Healing Rituals of the Tarot Court: Pages & Knights

The Tarot Court cards (also known as face or coat cards) play an interesting role in any tarot deck. Traditionally, the Court cards depict people (whether archetypal or relational) in your life, unlike the rest of the Minor Arcana (aka as the pip cards) which explore events, activities, and situations one might come across. In some ways they represent a subdued energy of the archetypal characters you might meet in the Major Arcana - but more on that in a bit.

Many tarot readers of all experience levels find Court cards challenging to interpret, not least of which because the traditional names of the cards - Page, Knight, Queen, and King - can feel unrelatable and limiting. The hierarchical naming of the cards can seem archaic, unnecessarily gendered, and difficult to interpret in a reading when you're trying to figure out why the Page of Swords is showing up for you and who the heck the King of Wands is supposed to be in your life. Also, these cards often have less "action" in them when compared to most of the other cards in the deck (of course, this varies from deck to deck) making them more challenging to interpret when compared to the rest of the Minor Arcana.

And yet, through their both too specific or too vague energy, I love the Court cards. I think this love comes from the way that I was first introduced to reading them - which was less about actual people showing up in your life and more about the arrival of archetypes and the opportunity for embodying energy that would benefit one's development. When the Court cards are approached from the perspective of archetype and embodiment, there is greater opportunity to interact with tarot as a tool of directed development of consciousness. For me the Court cards embody the tarot's ability to greatly reduce "haphazard movement and spiritual chaos" in one's spiritual journey, as tarot scholar Pamela Eakins writes.¹ In other words, the Court cards help us to connect with purpose, untangle spiritual knots in our energetic flow, and learn how to embody the consciousness needed to develop as individuals within the collective.

So how do we connect with the Court cards through archetype and embodiment? Let's start by meeting the Court cards and exploring their structure within tarot. Then I'll share with you a series of healing rituals for the four archetypes of the Court to help you embody the wisdom they represent beginning with the Pages and Knights in this post and following with the Queens and Kings in the next post. 

Playing Cards by Master PW (c. 1500)

The Structure of the Court

One of the oldest forms of representation of people in tarot decks, proto-tarot decks, and the playing card games that influenced tarot is that of royalty or at least upper class individuals. The reason for this is varied but includes the fact that early tarot cards were luxury items produced for royal Courts and wealthy individuals, so the Court cards reflected the lives of those they were being produced for.² The images in early tarot were based on images and archetypes that would have been familiar and recognizable to players from books, plays, pageants, and frescoes.³ That said, the images of the tarot cards may have followed a familiar format, but the details of the Court cards and other cards with people in them, changed with Courtly fashion, cultural differences, and artistic license. This practice of evolving the image of tarot cards continues on today, with the expansion of Court card culture and naming, but the basic structure of the Court cards that inform most modern decks are listed below. I've also included some simple and traditional interpretations of each card.

• Page - Youth, curiosity, naivety

• Knight - Young adulthood, exuberance, brashness

• Queen - Middle age, confidence, vision

• King - Old age, authority, legacy

The traditional structure of the Court cards roughly follows a path from youth and inexperience to age and experience. If you were to only work with the Court cards from this perspective, there's a lot of use and wisdom to be found. We start with the student, whether a child or young adult, in the form of the Page as they are just starting or in the midst of their studies about life. The Knights move into the combination of awkwardness, idealism, and sometimes hubris of teenage years and young adulthood, where there is more freedom of movement to explore the world and begin to formulate and test out one's ideas about what they find. The Queens represent adulthood moving into middle age and help to understand better our vision of a life and a world that we want to be in both understanding our limitations and potential better. Finally, the Kings represent middle to old age and are as much about looking back as they are looking forward, having tested out and determined what foundations are needed to leave behind a legacy while supporting generations to come. Take out the unnecessary gendering of these cards allowing each Court card to be any gender or agendered and you have a system of interpretation and engagement with the Court cards that can be of use to most any querent.

In modern decks there has been expansion around the names, presentations, and ideas around the Court cards in tarot decks, a practice that was primarily born from the (often lesbian and queer) feminist tradition of re-imaging and reclaiming tarot that began in the 1970s.⁴ I love the ways that the language around the Court cards has continued to expand and as I share some of the alternative names below, I encourage you to work with the ones that you resonate with the most, applying them to any deck you work with. Tarot is meant to help us find our story, and our choice of language for each of the cards is one of the ways that we can do that. 

