Tarot Basics - The Major Arcana Part 1
A simple introduction to Tarot Card definitions. These few post are an open invitation to learn more about Tarot reading and to give my readers a very basic introduction to the Tarot Cards themselves.
In case you missed other posts are here:
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Gilded Tarot by Ciro Marchetti
THE FOOL
A youth walks near to a precipice with a bundle over his shoulder. He is accompanied by a watchful dog and in the background are ice covered mountains and a blazing sun in a clear sky.
Card Number: 0
Element: Air
Colour: White
Symbols - A dog, ice, maintains, a rose and the sun.
Natural Meaning
A Creative Dreamer, spontaneity, originality.
Innocence/Naivety, optimism, purity of action.
New Beginnings, the start of a new cycle or phase of activity.
Raw Potential, without constraint.
Taking a chance, adventure, fearless, a leap of faith.
Reverse Meaning
Gullibility, naiveté, being taken advantage of.
Poor choices, folly, not thinking things through.
Foolhardiness.
Lack of Direction.
Vulnerability.
THE MAGICIAN
A man in his prime stands before a table, one arm raised to the sky and the other pointing to the earth. The table holds symbols of the four elements of power and is surrounded by flowers. Above the Magician's head is a Lemniscate is floating.
Card Number: 1 (I)
Element: Air
Colour: Yellow
Symbols - The lemniscate, lilies, roses, a staff/wand.
Natural Meaning
Action, dynamism, self-employment, acting consciously/deliberately.
Being creative, turning ideas into action, manifesting your desires.
Communication – oral, written & electronic; a smooth talker, an effective communicator.
Concentration/being focused upon the goal, technology, magic.
Power, skill.
Self-confidence, will-power, directing your will.
Reverse Meaning
Abuse of power, a liar, charlatan or con artist.
Blocked or unsuccessful communication.
Creative stagnation (writer’s block etc.).
Lack of confidence.
Overconfidence.
The misuse of skills or power leading to failure, being out of your depth.
The High Priestess (The Papess)
A mysterious woman sits between two pillars, behind her is a decorative veil hiding what is between the pillars. She is holding a scroll of wisdom and a symbol of the moon leans against her leg. Her robes are gathered about her feet and seem to imitate the patterns of running water.
Card Number: 2 (II)
Element: Water
Colour: Blue
Symbols - A cross, a moon, pomegranates, pillars & a scroll.
Natural Meaning
Being open to influences/keeping an open mind.
Hidden knowledge, esoteric wisdom/knowledge, things yet to be revealed.
Intuition, self-trust, inner-knowing.
Mystery, divination, spirit guides, spiritual insight.
Seeing beyond the mundane/obvious/worldly.
Seeing the bigger picture/greater possibilities.
Serenity, spiritual calm, inner peace, emotional stability.
The revelation of something important or key to the Querent.
Reverse Meaning
Being superficial.
Ignorance, withheld information, secrets, being lied to.
Short-sightedness, not trusting your intuition.
Selfishness, misusing spiritual gifts.
Pettiness.
Poor judgment, not listening to the universe.
The Lemniscate
This is a symbol of infinity, an unending track in the shape of a figure eight upon it's side.
IF you are interested in Tarot reading, you may find this post interesting: Your First Tarot Deck
This is a link to my beginners guide to Tarot reading: The Aincient Oracle. Available in both paperback and ebook versions, it is a book written so as to be understandable and keep the jargon and language to a minimum. It is a complete guide to starting tarot reading and intends to turn the newcomer into a competent reader at that person's own pace.
Beep! Beep! This humvee will be patrolling by and assisting new veterans, retirees, and military members here on Steem. @shadow3scalpel will help by upvoting posts from a list of members maintained by @chairborne and responding to any questions replied to this comment.
This is great @audax! Do you believe that the tarot cards you use matter? Or is it more about the meaning we place on the cards? Or a bit of both?
Would love to hear your thoughts about my recent post about making big life changes: You must DIE to FLY
In my opinion, if you can read with a deck, then that is a good deck for you. I personally dislike some of the modern decks (e.g. the "Penny Dreadful Deck") with little or no form of symbols (colour, pictorial or setting) on them as I see no depth to any reading that can be obtained from them, you rely on the card definition alone with a little intuition. Reading is complex to understand in depth, there are a lot of subconscious keys when you get into the depths of the process. Things like the impact of a given symbol over the card as a whole or how two cards affect one another in a reading. I'm writing a second book to discuss this sort of thing and add depth to my introductory work.
Nice post there @axios very much about the Death (XIII) card in the Major Arcana.
Note: I count numerology in with the definition.
Good point about the impact of symbols interacting in any spread. I'm learning - and it's like the more I learn, the less I 'know' - so many layers to a good tarot reading. It's like learning a language and context is everything. A single card takes on a whole different meaning depending on the cards surrounding it.
I think there's also a personal element to interpretation - what the symbol means to both the querent and the reader. The more I talk to long time readers, I find they've created their own methods.
I guess I'd compare it to being a doctor for 30 years vs. a student fresh out of med school. After years of experience, a doctor may be able to diagnose a rare disease almost instantly from one or two symptoms he's seen in other patients over the years, while the new doc wouldn't have that ability/intuition and resorts to the book so to speak.
Definitely right about the personal element @blunderbabe, this is some thing that I discuss in my book. Developing an understanding of how your intuition plays with the symbols, selecting the important etc., and learning the High Priestess' lesson is key to developing a more complete understanding of Tarot.
That makes a lot of sense. Thanks for sharing that insight. Any recommendations for decks I could grab from amazon or one that's more widely available?
And yes! Death card for sure haha
I personally like Rider-Waite based decks, the most recent deck that I bought was the Steampunk Tarot by Barbara Moore & Ally Fell. I like the artwork and accessibility and the book that come with it, but the cards are a wee bit flimsy for my liking. Really the best thing that you can do to select a deck is to troll through google images, searching on themes that catch you imagination, and then check out any that strike you on the Aeclectic Tarot Tarot site.
Take a look at this post I wrote on selecting a tarot deck: Selecting a Tarot Deck
it may be of help, or I'm on Steemit Chat if you want to talk on the subject.
The attempt to combine wisdom and power has only rarely been successful and then only for a short while.
- Albert Einstein