court cards in readings

Today on CARD TALK, I’ll cover:
-court cards & personalities
-four methods for interpreting court cards in readings
-tips for calming down if court cards stress you out
-resources for further study

Resources mentioned:
-order in the court and card connections, both available through the conservatory membership program
-tarot spread archive

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 Court Cards in Tarot
• 8:41 Interpreting Court Cards in Tarot

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 today's episode, we are going to be talking about how to understand and interpret court cards in your personal tarot readings. Now, I've already shared episodes on how to see court cards as community work or how to work with court cards in order to enhance your own community work and community building, but I've also shared an episode that served as just a general introduction to what these court cards are. So if you haven't listened to those episodes, I do highly recommend going back and listening to them first, as each episode includes some general tips and meanings for these cards and really kind of introduces you to these figures and different ways that you can work with them outside of your readings. In this episode, we're going to be focused on how to approach these cards in your readings or in a more interpretive kind of advice giving or insight offering way.

Speaker 1: 1:14

Now, as I've explained in previous episodes, I understand court cards as being connected to embodied energy or internalized energy, or the way that an energy might manifest in a life or in a day, or in an action or in a choice. Now that doesn't necessarily mean that these cards are one note, far from it. Court cards have full personalities and can include a lot of different layers and contradictions, correspondences and meanings. They bring a lot to the table and in a reading. Depending on what other cards are involved in the reading, that might mean that certain aspects of these figures are going to be more heavily emphasized or that certain aspects are going to feel a little bit quieter. Just as human beings are complex and are always reacting to and engaging with their environment and their choices and their emotions and their sensations and their observations and their experiences, court cards are the same way, and so they might bring something different to the table in every single reading, based on the question and based on the environment of the reading or the other cards that are present in the reading.

Speaker 1: 2:24

In general, I think tarot actually does become more confusing when we try to flatten individual cards or simplify them too much. But I think this becomes particularly messy or hard to parse when we try to flatten court cards too much. In general, it is hard to describe a whole person like a person that you know well, especially just with a few keywords right? And even if you can, even if you can, describe your best friend in three words or less, those words might not always apply to how that person is going to behave in every single situation or how other people are always going to perceive or experience that person. Right, people are complicated and so are court cards and so, again, as I said at the end of the last episode, if you can learn to allow these cards to have a lot of nuance, if you can be comfortable with the fact that these cards might show up in different ways at different times, they're going to start to be easier for you to understand, especially when they come up in your readings.

Speaker 1: 3:26

If all of that just feels very theoretical, let me give you a theoretical example. Say you meet someone and the first few times you meet them they don't talk very much. You see them in group situations, you see them with their partner, who is really extroverted and talks a lot, and so your impression of this person is that they're pretty quiet, that they're pretty sweet and gentle, but that they're deeply shy. So you might project some things onto this person because they're not talking very much and you don't necessarily have a strong sense of who they are, but say that then you have the opportunity to spend time with this person one-on-one and in a quieter scenario where they are able to articulate themselves. We're able to give them time and space to think, where they feel like they are able to be in a more intimate and, like you know, give and take kind of responsive conversation with you. They really open up and you start to see all of these shades and and aspects to their personality. They actually have a really dry, sarcastic sense of humor that you never would have been able to notice in the cacophony of a larger group. Getting to be in more intimate conversation with this person, getting to see them in a place where they might be more comfortable, allows them to express aspects of their sense of humor and personality that you wouldn't get to see otherwise.

Speaker 1: 4:43

And then imagine that this person, who's really quiet and gentle and sweet most of the time, experiences something really scary. Maybe something happens to their partner in an emergency situation and they have to go into emergency protective. I got to find my person mode. You might see a completely different version of who this person is. They might suddenly be really assertive. They might suddenly be really brave and willing to push their way into a conversation where you would never see them do that normally. But that fire that's lit under their ass, that fear, that concern, that need to act, drives them in a different direction and you get to see another aspect of their personality. You get to see them displaying courage that they probably always have, but that might not always need to be pulled out into the forefront of their personality to accomplish what they're trying to accomplish. Now, that's just a theoretical example that I made up, but any person and any court card is going to offer different skills and assets and be more in the forefront or more in the background of your readings, just like people are going to engage and behave differently depending on what's happening around them and where they are. We all have places where we feel more comfortable and less comfortable. Right, we all have situations that we feel more equipped to handle and less equipped to handle, and court cards are the exact same way. So if you can start to really internalize that, it's really going to help you engage with these cards in your readings with more clarity and a little bit more confidence.

