this is a list of magical associations for every tarot card, they can be added into spells to amplify your intentions and strengthen your manifestations
Wands are connected with the Fire element and is centered around movement, direction, energy, passion
Swords deal with thinking, communication, perception, and issues dealing with truth, connected to the air element
Cups are connected with water, and the full spectrum of emotions. every emotion imaginable is covered in the cup’s suit.
Pentacles are connected with Earth and are symbolic of manifestation, rewards, material wealth and material abundance.
The Fool creates new beginnings and can be paired with other cards. ex: the fool + the lovers for new romance, the fool + pentacles for new opportunities, etc.
The Magician increases your power and capability on all levels, willpower, emotional security, balance within yourself, etc.
The High Priestess increases your psychic abilities, mediumship abilities, and intuition
The Empress will help you with creativity and creative endeavors
The Emperor establishes order, structure, and command
The Hierophant can be used in a lot of ways, my favorites are 1. Pairing it with the fool to attract a new mentor, 2. Using it to summon a spirit guide or ascended master
The Lovers help invoke and attract love, partnership, mutual relationships, and passion
The Chariot is amazing for success, and triumph. I always use this in success spells for exams, tests, and projects. The Chariot will help the best possible outcome for a situation to arise
Strength will help you master your emotions
The Hermit is good for rituals and meditations based going within and gaining a better understanding of your own self, and life purpose.
The Wheel of Fortune can be used for luck, change, and getting a desired situation moving
Justice is great for truth, legal matters, and justice
The Hanged Man buys you time for a situation you aren’t ready to face, delays events
The Death card works well for ending situations, closing doors, gaining closure, and new beginnings
Temperance will restore balance and serenity to any situation
The Tower is best used for hexing and cursing, brings misfortune, unhappiness and chaos
The Star card is good for when you are casting spells focused on gaining something, The Star card is centered around healing, openness, and hope
The Moon helps develops intuitive abilities and can be used to send bad dreams
The Sun is used in spells for summoning happiness, success, and health
Judgement will help clear confusion and help you with understanding your life mission similar to the Hermit in that aspect
The World invokes wholeness and completion
Page of Wands: works with communication, messages, action, and passion
Page of Cups: boosts creativity, taps into your spiritual nature to bring out new creativity
Page of Swords: amplifies ingenuity and creativity, helps deliver messages from one person to another, can be used to attract someone’s attention to yourself
Page of Pentacles: good for grounding and centering spell work
Knight of Wands: speeds up any workings involving passion, love, and creativity
Knight of Cups: speeds up workings dealing with emotions, psychic development, inner strength
Knight of Swords: speeds up workings involving communication, balance, and thinking
Knight of Pentacles: speeds up workings dealing with manifesting abundance, material wealth, prosperity, and creativity
King of Wands: associated with leadership, command, can help you gain authority
King of Cups: associated with personal feelings, can help you resolve personal conflicts and inner turmoil
King of Swords: aids in strengthening your communication and speaking skills
King of Pentacles: invokes luxury, great card for business success
Queen of Wands: establishes a sense of self security and sufficiency
Queen of Cups: develops your psychic abilities, also helps with understanding/controlling your emotions
Queen of Swords: helps you develop stronger focus
Queen of Pentacles: abundance, creativity, fertility
Aces: used for new beginnings based on the energy represented in that suit
Two of Wands: positive progress in any situation whether it be romance, health, career, etc.
Three of Wands: business prosperity
Four of Wands: strengthens any type of relationship
Five of Wands: used in hexes and curses to invoke conflict, and arguments
Six of Wands: manifests recognition, success,
Seven of Wands: use this card when you’re in a tough situation, it will help you succeed and come out of it stronger
Eight of Wands: directs energy and intentions towards a specific goal or purpose, helps to speed up workings
Nine of Wands: use this card when you come face to face with a difficult task, this card will keep you brave and strong
Ten of Wands: can either be used to achieve something great, or it can be used in a hex or curse to manifest burdens
Two of Cups: union, strengthens romantic relationships
Three of Cups: strengthens a friendship
Four of Cups: dissatisfaction with surroundings
Five of Cups: causes despair and sadness
Six of Cups: lifts your mood when you’re feeling down
Seven of Cups: illusions and deceptions
Eight of Cups: used to help you move on from the past
Nine of Cups: make a wish and use this card’s power to grant your wish, invokes happiness
Ten of Cups: brings happiness to relationships of all kinds, friends, family, romantic, etc.
