Tarot Card Meanings Quotes

It’s said that the shuffling of the cards is the earth, and the pattering of the cards is the rain, and the beating of the cards is the wind, and the pointing of the cards is the fire. That’s of the four suits. But the Greater Trumps, it’s said, are the meaning of all process and the measure of the everlasting dance.

Originally, Tarot had been devised as a secret means to pass along ideologies banned by the Church. Now, Tarot's mystical qualities were passed on by modern fortune-tellers.

How do you know I’m not making it up? You don’t. Things work because you believe in them. Call it faith or will or coincidence or whatever. If you believe it will help to light a candle and ask the universe to help you understand the mystery and meaning of the Hierophant, then it will. Don’t spend a bunch of money on learning how to get to know your cards. Just do it. Say hi to them and get to work.

Qabalah is a portrait of what it means to be human, what it means to be divine and exist. That is what the theory of Qabalah is meant to accomplish. And tarot is that same exact portrait, done as a deck of cards. It is a portrait of the workings of the invisible universe.

Finding her voice at last, she asked, “What dreams are you having, sir?” “I dreamt I was in a spring field and a woman stands in the shadows just at the edge of the nearby forest. I haven’t yet seen her face, only her long beautiful hair. I always wake too soon.” He reached up to touch the hawk touchstone around his throat as he described his dream, rubbing it absently between his fingers. Lily lowered her lashes to hide her astonishment. “When you see someone in a dream but cannot see their face, it means you haven’t met them yet,” she explained. “Then perhaps I’ll dream of her again tonight and this time I’ll see her face.” He smiled, reaching across the table to take her left hand and lift it to his lips. “My name is Ian Kelly, and it would give me the greatest pleasure to know yours.” “Lily Evans. Around here I go by Raven.” She raised a shoulder, indicating the gypsy tent. “Lily--indeed, a most beautiful name. Now tell me,” he stared pointedly at her hand, “I see no ring that another has claimed you as his, so my confidence is strengthened. Look at your cards again, milady, and tell me if you see me in your future…

In the birth charts of tarot readers, Neptune tends to figure prominently, often in aspect to the Moon, which is also related to intuition and psychic awareness.

Pluto (the Greek god Hades) is associated with divination because it symbolizes the revelation of secret or occult knowledge.

I’d listen to whatever songs were on the radio, not because I liked them, but because they were my tarot cards. If the songs were good, it would be a good day. If they were bad, I’d probably get a B on a quiz.

The Empress surrounds you at all times. She feeds the soul with her brilliance and beauty of the night sky. Mountain landscapes, rolling hills, and ocean waves rise like the curve of her hips. Her breath is the warm air of summer, her cool palms are the willow tree's shade. She is the peace of mind of a walking meditation. The Empress fills you with the entirety of the world's beauty if you let her in. She shows you in no uncertain terms, that you are never, ever alone. You are part and parcel of the glistening, pulsating world of energetic and beautific connection. You are her and she is you. She is everything and everything is you.

As the coffee slid down my throat and the caffeine penetrated my haze, I wondered why he had returned so soon. I pulled my scraggly housecoat tightly around me. His gray eyes looked far too awake for this time of the day. He must be one of those morning people. After sitting contentedly for five minutes his left knee began to fidget. I enjoyed his discomfort. Call me mean, but anyone who dares enter my domain before my first cup of coffee deserves no less. I kept drinking, closing my eyes to express my bliss and taking a wee bit of pleasure in his discomfort.