Speaker 1: 6:16

As I said in our last episode, court cards can be interpreted in a number of different ways, and so in this episode, really, I want to offer you a few of my own personal favorite ways to understand these cards when they show up in my tarot readings. But I really want to emphasize that these are not the only four ways to interpret and work with these cards. You might ultimately choose to read them in a very different way, or you might realize that different readings call for you to work with these cards in different ways. Court cards have so many possibilities when it comes to interpretation, because these cards have so many faces and layers and aspects and nuances. So please don't be afraid especially if you're newer to tarot to try out different techniques or approaches when you're working with these cards in your readings. So, without any further ado, here are four potential ways that you can interpret court cards when they show up in your personal tarot readings.

Speaker 1: 7:12

The first potential method for interpretation that I want to talk about when it comes to court cards is reading a court card that shows up in your reading as being representative of a literal human being, person that you know. Now, for a lot of people, this might be one of the first interpretations that you naturally jump to, that if a court card comes up in your reading, it is representing a person that is already in your life, or a person who will be entering your life soon, or perhaps someone who's kind of on the fringes of your life, but it's going to start taking up more space. I kind of think of this as the you will soon meet, a tall, dark, handsome, stranger kind of interpretation right, and personally I don't read this way very often, but it is a very popular and common way to interpret court cards in readings, and I often see this get presented as a useful technique or interpretive possibility for understanding court cards in reading. So I think it's important to share here right off the top Now. Every once in a while, if it feels right, I will read the cards in this way, especially if I'm reading for another person, for a client or for someone that I know really well. Sometimes my intuition is really going to buzz on this particular option and it sometimes just really feels like what the cards are directing me towards, and so I do think it is really useful to be aware of as a potential way to understand these cards and so that you can recognize that if it does happen or feel really relevant for the reading.

Speaker 1: 8:41

Before we move on to the next interpretation, I want to just acknowledge here that if you find an older tarot resource, like something published maybe in the 80s or 70s or farther back, you might find physical characteristics associated with certain court cards. Okay, these can be considered traditional or standardized sometimes, but they really have to do with assigning certain courts specific physical characteristics like hair color, skin color, body type, et cetera. Personally, I have never found these helpful. I can't even rattle them off as an example for you because I do not know them. I prefer to focus on the vibe or the quality or the personality over physical descriptions or even associations with certain gender or ages. But for some people that is going to be really helpful. I know plenty of incredible professional tarot readers who always read pages as children, for example, whereas I prefer to read them as someone who might have a childlike energy or a moment when a childlike energy could be useful. So your experience may vary, your preferences may vary, but I wanted to just make it known that if you're using an older tarot resource, you might find those kinds of charts with physical characteristics assigned to each of the 16 court cards. I don't want you to be surprised if that's a thing that you find, but you don't have to use it. I certainly don't, okay.

Speaker 1: 10:03

The second interpretation that I want to offer for a court card that's showing up in your personal tarot readings is that this card represents an aspect of self or, if you're reading for another person, an aspect of the querent. Now, this is an interpretation that I personally use a lot, that court cards in readings can represent a part of who you are, or an aspect of self that already exists within you, something that might be worth utilizing or embracing or exploring or taking pride in, or in the inverse of reckoning with, or navigating or learning to understand, or having compassion for, or perhaps even like tamping down or trying to kind of have a little bit more control over. Again, people are layered and complicated, and so each of these court cards can really have a lot of positive qualities or good qualities, or useful qualities, or admirable qualities, as well as qualities that might create challenges or make a messy situation even messier right, and so, in thinking about these cards as representing personal characteristics or personalities, I really do like to let these cards capture and represent the full range of humanity and the full range of personality that we all contain, to really explore which aspects we might have in common with a particular card. Now, this particular interpretation can be a very useful way to think about the cards, for journaling techniques or for tarot spreads that focus on trying to connect with a particular card or anything like that. Journaling through all 16 cards and trying to find your personal connection with each of these court cards can be a really helpful thing to do, and I took a note for myself that maybe this is a resource I should create with some additional structure. So I guess be on the lookout for that whenever I write that.

Speaker 1: 11:52

The third interpretation that I want to offer for when a court card shows up in your readings is that this card is representing something for you to specifically embody. Now, this is kind of like a subset to the aspect of self-interpretation that I just offered, but I do personally find often that court cards can show up as an energy to reach for or strive for, demonstrating a figure that we want to emulate, or a vibe to try to celebrate or enhance, or even a version of self to embrace. Court cards can offer really excellent advice, and so, in this particular kind of subset of an interpretation, I think the court card can show you who you can be, or who you can strive to be, as a way of navigating or moving through a specific challenge, situation, question, struggle or choice. I find, especially if I'm asking the cards for advice or trying to figure out what to do or what choice to make, when a court card shows up it can really be demonstrating a path forward or a thing that I could do that might make dealing with the situation easier or help me feel more confident or give me the knowledge or the awareness or the insight that I need to handle the situation. Basically, this is an interpretation that I use a lot as well, and I do personally, because I've been working with the cards for a long time, have specific relationships with different court cards to the point that when they show up, I understand what exactly they're telling me I should do or what kind of behaviors or skills or resources or whatever I should be utilizing to navigate the particular situation. Now, this is just the interpretation that feels really practical to me. It's a little less introspective and a little bit more directive. So if you are someone that often finds yourself doing readings that are looking for advice or support, this can be a really helpful interpretation to have in your back pocket. The last and fourth kind of potential interpretation I want to offer is a step in the journey which might feel a little bit more abstract, but stick with me because I think it can be really helpful.