With that in mind let's explore the archetypes of the Court cards.

The Archetypes of the Court Cards

What are the archetypes of the Court cards that we are being invited to embody when they come up in a reading or when we use the cards in ritual? A great place to start to understand the archetypes of the Court cards is to explore the many ways each card has been named. As mentioned before, modern tarot culture has expanded on the traditional language of the Court cards, relying less on a hierarchical and royal Court structure, and more on trying to connect with the spiritual path and life stages of a querent (i.e. the person being read for) that is more broad and inclusive. I've gone ahead and included interpretations of the Court cards by six modern decks to help show you the many archetypal energies that the Court cards can represent. I've listed each alternative name in order of Page, Knight, Queen, and King (i.e. Child is the Page card in The Amazon Tarot and so on). 

The Amazon Tarot ~ collaboratively made by Billie Potts, et al

• Child

• Amazon

• Companion

• Queen

The Collective Tarot ~ collaboratively made in Portland, OR

• Seeker

• Apprentice

• Artist

• Mentor

Future Ancestor Tarot by Alexa Villanueva

• Student

• Explorer

• Listener

• Maker

Tarot of the Crone by Ellen Lorenzi Prince

• Beast

• Witch

• Grandmother

• Shadow

The Shining Tribe Tarot by Rachel Pollack

• Place

• Knower

• Gift

• Speaker

The Slow Holler Tarot ~ collaboratively made predominantly by queer and/or BIPOC southern US Americans 

• Student

• Traveler

• Visionary

• Architect

World Spirit Tarot by Lauren O'Leary and Jessica Godino

• Seer

• Seeker

• Sybil

• Sage

The Herbcrafter's Tarot by Joanna Powell Colbert and Latisha Guthrie

• Hijas

• Adelitas

• Madres

• Curanderas

I work with all of the decks I've listed above and all influence my practice to some degree. I would add the following names for each Court card:

• Page: Student, Scholar, Philosopher

• Knight: Messenger, Rebel (with or without a cause)

• Queen: Oracle, Mediator, Organizer

• King: Archivist, Teacher

In addition to renaming the individual cards in the Court, we can choose an alternative to the word and concept of Court itself, whether choosing traditional terms like Face or Coat Cards, or alternatives such as:

• Circle

• Family

• Witches

• Coven

• Collective

• Community

Having these alternative names for the Court cards means that when I pull a Queen card during a reading I can choose to work with the particular interpretation of Queen energy with the deck, but I also know that I have a library of Queen-type archetypes to work with. In some readings it makes more sense for me to connect with the Mediator energy of the Queen where in other readings, it is the energy of Queen as Visionary that I can connect with. As a reader and student of tarot I encourage you to focus on the archetypes of the Court cards that make the most sense for you at this time and expand on those concepts as you feel called and ready. There are no "correct" archetypes for any of the Court cards and knowing which archetypal energy is calling to you is part of the intuitive process of reading tarot from a healing perspective.

I also want to mention that I've focused on the empowering aspects of the Court cards and less on the challenging energies of these cards - there's a whole other shadow work aspect to the Court cards that is beyond the scope of this post. Shadow work and the Court cards is a post for another day, but is another useful aspect of healing work with the Court cards. If you're looking for more general recommendations about shadow work and the tarot, come this way.

Another way to help understand the Court cards is to compare them to each other and specifically the Pages and the Knights to one another and the Queens and the Kings to one another.  

Yearning & Seeking: The Pages & The Knights

For me, the Pages and the Knights are closer to each other energetically than they are to the Queens and Kings and I think that this helps to interpret the meanings of these cards. You'll find that the Knights and the Pages share a name "Seeker" in some decks and I think this is a helpful way to understand the similarities and differences between these two cards. The Pages are seeking knowledge, but are also seeking to be embraced within a (often learning-based) community. The Knights are seekers, too, but are often seeking to break out of the confines of the community spaces they've grown up in (family cultures, school systems, work spaces) and are more interested in the outward expression of what they've learned as opposed to the desire for an inward drawing of knowledge as expressed by the Pages.

Another way to understand the Pages and the Knights is to think of the Pages as trying to find their place by being in a place (they are trying to learn new things but familiarity is still comforting and being part of a community is a focus), while the Knights are trying to find their place by exploring what they perceive to be "other" spaces.

