentacles

Additional Information on Court Cards:

 

(The following text is modified from The Mythic Tarot by Liz Greene and Juliet Sharman Burke)

 

The Court Cards of the Major Arcana embody character types, or dimensions of a sphere of life which can be portrayed as human figures or inner dimensions of ourselves that may need to be integrated.

 

Pages:   Delicate beginnings of the qualities of a particular suit.  Raw stuff of the sphere of life in its most juvenile, fragile, and insipid form needing care and protection for its qualities to develop fully. Unlike the Ace which has all the qualities of an element inherent within the card, the Page reflects potentials and possibilities that need to grow.

 

Knights:   Volatile, energetic, adolescent phase of the qualities of a particular suit.  This is the youthful, questing, and energetic spirit that makes us want to explore and experiment with a particular sphere of life. 

 

Queens:   Images of the stable, receptive, containing qualities of a particular suit.  The energy and aspiration no longer flow out with such abandon into the environment, but rather, are held within, banked, concentrated, and focused, so that greater power might emerge.   Here one’s values are formed, embodied in the only feminine (some decks consider Pages feminine, but they seem rather ambivalent) figures of the court cards.

 

King:  The King in all four suits are images of the dynamic, outgoing, directive qualities of the particular suit.   These powerful masculine figures represent the full use of the energies of this sphere of life in building and concretizing in the outer world. 

 

 

 

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