intro to court cards

Today on CARD TALK, I’ll cover:
-what court cards are within the tarot
-the four ranks
-elements and personalities
-additional correspondences
-thematic keywords to keep in mind

For more on Meg, check out 3amtarot.com, and order your copy of Finding the Fool through Bookshop.org or your favorite local bookstore.

Find episode transcripts and more over on the CARD TALK website. And as a special thank you for CARD TALK listeners, click here to download a completely free, exclusive workbook for building your best personal tarot practice.

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Chapters

• 0:11 Understanding Tarot Court Cards
• 13:44 Unlocking Tarot Court Cards Through Exploration

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:11

I'm Meg Jones-Wall and this is Card Talk, a mini podcast for tarot basics and evergreen insights. I'm here to help you build a tarot practice that works for you. Glad you're here. In this episode we are going to start talking about the Minor Arcana court cards, with a gentle introduction to these 16 figures that tend to really confuse people. In our last episode I talked a little bit more generally about how to work with these cards as personality types, as a way of engaging with community and learning to navigate complex or different or even difficult personalities in community building and social engagement, but in this episode we're going to back it up a little bit and just look at more broadly what these cards even actually are. Now, everything I'm about to share with you about the court cards is really just my own perspective and my own way of working with these cards. Court cards are fascinating and complicated and can be really confusing, and there are a lot of different approaches to these cards. So what I'm going to share with you is just my way of working with these cards and I hope it's really helpful. But if you disagree with me, if you feel strongly that a card actually speaks to something else or represents something different. That is more than okay. The whole vibe, the whole deal of my work is that your relationship with the cards gets to be your own, and I really want to emphasize that. When it comes to the court cards, because these cards, again, can just be really confusing and challenging for folks I want you to feel very empowered to build unique relationships with each of these cards, and if that ultimately means that the way you approach this section of the tarot looks very different than the way I approach this section of the tarot, that's more than fine. Do your thing, you're doing great.

Speaker 1: 1:57

Court cards are the 16 archetypes of the minor arcana. Just like the rest of the Minor Arcana is divided into four suits. There are court cards for every one of the suits and four different ranks within the court cards, so that means that we get 16 cards total. Each of the four Minor Arcana suits has a page card, a knight card, a queen card and a king card as part of their suit. Now, just as a general note, I want to just let you know that the rank names that I'm using here are, in general, the most common ones. They're borrowed from the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, which is arguably the most popular deck in existence, whether you're using the classic Rider-Waite-Smith deck or a deck that follows the style of the Rider-Waite-Smith. If you were someone that is using a Marseille style deck, the pages might be named Valet or Nave, and if you're using a Thoth style deck, the pages may be known as Princess and the Knights may be known as Princes. Additionally, a lot of modern decks completely rename this section of the tarot to make them a little bit more accessible and easy to understand. So, depending on which deck you are using or which style of deck you want to be using, you might need to refer to the guidebook of your specific deck to identify which cards are which. But just for simplicity's sake, because it's the most common framework for these cards and set of names for these cards, on this podcast, as well as in all of my teachings and books and resources and everywhere I talk about the tarot, I use the language of page knight, queen and king.

Speaker 1: 3:25

Every tarot deck is going to be a little bit different and has its own imagery and set of artistic style when it comes to how they portray every one of the cards in the tarot deck. Even decks that might not have people anywhere else might still use imagery on the court cards that is human in nature or that shows animals kind of doing human type things. Court cards are really about embodied energy, or the way that a specific kind of energy manifests itself in terms of actions and feelings and senses and thoughts and spiritual energy. And this kind of embodied work can be confusing for a lot of people, especially in tarot readings, which I think is part of the reason that these cards can feel so complicated or hard to connect with. In our next episode I'm going to talk more concretely about how you can understand court cards more specifically in your personal tarot readings, but in this episode I'm just going to break down what these cards are, how they kind of shake out within their respective suits and some general things to know about them. As I explained earlier, each of the four minor arcana suits has four different ranks of their court cards. That means that we can divide the court cards into two different groupings. We can sort them by suit or element or we can sort them by rank. So first let's talk about each of the four ranks and what kind of energy they're generally going to represent.

