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The minor arcana includes four sets of cards for each suit: the ace through ten, plus the court cards. Most tarot guides group all fourteen cards of each suit together, treating each as a single sequence. But here, we’ve chosen to split them into court cards and numbered cards. On the page covering court cards, we discuss the reasons for looking at them as a separate group, including the framework Matthew uses to understand them.
But the aces through tens aren’t here on their own page merely because they’re what’s left. They, too, form a meaningful structure that plays out not just within each suit, but across the minor arcana as a whole. These cards map the arc of each suit’s energy as it moves through the world: from the spark of the ace to the culmination of the ten. Matthew calls this the numeric journey. Each suit tells a different story—of thought, energy, emotion, or resources—but each story follows a similar rhythm. The steps aren’t strictly linear. Sometimes you skip ahead, sometimes you loop back. But taken together, they trace the growth of a suit’s energy from its first spark to its final form.
Like the court cards, each numbered card gains deeper meaning when understood through its relationship to its suit, its number, and the other numbered cards.
Before giving a detailed description of each card’s meaning within the Divination Deck, we’ll first look at the numeric journey. We will see a very brief description of each card in this context. Later on when we expand into a full interpretation of each card, you should also always be thinking about this context of the suits the numeric journey.
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THE NUMERIC JOURNEY
Each suit of tarot represents a journey:
Swords: The journey of the mind
From learning Truth to the death of thought itself
Wands: The journey of energy
From new goals and passions to exhaustion
Cups: The journey of feeling
From love to harmony
Pentacles: The journey of resources
From opportunity to legacy
Each suit-journey steps through the numbers of the cards, beginning with ace and culminating with ten—though in reality, these journeys are actually endless cycles. When you reach the tenth step, you often start again at the beginning.
They’re also not entirely linear. We get stuck while on these journeys. We stop at points, sometimes for years and years. We step backward. We return to the beginning and jump ahead quickly at times.
Each step is both a phase and a moment. It can be a season of your life or an instantaneous realization. The patterns they represent are fractals: the story of Wands is not just the story of a lifetime, but also of a single day. The same is true of Swords, which moves from awake (the ace) to asleep (the ten) each day. You can step back and see the journeys of each suit unfold over years—or in hours or minutes, if you’re looking closely.
We may struggle at any step and become stuck, and this often informs the inverse meaning of a card. Instead of progressing forward through the journey, we become sidetracked, distracted, hurt, or sometimes luck intervenes. The path is never entirely smooth.
Aces and Twos
The aces are all beginnings. They each represent a powerful, new, driving force that propels a soul on its journey. The twos of each suit are a first effort at walking the journey suggested by its ace.
- The Ace of Swords suggests dangerous truths. Two of Swords is preparation for those truths.
- The Ace of Wands suggests new passions and sources of strength. Two of Wands is a goal oriented around those passions and strengths.
- The Ace of Cups is the feeling of true love. Two of Cups is sharing love with another.
- The Ace of Pentacles is new opportunity. Two of Pentacles is stress—it’s hard to capitalize on an opportunity.
Threes
The threes of each suit are triangles: powerful, stable shapes that are characterized by their apex; their point. Because the threes are so focused, they represent expressions of the greatest teaching tools of each suit.
- Three of Swords teaches with pain.
- Three of Wands teaches with reward.
- Three of Cups teaches with union, camaraderie and trust.
- Three of Pentacles teaches with collaboration and teamwork.
Fours
The fours of each suit are squares: places of rest, of recovery and investment. Safe places built by humans tend to be square. The fours are safe places to feel difficult feelings and to hide away rewards.
- Four of Swords is a respite from the pain of Three of Swords. Recovery is the natural step to follow pain.
- Four of Wands is celebration! A safe place to reward the expenditure of your energy.
- Four of Cups is solitude and apathy, a safe place to forget the energy of love and rest from it.
- Four of Pentacles is saving and owning, a rest from all the work and earning.
Fives
The fives of each suit are powerful, painful crises. Five is a breaking point in every suit, representing the incredible power of the pentagram in tarot. These are visually crises, but they must be challenging in order to drive you to what follows them: wisdom, power, generosity, and growth.
- Five of Swords is victory over others, what it earns you, and what it costs you.
- Five of Wands is the crisis of competition—you must struggle against others with power if you wish to have power yourself.
- Five of Cups is grief, the terrible price paid for Love.
- Five of Pentacles is want and deprivation; the fact that some have, and some do not.
Sixes
The sixes are a harmonious shape, one of alignment as a response to the crises of the fives. In this step, we do something about the challenges we faced. We rest, realign, accept, and reflect.
- Six of Swords is a transition to new truths.
- Six of Wands is the victory for surpassing the painful bottleneck of Five of Wands and emerging stronger.
- Six of Cups is nostalgia, the way we use the past to make our hearts feel whole after time passes and things slip away.
- Six of Pentacles is generosity, the medicine for the want and deprivation of Five of Pentacles.
