Tea-break Tarot School

Hey and hello.  It’s a grey day here so time for snuggling down under a blanket with a mug of something hot…

For today’s lesson we’re going to consider the elements in tarot and set a practical which will get help us connect with these.

The Minor Arcana in tarot consists of fifty-six cards split into four suits.  These are generally know as pentacles (or coins), swords, wands and cups.  Each of the suits has ten pip (number) cards and four court cards (the page, knight, queen and king).  Sometimes decks use different names for the suits or the courts but they will correspond to the above “labels”.

Each suit traditionally has a link to one of four elements (earth, air, fire and water) and one of the four cardinal directions.  

These are as follows:

Pentacles – Earth – North

Swords – Air – East

Wands – Fire – South

Cups – Water – West

The elemental system is a way of understanding the world.  There are also astrological links with the elements and you might like to look up your sign to see which elements feature large in your own sign/s.  I find them a helpful way of understanding myself.  I am an air sign, this means I can be very “heady” with lots of thinking and ideas.  My other big element is water which means I can be intuitive and also feel emotions deeply.  I have a little of the earth element, I can be practical and grounded thought this is an area I need to work on, and my “lowest” element is fire, meaning I need to take good care to stoke and tend my inner hearth to give me the energy for life. If you’d like to share your findings (and it is totally optional) pop over to the group for a chat 🙂

Exercise 5

Elemental connections – get out and about and experience the elements.  You could try some of the following:

• Build a bonfire or light a candle to connect with fire.
• Look for feathers or blow bubbles for air.
• Get digging in the garden or build a sandcastle or lie down on the ground to connect with earth.
• Paddle in the sea, take a bath, go to visit a river or stream or just have a long drink to connect with water.

These are just ideas to get started, whatever inspiration strikes you is good.

If you have extra time (!) and want to do some additional tarot play you could lay out your minor cards and see if you can spot the elements as they show up in each card.

Please take pictures of what you’re doing and come share them in the Facebook group.  Remember this is a self-paced course so if you are in a different place to everyone else that’s fine, there are no deadlines, tests or papers just some ideas as you explore your tarot journey.