The Minor Arcana card images are first and foremost read according to three basic building blocks: the card number (rank, for court cards), the suit, and the image. As we saw in my post, “Where Do Tarot Card Meanings Come From?“, there are easily ten or more building blocks that combine to create meaning for the cards. Today we’re going to focus on the third building block: the four suits. We’ll learn to read them according to the suit icon and the element. But as always there are a variety of philosophies that inform these interpretations. Read on to learn how the four suits in tarot and the four classical elements create meaning.
The suits are the most basic example of symbolic correspondences. The tarot suits display a visible symbol, the tool, that corresponds to a hidden symbol, one of the four elements.
The suit icon or tool–the Wand, Cup, Sword, or Pentacle–is the primary way to understand the suit. The tool gives us important information because its shape, size, and use helps us understand how it functions and therefore what it means.
Then we add the suit element–Fire, Water, Air, or Earth–to extend the symbolism. The four elements have a history in classical philosophy and are important in alchemy, astrology, and qabalah. This lets us tie the tarot into an already established lineage of esoteric philosophy.
The Suit of Wands and the Element Fire
Wands are long, heavy, and blunt. They sprout leaves, or show paisley-shaped or tilde-shaped spots where branches have been cut away. Wands can show up as walking staffs, magic wands, clubs, torches, or any similar wooden object. The sprouting leaves suggest new growth, which is one of the interpretations of the wand suit. To that end, in place of wooden staffs, we can see the spiral shape of a new plant unfolding.
Wands most commonly correlate to the element fire (read about an alternative correspondence in the Wand-Sword elemental swap). The fire energy provides passion, excitement, charisma, leadership, ambition, motivation, and competitiveness. Often the fire suit will feature fiery colors such as red, orange, and yellow. Images include flames, candles, campfires, lanterns, and similar things that produce both light and heat.
The Suit of Cups and the Element Water
Cups are curved with a hollowed-out area. Decks might show them as any tool that scoops or holds water, including chalices, goblets, wineglasses, all drinking vessels, cauldrons, and shells.
Cups are associated with the element water. Water represents love, emotions, imagination, dreams, intuition, and illusion. Colors for water include blue, blue-greens, and all sea colors.
The Suit of Swords and the Element Air
Swords are long, thin, and pointed. In modern decks they are usually straight with a double-edged blade. The tip of the sword can represent getting to the point. The double-edged blade can suggest decisions, choices, and thoughtful consideration of both sides of a matter. On the other hand, Swords can represent troubles, or things you need to fight or confront. In Tarot de Marseille decks, the swords are curved. When a TdM card shows an even number of swords, the blades form a vesica piscis shape, creating a cage or enclosure.
Swords align with the element air. Air brings to mind thoughts, beliefs, communication, words, writing, speaking, breath, wind, and sky. Air colors are typically yellow, sky-blue, white, or purple (the complement to yellow). The air element often shows up in tarot art work as reworking the sword symbol into an airier expression like birds, feathers, dragonflies, arrows, electricity, or anything that flies or arcs through the air. Air sometimes shows up in card illustrations as glinting light that does not produce heat, conjuring connotations of dawning clarity, mental light bulbs, and seeing clearly.
Contrasting Wands and Swords as Weapons
It’s interesting to compare Wands to Swords as weapons. Wands are heavy, blunt, cudgels. They are quick and efficient, but rudimentary. Swords are elegant and require training, finesse, and strategy. Even heavy, two-handed swords require more thought and experience than using a wooden tool like a quarter staff.
The Suit of Pentacles and the Element Earth
Pentacles are round, flat, metal or stone objects. Typical suit illustrations show coins or shields. Just as earth is opposite to air, pentacles protect against swords.
Tarot readers associate Pentacles with the element earth. Earth represents things that are slow, heavy, serious, strong, stable, dependable, secure, and unmoving. I usually think of dirt, rocks, and roots for the element earth. Earthy places include gardens, meadows, and cultivated fields. The earth element also aligns with cool, dark places like caves, woods, and groves. The golden coins which are the tool of the suit bring to mind things of value, such as jewelry, gemstones, and objets d’art–all things that hold great value in a compact shape.
Learn more About the Four Suits in Tarot as a Building Block of Interpretation
If you’d like to learn more about how to interpret the four suits in tarot, my new Mythology and the Minor Arcana program is my best offer for how I can help you use the building blocks for tarot interpretation and better understand the philosophies that give meaning to the cards.