Sevens
The sevens are lucky symbols; symbols of benefit. Now that you’ve come so far, you get some of these. You are farther ahead on your journey than many others, and that comes with the wisdom and challenges of these cards.
- Seven of Swords is the thief—you see the cracks in the world now, and may slip through them if you wish. For better or worse.
- Seven of Wands is one against many—you are strong enough now to be challenging to take down. But that very fact invites others to try to do so.
- Seven of Cups is illusion and desire; everything you want and the knowledge that none of it will make you stop desiring things.
- Seven of Pentacles is appreciation. You know enough now to know that you have come far, earned much, and have more than you need.
Eights
The eights are the most powerful shape of each suit in a sense. Perhaps more accurately, they are the strongest shape of each suit which we are able to wield. Each force after this is one out of our control. The eight is the greatest expression of control we can truly have over the suit’s gifts.
- Eight of Swords is survival in the face of complete helplessness.
- Eight of Wands is the most powerful strike in the most powerful state a body can be in.
- Eight of Cups is the power to start again. To pour yourself into new vessels and move on.
- Eight of Pentacles is mastery over a craft. The ability to make the world reliably do a thing you want it to do: provide for you and make you useful.
Nines
The nines are the first step out of our control; the first step of too much, of turning back. At this step, the knowledge you are about to receive at the tenth step is so great, you have a moment of excess here, as the journey you’re on overwhelms you with this step in abundance.
- Nine of Swords is an abundance of the knowledge of death: it’s the nightmare of it.
- Nine of Wands is the full expenditure of energy that leaves you injured, depleted, drained.
- Nine of Cups is self-satisfaction and contentment, the reflexive reward that follows emotional mastery.
- Nine of Pentacles is luxury, the abundance of resources (and loving it).
Tens
Finally, the tens are the ends of our journeys. They’re conclusions.
- Ten of Swords is death itself: the end of thought.
- Ten of Wands is exhaustion and burden: the end of energy.
- Ten of Cups is harmony and completion: the fulfillment of love, diffused into the lives of those around you.
- Ten of Pentacles is legacy: the resources you give back and leave behind.
A further exploration of each card
Now we’ll take a closer look at each individual card, one suit at a time, to explore how the Divination Deck interprets the themes and stages of the numeric journey.
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THE SUIT OF SWORDS
Swords are the suit of the mind, human thought, strategy, and intelligence. It is the awareness of capital-T Truths, the type that never change and are built into the universe as laws. Swords are the journey of thought that begins with Truth and ends at the horizon past which none of us can see: death.
Swords are likened to the element of air, which cuts through the world with the simplicity and elegance of the wind.
Swords are the suit of springtime; new beginnings and the thaw of the cold and the herald of warmth. Springtime is a time of transformation, and the suit of Swords promises lots of that: they’re about the way thoughts change and grow. This is why Pixie created the leitmotif of butterflies in the court cards of this suit; they represent the transformational nature of the mind.
Swords themselves are weapons of war and symbols of authority. When you understand Truths, you wield the power to hurt yourself and others with what you know. Its court cards are perceptive, authoritative, intelligent, and incisive.
Ace of Swords
Ace of Swords is the raw Truth, with a capital T. Discovering the Truth creates a new path of Swords, one that leads eventually to the grave. The Truth never goes away, because Truth cannot go away. Truths are profound, unchanging, consequential, undeniable. A Truth is not an opinion, because the Truth never changes. All things end. Energy is never destroyed, only transferred. Time only goes one way. These profound Truths are ones people struggle with constantly, and they are represented by the Ace.
Our Ace of Sword is an idea, incarnate. They’re the moment of realization, a revelation of the capital-T Truth. All around them are the attempts of capturing this thought in words: elusive, dancing, airy thoughts.
Two of Swords
Two of Swords is what you do with the Truth; the preparations you make for the things it makes you fear, and for the things it makes you hope for. Two of Swords is preparation in the abstract—the theory of preparedness, more than the fact of it. It’s anticipation in reaction to Truths you barely understand yet and that you may not have been harmed by.
Our Two of Swords is a fighter who can’t see what lies ahead. It’s the readiness of nerves on defense. This fighter doesn’t have armor and must trust their instincts—the moon speaking through their heart—to be ready for what comes.
Three of Swords
Three of Swords is pain; which is an inevitable consequence of navigating the Truths you discover. Truths are firm and terrible, and it’s a stage of learning to encounter things you simply can’t change. It’s always painful to do that. We are destined for pain when we learn about the world, and it’s always a surprise. This card shows how we can never anticipate this type of pain—it strikes you in new places each time.
Our Three of Swords is a tattoo, a painful lesson, an image that shows us that the tattoo-ee suffered some badness. They had a breakup. They lost someone. They had their heart broken. The pain of their experience stays with them in their minds, but now also on their skin. This card symbolizes both the pain of our experiences, and also the ways we carry it, both inside and out.
