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Going back into the Wild Unknown + other updates
You may already know that I wrote personal interpretations for every card in the Wild Unknown Tarot deck. Sometimes I’m struck with utter disbelief when I see how much traffic these posts get (humblebrag: if you Google the meaning for any card in this deck, my site is the first result). When I started writing them, I had no clue people would be this interested in what I was doing. But three years later, I still get emails and comments from people thanking me for the posts, which is pretty cool and makes me happy!
Yep, that’s right – it’s been THREE YEARS since I wrote the first posts in that series. I’ve been wanting to go through and polish up/update these posts for ages…and now I’ve finally started that process.
The essential inforation in each post will remain the same, but some will be edited for clarity. I’ll also be putting in some new stuff into each post that I think will make the information even more useful. Right now, each post is kind of just a wall of text. But as I update them, each post will be structured in several short sections: a description of the card meaning specifically in the Wild Unknown, a description of the card meaning in general, and some thoughts on what the card could indicate in a reading.
I’m also updating the graphics as the current pictures are a bit crappy. Oh, and I have the second edition of the deck now! The current posts are based off the first edition, and I’ve had a lot of people requests updates for the second edition. Those are coming!
(I’ve already updated The Fool and The Magician, take a look at those to get a feel for what’s coming.)
I wanted to announce this, as I know many of you reference the posts regularly. Get excited! But not TOO excited, because it took me over a year to write the original posts and I’m sure it will take quite a while to do all of these updates, too. Ha!
Other Updates
This is just some kinda personal rambles about me and my life. Take it or leave it!
As a water sign (Cancer baby!) I easily get swept away in the romantic, imaginitive side of my creative nature…but it’s always been harder for me to take all that poetic stuff and channel it in a solid way. I’m also prone to feeling all feelings with intensity (empath + water sign = ALL THE FEEELS ALL THE TIME). This means I get swept up in sadness, resistance and overwhelm a lot more often than I’d like. This year, I’ve been trying to get back to the basics of self-care so that I can better process my emotional energy, and so that I can be more productive.
Throughout 2017, I have been working on my ability to set more concrete goals and focus areas for myself. Although I’m a water sign, I’m a Virgo moon sign. Thus, I tend to thrive when I have healthy structures, routines and order in my life. It’s not always easy for me to stick to what I lay out for myself, but I’ve been working on getting consistent once again with things like journaling, movement, and eating well. I’m still trying to sort through my upper limit issues. This is all a work in progress, but I feel like things are heading in a more stable direction, which is really quite nice.
All of this is helping me develop a healthier relationship with my business – I’m getting better about focusing on what really matters. I have felt the pull to create a course ever since I started my business three years ago, and now I’m actually done it by putting together Tarot for Empaths. I cannot even explain how good it feels to have lovingly completed that project. The feeling of choosing something to focus on and actually bringing it into fruition is indescribably awesome (especially if you’re like me and tend to start a lot of creative projects that you never finish).
Some days I feel like the gravity of the daily news pins me in place, but other days I feel so much magic at work in this world. Being alive is a strange, strange thing – but also pretty fucking awesome. Thank you for being here with me!
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The Fool :: Wild Unknown Tarot Card Meanings
I’ve written interpretations for every card in the Wild Unknown Tarot. As the box of the deck states, there are no rights or wrongs. These are simply my perspectives on the tarot card meanings. I hope you find them useful!
Click here for a directory of all posts in my Wild Unknown series.
Deck Creator’s Keywords: innocence, naivety, starting out, spontaneity
Carrie’s Keywords: potential, leap, adventure
Begin or deepen your tarot studies with
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The Fool Tarot Card Meanings in the Wild Unknown
Our fool is a baby chick perched on a tree branch, one foot stretched out as though he is about to step off. Buds and blossoms are unfolding on the tree branch. It is spring-time, and the world is brimming with new life. Potential is bursting forth everywhere! Even the chick itself is a form of fresh, invigorating energy – a spring chicken, as they say.
The sky is orange and yellow, as though the sun is just starting to climb up the horizon. This brings to mind the metaphoric resonance of ‘the dawn of a new day.’ Sunrise is a time of adventure and potential. Where might this new day, this fresh blooming energy take you? The possibilities are truly endless.
The Fool is not concerned with yesterday or tomorrow – the Fool is immersed in the now. And it is always the now, as one moment gives way to the next. The Fool reminds you to place your attention here, in the present moment.
The chick and the branch are black and white. The bright white of the branch makes it look charged with pure energy. As the bright colors of dawn descend along the horizon, they give way to black lines near the bottom of the card. What might be in this black void? You simply don’t know. The Fool is literally heading out into the wild unknown.
There is an interesting use of lines in the Wild Unknown tarot. The direction of lines in the cards give clues to the energy the cards hold. In the Fool, the sky is lined horizontally. These static, horizontal lines seem to me to represent energy that is still free-flowing; the energy is there, but hasn’t yet been guided into a particular direction. This fits in well with the Fool, a card brimming with limitless, not yet fully directed universal energy.