Speaker 1: 4:43

Pages are often described as the youngest member of their respective court or family and bring a really curious or seeking energy to the party. Pages can represent the discovery of an element or a new aspect of an element, the beginning of a journey, a choice being made or an adventure being started. I personally like to think about pages as like an eager kind of intern energy, as children or students, someone who asks a lot of questions, someone who's willing to try things out and someone who isn't shy about testing the waters and making new or unexpected choices. With pages, I tend to think about what questions they're asking, what they want to know or discover or experience, and what they're hoping to feel or find. The next rank up in experience level is the Knights, and these figures are a little bit older and have a little bit more life experience than the pages, which means that sometimes they're described as the teenagers or apprentices of their respective court or family.

Speaker 1: 5:40

Knights can represent experimentation with an element or learning to wield an element with more confidence, or sometimes seeking to prove the self through the use of an element. I like to think about knights kind of as thrill seekers, people who want to really think outside the box, but above all, they want to make a name for themselves by doing something really bold or innovative or different or distinctive. Knights want to be visible, and so with knights, I think about how they want to make a difference, what horizon line they're looking towards or what is really capturing their attention. With knights, it's about what feels exciting or engaging to them specifically. Now the last ranks are the queens and the kings, and both queens and kings represent kind of excellence or experience or mastery of an element. This is confidence within an element or a deep and ongoing relationship with an element. There's a lot of different language around these cards and some of it's going to feel better for you than others is. So try to be particularly open-minded when it comes to queens and kings, because these cards tend to get really gendered and sometimes the language can be kind of confusing around it.

Speaker 1: 6:45

Now, some decks really distinguish between putting either queens or kings higher in rank than the other, but I personally prefer to think of them as being on equal footing or on equal levels of authority and just bringing a different focus or set of experience or skill to that authority. Both queens and kings are very confident and very purposeful and bring a lot of wisdom and knowledge and experience to the party. Queens, specifically, are often referred to as being more focused on relationships or internal matters, more emotional or artistic or empathetic, and, in contrast, kings are often described as being more outward or instructive, being focused on external matters and logic. In general, I see queens as serving as kind of teachers and mentors, people who are interested in protecting and nurturing and nourishing, whereas I think of Kings as being a little bit more removed from individual relationships and a bit more thinking about the whole right. So this is going to be someone that is making decisions that are going to affect the many versus trying to safeguard the few. But again, both are really necessary and I don't think one is necessarily higher ranked than the other. But again, that's just how I approach these cards. Yours might be really different.

Speaker 1: 7:59

Now. You will find one of each of these ranked cards in every one of the four suits, which means that, for example, there is a page of wands, a knight of wands, a queen of wands and a king of wands, but there's also a page of wands, a page of swords, a page of cups and a page of pentacles. That means that each rank is going to have certain things in common, like every page is going to have an element of curiosity right, but they'll also interact with their element in a unique way. So even though, for example, all pages are pretty driven by curiosity and exploration, the page of wands is going to have a different flavor than the page of pentacles, because the page of wands is associated with the element of fire, whereas the page of pentacles is associated with the element of earth. That makes these court cards really fun to work with, as they really do feel like distinctive personalities and very different from one another, even if their rank is the same.