Four of Swords
Four of Swords is rest and meditation; the response of the mind to pain. After the shock of Three of Swords, the mind must grow in stillness. It needs to rebuild what it believes before it throws you back at the Truths that cut you. Four of Swords is processing; the way we turn pain into understanding. After this step, you don’t get hurt as much in whatever way you just did. You build a shell around you that protects you from pain in the same way a second time.
Our Four of Swords is at rest, but mending. They’ve been hurt. The quest of the mind prepares for pain, experiences it, and then recovers from it. We see a woman recovering, the bits of her rejoining, but even still, she’s sleeping with swords close to her person. They may be hurting her, but they may also be keeping her safe.
Five of Swords
Five of Swords is a symbol of power: one I call the smirking victor. He’s just won, which is the first sign that you can learn to use the Truths you perceive. The trick of the suit of Swords is that you often can’t see past the power you desire, nor can you see the lessons that lie beyond it. Five of Swords represents triumph, even at the expense of yourself and others.
Our Five of Swords is also a portrait of a smirking victor, one reaching for clout, for attention, for the ability to be the person in the selfie. They’re reaching with the power of Swords tattooed into their fingers. The truth of the world is that in that moment, whomever, by whatever means, happens to be the hand that grabs power will be the one to win the moment. Sometimes you have to reach the highest if you want to be the one smirking in the end.
Six of Swords
Six of Swords is a card of change; the response to the way Five of Swords shows you the benefits and costs of power. Six of Swords is a rethinking, a shift of thought, and perhaps points to the vast world of things you cannot and will never know; all the water beneath a small boat. After discovering the power of your Truths, you will be changed, and must change with them. That’s what the Six of Swords is about.
Our Six of Swords is a literal shift in perspective, one that shows you that there are mysteries you’ll never solve and depths you’ll never explore. No matter what you’ve suffered or in what ways you’ve won, all you need to do is see the world differently in order to realize how much you’ll never know. The unknown is working on you at all times, inviting you to ask yourself: what ways would I change if I simply changed the way I see the world? Our large figure is splitting open, showing us the change beneath the skin.
Seven of Swords
Seven of Swords is the thief—the knowledge that some people may steal, operate in self-interest, and think of themselves. The suit of Swords doesn’t judge, it only asks: are you being stolen from? Will you choose to steal? If you choose to take what isn’t yours, you’re arriving at step seven in the journey of Swords to discover that you don’t like the slow manner in which you’ve pursued Truth. Truth is: life is only success and failure. Good and evil are for the moral world. The true world includes only strategies that lead to outcomes.
Our Seven of Swords is an act of theft—but by whom and for whom? Is the wallet being guarded or stolen? This Seven shows us how you might keep a few Swords in a back pocket, ready to use, should the moment arise. It shows us an act of greed, no matter how you read it, but can you really judge? It’s in human nature to steal, even if only a little bit (wifi from a neighbor, a grape in the deli, a stray $20 left in an ATM). Just think of the squirrels, our evolutionary cousins, endlessly raiding each other’s caches, just as we deposit and invest our money, hoping it remains safe. It would be foolish to just leave wealth lying around, right? Seven of Swords is that saying: possession is nine-tenths of the law. Better protect your wallet, right?
Eight of Swords
Eight of Swords is the Truth of helplessness. Most of us can’t change the world with the Truths we discover, nor can we change those Truths. This card is the lesson that we are small, and that we must live amidst the Swords and still not hurt ourselves, even when we can’t see what we’re facing. This card says: you are always in danger. Even so, the figure in the image isn’t hurt at the moment.
Our Eight of Swords is an image of movement under terrible circumstances. They’re stepping through tripwires and blades embedded in the sand. Still, our figure is walking, keeping themselves going, even though things look dark. They’re taking cautious steps, but are the figures helping or adding to the hazards? Swords are symbols of thought, and so are they. What thoughts help you move in a terrible moment, and what thoughts only make it worse?
Nine of Swords
Nine of Swords is a terrible omen: the nightmare. It is the Truth of fear, in all its mind-obliterating glory. This card is the worst thing the mind can do: it can be paralyzed, slow, self-destructive, and immobile—all because of the thought of fear. Fear is a powerful and terrible teacher, as it points to the hardest Truths of the world that can never be obliterated, but also at the final step on the journey of Swords:
Our Nine of Swords is a nightmare image: a rain of blades that loom over the Earth like invading alien spacecrafts. They’re falling all around, and everyone is in a state of panic. This is the rawest, most terrible portrait of fear, and while many of us only experience it in our nightmares, and in moments of our lives, those of us that experience it in real time never forget it.
Ten of Swords
Ten of Swords is the inevitable, the end. It is literal death. The Ten of Swords is the end of the mind, the end of thought. It is an image that means “death” more literally than even the Death card, which means change. This card is distinguished heavily by representing the knowledge of death even more than the phenomenon itself. When you know you will die, you know the biggest thing that you can’t know beyond. That’s the horizon, and one day you will enter it and all your thoughts will cease.
