Those 16 cards can be confusing, I get it.

…but it doesn’t have to be!

Though I feel one must embrace nuance when it comes to Tarot, I find this especially true when it comes to interpreting court cards. In today’s Tarot Tuesday edition, I’m getting knee deep and sharing my method for understanding what those 16 keys tell us by way of the elements.

What are court cards?

Tarot cards consist of two major categories: The Major Arcana and the Minor Arcana. For this lesson, we are sticking to the Minor Arcana where the court cards are found.

Simply put, court cards are the personality traits of each suit they represent. They are the voice through which the person or situation being read into communicates with you. 

DISCLAIMER: When referring to the gender of energies in this article, I use masculine/feminine, independent from a person’s physical attributes. 

Masculinity: action-oriented, separating, severing. 

Femininity: Receptive, uniting, intuitive

See court cards as their elements.

Instead of memorizing 16 different cards, see them by their elements: fire, water, air, and earth. I’ve found this the most efficient way to understand each archetype. This approach also works for the remaining Minor Arcana. Just as each suit behaves like a certain element (Swords = air), the court cards behave similarly (Knights = air). Each element has its own gender, temperament, personality, and corresponding zodiac signs.

• Fire (Masculine | Kings | Wands)
  • Quickest energy (days)
  • Energetic, fiery, creative
• Air (Masculine | Knights | Swords)
  • Fast energy (weeks)
  • Mental, logical, aggressive
• Water (Feminine | Queens | Cups)
  • Slower energy (months)
  • Emotional, intuitive, spiritual
• Earth (Feminine | Pages | Pentacles)
  • Slowest energy (years+)
  • Practical, materialistic, scholarly

Court card characteristics.

Check out this table I’ve color coded to help visualize what we’ve gone over so far. If you want to stick with memorizing the cards (or taking a screenshot of this table), go for it! If you want to get in the weeds with me for a bit, follow along.

When you consider the elemental characteristics of the court with the suits, there’s an added layer to how those elements influence one another.

Example 1: Same gender and element

Let’s go to the first column and analyze the King of Wands, where fire meets fire. In Tarot, he is considered to be the ‘King of Kings’, basking in his noble and royal qualities as well as a no-nonsense approach to the task at hand. This fire has a clear vision and mission to accomplish with zero tolerance for any derailment.

Example 2: Same gender, different elements

The Queen of Pentacles shows two sides of the same feminine coin. She brings cultivation and nurture as the Queen to approach the materialistic qualities of the Pentacles. She seeks to be resourceful and charitable, all qualities associated with femininity.

Example 3: Different gender, different elements

The Knight (masc) of Pentacles (fem) is an example of this. The Knight wants action, often only considering one specific way of going about it. The Pentacle aspect craves deeper insight and practicality, a somewhat rebellious contrast to the remaining Knights.

Court cards as people.

If you are looking into the physical attributes of a person, they may have the following characteristics or be at that level of understanding in the corresponding suit [i.e., an older gentlemen new on their spiritual journey may show up as a Page (immature) of Cups (spiritual)]:

• Pages (Earth)
  • Pre-pubescent feminine 
  • Young, naive, immature
  • Creatives, artists, scientists
• Knights (Air)
  • Teenage, masculine
  • One-dimensional in perspectives
  • Government officials, military, or intelligence communities
• Queens (Water)
  • Young adult, feminine 
  • Nurturing, cultivating
  • Interpersonal relationships, motherhood, spirituality
• Pentacles (Fire)
  • Mature adult, masculine
  • Leadership, experts 
  • Business, finance, fatherhood, property

Ok. So how do I read them?

Before any Tarot reading, it is imperative to meet your practice clear, level-headed, and grounded. Take a few minutes to sit in stillness, do some breath work, pray, whatever makes sense for you. 

Tarot is a tool that serves as an extension of you. The cards do not tell you anything you do not already know, they only serve as the tool that helps bring it to surface. Therefore, we must be mindful of our bias and attachments to situations we’re looking into. The more objective we can be in our own readings, the more clear and concise the return.

The most important part on learning to read court cards is to be clear on what you’re reading into. 

Are you reading into a specific person, or a situation? If it’s specific to a person and you pull the Queen of Swords, they may be a young adult in the legal field or the military. If you’re reading into a situation and you pull that same Queen of Swords, it may be asking to be more forthcoming about their needs and to speak up more. 

If there is more than one court card in your spread, same rules apply. For a literal person, this could identify more than one person they’re connected to. If it’s situational, there could be more than one way to approach the situation. Such as being mindful of one energy while leaning into the other.

Final Thoughts

Lots of information, here. Take some time to apply these principles slowly into your tarot readings. Remember, Tarot is a practice. Practice is how we integrate the lessons of the court cards into tarot readings. The more you become familiar with how Tarot can helps explain the psyche, the more advanced of a reader you become.

Hope this helps!