The Devil is rarely a positive card, but it does have a few redeeming qualities. Sometimes it can represent the querent’s ambition and desire for greatness, as well as their desire to move on from one achievement to the next, never stopping or pausing for breath. One thing’s for certain with such a querent: they won’t rest on their laurels! If positively aspected in a reading, this card can indicate a time of great desire and action in the querent’s life, a lust for life, and a willingness to take risks and enjoy life to the fullest, which will serve to further their goals and improve their circumstances. This querent wants to make the most of life while they can and while they have the means and desire to. In a relationship reading, the Devil, if surrounded by positive cards, can sometimes indicate that the physical side of the relationship is wonderful—the sex is great and the mundane circumstances are working very well for the couple. If accompanied by the Lovers or the Four of Wands, it might also indicate the bonds

But developing your witch powers is not so much about predicting lottery numbers or knowing which tarot card means what. Instead, it’s about enhancing your sensitivity and response towards both random thoughts and direct, loaded truth bombs. It’s knowing what’s for you and what’s for other people, and learning how to make sense of emotional changes within your body.

Ryzhkova was accustomed to tarot with its layers of meaning, interpretations, and reversals, and how a picture might look one way but contain a contrary truth. Used to her silent apprentice, she had forgotten that language itself was as subtle and slippery as her cards, and that words contained hidden seeds that blossomed with a speaker’s intent. A wish for safety meant nothing if the force behind it was a desire to kill. Though she spoke of love and protection, dread, grief, and anger bled through. Each word that fell from her tongue bound itself to paper with a small part of her soul, infusing the cards not with love as she thought, but with a hex burned strong and deep by fear. Buried in the heart of the deck, the Fool’s eyes shut. She closed the box. A

I'm not superstitious. I don't believe in knocking on wood, or crossing fingers, or crystal gazing, or any of that. I don't think the cards have any special occult power, though I'm not sure I'd say that outright to a client. But they do ...' She found herself struggling to articulate something she rarely dissected, event o herself. 'They do still have meaning - even if you know nothing about tarot, you can see the richness of the symbolism and the imagery. The ideas they represent ... they're universal forces that bear on all our lives. I suppose what I believe is not that the cards can tell you anything you don't already know, or that they have magical answers to your questions, but that they give you ... they give you the space to question ...? Does that make sense? Whether the statements I make in a reading are true or false, they give the sitter an opportunity to reflect on those forces, to analyze their instincts. I don't know if I'm explaining this right.

Historically, dairy herdsmen have used the pubic hair of cattle as a divination tool to foretell the capacity of a cow to give milk on the basis of the shape of the cow’s escutcheon. Perhaps amidst the next generation of tarot decks, the Dairy Cow Escutcheon Tarot will make its debut.

Weakness   The Lovers Upright Romance, Love, Honor, Optimism, a Harmonious Partnership Reverse Separation, Untrustworthy, Fickleness, Unreliability   The Chariot Upright Perseverance, Seeking Justice, Strong in the face of Adversity Reverse Defeat, Failure, Unproductive   Justice Upright Righteousness, Equality, Integrity, Honor, Fairness Reverse Unfairness, Falsely Accused, Mistreatment, Biased   The Hermit Upright Withdrawal, Independent, Inner Strength, Carefulness, Observant Reverse Impulsiveness, Immaturity, Recklessness, Stupidity           Wheel of Fortune Upright Unexpected Surprises, Progress, Fate, Fortune

Divination is not mere fortune-telling or superstition. Rather, it is an exceedingly subtle psychological technique whereby the secrets of the unconscious can be discovered, its powers (extrasensory and others) can be made accessible, and guidance for our confused and disordered lives can be obtained. The most important fact to fix in one’s mind is that there is nothing haphazard or accidental in the universe, and that external events—no matter how seemingly trivial—are intimately related to happenings within the human psyche. Thus, if we learn the art of discovering and interpreting the external signs, we may thereby gain access to the world of inward realities in our own souls and in the soul of the cosmos. The magic of Tarot divination is not in the cards but in ourselves. The cards can and do act as instrumentalities whereby the subjective reality within the unconscious becomes able to project a portion of itself into objective existence. Through this projection, a meaningful and useful relationship or a creative dialogue between the subjective and objective sides of our lives may be established, which is a great accomplishment. Thus divi­nation by means of the Tarot may be defined as a practical way in which a bridge is built between the temporal world of physical events, on the one hand, and the timeless world of the archetypes of the collective unconscious, on the other. It may be useful to recall that divination was considered an important part of the cur­riculum of certain mystery schools, not primarily in order to teach how to foretell the future, but in order to construct a psychic mechanism within the initiate whereby a source of guidance and insight might be made accessible to his conscious self.