Our Ten of Swords is the death of the idea portrayed in the Ace card, along with the death of all ideas. In fact, the Ten of Swords is death itself: the knowledge of its truth, and the fact that you will inevitably experience it. The mind cannot cross that line, and so it is the end of the Swords journey. Our figure has experienced so many ideas, but they’re gone now, their ideas fluttering and tattering all around him. However, because he wrote his ideas down, they’re being reused and repurposed as new paper airplanes. They’re giving flight to others, now that he’s gone. He’s the knowledge that life ends and the only things that will outlive you are the ideas that you turn into things. He’s gone, but what he created and discovered lives on.
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THE SUIT OF WANDS
Wands are the suit of the body and spirit, representing energy, goal-making, resilience, and strength. It is the ferocious force of life within you that endlessly devotes itself to your living, your survival. Wands are the story of your energy which is great in your youth and diminishes over time. This is the story of all energies: one day they must all be extinguished.
Wands are likened to the element of fire, which burns its foes, warms its allies, and keeps an organism thriving and moving. Wands are the heat generated by triumph, struggle, and raw power.
Wands are the suit of summer; of crops ripening, of energy unfolding. Wands are like adolescence and young adulthood, a time of exploration, discovery, struggle, and recovery.
Wands themselves are torches, fuel to be burned. They’re fire in another form, and may be used as walking sticks, where the fire is guiding and warming, and as batons, where the fire of Wands is being used to burn.
Ace of Wands
Ace of Wands is fresh, new, raw energy. It’s passion and zeal, a new obsession, goal, or interest. The Ace of Wands is the raw fire that lights up inside us sometimes; emotional explosions that rocket us into our lives, and through the journey of the suit.
Our Ace of Wands is a burst of new energy, direct from the core. She’s burning with a new vigor; a new appetite for life. She’s going to power something, overcome something, build something up or tear something down. We don’t know what she’ll do with her energy yet, but we can see it make her smile.
Two of Wands
Two of Wands is what you do when you’re first infused with that raw energy: you get a dream; a vision, a goal. You construct a plan for how you’ll attain something you want, and you begin to train yourself for it.
Our Two of Wands is a climb, a giant form ascending an unsteady platform being built in real time. The figures are helping our climber get wherever they’re going on their slow and steady upward trajectory. Together, they’re the hard work of ascendancy, of goal-setting, and of energy use.
Three of Wands
Three of Wands is a new perspective, the product of your efforts in goal-attainment. You can see your goals and interests more clearly once you’ve gotten a few accomplishments (or useful failures/attempts) out of the way. You have a little bit of power at this point, but your journey is far from over.
Our Three of Wands shows what happens when you reach a high point in your climb. Our climber from Two Swords has found a view she needs to stop and take in: the change in perspective is her reward for the climb she just finished. Now that she’s accomplished her goal, what will she set her eyes on next?
Four of Wands
Four of Wands is a celebration—your first major success. Your effort is now turning into power—the ability to call yourself good at something. You can use your skill and power to entertain and help others at this stage. You give them a reason to celebrate, and can use your own fire to warm others, provide for them, and defend yourself from your antagonists.
Our Four of Wands is a party in the shade of a mountain. Everyone has gathered in this safe place, but what are they here for? Are they here to celebrate their mastery over the land, or to celebrate a holiday or local hero? Perhaps the hand that creates their safety has accomplished enough that now they can use their power to unite others in joy.
Five of Wands
Five of Wands is a symbol of struggle—the struggle you put yourself through when you test your skills against other very talented people. Many people on the journey of Wands give up at this point—they thought they were good until they were tested against other very good contenders. This card represents the useful side of struggle and adversity—it shapes people into an even greater level of power and ability.
Our Five of Wands is a trial by fire. Figures leap from Wand to Wand as a giant places—or removes—the Wands offering them a path. These small figures may be racing, or they may be traveling together. The circumstance will show who is worthy to cross this fiery expanse: only the strong will make it.
Six of Wands
Six of Wands is a triumph—total recognized success. This card is the external validation that you may be the best at something, that your skills are very noteworthy, or that you have accomplished what you meant to and now have the gift of true power. When you celebrate success at this level, you acknowledge that some power is so useful, the whole world will pause to note it.
In our world, validated success is the path of glory most dream of. We use our fire to try and reach it. We burn with ambition and energy to overcome obstacles, and in some cases, we find extreme success. But this image on our Six of Wands shows the dual nature of success: it’s both an image of fame and an image of what might be a prison cell. The power that Wands energy brings to bear is so powerful here, it burns everyone a little—maybe even the one the energy belongs to.
Seven of Wands
Seven of Wands is a call to stand against many. When you have true skill and power, others challenge you to be the best. You must fight to maintain your grip on power and to maintain your energy. This card is an omen of resilience. You possess the power to fight off those who would dethrone you, surround you, knock you down.
