Do you have difficulty understanding the court cards of the tarot? Well, you’re not alone as many people find the court cards the hardest to interpret in a tarot reading; it can be hard to know if they represent the client, a different person or a situation. So here I am going to share with you the specific traits I associate with them and the various ways to read their meanings in a reading and how to know which meaning to apply.
Although some people read the court cards as situations, they generally indicate people in a reading and take on the personality traits of their suit. The Pages are normally depicted as children, the Knights as young adults and the Queens and Kings as mature adults. The easiest and most basic way to read the court cards is to take them at face value and see them as representing what the card shows. But this is not always possible and is where most of the confusion arises because they don’t always correspond to the actual age of the person that they represent; they speak more to where that person is in their life in relation to goals and life lessons. They can represent the person you are reading for or they can show people in the client’s life. As always, the other cards in a reading along with the question will show you which way to go here. But if you are at a complete loss, explain the energy of the card to your client; its traits and meanings. I am going to look in depth at each of court cards, and once you see their meanings, it will be much easier to know how they fit in with the rest of the reading.
For those of you who are interested in astrology, you can use the astrological elements to understand the court cards better as the cards could indicate a person from one of the astrological signs or at the very least have those traits. Cups represent the astrological element of water and as such the Cups court cards are linked to Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces. Pentacles are the earth element and are connected to Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn. Swords and linked to the air signs Gemini, Libra and Aquarius. Finally, Wands are linked to Aries, Leo and Sagittarius, which are the fire signs of the zodiac.
Even if you have no knowledge of astrology, by reading and working with the cards, you will have a working knowledge of the main energies behind each of the tarot suits, so the court cards of that suit will be driven by that energy. The secret to understanding any card is to decide what that card means to you. It sounds too simple, but really, the cards are tools to convey messages to you, so you decide what that card means to you. Always understand what the essence of that card is, and then you will know how it fits in to the story that you are telling. I’m going to show you what I mean in the following posts when I look at each of the court cards.
So, think about what the court cards mean to you. Look through them, familiarise yourself with them. The next post will take an in depth look at the Pages, and you can look through the meanings I have already written about them in Tarot Card Meanings before we begin with a closer analysis of the Pages.