The Fool Tarot Card Meanings in General
The imagery above from The Spacious Tarot is inspired by the Waite-Smith tradition, which shows a person who looks poised to walk off a cliff. In the first person perspective of The Spacious Tarot, you ARE the Fool, poised to leap.
This is not dissimilar from the chick in the Wild Unknown version who is set to walk off the branch and into that black void of the unknown. In fact, taking a leap into the unknown is a core message of the Fool in any tarot deck. This card speaks of pure, unbridled potential. In order for that potential to take shape, risks are required. Taking a leap doesn’t necessarily guarantee a favorable outcome. But if you never leap, you remain stuck on the precipice, never fully immersing yourself in all that life has to offer.
The Fool is card 0, giving it a special role in any tarot deck. Without a fixed number, the Fool is unbound and free, often thought to represent each of us as we journey through life. In some tarot traditions, the Fool is considered to be the character who encounters the various lessons that we see in the rest of the cards. In a spiritual sense, the Fool is infinite universal energy. The Fool is the creative force that animates the entire universe. Without this undirected universal energy, no other manifestations of creation would be possible. The Fool is the energetic magic that allows the entire adventure of life come into being.
In a reading
In a reading, this card can ask you to consider the timeless conundrum of the Fool: are you naïve, about to leap unprepared and face disaster? Or are you filled with a spiritual trust that the universe will support your leap? The Fool asks you to tune into your primal instincts instead of overthinking.
The Fool is also a reminder that there are no right or wrong decisions. The most important thing, the Fool might advise you, is to say YES to life in whatever way feels expansive for you. Sometimes your best option is to remain on the branch until you are ready. But more often, the Fool nudges you to open your heart, set out, and trust that whatever happens from there is a meaningful adventure.
Hi, I'm Carrie!
I'm a tarot reader and mentor. My purpose is to encourage your expansion. If you're new, start here.
All site content © Carrie Mallon LLC 2017
I am part of Amazon's associate program. If you purchase items linked in this site I will receive a small kick-back.
The Magician :: Wild Unknown Tarot Card Meanings
I’ve written interpretations for every card in the Wild Unknown Tarot. As the box of the deck states, there are no rights or wrongs. These are simply my perspectives on the tarot card meanings. I hope you find them useful!
Click here for a directory of all posts in my Wild Unknown series.
Deck Creator’s Keywords: action, self-empowerment, purpose
Carrie’s Keywords: creation, yang energy, doing
Begin or deepen your tarot studies with
Foundational Tarot, my free video course!
Join the email list for instant access.
The Magician Tarot Card Meanings in the Wild Unknown
In the first incarnation of this post, I described this Magician as a cheetah – but upon further consideration, I believe this is actually a leopard. Mythologically, the leopard is known for exuding confidence and independence. Seshat, the ancient Egyptian goddess who invented writing, wore leopard skin. Leopards have long been heralded as powerful and capable creatures.
This Magician is proud and alert; he has a powerful stance and his gaze is focused. He is sizing up his surroundings, not with any urgency, but with a natural awareness of all that is at work around him. Surrounding the leopard are rays of orange and yellow light – colors that convey active energy and vitality. The rays emanate out from a singular point in the distance. This shows a concentration of energy which was previously undirected (as we saw with the Fool) but which is now available to the Magician through his understanding of the four tools before him. The Magician has an innate ability to tap into – and actively channel – infinite energy.
The lemniscate symbol appears on his chest. We’ll see this symbol on a few more cards from the Wild Unknown tarot (it also appears on several cards in the Rider-Waite tradition). This symbol is sometimes referred to as ‘the infinity sign’ suggesting the never-ending nature of all life and all matter. This symbol also shows the ways that the wisdom and archetypes within tarot transcend space and time – this is why the cards have resonated with so many people for so long. The tarot goes through different incarnations and different artistic interpretations, but its core messages always remain relevant.
The four suits of the deck – sword, pentacle, cup and wand – are laid out in front of the Magician. The Magician is attuned to the dynamic nature of life, and these four suits are the emblems of that dynamic nature. His front paws rest on the pentacle, suggesting his ability to take raw materials and create something tangible.
He faces right, a direction that is symbolically linked to activity and conscious awareness. He is ready to act not out of stress, but out of intention. The Magician shows the power of directing your energy wisely, and the importance of having confidence in your abilities. Your greatest skill is in knowing that you are an empowered creator.
The Magician Tarot Card Meanings in General
In traditional decks, the Magician is depicted as a human figure with one hand pointed towards the sky and one hand pointed towards the ground. This invokes the spiritual axiom “as above, so below.”
The imagery in my deck, The Spacious Tarot (above) lets you envision yourself as grounded, reaching up for the tools on offer from the universe.
The Magician has a deep understanding that the true nature of the universe is creative. And as a creative being inhabiting the universe, our true nature is to create in whatever way speaks to us. The Magician takes these etheral spiritual principles and applies them to mundane life in our world. The Magician shows that your highest potential unfolds when your ego (or conscious awareness) is aligned with spiritual energy.