Our Seven of Wands is a stand against many unknown, terrifying enemies. It’s holding the door. It’s a last stand. It’s you against the world with an advantage: a door to close, and wands to press against it to buttress it against its invaders. Seven of Wands is a sign to stand tall, no matter what the opposition may be like. One person can resist many if their fire burns brightly enough.
Eight of Wands
Eight of Wands is the strongest you really ever get: it is the pinnacle of an individual’s ability and strength. It is the swift, strong strike, the product of nature and training and timing and zeal. It is the surest, fastest, and most energetic of all the Wands cards. From here, energy begins to wane. It is more than muscle; it’s skill and knowledge and experience and cultivated ability.
Our Eight of Wands is a jogger, about to cross the finish line in a fast, blurry, burst. They’re an embodiment of the body’s most energy-inefficient power move: a mad sprint. This manifestation of speed is moving with perfect alignment and balance. They’re nature’s energy, being spent at its hottest and most powerful point.
Nine of Wands
Nine of Wands is the card for fatigue, injury, and going on. No force can stay at its strongest peak forever. Fireworks must vanish, candles go out, and humans age. The Nine of Wands is what happens as energy begins to be overcome—it wanes. It may remain lit, but only with more energy. This card speaks to the intersection of exhaustion and resilience—the figure in the card is injured, but not knocked out yet. If their source of energy slows or is snuffed out, then you enter the next step, and the last.
Our Nine of Wands is building himself a new arm made of Wands. We feel the Wands energy of the injury, but also the Wands energy that propels an inventor to build a solution. The ways we get banged up, knocked around, and ultimately repaired is the story of Wands, told over and over again, until you finally reach the tenth and final step of the Wands numeric journey, and your energy fails to return from this point.
Ten of Wands
Ten of Wands is the inevitable end of energy: burden and heaviness. Eventually, without the fire of the Ace of Wands to propel you to the Eight, you begin to grow slower, more encumbered. This is the end of your goal attainment. Fire will burn all available fuel—even inside you—until there is nothing left to keep it going.
Our Ten of Wands is the same figure as depicted in our Ace of Wands, but now she’s spent. Her energy has all gone to other places—all the places she climbed, and the races she ran, and the enemies she overcame. It shaped the world with each tensing of her muscles, and each bellowing of her voice. But this image is the end of the story of energy, and its lesson: you only have so much to give, and one day it will all be gone. Now she’s a sign that things have changed, all her efforts having been stubbed out on the world; her obstacles reduced to ash.
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THE SUIT OF CUPS
Cups are the suit of desire and feeling. They’re what you want and how you feel about what you want. Cups include moments of unrequited desire, nostalgia, starting over, grief, and pleasure. They’re sensations and satisfactions that come from passion, connection, and craving.
Cups aren’t organized around goals, like Wands and Pentacles are, and they’re not organized around strategies, successes, and failures like Wands and Swords. They’re organized around experiences. The concepts of Cups don’t explain themselves. They are the story of human feeling.
Cups are likened to the element of water, which is always in motion and fills the space it is allowed to fill. Humans are strongly tied to the element of water, perhaps moreso than any other element. We are adaptable, and constantly adapting. We are changing more than we realize. Like water, we become new shapes based on the world. Our feelings and emotions are the way we interpret that constant motion; they’re the story our senses and thoughts tell about our experiences.
Cups are the suit of autumn; of maturity. Cups are the suit of sophisticated depth of feeling, the kind informed by the accumulation of experiences, relationships, and the types of successes and failures shown in the other suits. The story of Cups is a long cycle, one that begins with love and safety (the ace) and ends in familiar harmony (the ten). Cups demonstrate a “happy journey” as the effect of a human life persists beyond even their death, in the structures, families, and relationships they leave behind.
Cups themselves are vessels, as we are, ready to be filled. Where possible, they are portrayed carrying liquid, which is the stuff of the soul, always filling into the experiences of the world.
Ace of Cups
Ace of Cups is new love. Love of this type can occur between anyone: it is the force of connection that exists without explanation. It’s not exclusively erotic or familial, or even platonic. It can occur about people, or the world, or about hobbies and activities. It’s ALL forms of Love. People do this instead of hurt each other; they connect, experience delight, and feel safe together. This card represents that: the divine power of capital-L Love in all of its many forms.
Our Ace of Cups is a splash of pure joy, a burst of feeling, collected in a great cup. She’s the smile, the wonder, and the thrill that comes with it. She’s a cup that overflows with herself, a marvel of well-being and passion.
Two of Cups
Two of Cups is intimacy, the type that happens between two people. Again, these connections aren’t specifically erotic or platonic. This card represents the increase of trust when the water of two people can flow comfortably back and forth into one another without the chaos that a third person would bring. It is a simple, powerful, sincere connection between two.
Our Two of Cups is a portrait of two island-friends, lost in conversation. They’re relaxed and reclined, both as comfortable with each other as they would be alone. Their connection and intimacy create new pathways in the water around them, even in the air between them.