The Rituals

These rituals were written with the solitary practitioner in mind but can be easily adapted to group needs. Add to, adjust, and leave out whatever you need from the rituals as you are called. I try to create rituals that are simple enough for most folks to show up to but can also act as a foundation for folks to build upon. I hope you always feel inspired to make them your own.

Deck names listed below

The Pages: A Ritual of Stability

Student · Child · Seeker · Beast · Seer · Philosopher · Place
Primary Element: Earth
Plant Ally: Milky Oat (Avena sativa)

Working with the Pages is an opportunity to embody stability in your life. It is hard to move forward with an idea, take on a new project, connect with others, or understand our wholeness without a supportive foundation from which to work from. Imagine the life of a young child and student - the emphasis on learning is less about independent study and more about providing foundational knowledge and supporting the curiosities of a young mind. In ideal child-centered and compassionate learning environments, certain boundaries and systems are put in place to protect and nourish the world of young learners. Swimming lessons, for example, shouldn't start with throwing a child into the deep end, but by introducing children to water safety, the feel of water, the difference between shallow and deep, and lots of play with experienced swimmers around. The Pages help us to imagine and embody these feelings of stability and safety so that we can proceed with the work and play of learning and exploration.

For your ritual, you'll need all four Page cards from your tarot deck of choice. Alternatively, you can spend time drawing, collaging, or otherwise creating your own personal Page cards to use in ritual. We will be placing each of these cards in one of the four cardinal directions and if you like you can built an altar for each card in each direction that helps to call in the energy of each Page and/or simply light a candle next to each card. Again, do what you feel called, able, and inspired to do - this is your ritual to support your unique embodiment needs.

Begin by creating sacred space and perhaps a breathwork practice (such as the Tree of Life technique) to help you settle into your body. Set the Page of Swords in the East, the Page of Wands in the South (if you're in the northern hemisphere) or North (if you're in the southern hemisphere), the Page of Cups in the West, and the Page of Pentacles in the North (if you're in the northern hemisphere) or in the South (if you're in the southern hemisphere). Of course, these are the directional correspondences of the tradition I work in, so adjust them to fit the tradition you work with if needed.

Next, spend a few moments setting your intention:

• I embody stability in order to…

Examples of calling in stability might be:

• I embody stability in order to show up more deeply to my intuition.

• I embody stability in order to be more present in my relationships.

• I embody stability in order to support my creative flow.

Once your intention is set, speak it aloud or express it nine times, paying attention to the sensations that arise in your body as you recite your intention like a charm. You're not trying to analyze these feelings or connect them to anything in particular, just let them arise and flow through you as you practice awareness of them.

Turn to the East where the Page of Swords is located. Speak to them and call forth the power of the Page of Swords:

Blessings to the Page of Swords
Beyond and within me
Help me embody stability
That I may carry the sword of clarity

Spend some time visualizing and feeling the sword of the Page in your hands. Take time to move and breathe until you and the sword feel balanced together. When you are ready imagine the sword flowing into your energy, able to be summoned whenever you need it.

Turn to the South where the Page of Wands is located. Speak to them and call forth the power of the Page of Wands:

Blessings to the Page of Wands
Beyond and within me
Help me embody stability
That I may carry the wand of creativity

As with the sword, spend some time visualizing and feeling the wand of the Page in your hands. Take time to move and breathe until you and the wand feel balanced together. When you are ready imagine the wand flowing into your energy, able to be summoned whenever you need it.

Turn to the West where the Page of Cups is located. Speak to them and call forth the power of the Page of Cups:

Blessings to the Page of Cups
Beyond and within me
Help me embody stability
That I may carry the cup of sensitivity

As with the sword, spend some time visualizing and feeling the cup of the Page in your hands. Take time to move and breathe until you and the cup feel balanced together. When you are ready imagine the cup flowing into your energy, able to be summoned whenever you need it.

Turn to the West where the Page of Pentacles is located. Speak to them and call forth the power of the Page of Pentacles:

Blessings to the Page of Pentacles
Beyond and within me
Help me embody stability
That I may carry the star of tranquility

As with the sword, spend some time visualizing and feeling the pentacle or star of the Page in your hands. Take time to move and breathe until you and the pentacle feel balanced together. When you are ready imagine the pentacle flowing into your energy, able to be summoned whenever you need it.