The Magician is archetypical yang energy. This card is about light, conscious awareness, masculinity (not in a gender sense, but in an energetic sense), and action. It is worth noting that the energy of the Magician is intricately linked to the energy of the High Priestess. As the first two cards in the tarot deck, they lay the groundwork for the sweeping concepts of “yin” and “yang” energy that is explored in various manifestations throughout the rest of the cards.
In a reading
In a reading, the Magician can speak to the power of concentration. Where is your attention being placed? The direction of your concentration may need to be re-adjusted towards your capabilities. Instead of looking to what you do not have or what you wish you had, the Magician invites you to pay attention to all that you DO have. Too often we sit around waiting for life to happen to us. The Magician invites YOU to happen to LIFE. This is how you step fully in to your radiating power.
The four suits present in the card speak to your mental, physical, emotional and creative energy. Are you purposefully paying attention to these aspects of yourself? It is time to check-in with how you are distributing those various energies. Make sure you are doing so with conscious intent, giving your power and your energy to things that really matter.
The Magician shows that you can be a conscious creator. Be willing to take action when you know what needs to be done. When you walk purposefully through life, awakened to the always-present light of your creativity, you are embodying the ways of the Magician. You are capable of directing unlimited universal creativity through your consciousness – let yourself step fully and confidently into that truth.
Hi, I'm Carrie!
I'm a tarot reader and mentor. My purpose is to encourage your expansion. If you're new, start here.
All site content © Carrie Mallon LLC 2017
I am part of Amazon's associate program. If you purchase items linked in this site I will receive a small kick-back.
Tarot for Empaths
If you feel called to guide other people by reading tarot… and if you identify as an empath (or at least have some empathic tendencies) I’ve put together something useful and magical for you! It’s a workshop called Tarot for Empaths, which I’m teaching as part of the Tarot Reader Academy’s Tarot Summer School this year.
Enrollment is open now and it’s only $28 for lifetime access. Click here for all the details and to sign up if it sounds like something you’d benefit from!
Here’s a breakdown of what we’ll cover:
Module One: Getting to know yourself as an empath and a healer
In this module you’ll learn:
• What it means for you to be an empath, and what it means for you to be a healer.
• How to clearly define your individual strengths as an empath and as a healer.
• What core themes you are most capable of assisting others with through your readings.
Module Two: Emotional intelligence, energetic protection and boundaries
In this module, you’ll learn:
• Several effective techniques to protect your energy.
• A system for differentiating YOUR emotions from OTHER PEOPLE’s emotions.
• How to develop boundaries, and why doing so is essential for empathic tarot readers.
Module Three: Fostering non-reactive empathy
In this module, you’ll learn:
• The difference between reactive and non-reactive empathy.
• Why practicing non-reactive empathy is SO essential for empathic readers.
• A four step process for practicing non-reactive empathy.
In this module, you will learn:
• Helpful steps to follow before giving any reading.
• Best practices and tips to integrate into your readings.
• The outline of a transformative process that to incorporate into your tarot readings.
In this module you will learn:
• How to ensure you’re in the right emotional energy when you read for yourself.
• How to identify tarot cards that correlate with your empathic tendencies.
• A few tarot spreads to try to integrate the lessons of this workshop.
This is a video workshop, allowing you to interact with the materials on your own schedule. I’m also incorporating a LOT of interactive exercises – it won’t just all be me talking at you! I’ll guide you through many activities designed to help you connect with the lessons on a personal level. There will also be two optional live virtual “campfire sessions” as part of Tarot Summer School. I’ll be hanging out there ready to chat if you have questions about anything you’re learning!
Enrollment is open now and access to this workshop will go live July 18th. There’s also loads of other amazing workshops being offered as part of Tarot Summer School. Check out the full roster of courses here, and considering purchasing a season pass to get access to all 15 workshops for $199.
(If you’re not interested, no worries. I’m just really excited and wanted to tell you about it!)
Feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions – I’d be honored to have you join us for Tarot Summer School 2017.
Sign up for weekly updates and get the free ebook,
The Tarot Reader’s Daily Companion
Hi, I'm Carrie!
I'm a tarot reader and mentor. My purpose is to encourage your expansion. If you're new, start here.
All site content © Carrie Mallon LLC 2017
I am part of Amazon's associate program. If you purchase items linked in this site I will receive a small kick-back.
Five tarot cards to meditate on for tough times
Meditation is one of the outside the box ways that tarot can be really useful. The cards speak to ever facet of the human experience, and meditating on a card can be a powerful way to tap into various themes. Many of us are acutely aware of the tragedies in every corner of the world, and even if they do not “directly” hit us on a personal level, we are affected. Today, I’m thinking particularly about cards to meditate with as we navigate our responses to such tough times.
There are many different ways to meditate with tarot cards, and I encourage you to find what works well for you. What I have found to be effective is to sit with your chosen card in a quiet space. As you would in a traditional meditation practice, take a few deep breaths. From here, you can either keep your eyes open and look at your card, or close your eyes if you prefer. As you continue breathing, invite the energy and lessons of the card to present themselves to you. It may take time and patience, but eventually you will find this a powerful way to experience the themes of the cards.