Three of Cups
Three of Cups is three friends—the shape a joyous, aligned trio can take. Three (or more) can feel joy and celebrate life together and still savor the intimacy of two people. It’s rarer. Three of Cups shows that you’ve developed enough to have more than a friend or two, you have a circle.
Our Three of Cups is a messy, joyous, celebratory toast. These toasters are joined together in unseen revelry, but what we see are their Cups, full, and splashing, and meeting in contact for a moment: all three are made into one. The entities of water in the cups are splashed so high and are so mixed together, when they fall, bits of them could land in anyone’s Cup. Such is friendship: you mix together with those you love and listen to, whether you realize it or not.
Four of Cups
Four of Cups is wanting what you don’t have. It’s indifference, apathy. This is the part of the emotional journey where you aren’t connecting with new people, but instead wanting people you can’t have (for any reason), or wanting connections and experiences that seem unavailable to you. Of course, your water is always moving, and is ready to be poured into the next available vessel. You’re not stuck, you just don’t know how to pour yourself into the next thing.
Our Four of Cups is a weeping willow, a weary and beleaguered figure. He’s pouring a full Cup out absently, not aware of how precious his feelings are. They’re creating a pool for others to play in though. His sadness makes him blind to the celebration he’s a part of.
Five of Cups
Five of Cups is a symbol of grief. Just as all fives are powerful crisis, this is the most painful expression of the power of Cups: unbridled desire for the impossible to be possible, for the dead to be living, for trust to be whole after it’s broken, for families to be reunited when they’re beyond the ability to be together. This is the lesson of engrossing sadness, the type that clarifies what it is that matters to you in life.
Our Five of Cups is an image of pain and sadness. We know this mysterious feeling sometimes: his heart sank in his chest. She felt as if her insides were falling somehow. Sometimes grief hollows us out, makes us feel empty. As we weep, we grow emptier, still. This figure is grieving for three Cups, but it helps us all to remember that two Cups continue to hang, upright behind them. We can be mostly empty but still pick ourselves and refill after experiencing grief. It’s the only way to go on.
Six of Cups
Six of Cups is something of a relief—it’s nostalgia, reminiscence, and connection to your childhood friends and siblings. After the incredible pain of Five Cups, it seems like life cannot go on; yet somehow it does, and it reminds you of the joys of your youth. Young people experience the world with an unblemished pleasure, that once you’re grown, you will only experience it again fleetingly, and like this, with memory and love. It’s wistfulness. You don’t want to go back in time, but you want to taste the flavors of happy years again after they’ve passed.
Our Six of Cups is a hall of trophies; each a memory from a previous step on the Cups Numeric journey. There is the wispy water being of love, and there is the little boat that passed between two island/friends, and there’s the willow who wept, unaware of the pool he supplied. These are the emotional lessons of your past, gathered in your heart. You may look back on them and re-experience their lessons, emotions, and pains when you wish. They’re part of the water of who you are now, always flowing forward in time, informed by the places you’ve been and the things you’ve done.
Seven of Cups
Seven of Cups is raw desire, and the illusions that come with it. We all want things: love, wealth, power, beauty, status, but that want can be a strange force. Sometimes it’s a healthy, life-driving goal, like the goals set in the Wands suit. Sometimes those forces are professional and useful, as the ones in Pentacles are. This portrait of desire shows how desire is a feeling, and therefore made of water, and is always in motion. Once you get what you want, your desire moves on to new things. In this way, you never actually want what you want, when it comes to these things. But the emotion itself is real, and pictured in this card.
Our Seven of Cups is dying of thirst. He’s trying to drink the undrinkable: cups filled with treasures and riches. Of course, he could just dip his face into the water that surrounds him in order to drink, but he doesn’t want that. He wants what he thinks will truly quench him once and forever; elusive things. Money. Status. Power. This is the illusion: desire is never quenched. You must see the illusion to move past this point on the journey of Cups, and into the truth: only water quenches thirst.
Eight of Cups
Eight of Cups is starting over. The story of emotions includes this as a response to the scene in Seven Cups—once you’ve had a few tastes of your so-called greatest desires, and felt your heart move past them, you face an emptiness. What else is there to attain? To feel? To conquer and explore? Where did the thrill go? Your emotions need to be poured out periodically, one vessel to another, and this card represents that emotional need. Eight of Cups is a portrait of that vacuum, that empty space where your desires used to be before they were failed or fulfilled or before life took them away from you?
Our Eight of Cups is a moment in a video game: the appearance of the doorway leading out. This level is done: you’ve moved and climbed and avoided death, and you might be a little banged up. You’ll either start over and have to do this (or something like it) again, or you’ll start the next stage in a fresh world with new enemies and obstacles to overcome. But we don’t know yet. All we can see from this image is that the door leading out exists and that our health bar is half full.
