A tarot deck has 78 cards, and that number scares newcomers off. But 56 of them — the Minor Arcana — are organised into four suits, just like a deck of playing cards, and each suit follows one clear theme from Ace to King. Learn what the four suits stand for and you can read more than half the deck on logic alone, before memorising a single individual card.
01How the deck is built
The tarot splits into two parts. The 22 cards of the Major Arcana deal with the big archetypal forces of a life — fate, transformation, the soul's journey. The 56 cards of the Minor Arcana deal with daily life, and they are organised into four suits of fourteen cards each: an Ace through Ten, plus four court cards (Page, Knight, Queen, King).
Each suit carries an element and a domain. Once you know the four, any Minor card becomes a combination of its suit's theme and its number's stage. That is the shortcut.
02Wands — fire, action and will
Wands carry the element of fire: energy, passion, ambition, creativity and drive. They speak to your projects, your motivation and your sense of purpose — the spark that gets things moving. When wands dominate a reading, the theme is action, inspiration and the will to create.
The Ace of Wands is that spark in its purest form: a new venture, a burst of creative fire, the green light to begin.
03Cups — water, emotion and love
Cups carry the element of water: feelings, relationships, intuition and the inner life. They govern love, friendship, healing and connection — everything to do with the heart. A reading heavy in cups is asking you to look at your emotional world.
The Ace of Cups is the overflowing heart: new love, deep feeling, emotional and spiritual renewal.
04Swords — air, mind and truth
Swords carry the element of air: thought, communication, conflict and truth. They deal with the mind — decisions, ideas, words, and sometimes the struggle and anxiety that come with them. Swords are the most challenging suit to draw, but they cut toward clarity.
The Ace of Swords is the breakthrough: a clear thought, a hard truth, a decisive new understanding.
05Pentacles — earth, body and money
Pentacles (sometimes called coins or disks) carry the element of earth: the material world of money, work, home, health and the body. They are the most practical suit, concerned with what you build and hold in the physical world. Pentacles in a spread point to resources, security and tangible results.
The Ace of Pentacles is the seed of prosperity: a new job, a fresh financial opportunity, a solid beginning in the material world.
06Putting the suits to work
With the four themes in hand, you can read the Minor Arcana as a grid. The suit tells you the area of life; the number tells you the stage, from the new beginning of an Ace to the completion of a Ten. A six of cups and a six of swords share a stage but speak to entirely different parts of life. Notice, too, which suit shows up most in a spread — that element is where the story is happening.
The fastest way to learn is to practise. Draw a card each day and name its suit and stage before reading the meaning, or browse the full card library to study them one by one.