In this post, I’ll suggest five cards that could be useful as you process painful events either in your personal life or in the broader spectrum of society.
The Empress
The Empress is an affirmer of life. She reminds you that even when times feel bleak, regeneration is always possible. Nodding to the idealized archetype of a mother, the Empress envelops you in unconditional love. In turn, she asks you to act out her nurturing energy yourself. As you meditate with this card, you may be led to ways that you can give of your own loving energy. She can also lead you to greater attunement with the natural rhythms of life. Just as seasons change, so does your inner landscape. Be gentle with yourself during difficult times, and trust the potential for shifts and new growth.
The Star
The Star is a reminder that raw vulnerability is where healing is found. In many decks the human figure on this card is naked, suggesting that there is no need to be anything other than exactly what you are. You don’t need to be perfect, and you don’t need to respond to tragedy in any one right way. The Star asks you to let go of your shields and to let yourself be raw and real. The Star can also teach you to orient your focus towards gratitude and healing. This isn’t in an attempt to ignore or negate the reality of suffering, but rather to give you a broader perspective, one that tells a more complete story.
The Moon
This card may at first seem like an odd fit, but I think it offers contrasting lessons that are of immense value. The Moon is sometimes associated with fears and confusion. After all, the Moon itself is a sort of illusion, it does not emit its own glow but reflects the light of the sun. But this is exactly why meditating with this card during tough times can be useful. When you are confronting tragedy, it becomes more difficult to see things as they really are. Loss, pain and confusion seem all encompassing, and we can be tricked into thinking those things are all there is. In a positive sense, the Moon offers you a chance to refocus the fear that naturally arises within you during difficult times. For example, if one person commits a senseless act of violence, fear can lead you to falsely assume this means large swathes of people are violent. The Moon warns us to to remember that the voice of fear can take us away from rationality and love. When we are aware of this, we can redirect ourselves towards a more comprehensive perspective.
Ace of Cups
Echoing some of the messages we talked about with the Star, meditating with the Ace of Cups can allow you to hold space for ALL of your feelings. It is okay to feel overwhelmed, anxious, sad, and depressed. Denying difficult emotions is quick way to allow them to become toxic. This card offers you an alternative, which is to let all of your feelings flow. Let them move through you, let yourself experience each feeling fully and completely. It is often this simple act of feeling your feelings that cleanses your soul and allows you to move forward refreshed.
Six of Pentacles
Meditating with the Six of Pentacles can help you consider what direct action you can take in response to tough times. One of the most difficult response you may have to bad things is a sense of powerlessness. This card asks you to open yourself to the power you do have to create positive change, even on a small scale. Let yourself be receptive to what useful actions this card ignites within you. It could be something as small as hugging a friend or smiling at a stranger. It’s a bit of a cliche to say so, but you never really do now how much these small actions can ripple out and make a real difference.
That’s all for now, but I believe that nearly any card in the deck could offer you inspiration during challenging times. The next time you find your heart in need of a boost, I hope you will try sitting with a card and seeing what it brings up for you. As always, my thoughts on the card are only something to consider. You may find your own meditations with the cards bring up very different responses. I only hope you’ll feel guided to the messages that will be the most empowering and healing for you.
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Third Party Tarot Readings: Dos and Don’ts
Well, this morning I drew the Fool for my daily card, and thus I decided to try something a little different for today’s post. I got on Facebook and did a live broadcast, but even if you missed it live you can watch the replay. In this broadcast, I’m sharing my thoughts on third party tarot readings – that is, readings that focus on someone other than the seeker. For example, if you ask what someone else thinks of you or about someone else’s personality – that’s a third party reading.
I’m not going to lie, there was a bit of rambling in this broadcast! But not to worry, there are some valuable gems tucked in among the rambling. Watch the replay of the broadcast here and you’ll learn the dos and don’t of third party readings. In the video I also go into detail describing a tarot spread you can try. You’ll find an image of that spread below.
I’ll likely do more live broadcasts on Facebook in the future, so make sure you’re following me over there. If you have a tarot-related question you’d like my input on, feel free to leave a comment here and maybe I’ll talk about it in a future broadcast!
Sign up for weekly updates and get the free ebook,
The Tarot Reader’s Daily Companion
Hi, I'm Carrie!
I'm a tarot reader and mentor. My purpose is to encourage your expansion. If you're new, start here.
All site content © Carrie Mallon LLC 2017
I am part of Amazon's associate program. If you purchase items linked in this site I will receive a small kick-back.
Your inner world, your outer world (a spread + a collective reading)
In many readings that I do for clients, the cards want to talk about the energies at work in the person’s inner world, and the energies at work in the person’s outer world. It is interesting enough to look at these energies separately, but it’s entirely fascinating to consider how these factors together influence your current experience overall.
As I was thinking about this today, the concept for a simple three card spread came to me, and so I’m going to share it with you here. Here’s a visual of the spread – feel free to pin it!
I encourage you to try this spread for yourself and see what comes up for you personally, if you’d like. You’re also welcome to leave a comment and let me know how it goes for you!