Nine of Cups
Nine of Cups is self-satisfaction. We all take pride in the elements of our lives that satisfy us. Whether we’ve learned the deepest truths and faced them as Swords instructs us to, or whether we’ve set goals and faced them as Wands does, or whether we’ve grown useful and prosperous as Pentacles do, the emotional core of us wants to savor those accomplishments. This card is a symbol of the quiet survey of one’s life that can take place when you’re happy with the way things have been going, and you feel content.
Our Nine of Cups is a bath, and the effort, joy, and self-care represented in the act. She’s in a state of pure comfort: entirely happy with who she is. Everything in the world is helping her enjoy pleasure in exactly the right measure, at exactly the right time. She’s enjoying the fruit of life. And when Cups are overflowing, they do what they always do and create new paths. A river has been made from the overflow of her bath. Who knows where it could lead?
Ten of Cups
Ten of Cups is the beautiful resolution of the journey of the heart: harmony. The ability to love all those around you and to see peace suffuse your home and environment. You are united with those you love here. They’re all assembled, not necessarily provided for, but their happiness and well-being is safe, and so is yours. You are protected by Love, and your Love protects others.
One day, the most wonderful thing can happen: your life may end as a dream. Our Ten of Cups is a portrait of that dream: it’s our Ace of Cups, all grown up, at the moment of her death. But she isn’t alone. She’s surrounded by everyone she loves. Her water has been shared and re-shared so many times. She’s made rivers everywhere, in the hearts of those around her. They celebrate her water as it’s poured out, and finally ceases to be her, and at last, becomes everyone else. This is the destiny of love: to be carried in the hearts of other people after you’re gone. To be water in their Cups.
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THE SUIT OF PENTACLES
Pentacles are the suit of skill and vocation. So much of life is the quest for resources, the elements and tools and traits that assure survival. Tarot knows that everything in the world must share, eat, save if it wishes to survive. Pentacles is the story of the quest for resources, and the benefits of survival, legacy, and usefulness.
Pentacles are the suit of nature. They represent the world of living organisms, not as emotional beings like Cups, not as impulses and passions like Wands, and not like strategies shown in Swords. They represent the groups we divide ourselves into—friends, collaborators, colleagues, families—and the way we fit inside those groups.
Pentacles are associated with the element of earth—soil, stone, tree, and critter. The natural world balances itself, and it does so through the forces depicted in this suit. For something to exist in the natural world it must have a niche, a role, a little spot in the ground where a being can be planted so they may sprout into a full member of the forest. Which trees grow tallest? The ones with the most access to water and sunlight. But trees share minerals, communicate through mycelial networks, and react to their world in slow ways that reveal them to be much like us.
Pentacles are the suit of winter; of old age and full maturity. Pentacles depict the effort that seems to supersede the efforts of the other suits because work and survival represent the bulk of our daily lives. Swords may sharpen your mind, Wands may strengthen you, Cups may enrich you and fill you with feeling. Pentacles is what you do with those benefits and experiences.
Ace of Pentacles
Ace of Pentacles is new opportunity. Wherever there is a patch of mineral-rich soil near water, it’s only a matter of time until a seed finds it and begins to grow into a plant. It’s only a matter of time until plants bring insects and insects bring animals. The Ace of Pentacles is the beginning of change: the opportunity to prosper and grow in a new way.
Our Ace of Pentacles is a seedling starting to grow, one so joyful and excited about the future, it’s beginning to float. This figure sees that something great could grow here (despite there being absolutely nothing in the environment to promise that), but look at him! He can’t be wrong. His idea, whatever it may be, has pure potential written all over it.
Two of Pentacles
Two of Pentacles is stress. When an organism has to begin the task of feeding itself and surviving in the world, it’s hard. You have to leave the world of infancy to enter the world of struggle, and this card represents that. The world is full of choppier waters and harder lands than anyone can know without experiencing it for themselves.
Our Two of Pentacles is a portrait of pressure. The things we all want—the Pentacles—aren’t a reward right now, they’re the source of the stress. Keeping them from crushing you is the first task. You have to learn how to work for what you want. There’s nothing for it: it’s always a fight. If you’re not struggling to be the best, you’ll always lose to someone who learns to push back and not be crushed.
Three of Pentacles
Three of Pentacles is collaboration. As a response to attempting to survive alone, you may soon discover that working with others is the key to growth and success. When people combine their efforts, they can make things that outlast lifetimes, like the Hierophant enjoys—buildings, columns, artwork, new branches of science.
Our Three of Pentacles is a portrait of assembly. Are these figures building their hands, or using their hands to build? What matters is that they’re working together, drawing symbolic cogs either from a device to their hands, or from their hands to a device. Maybe they’re just exchanging—networking, if you will. They’re interfacing, and the Pentacles, acting as both rewards and connections, are the means by which they do so.
