What Is the Minor Arcana? Meaning, Suits, and Cards Explained Clearly
What Does the Minor Arcana Mean in Tarot? (And Why These Cards Speak Directly to You)
Tarot is a special deck of cards that helps you better understand yourself. Many people think of tarot as something mysterious or predictive, but in truth, it’s more like a mirror. It reflects your inner world. One important part of the tarot deck is the Minor Arcana. These cards offer insight into your daily life, feelings, challenges, and personal growth.
What Is the Minor Arcana?
The Minor Arcana contains 56 cards. These are divided into four suits: wands, cups, pentacles, and swords. Each suit is linked to an element:
- Wands → fire 🔥
- Cups → air 🌬️ (in many systems: water)
- Pentacles → earth 🌍
- Swords → water 🌊 (in many systems: air)
📌 Note: In some traditions—like the Marseille tarot—cups are associated with water (emotion), and swords with air (thought). Other esoteric schools, like the Golden Dawn, sometimes reverse this. There, swords represent the unconscious (water), and cups the conscious emotional world (air). Both systems are valid: choose what resonates with you.
Each suit has 14 cards: ten numbered cards and four court cards: King, Queen, Knight, and Page.
What Do You See in the Minor Arcana?
The Major Arcana shows life’s big themes. The Minor Arcana focuses on everyday life—your work, relationships, emotions, money, and choices. These cards reflect your current situation. They speak to your moods, desires, challenges, and potential.
Drawing a card from the Minor Arcana helps you pause and reflect. What’s going on right now? What do you really feel? What direction do you want to go?
The Meaning of the Four Suits
Each suit in the Minor Arcana represents a life theme:
Wands – fire 🔥
Wands are about energy, action, and creativity. These cards relate to passion, enthusiasm, making plans, and doing things. But also to impatience or pressure.
- Fire above earth
- Planet: Mars ♂
- Traits: strong, willful, creative
- Zodiac signs: Aries, Leo, Sagittarius
- Playing card equivalent: clubs
Cups – air 🌬️ (often water)
Cups (also called goblets) relate to love, emotion, and dreams. They show what’s in your heart—your hopes, ideals, relationships, and feelings. They may also hint at disappointment or illusion.
- Water hidden in air
- Planet: Venus ♀
- Traits: sensitive, dreamy, emotional
- Zodiac signs: Gemini, Libra, Aquarius
- Playing card equivalent: hearts
Pentacles – earth 🌍
Pentacles deal with the practical and physical world. Work, money, health, food, home, and safety. These cards also reflect habits, attachment, or the need to let go.
- Fire hidden in earth
- Planet: Earth ⊕
- Traits: practical, attached, grounded
- Zodiac signs: Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn
- Playing card equivalent: diamonds
Swords – water 🌊 (often air)
Swords speak about thinking, choices, and inner struggle. They may point to confusion, pain, fear, or tough decisions. But also to clarity, insight, and letting go of old patterns.
- Water beneath air
- Planet: Moon ☽
- Traits: thoughtful, sensitive, deep
- Zodiac signs: Cancer, Pisces, Scorpio
- Playing card equivalent: spades
The Court Cards: Four Archetypes
Each suit includes four court cards:
- King: Wise, experienced, with clear perspective.
- Queen: Caring, intuitive, and connected to her element.
- Knight: Always in motion. He seeks, acts, or explores.
- Page: Young at heart. Curious, eager to learn through action.
These cards can reflect people around you or parts of yourself. For example, the Knight of Swords is brave and quick to act, but might rush things.
The Power of Numbers
Each number carries its own energy. It adds meaning to the card:
1 – beginnings, willpower, energy
2 – partnership, balance, doubt
3 – growth, creation, development
4 – completion, safety, structure
5 – change, challenge, conflict
6 – harmony, love, decision-making
7 – reflection, doubt, depth
8 – boundaries, truth, strength
9 – seeking, solitude, courage
10 – closure, release, movement
Sometimes, the element and the number intensify each other. For example: Four of Pentacles is earth + the stable number 4 = strong earth energy. This can feel heavy or stuck, but also safe and secure.
How Elements Flow Into Each Other
The elements in tarot are connected. They blend and shift.
A feeling like love might start deep inside (water). Then it becomes a thought (air), turns into desire (fire), and finally into action or relationship (earth).
Tarot cards show how these energies work together. It’s never black and white. Everything moves.
How to Recognize the Minor Arcana
The Minor Arcana is similar to regular playing cards. Clubs = wands, hearts = cups, diamonds = pentacles, spades = swords. But tarot cards have deeper images and more meaning.
You can tell it’s a Minor Arcana card if it doesn’t have a name like The Fool or The Sun. Those belong to the Major Arcana.
Why Is the Minor Arcana Important?
The Minor Arcana speaks to everyday life. What’s happening now? These cards help you notice how you feel or what you think. They show what you need.
They don’t give fixed answers. Instead, they create space for your own truth. That’s what makes tarot so powerful.
Final Thoughts
The Minor Arcana is a rich and layered system. The more you use it, the better you understand its language. And the more you understand yourself.
Tarot isn’t about telling the future. It’s about insight. And the Minor Arcana helps bring that insight close to home.
