Minor Arcana Tarot — 56 Card Meanings

Each of the four suits is built the same way. It holds ten numbered cards, from Ace through Ten, and four court figures: Page, Knight, Queen and King. Ten plus four makes 14 cards per suit, and 56 across all four together.

The suits are tied to the elements and to areas of life. Wands are Fire: energy, creativity, desire and action. Cups are Water: feelings, relationships, intuition. Swords are Air: thoughts, words, conflicts and decisions. Pentacles are Earth: money, work, the body and material support. Once you know the character of a suit, you already half understand any card within it.

Within each suit the numbers tell one continuous story of how the suit's theme is born, develops and reaches its limit. This is the numerology of the Minor Arcana, the key that turns scattered cards into a logical sequence.

The Ace is the seed and the pure beginning. In it the whole force of the suit is still folded into a single point, a possibility yet to unfold. The Ace of Cups is the seed of a new feeling, the Ace of Pentacles a chance at fresh material footing.

From there the plot gathers pace. The Two brings the first pairing and choice, the Three a first result and growth, the Four stability and a pause. The middle numbers, from Five to Seven, are the knot of tension: the Five brings conflict or loss, the Six restores balance and resolution, the Seven sets a test that calls for personal effort. The Eight speeds movement and sharpens skill, the Nine draws near the outcome, gathering the experience of the whole theme.

The Ten is fullness and completion, the suit's theme carried to its limit. Sometimes this is abundance and a happy ending, as in the Ten of Pentacles with its wealth and solid family. Sometimes it is excess and weight, as in the Ten of Wands with its shouldered burden. Either way the Ten closes the cycle, and beyond it the theme either ends or begins again on a new level.

The Page, Knight, Queen and King are not just the senior cards of a suit but four ways of holding its energy. They read best as roles, or as steps of maturity.

The Page is the messenger and the student. He brings news, an offer, or a fresh interest in the suit's theme, but acts with the unpolished curiosity of a beginner. The Knight is action and extreme. He throws himself into the theme headlong, vividly and at times excessively, carrying movement but also the risk of overreach. The Queen is inner mastery of the suit. She feels and understands her element from within, nurtures it and holds its energy inside herself. The King is outer mastery and authority. He governs the suit's theme outwardly, makes decisions and answers for the result, embodying mature command.

In a reading the court cards most often stand for specific people around you, or for traits of character, including your own. Less often they point to the approach itself, such as a knight's drive or a king's steadiness.

If the cards fall almost entirely Minor, that is a reassuring sign of calm. A predominance of Minor Arcana speaks of an everyday, manageable situation, one where no great inescapable forces are at play and almost everything sits within your influence. These are ordinary affairs settled by ordinary human effort.

From this follows a practical point: in such a reading, much depends on the querent. The cards suggest the circumstances and the balance of forces, but the final move is yours. So once the cards are laid out, start with a simple count. Many Minor Arcana mean the answer lies not in fate but in your own decisions and steps.