I’m also going to try out this spread by offering a collective reading, with the hope that anyone who reads this can pick out the aspects that resonate for them right now. You’ll find that reading below!
A reading for the collective
I’ll be using the Dreaming Way Tarot for this reading. I’ve shuffled the cards while asking to be guided to the cards and messages that will be the most useful for us.
Considering your inner world, the Queen of Swords suggests that you have recently made some important shifts in how you perceive certain challenges. Things that have caused you a lot of worry over a long period of time might now be slowly seeming more manageable. It’s not that the problem does not persist, but that you have realized that you are more capable than you previously thought of solving the problem.
There’s still a tough road to walk from here. There’s still work to be done, and you might find yourself occasionally back in a fit of fretting. But you can sense on some level that you’ve transformed. You’ve become more aligned with your own wisdom, and from here perhaps you can experiment with really TRUSTING that wisdom. The important thing right now is to move forward into the ACTION phase once you sense you’re ready.
Right now you’re likely still coming to terms with things, still hatching the plan of how you can best proceed. That’s okay. Give yourself the space and time you need to think, plan and ponder. But when you know it’s the time to take direct action, don’t delay.
Regarding your outer world, The Star suggests you’re realizing you are not alone. Although your challenges might be acutely unique to you, you may now be starting to see how they tie into challenges faced on a wider scale. It might seem like all around you, you’re witnessing people rising up. If you look for them, you’ll see so many examples of people “being the change” they wish to see. And if you let it, witnessing this energy externally can inspire you as you continue navigating your own internal process.
For some time, you might have looked out at your external world with a focus on what was going wrong. This was likely not because you chose to do so, but rather something that happened subconsciously. During this phase, you may have found yourself intensely fixated on all the greed, suffering and selfishness in the world. But now, you have the chance to experience the phenomenal magic of shifting your perspective.
This doesn’t mean it’s now wise for you to IGNORE the negative realities around you. But the Page of Cups speaks to how you may now be finding that you are more capable of compassion and service when you place your INNER focus primarily on all of the healing and beauty at work in the OUTER world.
As mentioned earlier, you can see examples of generosity everywhere when you choose to perceive them. Now is a powerful time to consciously practice that shift in perspective. When you find that you are once again dwelling on the vastness of problems, ask yourself to shift to the vastness of solutions that are taking shape. This may continue to seem like a bit of a roller coaster ride for your emotions, but remind yourself that your sensitivity is a great asset. Your attunement to emotional undercurrents can supplement your rational mind in finding creative solutions.
Sign up for weekly updates and get the free ebook,
The Tarot Reader’s Daily Companion
Hi, I'm Carrie!
I'm a tarot reader and mentor. My purpose is to encourage your expansion. If you're new, start here.
All site content © Carrie Mallon LLC 2017
I am part of Amazon's associate program. If you purchase items linked in this site I will receive a small kick-back.
17 questions to ask yourself (and your cards) about success
Alright, let me get this out of the way upfront. The word “success” sometimes makes me feel kind of icky. It’s one of those terms that manages to be both vague yet also tied to some very specific associations of money, status, and hierarchy. Because of this, I’ve been working on re-framing my relationship with the concept of success for a few years now.
Success does not have to be defined through a binary view of success vs failure, winning vs losing, having vs not having. Success does not have to mean climbing the corporate ladder or nailing every goal you set or having 100k social media followers. In fact, by unconsciously playing along with these kinds of unquestioned definitions of success you can easily find yourself despondent and uninspired.
These days, I’m a lot more fluid with how I define success for myself. It’s less about meeting rigidly defined standards and more about how I feel and the values that I live by. It’s less about pushing and forcing myself, and more about inspiring myself. Most of all, it’s about being authentic about what matters to me, and being compassionate to myself as I work towards those things.
If you think you could also benefit from taking a closer look at your relationship with the concept of success, grab a journal and some tarot cards ‘cuz this one’s for you! You can work with these questions however you’d like: perhaps just free write on each question, OR pull a card to prompt your answer for each question.
17 Questions to ask yourself
and your cards about success
• How does society define success?
• What parts of this definition resonate with me?
• Which parts of this definition do not resonate with me?
• What positive associations do I have with the concept of success?
• What unhealthy associations do I have with the concept of success?
• How do I define success for myself?
• Where might I need to re-evaluate my definition of success?
• What might I easily mistake for success?
• How attached am I to the idea of succeeding?
• How can I cultivate self-worth internally regardless of external success?
• What does authentic success feel like to me?
• How often do I feel successful?
• What personal successes have I overlooked?
• When and why did I last feel successful at a soul-level?
• What unhealthy ways might I sometimes gauge my success?
• What is the most healthy way for me to gauge my success?
• How can I cultivate an more inspiring and healthy relationship with the concept of success overall?
If you try this exercise, I’d be interested to hear your thoughts. Did this bring up anything particularly illuminating or useful for you? Leave a comment and let me know.
Oh, and if you liked this post, you might also enjoy 14 questions to ask yourself (and your cards) about love.