Finally, pick up each card and place them in a stack over your heart, while saying:

Protected by the sword
Warmed by the flame
Held by the waters
Nourished by the land

Take a few moments to feel these words and energies within you. When you are ready, seal the ritual by saying:

All this and more I embody
All this and more I call to me
By love and will, so mote it be

After the ritual you can either return your Page cards to the deck or set them up on an altar or some place where you will see them regularly. In the days and weeks ahead pay attention to when similar sensations arise for you as you experienced within this ritual and know that you can call upon any or all of the tools of the Pages when you need extra grounding and stability.

Deck names listed below

The Knights: A Ritual of Discernment

Messenger · Amazon · Apprentice · Witch · Traveler · Seeker · Rebel · Knower · Explorer
Primary Element: Air
Plant Ally: Peppermint (Mentha piperita)

Working with the Knights is an opportunity to embody discernment in your life. The Knights are the messengers and seekers of the tarot Court, ready to spring beyond the classroom of the Pages and into the unknown. When the Knights show up for us in readings again and again, they are often indicating that there is an important message being delivered to us or information that we need to seek out. The key to successfully connecting with that message is the power of discernment. There is so much to see and do and experience in the world that it can be all too easy to get caught up in the movement and consumption of information, without learning how to discern and distill knowledge into wisdom. The Knights help us to trust our own inner knowing and find the resources to better develop our abilities for embodying discernment. 

For your ritual, you'll need all four Knight cards from your tarot deck of choice. Alternatively, you can spend time drawing, collaging, or otherwise creating your own personal Knight cards to use in ritual. You'll also need four coins - any type of coin is just fine and that can be all the same, all different or a mix. Coins have been used in folk magick for generations as symbols of luck and protection and they'll act as conduits for both of those energies as well as tokens to "pay the messengers" within the ritual.

Begin by creating sacred space and perhaps a breathwork practice (such as the Tree of Life technique) to help you settle into your body. Place all four Knight cards before you (on your altar or otherwise) and hold the coins in your hand. 

Wherever I travel
Wherever I go
No fear removes
My ability to know

Wherever I travel
Wherever I go
No pressure blocks
My ability to know

Wherever I travel
Wherever I go
No river drowns
My ability to know

Wherever I travel
Wherever I go
No words confuse
My ability to know

You can keep these coins on your altar, your wallet, or in a charm bag that you carry on your person. I like to keep mine in a jar that I shake when I need to dispel unwanted energy and call in some good fortune.

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You’ll notice that I listed some correspondences for the Pages and Knights, including the elements. If you’re interested in learning more about the elements from a traditional western herbalism perspective, come this way. If you’re looking for tarot spreads, I have a few.

I hope that these thoughts and rituals about the tarot Court inspire your own practice and I’ll be back next month with the Queens and Kings.

In the meantime, may your travels through the tarot arcanas be full of illumination and inspiration so that your life may be filled with more clarity and peace.

This post was made possible through patron support.
❤︎ Thanks, friends. ❤︎

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Decks Shown

A Deck of Cards by PW (c. 1500)
Tazama African Tarot
Amazon Tarot (1979)
The Weiser Tarot
The Herbcrafter’s Tarot
Tarot of the Spirit

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Footnotes

1. Pamela Eakins, Ph.D., Tarot of the Spirit (Boston: Red Wheel/Weiser, 1992), 4. The full quote reads: “As such, when the divine tool of tarot is correctly employed, the potential for haphazard movement and spiritual chaos is reduced.”

2. Tim Husband, 'Before Fortune-Telling: The History and Structure of Tarot Cards,' The Met, April 8, 2016, https://www.metmuseum.org/blogs/in-season/2016/tarot (accessed June 2022).

3. Sherryl E. Smith, 'Italian Tarot in the 15th Century,' Tarot Heritage, July 24 2014, https://tarot-heritage.com/history-4/italian-tarot-in-the-15th-century/ (accessed June 2022).

4. Decks like The Amazon Tarot, published in 1979, followed by a number of decks in the 1980s including the New Amazon Tarot, Daughters of the Moon and The Book of Aradia Tarot (the latter two inspired in some part by Shekinah Mountainwater's Matriarchal Tarot), Thea's Tarot (inspired by A New Women's Tarot by Billie Potts who was one of the primary editors of the Amazon Tarot and New Amazon Tarot), and The Motherpeace Tarot. Some of these decks were collectively made, others by individuals or in partnerships, but all were part of the growing intersections of lesbian organizing, Goddess spirituality, and feminist rebellion.

