Getting to Know Your Tarot Deck
After you've chosen your deck, it's time to charge it up with good vibes. With tarot, as with magic, what you give is what you get. Just like making a new friend, both you and your deck need time to create a genuine connection. The better you know your deck, the more accurate and effortless your readings will be.
Tarot decks are split into two parts: the Major Arcana and the Minor Arcana — where the Minor Arcana is further split into four suits: Swords, Cups, Wands, and Pentacles (or Coins).
The Major Arcana
The Major Arcana are the main cards that show the big picture of the reading. They can suggest the direction of past, present, and future events, major life choices, lessons, and possibilities. There are usually 22 Major Arcana cards, and it's best to do your own deep dive into each of their unique meanings. The Fool, for example, suggests "new beginnings", Death means "the end of a phase", and The Empress represents "the divine feminine energy".
The Minor Arcana
Each suit of the Minor Arcana includes 14 cards, and is associated with an elemental energy. Swords is air, Cups is water, Wands is fire, and Coins is earth. If you're familiar with astrology, then you might know that each element is also associated with a terrestrial quality: air is connected to thought, water to emotion, fire to action, and earth to practice. The Minor cards give insight into the smaller picture — our day-to-day decisions, struggles, and wins, with each card showing a unique step of our journey.
Getting to Know Your Deck
We'd recommend laying out all the cards on a table. Start by placing the Major Arcana in their natural order at the top and the Minor Arcana underneath in the order of how they naturally exist — meaning air at the top because it rises, then water because it falls from the sky, fire because it floats above the earth, and then earth because it's the most grounded. Once you've organised your cards, you'll start to see that the deck, as well as each individual suit, tells a story of reflection, self-doubt, self-acceptance, longing, conflict, hard work, accomplishment, and glory. To get a better idea of the card meanings, we recommend checking out Tarot.com.