Sign up for weekly updates and get the free ebook,
The Tarot Reader’s Daily Companion
How To Read the Tarot Court Cards (the easiest way)
It’s a pretty common notion that the court cards are the hardest to grasp part of a tarot deck. That’s really saying something when you realize that many of us find the vast archetypes of a nuanced major arcana card like the Tower more accessible than an unassuming little card like the Page of Cups!
The Court cards throw many tarot readers for a loop, so today I’m going to share with you one pretty straightforward and easy way you can improve your understanding of the tarot’s court cards.
Before I get into the heart of this lesson, I want to say that just like with anything else in tarot studies there are many, many different approaches to the court cards. I’m firmly in the camp that there’s no right or wrong way to read tarot. My approach to pretty much anything with tarot is to take some traditional knowledge and blend it with my own personal style, and I think it’s useful to give yourself permission to do the same thing.
That said, when I first started learning tarot, I came across a simple yet really effective framework to understand the court cards. This mainly comes from Joan Bunning’s Learn Tarot course (the entire course is available for free online at learntarot.com). Much of what I’m going to share with you today is based on the framework I learned from Joan’s course.
By reading this article, you’ll gain a greater understanding of how to interpret the court cards in your own way. For additional practice, make sure to download the free worksheet included at the end of this post.
The Whats and Whys of the Court Cards
Let’s start by considering what the court cards really are. Why do they exist, and what do they contribute to the deck as a whole? Put simply, court cards can be thought of as representing either specific people, specific personality traits, or specific approaches to life. Just like real life people, each court card has its own quirks and characteristics – for example, some court cards are outgoing, some are reserved. Some process information analytically, some intuitively.
Psychologists have come up with many different ways of categorizing different personality types – think of the court cards as the tarot deck’s way of doing the same thing. In fact, the popular Myers-Briggs personality indicator defines 16 personality types, and it just so happens there are 16 court cards. Many people have linked up the tarot courts to Meyers-Briggs types, but we won’t go into that here! For now, just consider that when you draw a court card, it can be useful to consider how a specific type of person, or a specific aspect of your own personality, is currently effecting your situation.
How to Interpret the Court Cards
Now that we’ve given some consideration to what the court cards are, let’s dive into a framework for understanding and interpreting them. This framework is based off a simple premise: each court card has a RANK – in most decks the ranks are Page, Knight, Queen and King; and each court card has a SUIT – usually Cups, Pentacles, Wands and Swords. Each rank has its own set of characteristics, as does each suit.
To get a basic understanding of all 16 court cards, you really just need to get a basic understanding of each rank and each suit. Then, to interpret any particular court card, you use your intuition to combine your understanding of these factors. So to put it plainly, COURT CARD RANK + COURT CARD SUIT + YOUR INTUITION = COURT CARD INTERPRETATION. Make sense? Let’s go deeper into how that might work.
The Four Suits
I’m assuming you’ve already got some tarot studies under your belt, and you probably already have some understanding of the four suits. But I’ll give a simple breakdown of them here to serve as a reference:
Swords: associated with the mental realm. Rationality, logic, communication. Useful thoughts as well as anxieties and fears.
Pentacles: associated with the material realm. Physicality, the body, work, environment. Abundance as well as scarcity and greed.
Wands: associated with gusto and life force. Excitement, exploration, creative pursuits. Passion as well as grandiosity and impulsiveness.
Cups: associated with the emotional realm. Connection, love, dreams and wishes. Happiness as well as sorrow and vulnerability.
The Four Ranks
A caveat before we jump in here: try not to let age and gender dilute your relationship with the court cards. When we talk about age and gender in the courts, they are only useful as metaphors. For example, a page has a childlike approach to life but does not always represent a literal child. A queen can be biologically male, and a king can be biologically female. Even though in most decks the court cards are given gender binary names, the court cards do not have to be interpreted through a gender binary perspective. It would work just fine to replace every instance of “she” or “he” with “they” or “them.”
There’s a lot more that could be said about gender in the courts – but that’ll have to be a different post for a different day! For now, let’s move on to a general framework for understanding the court ranks.
Page: the “youngest” of the courts. Has an explorative, playful relationship with the suit’s energies. May still have a lot to learn about the suit, but on the other hand often interacts with the suit in fresh and unbiased ways.
Knight: the “teenager.” Prone to shift erratically within the suit’s energy – sometimes showcasing that energy in proactive ways, the next moment in unbalanced ways.
Queen: the “inwardly mature adult.” The queen embodies the traits of her suit and radiates that energy from the inside out. She leads by example, through her intentions and beliefs.
King: the “outwardly mature adult.” Projects the energy of his suit outwards, imposing it upon the world. He leads through action and by setting external guidelines.
Intuitively Combining SUIT Plus RANK to Interpret the Courts: Examples
Just with the above descriptions of the suits and ranks, you have the skeleton you need to understand and interpret all 16 court cards. Exactly how you do this is up to you, but let’s look at a few examples of how this could work. Say you draw the Queen of Swords. How might you interpret this card within the framework of RANK + SUIT + INTUITION? Take a look at the reference charts again to get started.