My Favorite Tarot Decks for Herbalists & Plant Folk

As an herbalist who reads the tarot (and a tarot reader who talks with plants), I'd thought I'd share with you some of my favorite tarot decks with herbal themes. I’d also thought it also be of interest to folks who are following along with my project of the year - tarot and tea practices for each of the twelve signs of the zodiac.

We are living in abundant times when it comes to tarot decks and many feature botanical imagery, but the connection between tarot and the plant world is nothing new as the cards have long been connected to plant lore, healing, and magick. As an herbalist, I use tarot in my healing practice and as a tool to help folks connect with plant allies. While, the deck that I most often use for myself is the very first deck I ever purchased - my beloved Smith-Waite Tarot that came in the blue box set - is full of botanical imagery and meaning, it's not the only deck I turn to when looking for plant-rich imagery.(1) When I'm in the mood for something a bit different or reading for or with others, the following decks are what I've been turning to in recent years. 

These are certainly not the only plant-themed tarot decks out there and I'm planning on a second part to this post where I also include a few of my favorite oracle decks (in which there are many, many more of them when compared to tarot decks). I've also tried to include a mix of mass market and indie decks, being mindful of the varying budgets of my readers who might be interested in picking up a plant-centered deck of their own.

So let's meet the cards!

The Herbcrafter’s Tarot by Joanna Powell Colbert & Latisha Guthrie

The Herbcrafter's Tarot

Here's the thing. For years and years I wanted a tarot deck that was made for and by herbalists that I could connect to. When I was gifted a copy of The Herbcrafter's Tarot by Joanna Powell Colbert and Latisha Guthrie out of the blue (not by the creators themselves, but a friend of a friend), I felt such expansive joy. Friends, this is a lovely deck and it arrived at a particularly potent turning point in my own practice. My first reading with the deck was at twilight, sitting amongst Roses (Rosa spp.) on the Land I live with and it reads like a dream. In fact, I highly recommend reading with this deck outside if you can, especially the first few times you work with it. 

The art of The Herbcrafter's Tarot is rich and evocative, relying on a relatively uncommon medium for tarot decks (colored pencils), that Colbert is recognizable for (she is the creator of The Gaian Tarot, a diverse and inclusive deck published little over a decade ago). The deck celebrates the mixed heritage of the designers (Celtic and Mexican-American), including renaming the court cards with Spanish names and with the landscapes that appear throughout the deck. The guidebook is lovely, with a number of ways to connect with the cards both through key ideas, longer description, and activities inspired by the plants featured on each.

The Herbcrafter’s Tarot by Joanna Powell Colbert & Latisha Guthrie

The court cards are some of my favorites in the deck. Instead of having human figures throughout the deck, the cards focus on plants and their habitats, including wild places and home spaces like altars and kitchens. It's only on the court cards that we see just the arms or hands of folks - no faces or any other parts of the body - and they are young hands, old crone hands, working and resting hands. They are some of my favorite interpretations of the court cards of any deck I've worked with. While the absence of human figures doing things in most of the cards might feel intimidating to read to some, the cards are so beautifully thought out in their composition that the plants are alive and singing with story. The deck evokes a feeling of being present to the work of herbcrafting in a way that I've not experienced with another deck.

Of the three decks I'll be in this post, The Herbcrafter's Tarot is the most obviously plant-based one and is explicitly made for and by herbalists. This is the deck I've started to bring with me to in-person classes and the one that I find myself just shuffling through because I enjoy the art so much. It's also obviously designed by an herbalist who understands both the practical as well as magickal uses of plant medicine which I really appreciate and is not always a given with cards that feature a lot of botanical imagery. I really can't recommend this deck enough and I hope you get to hold a copy in your hands one day.

The Future Ancestor’s Tarot by Alexa Villanueva

The Future Ancestor Tarot

There's something really special about The Future Ancestor Tarot by Alexa Villanueva of Lexa Luna Studio. The deck was created during 2020 and carries an energy of making space for and exploring grief, as well as what it means to connect with our beloved living ones when they have traveled to the land of the ancestors, and what our own ancestral becoming looks like while we're still living. 