Two of Swords: used in curses and hexes to cause someone to have a limiting mindset
Three of Swords: heartbreak and emotional strife
Four of Swords: used in healing spells, sleeping aid
Five of Swords: manifests conflict, and failed success
Six of Swords: this card will aid you when you face a difficult change, helps you to move on and move forward
Seven of Swords: causes betrayal
Eight of Swords: powerful energy that causes isolation
Nine of Swords: sends nightmares and anxieties
Ten of Swords: defeat and betrayal
Two of Pentacles: brings balance
Three of Pentacles: strengthens business connections
Four of Pentacles: manifests financial stability
Five of Pentacles: financial problem
Six of Pentacles: prosperity
Seven of Pentacles: material abundance
Eight of Pentacles: if you’ve worked hard this card ensures you that your efforts will be rewarded
Nine of Pentacles: success, luxury, accomplishment
Ten of Pentacles: success, wealth
Negative aspects of the cards can be used for hexing and cursing
As I mentioned before, my first deck was gifted to me by my crazy step-grandmother, which I had for several years. When my parents moved us into a new house, the cards got ruined by some essential oils that smashed. So…here comes my first mistake:
1. Buying an artsy, pretty, complicated deck
Yep. The first deck I bought about 2 years after this happened was the Witches Tarot. Didn’t connect with it, so I bought the Shadowscapes Tarot, as my original deck was from the 1990′s. While the Shadowscapes deck is beautiful, its also very distracting with how much art is in the cards. It took me away from the actual meanings of the cards, and it made it so, so difficult for me, as a beginner, to properly study. Once I moved onto a new deck, the Every Day Witches Tarot, it was SO much easier!! The cards were like, “Bam! Super easy to read!”
2. Being impatient
This is a constant flaw of mine. I am a very impatient person and my SO is constantly teasing me about how much I have to practice patience. I didn’t realize that studying tarot was a practice. It wouldn’t take a month for me to master the cards – it would take YEARS. So don’t be hard on yourself if you’ve been practicing for 6 months and still struggle with a suit, or a particular card. There are people who have been studying for 20-30 years and sometimes still struggle. That’s why tarot is a practice. (I’m currently patting my younger self on the head for this).
3. Relying on books
Don’t do it. Sure, once you get a new deck, go through its guide book, but then set it aside. Don’t teach yourself to rely on the deck – teach yourself to rely on your intuition. That’s where the readings come from. I literally, to this day, still find myself wanting to reach for my book when I get stuck. So, I close my eyes, rub them a few times, take a breath, and look at the cards I am reading again. When I first started, that book was glued to my right hand.
4. Not reading the right books enough
I would always read the guide books to my tarot decks, which is great. BUT, I would get frustrated because this guide book would say one thing and this other guide book would say another. It was so frustrating and confusing! Instead, I put the guide books up for collector’s items in my hutch, and I started reading books like “Reading Tarot Intuitively” or “Kitchen Table Tarot”. I now read whatever tarot book I can get my hands on
5. Realizing there is no “one way” when it comes to tarot
There are so many old wives tales about tarot – like you have to be gifted your decks. Wrong. I now have 15 decks and I have bought every single one of them, or traded. I also realized that the “meanings” for each card are guidelines, not sticky rules. This helped me in my readings because what I saw in a card was not always what it’s “true interpretation” was in a book. I learned to base my readings AROUND those studies rather than strictly on them
6. Starting out with complicated spreads
I understand getting excited, but start with small spreads. Work your way up. I would get SO overwhelmed and frustrated because here I was, an 18 year-old beginner with my Shadowscapes deck, with 12 cards spread out on my bed. Start out small, work your way up.