You lay a few cards down in a particular order, each representing a big idea, and then you get to decide how it relates to you. And the more you're in a position where you want the cards to have more meaning, the more meaning you give them. I definitely had moments where I realized things about myself using the cards, but I've had moment where I realized something about myself answering a Buzzfeed quiz. It's the same thing. The person provides the meaning.

It may seem absurd at first, but it is perfectly fitting that our first touchpoint with Tiphareth, the Sephirah that represents the consciousness of the Christ, is represented by the Devil tarot card. The devil is merely a symbol for an illusion. At the same time, so are all man’s ideas of what “God” is: an illusion. We indeed become caught up in our own personal perceptions of God, rather than the reality of God. We get so wrapped up—and become slave to—our ideas and notions of what we think God is to us, just like the two chained persons in the tarot card. They are slave not to the literal creature “the devil”; they are slave to the established orthodoxy of their own ideas. The devil is merely a scapegoat for their own shortcomings. Too often we blame this invisible adversary for the sins which are, frankly, our own responsibility. Facing the devil, facing this illusion, is the first step in the dark night to receive the truth of Tiphareth, of the individuality. Moving further into the Great Work, our notions of what we perceive God to be are likely to change, to be turned completely upside down. We need to be ready, as we strive further and further to uncover the veil of the Mysteries, for Truth with a capital T. Based upon our current understanding of the world, this Truth can seem more like paradox than logic. Yet, the world of spirit is often irrational to the world of the nonspiritual. This takes an intuitive leap past the logical framework of Hod in order to reach new frontiers of understanding that will often seem downright scary because of their illogical nature. We must be constantly aware of everything around us as illusion. The Hebrew letter for this Path, Ayin, means “eye,” which aligns with the optical nature of this theme. The eye can be easily tricked. Ayin is a reminder of the paradox between the physical eye and one’s intuition. The initiate must understand that the material world is illusion and take great care not to confuse outer forms with inner reflection. One may relate to another in some way, but they are not the same thing. One may relate to another in some way, but they are not the same thing. As always, discernment is your ally.

Do not insert your own advice. You can look to the cards and objectively interpret the meanings of the cards to [the Seeker], helping her apply those meanings to her specific situation, but you should not tell her what you think. What you think does not matter here.

New levels of success always require strategic adjustments.

You always carry a black tarot card with you to breakfast?" she asked. "This is the first time." "I bet. I gotta ask you though, why the Magician?" "A friend gave it to me. Why? What do you know about it?" "I know you got yourself involved with a black-back magician. That means everything is hidden, and backward. You could run into an animal that doesn't act like one. A magical animal like a rougarou. A werewolf that feasts on evil souls." I put the card in my back pocket, horizontally, so it wouldn't fall out this time. "Protect your soul, Eggs." "I'm not evil," I said, already out the door and on the way to see Michael, who seemed more normal to me at that moment than the waitress at Johnny River's. "We're all capable of it sometimes," she yelled behind me.

Discomfort caused by chaos leads to growth.

awakening. Listen, it’s like the Death card in the Tarot. Movies always make it seem like the Death card is a bad thing—a literal death—but no, it’s a metaphorical death, a figurative one, and that means transformation, transition, and maybe that’s where we are now, as people, as humans.