Speaker 1: 14:02

Court cards can represent where you are in a particular journey or cycle or story in a particular way, so they can kind of show you how far along you are in a particular goal or ambition or trying to reach a certain end point. So you can see it this way that pages, if it shows up in your readings, might be reminding you that you were just in the initial stages of something new, that you're in the imagination and decision portion of the story, that you're still choosing how to try something or what to do around something. That there's an experimental energy and a discovery energy and a questioning energy, really trying to figure out what your place is in a certain part of the story. Knights in this interpretation can speak to a desire for risk-taking or taking action or leveling up this craving for putting yourself out there and really seeing what happens and making a big change in a way that's going to lead to visibility and connection and perhaps even accolades.

Speaker 1: 15:05

Queens, in this interpretation, could speak to being in the part of the story where we want to protect what we've already done and starting to think long-term about what we're building or what we want to build, as well as who we're in community with or who we might want to invite into whatever we're doing. And kings, in this particular interpretation, can speak to like legacy work, to thinking about how others are going to see us once we've succeeded or now that we have reached a certain point in the journey, to how our ideas and dreams and ambitions are really intersecting with our community or the broader collective. When I see Kings, I think about being a real leader or being someone in a position of leadership or someone with a lot of visibility and how. That is a part of the story that I'm in. This might feel like a more niche interpretation, and so it might not be one that you find as useful, but especially if you're someone who really likes numerology or who tends to do a lot of readings about broader, long-term goals or long-term journeys, or who thinks in a more narrative way, this can be helpful for anchoring into a particular point of the story, remembering where you are in terms of a particular initiative or not getting too impatient about what you're accomplishing or what you have access to versus how long you've been doing a particular thing. Now again, these four options for interpretations are just suggestions and they're just places to get you started.

Speaker 1: 16:31

You might find that the more you do readings, you end up moving in a particular way, leaning more heavily on a particular interpretation, or even reading these cards in a way that has nothing to do with anything I've just said. And also, if you're using a tarot spread, or the court card comes up in a particular position within that spread, that can also help give you another way to understand that card that might be completely different than what I've shared here. In general, when a court card shows up in your readings, remember that they are allowed to be nuanced and complicated and that that is a feature, not a bug. And especially if you find yourself really frustrated by, or flustered with, court cards, I just want to remind you to take a deep breath, think about the work you've done with the card, think about the things you know about the element or the suit or the rank, as well as any other correspondences you might use, and don't be afraid to lean on previous experiences you've had with the card as well. There's a lot of information you can pull from, and the more you work with tarot, the more you use tarot, the more those experiences are going to start to build up and help you understand better who this card is and what they might have to offer you.

Speaker 1: 17:42

But try not to make the cards the star of the show, unless you're reading happens to be all court cards. You don't have to put an immense amount of importance on these court cards over other cards, just because they might feel like they're derailing you. They're just part of the deck. They don't have to be this big, mysterious section of the deck that really deeply intimidates you. Don't give them that much power. Let them just be another section of the cards that you just get to keep learning about and growing with. Now, I always like to end these episodes with a tip or a trick to help you incorporate this information into your own practice. So here I'll just say that dedicated work with court cards in particular can be really powerful, especially again if you find yourself as someone who's really struggling with these cards or who finds them really challenging.

Speaker 1: 18:33

I do have a few different journaling and discovery resources that are available through the 3am Tarot Conservatory, which is my signature membership program for tarot education that can help you work through or with these figures more intentionally. I have one called Order in the Court that's specifically about building relationships with all 16 court cards, and I also have a journaling resource called Card Connections that has journaling prompts to help you connect with all 78 cards in the deck. But you don't necessarily have to use a resource like this in order to build deeper connections with the court cards. If you'd rather do this on your own, I encourage you to just make a personal self-study out of this section of the deck. Choose a particular court card and think first about what you have in common with that figure, if this card feels comfortable or familiar to you, if it reminds you of anyone you know or anyone you have known or a character in your favorite book or story or movie or comic book or video game or whatever, and make a point of starting to build a specific, intentional connection with that card and really letting them become more real to you.

Speaker 1: 19:36

The more you take time to build relationships with each of these cards one-on-one, as well as to work with these cards in their groupings of of suited courts or of specific ranks, the more they're going to have to offer you when they show up in readings and the easier it will be to know which kind of interpretation makes the most sense for that particular reading. That is all I have for you today, but, as always, thank you so much for spending this time with me, and I will 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 you.