Four of Pentacles
Four of Pentacles is possession. The quest for resources has led you to some. Congratulations! Your first challenge is represented on this card: you must hold and steward what you have acquired. These are the pains of student loans, taxes, and unexpected costs. This is also the symbol of frugality that you must adopt to learn to save your earnings. It also represents the twisted shape you can bend into when you get stopped at this stage of the journey, becoming miserly instead of shrewd. You have to lose some of your hard-earned resources in order to reach the next step.
Our Four of Pentacles is a portrait of ownership. These figures are all trying to mine this desert for riches, but only one has been successful—the one who ventured into the vast eye of self-awareness. They’ve turned his back on that now, thinking only about getting their haul out of this wasteland. But they know: the reason they’re able to do it and these others are not, has to do with what they found inside themselves when they looked. Of course, whether or not this figure will be happy with his burden, or if he’ll make it out of this desert alive are yet-unanswered questions.
Five of Pentacles
Five of Pentacles is deprivation and want. This is a powerful and painful symbol in the story of resources: you may lose them all. You may have none when you need them. You may see that others have none; that this game is not fair. This is the card that shows that the tallest trees are the ones that grow near all the best resources, and that the ones who don’t get those resources struggle. At times on the quest of Pentacles you will be the beautiful warm world held at arm’s length, and at times you’ll be those left out in the cold.
Our Five of Pentacles shows a gathering happening inside a gilded manor—from the outside. You are only able to look in, along with the little figures, and you’re only able to do that because of the tiny scraps of land you’ve been left to climb with. What transpires inside, you can only dream of, but without resources, you cannot know.
Six of Pentacles
Six of Pentacles is the reaction to the pain of the Five. It’s generosity. When you’ve made it this far on the journey of Pentacles, it’s only natural to try and do something about the imbalance the Five of Pentacles has shown you. When you have enough to share, you share. You value those that share. This card is a symbol of that force that sustains others when it ordinarily wouldn’t have to.
Our Six of Pentacles is an act of mending. One figure with too much lets himself be joined with another figure who is in need. The act is merciful and beautiful, and it’s the way two torn scraps can become one pair of pants. We don’t need to know why our tailor is mending the clothing all around her: we can tell from her expression that to do so is a pleasure, and an act of charity.
Seven of Pentacles
Seven of Pentacles is appreciation and gratitude. Having come a long way, you now have something to show for your work. You are at a place in your life where you can comfortably take stock and see how far you’ve come from the stresses at the early part of the quest for resources. This card is a symbol of success and satisfaction, the type that still promises hard work ahead, but congratulates you on all the hard work that’s come before. It shows you what work to avoid, and what is worthwhile.
Our Seven of Pentacles is the fruit of your labor. Nothing tastes sweeter! Having cultivated this lush plant, the only logical thing to do is enjoy a bite now and then. Pentacles knows this: it’s part of the journey. To realize your dreams is a pleasure, and sometimes you must stop and appreciate the beauty of your work.
Eight of Pentacles
Eight of Pentacles is mastery. At this stage of Pentacles maturity, you must be developed for something. This card is a symbol of reaching that new height of usefulness: specialization. This card indicates a skill powerful enough to turn time into resources reliably. It represents the education, cost, and commitment it takes to reach that step as well. It’s the promise of new work: stability, based on a critical role in one’s society.
Our Eight of Pentacles is an assembly line. It’s a portrait of the many, many steps of trial and error, collaboration, investment, and patience that come with perfecting a complex project. It’s the effort it takes, and also the time. Once you’re specialized for something, you have value. This is a key step on the Pentacles numeric journey, one that takes years to realize.
Nine of Pentacles
Nine of Pentacles is luxury. When we dream of wealth, we often dream of the ninth (and tenth) steps on the Pentacles journey. This is the bling step, the step of excess and luxury and refinement. This is the step that takes lavish vacations and drinks fine wine and wears shiny jewelry. This could be the step that springs for the new Macbook or that takes pride and washes your classic car every Sunday in the summer. This is having nice things and treating yourself, whatever form that takes.
Our Nine of Pentacles is a nap in a gorgeous park. All around our sleeper, a vast city sprawls, the product of so many people’s hard work. All of them building and chipping away, making mountains with their lives. This person has too: they’re resting in an abundant garden, a world of plenty and abundance all around them.
Ten of Pentacles
Ten of Pentacles is the end of the journey of resources: wealth and legacy. You have the ability to now provide enough to leave something significant behind. You can leave something for family, for future generations, for posterity, for whatever; the point is, it’s significant enough to help the future grow and to ensure safety for you and your loved ones. Ten of Pentacles is more than just the tallest trees—it is the forest, and all its resources.
Our Ten of Pentacles is the mighty tree that was once the seedling as the Ace of Pentacles. They’ve now grown vast, and reached the end of their life: but they were right! They could flourish in the spot they chose. They filled in the hole beneath them and reached a state of full fruit. Their final harvest is a powerful legacy for the rejoicing folk of this new land. Our Ten offers his resources back to the world, handing them over for a new generation to take to whatever corners of the world call them, and to grow as they see fit.
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