7. Letting tarot dictate my life
Tarot does not dictate your life. Just because the cards say something doesn’t mean its always going to happen. You have the ability to change the outcomes of your life and your future – not your cards. They are there for guidance.
If you’re like me, you want to learn everything and have all skills and try to pursue all things at once. I made this spread to help focus in on just one skill or trait to develop at a time. The idea is that when you have a baby plant, it requires more care and attention to survive and grows very quickly when it is well cared for. Once it’s fairly strong, then it’s time to let it grow at its own steady pace along with all the other things you’re working on and move on to the next until your garden of skills is happily and peacefully growing.
1. What skill/trait should you focus on? This is your seedling.
2. How should you approach this? Do I plant from seed? Do I take a cutting and propagate? Is there a class I can take? Should I make a schedule and work on this for ten minutes a day? Is it a more passive trait that I need to work on through metacognition all day?
3. What do you need to set yourself up for success? Plants need to be set up in the right conditions to thrive. They need to be placed where they get the right amount of sunlight and the right humidity. They need the right soil. What conditions do you need to set for yourself to thrive?
4. What is the outcome/what will this help you reach? I won’t call this the “end result” because your vine should keep growing and reach further and further. What does this skill/trait help you reach if you nurture it?
One thing I’ve noticed as I’ve started teaching tarot cards to other people is that they have a tendency to think that every card has an individual meaning and it is their duty to memorize 78 complex sets of meanings before they can begin reading for others.
That’s simply not true.
It’s also incredibly inefficient and totally kneecaps you when you move on to learn another deck (and try memorizing ANOTHER 78 complex sets of meanings). Cards exist in relation to one another. Understanding those relationships lets you remember meanings quicker, better understand how cards in a spread might be connected, and give much smoother readings.
If you’re learning Tarot for the first time or looking to bush up, here’s my advice after reading cards for 10 years. Please, learn from my mistakes.
Tarot is a language
In the same way you learn letters
and string them into words and then string words into sentences to communicate,
tarot is a language you learn so your intuition can communicate more fully with you and others. And like a language, it’s often best to start with the phrases that you’ll use the most.
Practice: Go
through your deck and pick out no more than 12 cards that are really calling to
you and look up those meanings. Write them down if you’re up for it. Go through your deck and pick out no more than 12 cards that give you a
feeling of unease and do the same. Notice any reoccurring symbols?
Tarot is a story
How you understand that story may vary on your
tradition, your experience level, your aims. Most standard Tarot decks follow the Fool’s Journey through the Major Arcana as he becomes more skilled and then more enlightened. A similar pattern can be seen in each of the suits. The Court Cards are less narrative in my opinion but a similar progression can be seen.
Practice: Take out each of the suits one at a time and lay
them out in a row. Read the meanings of each card and see how the story
progresses. Write down a summary. Do the same with each of other suits’ courts and the major arcana.
Tarot is a system
You aren’t fluent until you know the language
well enough to speak smoothly and in most situations. Similarly, it takes
understanding Tarot at a high level to give the best quality readings and read
without a book. No card exists in isolation and just like when they show up in a reading, you must read them in relation to the rest of the spread – it helps a lot to know them in relation to the rest of the deck.
Practice:Lay every card in your deck out like this (pardon my bad MSPaint job). Major Arcana up top and Court Cards off to the right and all the numbers lined up with the Fool and World left hanging. Pick one of the cards that resonated with you in the first exercise and look at how it relates to all the other cards in the deck. If it’s the 8 of Pentacles, what do the other 8′s look like and speak to? What do 8 (Strength) and 18 (the Moon) in the Major Arcana connect to it (if at all)? How does it relate to the rest of the story of the Pentacles?
Hope this helps! If you have any questions, feel free to ask!
People are always looking for an easy way to
find their kintype, and often they turn to divination. Pendulum readings, as having
been practiced heavily on tumblr, I believe are completely useless given how
they lack nuance and interpretation.
But lately I’ve been working on a book of
fictionkin spells and magic, and while doing so, I feel that I hit on a way that
one could use divination to find a kintype. A tarot spread.