Of the three decks featured in this post, The Future Ancestor Tarot has the simplest aesthetic and yet no meaning or depth of interpretation is lost. There are calm gestures, furrowed brows, sweet embraces, and the difficult to name feeling that comes from experiencing profound peace amidst a storm of grief. These cards convey, through their images and energy, the feeling I often experience when sitting in a herbal session or class with someone. I know that this is in part because I purposefully make space for grief to be expressed and explored during these times and so often grief arrives as an honored guest in these moments, and The Future Ancestor Tarot seems to treat grieving with the same reverence. And that's also why it's such a sweet and joyful deck for me - it makes space for the difficult moments, so that we can experience all of our feelings with as little fear as is possible in any given time.

The Future Ancestor’s Tarot by Alexa Villanueva

Then there are the plants on each card which makes these bits of paper and the characters and spirits which inhabit them that much more alive. The renamed court cards feel particularly suited to my own herbal practice and I'm sure will resonate with many of you. The Pages have become the Students, the Knights are Explorers, the Queens are Listeners, and the Kings are Makers. The renamed Queens feel particularly powerful and they are some of my favorite cards, which is not traditionally the case for me with Queen cards in other decks. And speaking of favorites - The Star card is one of the images from the tarot that I love the most and The Star in The Future Ancestor Tarot is so beautiful that it makes my heart break open just a little wider every time I see it.

I think that this deck would sing well to those folks who appreciate a more intuitive than strictly traditional approach to tarot. The images reference the RWS system enough to guide you, but are also so unique and inviting for those who like a more open-ended approach to tarot. Just in life, the plants featured on each card are constant companions that we share space with and every card in this deck feels like there's a secret recipe hidden within them.(2) One of the other reasons I like this deck so much is that it is visually similar to my favorite black and white tarot deck, Thea's Tarot by Ruth West. The Future Ancestor Tarot feels like the soft little sibling or nibling of Thea's Tarot and I hope that comes across as the compliment that it is. The energy of the deck is so inviting and would be wonderful to use with clients in one-on-one sessions or with a whole class of plant-hearted folk. Currently, the deck comes with a little one page guide, but you can also join me in supporting Villanueva as she writes the full guidebook to the deck which I'm looking forward to reading!

The Witches’ Wisdom Tarot by Phyllis Currott & Danielle Barlow

The Witches' Wisdom Tarot

Look, there was little doubt that I wasn't going to love a deck produced in collaboration by Phyllis Currott (I re-read her autobiography over and over again as a young witch) and Danielle Barlow (a Dartmoor based artist who I've been a fan of for years and years). First, I like the deck because it experiments with the RWS system in interesting but meaningful ways, which helps readers to approach familiar systems in new ways. I like fresh takes on old practices and The Witches' Wisdom Tarot does this while still feeling traditional. The deck really shines with Barlow's depictions of plant and animal life which show up on every card and Currot's interpretation of the cards feel full of the wisdom carried by an elder of the Craft without becoming stuffy or rote.  

As an herbalist, I appreciate how much the botanical images correspond with the meanings of each card. Sometimes herbal decks can feel more like flashcards than living oracles, but The Witches' Wisdom Tarot avoids this with Barlow's paintings which reflect her own love and connection with plant and animal life. The Ace of Water (Cups) card, for example, is so beautifully depicted as a lush and watery space, capturing the movement, complexity, and sensitivity of the emotional worlds that the Cups represent in tarot. I just love the life and lushness of The Witches' Wisdom Tarot and the way that it reflects the spirit of interconnectedness between all living beings. 

The Witches’ Wisdom Tarot by Phyllis Currott & Danielle Barlow

If you're a Witch (and especially some variation of Pagan Witch), this might be a deck that speaks the most to you out of the three I've featured today. The Witches' Wisdom Tarot is a world unto its own that draws you in and it's a space that I love to visit. It's a deck that is meant to be journeyed with, displayed on your altar, and included in acts of magick. 

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Do you have a favorite plant-inspired or botanically focused deck to work with? Are you feeling inspired to work with one that I've described above? 

If you're looking for more posts about tarot, including a whole collection of spreads, come this way. I've also written a whole post on incorporating tarot into your healing practice and if you're wanting to learn about the intersections of herbal medicine and the tarot, I explore that in-depth in The Tarot Apothecary.

