Page
The beginner and the message. A page is the suit arriving new: a first lesson, an offer, a piece of news you are not ready to act on yet. Curious, unpolished, worth listening to.
Minor Arcana: The 56 Cards of Ordinary Days
The minor arcana are the 56 cards that fill the everyday half of a tarot deck: four suits of fourteen, ace to king. Wands are fire and will, cups are water and feeling, swords are air and thought, pentacles are earth and money. Where a major arcana card names the turn, a minor card describes the week you are living through.
56 cards in four suitsAce to king in each suit16 court cards explained
Fourteen cards, fire
What do the wands mean in tarot?
Fire: appetite, work you actually want, the courage to start and the stubbornness to keep going. Wands answer questions about energy rather than about feelings.
Wands
Fourteen cards, water
What do the cups mean in tarot?
Water: love, friendship, grief, the things you cannot argue yourself out of. Cups describe the inner weather and how honestly you are letting yourself feel it.
Cups
Fourteen cards, air
What do the swords mean in tarot?
Air: what you think, what you say and what you refuse to look at. Swords are the sharpest suit because thought cuts in both directions, toward clarity and toward cruelty.
Swords
Fourteen cards, earth
What do the pentacles mean in tarot?
Earth: money, health, home, craft, the slow kind of progress that only shows up in a year. Pentacles ask what you are building and whether it can hold weight.
Pentacles
Page, knight, queen, king
What are the court cards, and who are they about?
Sixteen cards that read like people and behave like stages. Each one carries its whole suit at a different degree of ripeness, so the same element sounds new, restless, settled or in charge.
How a suit is built
- AceAny suit
- TwoAny suit
- ThreeAny suit
- FourAny suit
- FiveAny suit
- SixAny suit
- SevenAny suit
- EightAny suit
- NineAny suit
- TenAny suit
- PageAny suit
- KnightAny suit
- QueenAny suit
- KingAny suit
- Numbers
- Court
Knight
The suit at full speed, for better and worse. A knight goes after the thing without balance: fast, single-minded, sometimes reckless. Useful when you need momentum, expensive when you need judgement.
Queen
The suit held from the inside. A queen has lived the element long enough to use it without drama: she feels it fully and still decides. Often the card for the person other people come to.
King
The suit held from the outside. A king sets the terms: he builds the structure the element runs inside, and answers for it. At his best that is steadiness; at his worst it is control dressed as order.
Questions
Asked most often about the minor arcana
What is the difference between minor and major arcana?
Scale and frequency. A major arcana card names a turn you will remember for years; a minor arcana card describes what is happening this month — a conversation, a bill, a project, a good evening. Most of a reading, and most of a life, is minor arcana.
What do the four tarot suits mean?
Wands are fire: will, drive and the work you want. Cups are water: love, friendship and feeling. Swords are air: thought, truth and conflict. Pentacles are earth: money, body, home and slow building. The suit tells you which part of life the answer belongs to.
What are court cards in tarot?
The page, knight, queen and king of each suit, sixteen in all. They can stand for a person around you, for a way you are behaving, or for a stage of maturity in that suit. The safest first reading is usually the behaviour, not the person.
Are the minor arcana less important than the majors?
No, only smaller in scale. Majors say something is turning; minors say what to do about it on Tuesday. A spread made only of majors is often vague, and a spread made only of minors is usually the most practical reading you can get.
Where next
The other twenty-two cards are the turns these days add up to.
Minor arcana describe what a week feels like. Major arcana say what the year was about. Read together they stop a spread from being either vague or petty.
The 22 major arcanaAll 78 card meaningsPull the card of the day
Read here as a language of symbols. Medical, legal and financial questions belong with a professional.