Queen: the “inwardly mature adult.” The queen embodies the traits of her suit and radiates that energy from the inside out. She leads by example, through her intentions and beliefs.
Swords: associated with the mental realm. Rationality, logic, communication. Useful thoughts as well as anxieties and fears.
Using the above outlines as well as your intuition, you might determine the following about this card.
QUEEN + SWORDS = This is someone who has a good amount of life experience. She’s developed mental astuteness and is not easily deceived. She understands the power of the mind and has the ability to influence others with wit, not force. Even when she doesn’t speak, she is always inwardly observing and making assessments about what she perceives.
Let’s look at another example, the Knight of Pentacles. Here again are our guidelines for rank and suit.
Knight: the “teenager.” Prone to shift erratically within the suit’s energy – sometimes showcasing that energy in proactive ways, the next moment in unbalanced ways.
Pentacles: associated with the material realm. Physicality, the body, work, environment. Abundance as well as scarcity and greed.
Combining these guidelines of RANK + SUIT while also drawing upon your own intuition, you might come up with something like this:
KNIGHT + PENTACLES = He is a hard worker, but sometimes he doesn’t know when to give it a rest. He values accomplishment, but can get fixated on a single detail instead of seeing the big picture. He can give great care to the task at hand but might be unwilling to upset his routine.
As we’re looking at these examples, keep in mind that your interpretations might not look like mine, and that’s okay. I’m giving these just to give you an idea of how this might work, not to say that my interpretations are the end all, be all. Let’s look at a couple more, just to cover a broad array of combinations.
How might we interpret the Page of Cups?
Page: the “youngest” of the courts. Has an explorative, playful relationship with the suit’s energies. May still have a lot to learn about the suit, but on the other hand often interacts with the suit in fresh and unbiased ways.
Cups: associated with the emotional realm. Connection, love, dreams and wishes. Happiness as well as sorrow and vulnerability.
PAGE + CUPS = She has an open-heart and doesn’t carry a fear of being emotionally hurt. She sees the glass as half-full. She is in tune with her inner realm. Trusting and loving, but perhaps at times too naïve and may get her feelings hurt easily.
Let’s look at one last example, the King of Wands.
King: the “outwardly mature adult.” Projects the energy of his suit outwards, imposing it upon the world. He leads through action and by setting external guidelines.
Wands: associated with gusto and life force. Excitement, exploration, creative pursuits. Passion as well as grandiosity and impulsiveness.
KING + WANDS = He is a charismatic person who is always on the go. His enthusiasm is contagious, others want to do what he’s doing. He is willing to take bold action in order to create whatever it is that he desires.
Homework: A Free Worksheet
If this framework seems useful to you, try going through and interpreting each of the 16 court cards this way. I’ve made a free worksheet you can use for this exercise. It’s a PDF and you can either print it out or type right into the document! Right click here to download.
Once again, it’s important to remember that there aren’t wrong or right answers. Especially if you are somewhat new to tarot, think of this exercise as a way to bond with the cards and form your own relationship with your deck. The sample interpretations I’ve gone through in this post have been pretty brief, but you might find you have a lot to say about certain cards, but other cards might throw you for a loop. Be patient with yourself and approach this exercise with curiosity.
You might be surprised how much you can get to know the court cards just by intuitively combining their rank and suit. This is a really powerful way to understand who the court cards are and how they can lend depth to your readings. As you get better acquainted with these court personalities, you’ll probably even see that the court cards remind you of real people you know, or of characters from books and movies.
So, what do you think? Does this method of interpreting court cards work for you, or do you have another brilliant way to read the courts? I would love to hear your thoughts, so leave a comment if you’d like.
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Hi, I'm Carrie!
I'm a tarot reader and mentor. My purpose is to encourage your expansion. If you're new, start here.
All site content © Carrie Mallon LLC 2017
I am part of Amazon's associate program. If you purchase items linked in this site I will receive a small kick-back.
How (and why) to make blackout poetry
If you follow me on Instagram, you may have noticed that I’ve recently dived headfirst into the blackout poetry rabbit hole. Why? Because making blackout poetry is a psyche-healing activity. There’s something about this process that is quiet and exciting and sacred and transformative. Like any other good creative undertaking does, making blackout poetry keeps leads you to discoveries about yourself.
Blackout poetry is one of those phenomenons that spiderwebs it’s way out through the world: I was inspired by the Instagram account @makeblackoutpoetry who was inspired by Austin Kleon and from there the inspiration goes back further and further and further, on and on and on. Suffice it to say people have been doing similar artwork for many years.
Since I’ve started sharing my blackout poems, I’ve had a few people message me and ask questions about the materials I use and how they can get started making their own blackout poetry. This makes me really excited because creating blackout poetry has really ‘clicked’ something within me, and I’d love to see others have that magical experience. Obviously I’m not an expert – I’ve only been doing this for a month or so – but I’ll share my process with you here. Listening to your curiosity will rarely lead you astray, so if this idea beckons to you, heed the call!