Wherever your tarot journeys take you, may you experience revelation and the sort of reconciliation that occurs when we're able to sit with ourselves and realize that we're sitting in a vast web of life - all of us just singing our spirits home.

This post was made possible through patron support.
❤︎ Thanks, friends. ❤︎

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Notes

(1) The set is called The Original Rider Waite Tarot Pack and is still available today. There are so many versions of the RWS deck out there these days, but this remains my favorite version because it's the one I grew up with. The Smith-Waite Tarot Centennial Deck is a close second and I actually carry the tin version of this deck with me wherever I go.

(2) And yes, I'm thinking I might try and summon them from the liminal space that they live in and create a book of 78 tea recipes for my own enjoyment…

You Only Need to Know One Tarot Spread

I try and be honest about my mistakes as a tarot reader (and as an herbalist for that matter) but here’s a tip from the successful endeavors archives - I think every tarot reader, especially when starting out, should commit to learning one type of spread really well.

Using one type of spread consistently over an extended period of time (a year and a day is a or thirteen cycles of the moon are both magickal time frames). This doesn’t mean you don’t use other types of spreads, but that you use on spread predominantly.

Learn how to use one spread for a variety of questions. I know some card slingers create new spreads for each new question that comes their way or has different types of spreads for different themes (such as a spread for romantic inquiries versus one for career questions). There is definite merits to both of these styles. But when learning tarot or re-connecting with your practice, I encourage you to choose one spread for almost all if not all of your questions.

By using one spread you are creating a magickal map that is just familiar enough to help you navigate the unfamiliar (i.e. the answer to your questions). 

Being familiar enough with a spread that you don’t have to reference a guide book to cast it. With this skill you’ll be able to improvise around the depth of each position. So, for example, one card in your spread of choice might represent “the past” and over time with different inquiries the past may represent everything from actual events that have happened previously to how a problem may have appeared to you previously or past mindsets.

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The Herbcrafter’s Tarot by Latisha Guthrie + Joanna Powell Colbert

The spread I started learning with was the Celtic Cross Spread which is a tarot spread from the western esoteric tradition developed thought to be developed by Florence Farr a magician, feminist, and seer of the Order of the Golden Dawn. It’s a tricky spread, not only because there are many different versions and suggested ways of interpreting the card positions, but also because there are quite a few cards being read at once. Yet, it remains one of my favorite spreads to read with because it feels so familiar. A common mistake some tarot readers make is using too many spreads that they are unfamiliar with. What ends up happening is that you are not only reading the cards but learning the dynamics of a spread all at once. And that’s a lot for anyone to contemplate at once. 

The other spread that I use a lot is the pentagram spread which has a card for each of the five elements of earth, air, fire, water, and spirit. From this spread, I’ve developed all sorts of variations over the years, including the spread that follows. What I hope to illustrate with The Elemental Guardian Spread is how one spread can be read many ways starting with the simple and queerly-forward to the more complex.

While this spread can be used with any deck, I was inspired to create it after getting to play with The Herbcrafter’s Tarot co-created by herbalist and bruja Latisha Guthrie and artist Joanna Powell Colbert (of Gaian Tarot fame). Being not very up on following all the up and coming decks as I’ve been spending less time on the internets (sharing lots about that in Magick Mail), I saw this deck and purchased it on a whim just before it was released because I saw a card that featured dyeing with plants and I’m just that easy to please some days… The way that the deck is set-up (there are no humxn figures shown, only arms and hands of diverse shades, ages, and sizes doing herbcrafty things in the court cards) inspired this spread. If you want a full review of the deck check out Benebell Wen’s enthusiastic endorsement of what is fast becoming one of my favorite decks, too.

The spread consists of five foundation cards - four Elemental Guardians and a central card that is the Heart of the Matter. For the first two ways of casting the spread, the variation lies in how you choose the cards. The final way placing the cards incorporates four additional cards to the mix, building on the original spread foundation. And if all this talk of elements and tarot and herbalism has got you excited join me in The Tarot Apothecary.

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Background image by Annie Spratt

The Elemental Guardians Spread

I’ve listed my tradition’s interpretation of the elements, but feel free to apply your own elemental interpretations.

Card 1. The Guardian of Air speaks to and represents the realm of East, communication, ideas, inspiration, the impact of new technologies and social media in our lives, our mental health, our studies, and the ways that we perceive and comprehend our experiences.