— The Individual, New Beginning 2 — Choice, Duality, Partnership 3 — Creativity, Collaboration, Community 4 — Structure, Stability, Foundation 5 — Change, Instability, Loss 6 — Balance, Choice, Harmony 7 — Inspired Action, Magic 8 — Infinity, Success, Power 9 — Alone, Near Completion 10 — Completion, End of a Cycle

Blue I emerge from our yellow linoleum bathroom blue at one end of our single-wide trailer and I have the length of narrow hallway to consider before reaching the living room blue Blue!? And I know my mother is furious You look ridiculous it’s all she says and I do I had torn the pages from a magazine lined my bedroom floor with them and studied those punk rock spiked hair white teeth high fashion popped collar leather studded glossy photos strewn across my small space like a spread of tarot cards telling me a future I would never get to not out here not in the white trailer rusting amber thick of trees stretch of reservation of highway that stood between me and whatever else was out there record stores the mall parking lots where kids were skateboarding and smoking pot probably kids with boom boxes and bottles of beer out there were beaches with bands playing on them and these faces these shining faces with pink green purple and blue hair blue I could get that at least I could mix seventeen packets of blue raspberry Kool-Aid with a little water and I could get that it was alchemy it was potion-making but no one told me about the bleach about my dark hair needing to lift to lighten in order to get that blue no one told me that the mess of Kool-Aid would only run down my scalp my face my neck would stain me blue Blue is what you taste like he says still holding me on the twin bed in the glow of dawn my teenage curiosity has pushed me to ask What does my body taste like to you his fingers travel from neck to navel breath on my thigh and here in our sacred space he answers simply Blue you taste blue and I wonder if what he means is sad you taste sad taqʷšəblu the name is given to me when I am three to understand it my child brain has to break it apart taqʷšəblu talk as in talking as in to tell as in story sha as in the second syllable of my English name as in half of me blue as in the taste of me blue as in sad my grandmother was taqʷšəblu before me and now I am taqʷšəblu too

When you’re having your fortune told, you’re playing the role of the passive onlooker, helpless against the unpredictable twists and turns of life. You want to find out what will happen, as if the future were set in stone and there’s nothing you can do about it. As a result, you’re giving your power away to the forces of “fate,” and believing that the fortune teller is the only one who can reveal that fate to you.

When you’re having your fortune told, you’re playing the role of the passive onlooker, helpless against the unpredictable twists and turns of life. You want to find out what will happen, as if the future were set in stone and there’s nothing you can do about it. As a result, you’re giving your power away to the forces of “fate,” and believing that the fortune teller is the only one who can reveal that fate to you. This is not a very empowering place to be in. No wonder Tarot cards make some people nervous!

Sister Marie Romaine told us in the fifth grade that Catholics aren’t allowed to do divination—we weren’t to touch Ouija boards or Tarot cards or crystal balls, because things like that are seductions of the D-E-V-I-L—she always spelled it out like that, she’d never say the word. I’m not sure where the Devil came into it, but somehow I couldn’t bring myself to let Deb do readings for me. She was, last night, though, in my dream. I used to watch her do it for other people; the Tarot cards fascinated me—maybe just because they seemed forbidden. But the names were so cool—the Major Arcana, the Minor Arcana; Knight of Pentacles, Page of Cups, Queen of Wands, King of Swords. The Empress, the Magician. And the Hanged Man. Well, what else would I dream about? I mean, this was not a subtle dream, no doubt about it. There it was, right in the middle of the spread of cards, and Deb was telling me about it. “A man is suspended by one foot from a pole laid across two trees. His arms, folded behind his back, together with his head, form a triangle with the point downward; his legs form a cross. To an extent, the Hanged Man is still earthbound, for his foot is attached to the pole.” I could see the man on the card, suspended permanently halfway between heaven and earth. That card always looked odd to me—the man didn’t seem to be at all concerned, in spite of being upside-down and blind-folded. Deb kept scooping up the cards and laying them out again, and that one kept coming up in every spread. “The Hanged Man represents the necessary process of surrender and sacrifice,” she said. “This card has profound significance,” she said, and she looked at me and tapped her finger on it. “But much of it is veiled; you have to figure out the meaning for yourself. Self-surrender leads to transformation of the personality, but the person has to accomplish his own regeneration.” Transformation of the personality. That’s what I’m afraid of, all right. I liked Roger’s personality just fine the way it was! Well … rats. I don’t know how much the D-E-V-I-L has to do with it, but I am sure that trying to look too far into the future is a mistake. At least right now.

