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The Court Cards

The Court Cards.jpg

The court cards some refer to as the bridge between the Minor Arcana and the Major Arcana:

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Many people have difficulty with interpreting them as they can represent people of different ages and personality traits, situations or the development of an idea, thought or decision, project or emotion.

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As people, the qualities of the court cards correlate to the personality type of the element and star sign they are associated with:

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For example:

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All the Wands court cards relate to the element Fire. This is a positive, extrovert or externalising energy associated with the fire signs of Aries, Leo and Sagittarius. That is all of these cards can represent people in your life or your client's life who have warm outgoing personalities, a competitive edge, lots of energy, confidence, charisma and are generally active and have great ideas.

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In addition to this certain ages are represented by the court cards: the pages; children and teenagers of either sex, the Knights tend to be young adult men in my experience, the Queens women and the kings men.

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Physical attributes also relate to the court cards. For example, as depicted on the card the Wands court cards tend to represent people with fair skin, light eyes and blonde or red hair. By contrast the Pentacles Court Cards tend to represent the other extreme: people with dark skin, hair and eyes who are generally of a solid build. Not everyone will fit these traits exactly and when choosing a significator for a tarot spread I suggest with going how they present to you and base it more on personality presentation rather than the physical. 

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In addition to this the court cards can represent a situation or a stage of development of a process.

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For example all the Knights generally indicate change and movement. They all depict people of horseback. The more extroverted court cards of Wands and Air show speeding horses and the more reflective, cautious court cards of the element of water and earth show horses that are moving slowly or are stationary.

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The pages with their immature energy tend to show the early stages of something and are often associated with initial ideas and thoughts and hence can have an affinity with messages, news, information and ideas.

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The kings being the completion or full expression of the energy. For example in Pentacles they can represent the completion of a physical project. In Wands it may be the fruition of a business plan, in swords the decision or outcome of a thought process and in cups the full expression of a particular emotion or feeling. Of course the king can represent adult men with qualities associated with the element they are in. We will cover this in more detail but the main thing to remember is that their meanings are varied and you will be guided by other cards in a spread to determine how they should be interpreted. To summarise they can be:

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  • People in the client's life or your life with particular personality and physical qualities

  • Situations or actions eg. knights - movement, pages initial stages

  • Stages in a situation associated with the suit. eg. Wands - the development of an idea, Swords the development of a thought or decision, Pentacles - development of a practical project or skill, and Cups the development of  particular feeling or emotion. 

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