Card 2. The Guardian of Water speaks to and represents the realm of the West, dreams, visions, our lineage both behind us (ancestors) and before us (descendants), and the ways we feel and empathize with our experiences.

Card 3. The Guardian of Fire speaks to and represents the realm of the South (northern hemisphere) or North (southern hemisphere), passions and desires, ecstasy, our creative health, and the ways we transform and express our experiences.

Card 4. The Guardian of Earth speaks to and represents the realm of the North (northern hemisphere) or South (southern hemisphere), prosperity and success, our personal legacy, inheritances including cultural traditions and epigenetics, our physical health, and the ways we physically process and energetically digest our experiences.

Card 5. The Heart of the Matter summarizes the energy of the spread and helps you to find the language to understand what is happening to you and what you might carry forward with all that you have learned. Sometimes it can be a holy reminder of something you have forgotten or need to pay more attention to. Other times it is a love letter. Often it’s a mix of everything I’ve just described.

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The Herbcrafter’s Tarot by Latisha Guthrie + Joanna Powell Colbert

First Variation - Choosing Your Heart

Set up your deck by finding all of the Court Cards and sorting them by suit (i.e. place the King, Queen, Knight, and Page of Wands in one pile and the King, Queen, Knight, and Page of Cups in another pile and so on). The first cards you will cast are the positions of the Elemental Guardians and you’ll be pulling these from their corresponding Court Card piles. For example, pull the first card for The Guardian of Air from one of the four Sword Court Cards. Proceed in the same manner for the following three Elemental Guardian cards.

The fifth and final card is pulled one of three ways. You can either pull it from the rest of the deck sans the Court Cards, just the rest of the Minor Arcana or just the Major Arcana. If you’re working on a big life issue, I suggest pulling from the Major Arcana. Or not. Follow your intuition when making your choices. 

The Second Variation - Elemental Balance

The second variation for this spread changes the way that the Elemental Guardian cards are chosen. Instead of choosing an Elemental Guardian card only from its corresponding elemental Court Cards (i.e. choosing the Air Elemental Guardian card only from the Suit of Swords), you’ll choose each Elemental Guardian card from all sixteen Court Cards.

This variation means that you can find conversations happening between the elements. Let’s say that you pull a Page of Cups as your Fire Elemental Guardian - this could indicate that the fiery parts of your life need to be tempered by water. The Page of Cups suggests approaching your emotions with a student’s state of mind and to get curious about what you’re feeling - something which can be difficult when we’re feeling fired up or hot-headed.

What I like about the second variation is that it reflects the reality that there is no strict division between elemental energies in our life but instead all of the elements flow and dance and crash together. If you are someone who incorporates elemental balance into your magickal and/or spiritual practice, this is a fun variation to try.

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The Herbcrafter’s Tarot by Latisha Guthrie + Joanna Powell Colbert

Third Variation - Drawing In Shadows

The third variation adds four extra Shadow cards to the mix. Proceed with casting the spread using any of the variations as described, but beside each of the Elemental Guardians, cast a Shadow card from the rest of the deck. While the Guardian cards describe your gifts and strengths, your shadow card for each element highlights a challenging aspect of that elemental area of your life.

Let’s say that you pull the Seven of Pentacles as your Shadow card for Earth. As a Shadow card, the Seven of Pentacles can show indecision about what do to with your hard won harvest and difficulty coming up with a long-term vision for what you’re trying to accomplish. Sometimes the Seven of Pentacles shows up as a card warning that you’re falling into the trap of imposter syndrome - especially when it is inverted. If you pulled the Knight of Pentacles as your Guardian of Earth the cards could be suggesting that you need to take time to connect with a truer version of who you are and what you’re capable of. 

“Through the wisdom of {the Elemental Guardian message} I understand/acknowledge/release/embrace {shadow card lesson}.”

Taking our previous example you might construct the following interpretive sentence:

Through the wisdom of seeking a true vision of myself I release the belief that I am somehow not enough.

Part of the power of shadow work is learning how to name and speak aloud those names of the hidden parts of yourself. This is one of the reasons why tarot, with its centuries of meaning, graphic illuminations of mystery, and seventy-eight mirrors of sub/consciousness, is such a great tool for shadow work - it helps us to name the unnamable. 

Go out and name your unnamable, witchfolk and plant hearts. Cast your cards a thousands time and wear a pattern into the altar of your heart. Know your shadows and speak your stories.