Obviously this tarot spread won’t give you the
name or series of your kintype, but it will be able to give you a place to
start looking, using the readings of the cards.
It is a starting place, not an end or an answer by itself.
As always with tarot, cards should be read
symbolically and in harmony with the entire spread. This spread is best used
for a self-reading.
Please do not charge money for a reading with
this spread.
And of course if you’re not someone who
believes in magic/tarot cards, just ignore this!
Where have you grown? While it most certainly is the dawn of a new day, keep in mind your roots are proof that you have already come a long way. The soil is your past. What lesson can you learn from days gone by?
2. The Weed.
You wish to flourish and grow strong, but there is undoubtedly something that is stunting your progress. What are your obstacles, what’s holding you back?
3. The Seed.
Within your immediate future, which area of your life will you first see signs of growth? Which seed has taken hold?
4. The Sun.
The love and support of others is helpful. But the will to grow comes from within. Let the sun be a reminder of what you need to keep in mind in order to help yourself grow.
5. The Rain.
A blessing in disguise. Understand that not all things are always as they seem. Grey skies can sometimes bring you down, but like the sun, rain too is necessary. Through struggle, you will find strength. What blessing in disguise is upon your horizon?
Imbolc helps us say farewell to the hibernation of winter and usher in the bountiful months of spring. I hope that this spread can help you determine what areas of your own lives are stagnant, and how to bring them back to life!
1. Frost: This position represents that which has frozen over in your life. Where do you see stagnation? In what ways have you become stuck?
2. Flame: This position symbolizes the spark that will help you usher in your productive season. What can help you move forward with your goals? What will thaw out your frozen motivation?
3. Flower: This position marks the joys that await you in the spring season. What seeds lie dormant, waiting for the spring to let them blossom? What gifts will arrive with the changing season?
shuffle – shuffle your cards for some time with cleansing intent.
sort the cards – put the cards back in the order of the major arcana from 0-21, wands, cups, swords, and then pentacles. let them stay like this for a short while, until you feel they’re cleansed, and then shuffle them again.
crystals – choose a crystal with your intent and place it on top of your deck, or create a crystal grid around it.
smoke cleansing – pass your deck through the smoke of burnt sage or rosemary, or through the smoke from insense.
sunlight/moonlight – natural light sources give healing energies to your deck. sunlight is more masculine, while moonlight is more feminine. keep this in mind when choosing a light source and what’s best for your deck.
meditation – meditate on the cards. this may be one card at a time or the whole deck at once.
yoga – do yoga with your deck, this will soothe and cleanse you both and create a stronger bond between you and your deck.
sound – use a song, a bell, or an instrument to wash vibrations over and through your deck to release energy.
salt – sprinkle salt gently over your deck or put your deck in an airtight bag and submerge it in a bowl of salt and let the salt absorb pent up energies.
sigils – write a cleansing sigil on a slip of paper and put it in the box or bag with your deck.
fresh air – set your deck on a windowsill by a cracked open window. allow the movement of fresh air to cleanse the pent up energy from your cards.
close contact – keep your deck beside or under your pillow as you sleep to both cleanse and build a close relationship with your deck.
when to cleanse:
brand new deck – if you bought or have been gifted a new or secondhand deck, the best way to sort out its energy is to cleanse it before the first use.
after each use – this is the best way to upkeep the health of your cards.
every day – a great way to take care of your cards, routine cleansing is a wonderful daily ritual for you and your deck.
when someone else touches it – energies can get muddled when someone other than the reader touches a deck.
after a complicated reading – your deck can run out of energy quickly when you ask it to do a complcated reading, and the best way to replenish these energies is to cleanse.
after not using it for a while – stagnant energies will build up in your deck if you go a while between uses. the best way to counteract this is a thorough cleansing.
with your life cycles – whether moon cycles, menstrual cycles, or sleep cycles, cleansing your deck when your energy is high can be a good idea.
whenever your deck tells you – sometimes you will be able to feel when your deck needs to be cleansed. a good cleansing and recharging is helpful when shuffling becomes difficult, you’re getting the same cards repeatedly, or you feel your deck run low on energy.
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