I want to get the hell out of here. That old woman’s knuckle on the tarot card stopped my heart between beats. I’m not the kind of man who holds with cards and crystal balls, but she didn’t need to tell me what that tower means. I felt the cold whisper at the pit of my gut. Same as when our dear old dad used to come home. You develop superhuman hearing when you live with a monster. A quarter-turn of the front doorknob was all it ever took to fill my veins with ice. One knock against that card, splayed on the table, had my defenses up. Bethany saw it—I know she did. Her eyebrows drew together. Her hand twitched as if to take mine. Unbelievable, that she would try to hold my hand when the truth was so evident, spoken aloud by Mamere. Very much alone.

Did the Ten of Wands come up? If so, this often means there’s too much going on just now and it’s not the right time to read your cards. Wait a day or two and try again.

We turn now to T. S. Eliot," said Mr Varriale, my 11th-grade English teacher, "the most difficult poet in the English language." At the time, none of us could make any sense out of The Waste Land, even with the notes Eliot provided or with those that generations of scholars have added. The most ambitious of us looked up the references, hunted for symbols, started fooling with Tarot cards, repeated "Shantih shantih shantih" - anything that might give a clue to Eliot's meaning. Cynical classmates smirked at our efforts and assured us that the whole thing was a hoax. The "most difficult poet in the English language" had no clothes.

Flower’s evidentiary gymnastics beautifully illustrate the primary point I wish to make, which is that almost all of the Tarot’s acquired meaning has been derived from a foundation that has been shown to be lacking in both substance and truth. Furthermore, this pseudo-history has been promulgated ad infinitum from the late 18th century to the present day.

Although Etteilla receives little credit in popular literature today, he can credited with many ‘firsts’': he was certainly the first to popularise fortune-telling with playing cards , the first to promote card reading as a professional activity and the first to publish books on the subject. He also was the first to use a pseudonym as a constant pen-name, initiating a tradition which was to flourish among XIX-oentury esoteric writers, as the following chapters will abundantly demonstrate. Thanks to Etteilla, Court de Gébelin's theory about the 'Egyptian' origin of the Tarot had a wider diffusion and fortune-telling with Tarot cards became popular. He was the first. too, to attempt to incorporate Tarot cards into a system of magical theory: his example, though not his means of doing so, was to be followed by others whose infuence has persisted longer. Last but not least, he can be credited too with the invention of the very word cartomancie, or rather of its forerunner, ‘cartonomancie', which appeared in his writings from 1782. Amazingly, one of his disciples was about to publish a book on 'cartomancie' in 1789 (the first occurrence of such a word in a European language), but as the book is now lost we only know it from Etteilla's very critical review, rejecting this quite new and ‘illogical’ word to which he opposed his ‘better’ cartonomancie. Nevertheless, cartomancie took hold and its use spread. In 1803, it entered de Wailly’s French dictionary, and from these it has found its way into alnost all European languages, Jean-Baptiste Alliette died on 12 December 1791. He was only 53, which is, even in the XVIII century, a rather young age at which to die, We unfortunately know nothing of what he died of. Etteilla was a fascinating character and deserves more than giving his name to a strange Tarot pack. There is something touching in the man, who was sincere and passionate, generous and enlightened (in all the meanings of the word in the late XVIII century.

In a letter she wrote to Alfred Stieglitz in November of 1909, she says, “I’ve just finished a big job for very little cash! A set of designs for a pack of Tarot cards 80 designs. I shall send some over—of the original drawings—as some people may like them!” Today this note strikes a chord that’s both sweet and sour. The thirty-one-year-old writing it had no inkling how renowned her images would become after they were published in 1910. The Rider-Waite tarot deck, as it came to be called (after Waite and the publisher, William Rider & Son), is now arguably the most successful and recognizable deck ever made, and it is the number-one-selling deck in America and England. Her complex, symbolic artwork has been a source of inspiration and deep meaning to card readers for more than a hundred years, not to mention its numberless appearances on everything from T-shirts to coffee mugs to haute couture dresses by Dior and Alexander McQueen.