Speaker 1: 8:53

Now, because every card has both a rank and an element or a suit, that means that we end up with each suit having common traits when it comes to their personalities, and I don't want to spend a lot of time talking about this, because I think this is a place where your personal experience of being a human being, of being in relationship with other people, and of building characters and relationships with these cards themselves, is a really powerful element of this process. I don't want to put too much in your head when it comes to what these cards can be like, but essentially, when we're thinking about each court separately or, if you prefer, each family separately, you can really think about what personality traits they might have in common and how those personality traits might intersect with their overall rank and how their rank is going to impact the way they show up in the world. Now I highly recommend going back, if you haven't listened already, and listening to the episodes that I recorded on the minor arcana, because there we're going to talk about each element more in depth. But I want you to think about how those elements might translate to personality types. What would it mean to have a fiery personality? What would it mean to have a lot of air in your personality? What would it mean to have a lot of water in your personality? And what would it mean to have a lot of earth in your personality? Now, if you're familiar with astrology, these things might have special meaning for you, but even if they don't, I want you to start thinking about the elements as having their own unique personality traits and then thinking about what it means for that particular elements personality traits to intersect with each of the four ranks. This is really going to help you start to let these cards come to life in very specific and unique ways. I do want to also explain that some people have additional correspondences for each of these ranks. So depending on where you are in your tarot journey, how much experience you have with the tarot, you might find these additional correspondences helpful. I'm going to really quickly just share these correspondences that I personally work with and I'm also going to include some links to some additional resources in the show notes that go into these correspondences and just kind of explain them more deeply. But I do want to emphasize not only that working with these correspondences in general is deeply optional, but also that there are other schools of thought and other different kinds of correspondences that you can use for each of these ranks.

Speaker 1: 11:17

The TLDR is that if these don't land for you or don't make sense to you or don't feel necessary or useful, you do not have to use them. So personally, I like to think about all of the pages as being inherently connected to the element of earth, as well as to the number two. This combination adds a sense of depth, observation, patience and really deliberate movement to these cards that I particularly love. I see all nights as inherently aligned with the element of fire and the number three, which gives these figures a spirit of creativity and action, expression, passion, generosity and quick movement. I associate all of the queens, inherently with the element of water, and the number four, which provides an extra spirit of intuition, protective energy, leadership, purpose and just lived, wise experience to all of these cards. And finally, I put all of the Kings into the same category as the element of air and the number five, which offers them a duality of experience and a real willingness to change, as well as a sense of long-term thinking and authority and responsibility.

Speaker 1: 12:23

Now, whether you like these additional particular correspondences or not, across the board, I find it personally really helpful to think about the court cards in general as minor arcana archetypes, just as the 22 trump cards that make up the fool's journey are referred to as major arcana archetypes. If thinking about the court cards as people or personalities really stresses you out or feels confusing or inaccessible, allowing them to be archetypes instead might help them fit a little bit more neatly into your brain or help you connect with them a little bit more. But considering these cards as archetypes might still mean that you can think about these cards as people too. It's nice to have options right, and court cards can really serve as steps in a larger journey representing aspects of who you are, people who are currently in your life or may eventually enter your life or start to take up a bigger role in your life, or can even serve as advice on what kinds of energy or aspects of your personality to embody or expand in order to navigate a particular question or situation. Again, we're going to talk about how to use these cards in readings more in the next episode, but in general, you can really understand court cards in a lot of different ways and again, if just thinking about these cards makes you feel really stressed out, that's totally okay. I've got your back. It's super common and you're not behind or anything like that.

Speaker 1: 13:44

Court cards can be messy. I also just want to say if you're in the camp of court, cards are too confusing and I hate seeing them come up in my readings or working with them. That's often why a lot of modern decks rename them. This kind of ranked court system of experience and how they serve the court at large can feel really hard to access, especially for those of us who aren't super into history or don't know a lot about feudal court systems, and so if you find a particular rank really confusing, I want to encourage you to take some time to look up and research alternative names for that rank in other decks. Search alternative names for that rank in other decks. Finding those other names and kind of locking into different frameworks can really help to unlock something in your brain and might just help you reorient how these cards relate to one another as well as how you can relate to those cards.

Speaker 1: 14:33

Finding the qualities that each rank really seems to embody or highlight or the function that they serve in their group can also be really helpful. It's also incredibly normal to have some ranks feel easier for you to connect with than others. You might find that court cards in one suit makes more sense to you than the court cards in another, that one element is easier for you to engage with, that a certain kind of correspondence feels easier for you to understand. All of this is super normal. Everybody's brain is a little bit different. All of us process information a little bit differently, and I think that most people have cards across the board in the whole deck not just in this section of the tarot that feel easier to understand than others. So I want to just remind you to show yourself some grace when learning the tarot in general, but especially when starting to engage with these court cards. The last thing I want to offer in this episode is that I tend to think about each rank as inviting us to think about certain themes, and so I want to just kind of rattle off a few keywords for each rank to get you started and give you something to think about Again. This is just how I connect with and understand each of these ranks.