As you’re reading these steps, keep in mind that the only thing you really need to know about how to make blackout poetry is to do it however the hell you want to do it. Aside from seeing some examples online, I didn’t do any “research” when I started, I just started. Have fun and unleash your creativity!
How to make blackout poetry
1. Gather some old written materials (books, magazines, newspapers, whatever).
If you have some books languishing around that you’ve been meaning to donate, grab them. Those are the PERFECT candidates for blackout poetry. Any type of book (fiction, non-fiction, whatevs) will do but the thicker the pages, the better. I’ve tried to use some flimsy mass-market paperback books and that thin paper tends to fall apart.
If you don’t have any books like this already on hand, check your local thrift store and spend a few bucks on a couple of random books. You could also use free printed materials you were going to recycle anyway, such as newspapers, junk mail, old magazines…you get the idea.
2. Select a blackout medium.
I had some old acrylic paint gathering dust in a closet, so that’s what I’ve been using to redact text. There’s something very satisfying about smearing paint across an old book page, but you could also use a sharpie, a crayon, a pencil, a pen, or anything else you damn well please. I mainly use just black and white paint, and many blackout poets stick to a monochromatic aesthetic. But if color floats your boat, get colorful! I just started experimenting with watercolor in my blackout poetry and I’m excited to keep playing around with various mediums.
3. Get any other optional materials ready: varying sizes of paintbrushes, pens, scissors, paper towels, pencils, and a hair dryer (to dry paint).
Written material and a blackout medium are really the core materials you need, but I’ve found my blackout poetry supply kit quickly expanding. I now keep all of the stuff listed above on hand. You might also want some newspaper or an old towel to throw down on your working surface just to keep unwanted messes to a minimum. I now have a growing pile of supplies, I keep them on my bookshelf so that I can grab them whenever the poetry whim strikes.
4. Choose a page and find the words that stick out to you.
In a strange way, blackout poetry pushes some of the same buttons as reading tarot. Try to trust synchronicity, flip to a random page and see what words you’re drawn to. I try to avoid reading the entire page straight through, instead looking at the page in a more abstract way, as though it is a kind of word farm. Let your eyes focus on various words until one sparks something within you. Then using that word as a base, jump to other random words and see how they connect. Before you know it, you’ll have fished out your own unique phrase.
Sometimes I “find” my poem right away. Other times I spend a while staring at the page, trying to puzzle something together. And other times still, I can’t seem to farm out the right words and so I turn to a new page. If you find yourself getting too frustrated, wait and come back later. Creating blackout poetry should be fun and feel natural. If it’s stressing you out, it’s defeating the purpose!
Your poem can be as short or as long as you want. You might want to fuss about aligning your words so the poem is easier to read, or you might choose words from all over the page. Don’t overthink it, trust what feels right. When you’ve selected the words that will make up your poem, circle them with a pencil.
5. Blackout the words that aren’t part of your poem, then add optional artistic flourishes.
Now you get to be really brave and start transforming your page. Rip the page out of the book so it’s easier to handle. Get your paint (or marker, or whatever else) and cover up the excess words. I have had the unfortunate incident of accidentally painting over words that I DID want in my poem more than once, so now I start by highlighting the words I want to keep. Then I cover everything else. If you want, you can then use a hair dryer to dry your paint.
Congratulations, you’ve now made a blackout poem! It’s as simple as that. Of course, there are all sorts of flourishes you can do from here. I like to add some type of drawing or embellishment to my poem. This adds a new dimension of creativity to your work, and it can also be another way to express the theme of your piece. In the example pictured above, the words of my poem say “the moment disappeared, space lost; unfinished.” I decided to add a clock, tying into the theme of fleeting moments. If I’m using black paint to blackout, I add my flourishes with white paint. If I’m using white paint to blackout, I use a ballpoint pen to add flourishes. In this example, the finished product looks like this:
A few additional thoughts
When you’re done with a piece, you might want to write the date on the back. This way if you’re like me and go on a huge blackout poetry making expedition, you can look back on them almost like you would old journal entries. As with any other creative outlet, try not to fixate on how “good” your poems are or what other people will think about them. It can be really fun to share your pieces and I encourage you to do so if you want to (there’s a lovely blackout poetry community on Instagram). But it’s also totally cool to just have these be something you do purely to keep to yourself.
You’ll be amazed what you can glean about your current mental and spiritual state from your blackout poetry. Your unconscious mind is as influential in this process as your conscious mind. Above all else, blackout poetry is another adventurous way to explore the themes currently influencing your inner world. Try it!
And if you do share on Instagram, tag me (@carriemallon) so I can cheer you on.
Happy word farming,
Sign up for weekly updates and get the free ebook,
The Tarot Reader’s Daily Companion
Hi, I'm Carrie!
I'm a tarot reader and mentor. My purpose is to encourage your expansion. If you're new, start here.
All site content © Carrie Mallon LLC 2017
I am part of Amazon's associate program. If you purchase items linked in this site I will receive a small kick-back.
Carrie Mallon
Header art from The Spacious Tarot illustrated by Annie Ruygt
All site content © Carrie Mallon LLC 2014-2019
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