The most powerful planetary cycle of all is that ruled by Saturn. This heavenly body has a 29-year cycle and has the greatest impact on our maturing process. This means that you may find that clients come to you with some fairly heavy issues during the latter part of their 28th year. This is the age when we are forced to confront ourselves and to make the change from any point of immaturity into full maturity. The Major Arcana card that reveals that this process is taking place is THE WORLD.

Eve laughed then grew serious. “Do you truly believe in God, Klara?” “Of course. Who else would be arranging the cards? Who molds chance and lays pieces of cardboard in an order that conveys meaning?

An archetype is an inborn inherited latent constellation similar to an instinct, but differing from the instinct because it has to do with something like symbols of meaning not biological drives. On a light spectrum, Jung said instincts would be infrared and archetypes ultraviolet. Someone, long after Jung died, on a completely topic, tried to assign almost a Tarot card like identity to Jung’s psychological 'types', erroneously and confusingly also calling those 'archetypes'. They’re not what Jung called archetypes. Anyway, Jung’s archetypes have to do with something like DNA and are independent, in the short run, from individual biographies. They arise mysteriously within us at moments of destiny and cannot be identified until they overcome us with their gripping power.

The Judgement card is also a representation of forgiveness – it reminds the querent of the importance of forgiveness. The need to forgive may even come as a call out to an individual through a wide variety of means. In life, forgiveness is one of the ways by which an individual can truly let go of a huge burden and find inner peace. Holding a grudge is like bearing a heavy burden – it doesn’t hurt the person you have refused to forgive, but it definitely hurts you, and it kills you slowly from the inside, day in day out. So, instead of hurting yourself and straining under the burden of the grudges and ill-feelings you have towards others, heed the call of forgiveness instead. Lay your heart bare and unconditionally forgive the people who have done wrong to you. Remind yourself that revenge would only bring temporary respite, that’s if it brings any respite at all. The pain in your soul will still remain, and it will continue to haunt you. Therefore, to truly get rid of your pain once and for all, it is important for you to make a conscious decision to forgive those who have transgressed against you.

The World Card also represents the flow between endings and beginnings. This life is all about endings and beginnings, the end of one day is the beginning of another; the end of one phase is simply the beginning of another. Therefore, we must not get too conceited when we achieve long-awaited successes, because it only means we are about to a begin a new phase of our journey in the world, and there are many people who have passed through the gateway we are passing through too.

Sun When Celeste was born on March 7, the Sun was in Pisces. That means her Sun card is paired with the Moon, the card that corresponds to the sign of Pisces. Oddly enough, Celeste has always been a night owl. She feels most alive after dark, when the Sun sets and the Moon rises. Her emotions ebb and flow like the tide, and she cycles through life like a living lunar goddess. She even looks like a creature of the night, with pale skin and wide-set, luminous eyes. “It’s true,” she exclaimed, when she saw the two cards side by side. “I am the Moon! That explains so much. I like the Sun as much as anyone, but I’d much rather live my life by moonlight.

The relation of destiny with the cyclic process is implied in the figures of the legendary Tarot pack; the wealth of symbolic knowledge which is contained in each and every one of its cards is not to be despised, even if their symbolic significance is open to debate. For the illustrations of the Tarot afford clear examples of the signs, the dangers and the paths leading towards the infinite which Man may discover in the course of his existence.

The cards have unique meanings, but they also have a common identity with the other cards in their group.

The most important feature of a spread is a fact that each position had a unique meaning that colors the interpretation of whatever card falls in the spot.

When cards are related to each other in a spread, an entirely new level of meaning is created. Combinations appear, and a story line develops with characters, plots, and themes.

A spread is a preset pattern that defines how many cards to use, where each one goes, and what each one means.

Placement order is important because the meaning of a card is influenced by its position. Also, your impression of the reading as a whole develops as each new card is revealed.