Speaker 1: 15:40

Your mileage may vary, your experience may vary, so when I think about pages, I tend to think about themes of curiosity, discovery, exploration, questioning, connection, duality, choice, relationships with the self, trying something different, being open to a new idea or perspective or moving in a new direction. When I think about Knights, I tend to think about the themes of adventure, risk, pursuit, change, progress, movement, ego, excitement, relationships with others, charisma, thinking bigger and like reputation or visibility. When I think about the queens, I tend to look to themes of empathy, intuition, community care, protection, boundaries for the self and the many, stability, wisdom, knowing the self, relying on personal experience or insight, discernment and artistry or beauty. And lastly, when I think about the kings, I tend to think about themes of logic, discernment and artistry or beauty. And lastly, when I think about the Kings, I tend to think about themes of logic, community leading making change legacy, long-term planning experience, thinking about the many, risk assessment and, like architecture, both physically and like structures for change that are going to impact the many.

Speaker 1: 17:00

Before I move into our little tip or trick for this episode, I want to remind you that I think court cards really give us the most space to play within the tarot. I feel like there are so many correspondences and layers for all of the rest of the cards in the deck that really point us in particular directions, but court cards as people seeing them as people and personalities gives us so much wiggle room and capacity to connect with them in really individual and personal ways. I really encourage you to take your time getting to know these cards and to let it be a fun experiment where you listen to them and are open to new ways of exploring them and understanding them, rather than feeling like you're going to immediately need to pin these down. Court cards constantly surprise me, perhaps more than any other section of the tarot, and the more you work with them, the more you might discover about who they are and who they can be, as well as who they might inspire you to be.

Speaker 1: 17:55

My tip for this episode is that, in general, court cards are some of the most complicated cards in the deck, especially when you're getting started. I know I've said that like a million times, but I just really want to emphasize it because I think people feel guilty or frustrated when they can't immediately vibe with these cards. I think that when you see imagery of other people and then you think about their own personalities and their styles and their vibes, especially if you feel pressure to read them in a certain way, it can get really overwhelming and I see a lot of advice to like assign court cards to people that you know or otherwise interpret these cards in really hyper-specific ways and that can ultimately end up being kind of a roadblock for you. I want to encourage you to beg you perhaps not to overthink these cards. Just because a lot of decks have figures, have human figures on their court card imagery and are described as people or human embodiments of energies, that doesn't mean they have to be complex or out of reach.

Speaker 1: 18:53

Instead of avoiding these cards or writing them off as confusing or surrendering to the challenge of them, I really want to encourage you to spend deliberate time with these cards. Go out of your way to hang out with these cards, pick a specific card or pick a specific rank or pick a specific court like group of court cards and work with them intentionally, talk to them, journal about them, connect them with different songs or physical movements or flavors or sense or environments or whatever else is going to help you connect with and learn to understand these cards more deeply. It's probably going to take you some time to develop deeper relationships with these cards, but allowing them to and like giving them permission to be rich, complex, layered archetypes with their own meanings and energies can make these cards come alive. You don't have to make them more complicated than they need to be, but you can allow them the capacity to be deeper than you know in this particular moment. If you start letting these be figures you're excited to get to know, rather than people that you dread, it's going to make your general work with these cards and your work with court cards in your readings a little bit easier to manage.

Speaker 1: 20:06

That is all I have for you today. I am including a couple of resources to help you with court cards in the show notes and I will be back soon with another episode on how to interpret these cards in your readings. Thank you so much for hanging out with me and I'll be back again soon with more card talk. Thank you so much for hanging out with me and I'll be back again soon with more card talk. Card talk episodes are always free for everyone to enjoy, so if you love what you hear, please consider supporting the podcast by subscribing, recommending card talk to a friend or two or donating to help with production costs. You can find episode transcripts. Learn more about me and join my signature tarot conservatory membership program through my website, 3amtarotcom. Thanks for listening and see you next time.