Tarot Card Interpretation & Meaning - The Minor Arcana
The Minor Arcana, though basically considered somewhat less spiritually important than the “Majors” in the tarot deck, are actually far from minor. They are archetypes or representatives for the day-to-day events in our lives, including the ones that are of major importance to us (they can include marriage, the birth of a child, job loss, and any other of a million different things.) In exactly the same way as playing cards are, they are broken out into suits, which are called different things in different decks.
One of the things that makes tarot such an interesting and multi-faceted divination tool is the fact that over time, astrological, elemental, and other associations have developed for each suit. For example, the suit of swords is generally associated with the element of air, and wands with fire.
This is not something that beginners are advised to pay a great deal of attention to, however, as different decks have different associations; (for example, the Art Nouveau Tarot has Wands associated with air and Swords with fire.)
The Minor Arcana, like playing cards, also have court or face cards in each suit. One major difference being that typical playing cards have “King, Queen and Jack” whereas tarot cards almost all have four face cards per suit in the minor arcana - generally called something along the lines of “King, Queen, Knight, and Page.”
Again, these “suit” cards can be called different things in different suit so beginners are advised to consider starting with one well known deck (e.g. the Rider-Waite) learning and working with that one for several months to a year or more, before branching out to other decks, to cut down on confusion.
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