How to Read your Own Tarot

If you have personally seen a tarot deck, then odds are you must be thinking how mystical and interesting looking it is. Being able to see the various images of the cards, you'd be intrigued and even anxious. At least, I know I get the goosebumps...still. And yet, there's something about them in that you'd just feel that you have to respect them, they mean something special and dare I say it, almost sacred. Well, I don't know about that but one thing's for sure, the tarot means serious business. It's not one of those cheap tricks that you see off the street sideways. It's the real deal. It is a medium for getting answers about yourself on most if not all aspects of your person or character. It aims to bring out certain feelings and emotions as well as ideas inside yourself that you have either inadvertently locked within or previously failed to grasp. You might even go as far as to say it's a mystical shrink assisting us in decoding those feelings in order to become information that we can use for our betterment. According to some experts, tarot is about interpreting archetypes. It is interpreted in the same way that dreams are interpreted and is an ancient language of symbols same as Astrology and Numerology. Getting to the basics in tarot reading would require a few crash courses in related fields. One such field as previously mentioned is Astrology which is a parallel school of thought to the tarot and even go hand in hand. There are some sites that offer basic tutorials in astrology free of charge and you can use this to gain a better understanding of tarot along the way.

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First of all, there are 78 cards in the tarot deck. Its 2 components are the Major and Minor Arcana. The Major Arcana is then sub-composed of the Trump cards and the Fool while the Minor Arcana is sub-composed of the ten pip cards and four court cards in 4 suites. There are only 22 cards in the major arcana which are the unique cards in the deck so it really isn't too hard to familiarize yourselves with them. Additionally, these cards mostly depict a scene, mostly featuring a person or several people, with many symbolic elements. The pip and court cards in the minor arcana resemble the standard 52-card gaming deck with 4 suites that is widely used today. The only difference is an additional court card for every suit making it 56 cards. Here is a brief and basic breakdown of the tarot deck composition, the major and minor arcana and their respective meanings:

The Major Arcana



0 The Fool - Innocence and Beginning
1 The Magician / The Juggler - Power and Action
2 The High Priestess / The Popess - Knowing and Psychic
3 The Empress - Femininity and Abundance
4 The Emperor - Rulership and Authority
5 The Hierophant / The Pope - Law and Respect
6 The Lovers - Love and Passion 7 The Chariot - Skill and Control
8 Justice - Truth and Equality
9 The Hermit - Wisdom and Solitude
10 Wheel of Fortune - Luck and Destiny
11 Strength / Fortitude - Courage and Patience
12 The Hanged Man / The Traitor - Surrender and Sacrifice
13 Death - Transition and Termination
14 Temperance - Balance and Connection
15 The Devil - Loss and Addiction
16 The Tower / Fire - Exposure and Eruption
17 The Star - Hope and Promise
18 The Moon - Confusion and Influence
19 The Sun - Life and Energy
20 Judgment / The Angel - Faith and Honesty
21 The World - Success and Satisfaction


The Major Arcana deal with the human condition. Each card represents the joys and sorrows every person would experience in a lifetime. Now if you might notice the keywords associated with the trump cards in the major arcana, they are very generic or general in point of view and does not really appear to help us out in terms of what we're looking for. This is precisely the point! They are there as guide posts in essentially making a parallel symbolic interpretation of our queries. But they can also be quite tricky if not interpreted correctly. Some of them can even be misinterpreted to mean one thing while giving a different meaning altogether. For example, when the 'Hanged Man' card is dealt, it may initially strike you as a very bad sign. On the contrary however, it can mean 'suspension' where we are asked to suspend ourselves both emotionally and in physical action in order to get a better understanding of a situation. This in turn allows us to make better decisions concerning a given circumstance. Additionally, sacrifice as associated to the 'hanged man' would usually entail one having to sacrifice a routine or possession that they value in order to get better results on what they want to happen. Another very simple misunderstanding that people often make concerns the 'Death' card. It doesn't really mean actual death but rather, ending a particular chapter in our lives or experiencing a big change in our lives, could be for better or worse. Lastly and as an interesting side note, the Fool is usually interpreted as the protagonist of a story, and the Major Arcana is the path the Fool takes through the great mysteries of life and the main human archetypes. This path is known traditionally in Tarot as the Fool´s Journey.


The Fool is the most popular card in the tarot deck


The Minor Arcana

Wands (Staves / Batons) - Fire/Spirit - Creativity and Will

Coins (Pentacles) - Earth/Physical - Material body or possessions

Cups (Chalices) - Water/Emotion - Emotions and Love

Swords - Air/Thought - Reason


Where the Major Arcana cards are thought of as the "power" cards or big players in a reading, the Minor Arcana serve in supportive roles and augment the reading with further insight and detail of circumstances. The Minor Arcana brings us clarity and definition. These cards are the supportive role-players to the prime archetypes of the Major Arcana. Each suit has 14 cards, being Ace (One), 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Page, Knight, Queen, King. The numbers associated with every suit in the minor arcana are also very important in that they provide the needed specificity in card readings. The number meaning of Tarot cards can provide additional light to a tricky spread. A quick breakdown of the number cards would tell us: The Aces, represents their respective suit and announces their respective themes. The Middle Cards explore various flavors of areas in one's life with each successive number and assist in specifying the answers to queries about these i.e. power (card 2), leadership (card 3), excitement (card 4) and competition (card 5) and so on. The Tens would be the ones to conclude on the themes presented in the Aces. As for the court cards, they are people with personality archetypes again representing various personality types of people out there. Generally, the King demonstrates authority and control, the Queen represents relationships and self-expression while the Knight and Page resemble excess or extremes and pleasure or abandon respectively.

Now this is the basic structure of the tarot deck explained for dummies as only a dummy like myself could. So there you have it. That is a simple breakdown of the contents of the standard tarot deck. There are of course sites out there that give more specific details about these cards for a better understanding of them. Some sites offer lessons or tutorials in astrology free. Happy reading folks!

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