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Tarot Minor Arcana: the 56 Cards Explained

Tarot · ~9 min read

The minor arcana are the 56 cards that tell the story of everyday life: work, relationships, thoughts, money. Where the majors set the big themes, the minors show how they play out in practice. Here is the logic of the four suits, the numbers and the court cards — so you can learn minor arcana meanings without memorising 56 definitions.

What are the minor arcana for?

A Rider-Waite tarot deck has 78 cards: 22 major arcana and 56 minor arcana, divided into four suits of 14 cards each (Ace through 10, plus four court cards). The majors point to deep lessons; the minors describe the texture of your days: an argument, a project taking off, money coming in, a wave of fatigue. When a spread is full of minors, that's usually good news: the situation is concrete, actionable, and in your hands.

The four suits

Each suit corresponds to an element and an area of life. This is your first reading key: before you even know the card, the suit tells you what the conversation is about.

Wands — Fire

Energy, projects, the desire to act, creativity, ambition. The Wands sequence tells the life of an impulse: the initial spark, the expansion, the rivalries it stirs up, then the weight of carrying everything alone. This is the suit of whatever gets you moving.

Cups — Water

Emotions, relationships, intuition, inner life. The Cups follow the course of a feeling: the meeting, the sharing, sometimes the disappointment, all the way to emotional fulfilment. Lots of Cups in a spread? The question lives in the heart, not in the calendar.

Swords — Air

Thoughts, communication, conflict, truth. The Swords trace the journey of an idea: the cutting clarity of the start, then the doubts, the disputes and the rumination, up to the end of a draining mental cycle. It's the harshest suit in the deck — and often the most lucid.

Pentacles — Earth

The material world, work, the body, money, security. The Pentacles tell the story of what is built slowly: the first opportunity, the apprenticeship, the patience, then the harvest and the legacy. This is the suit of the tangible — what you can touch, count, cultivate.

The numerology of the minors

Your second key: the number. From Ace to 10, each rank carries the same energy across all four suits.

• Ace — the seed: pure potential, everything still to do.
• 2 — duality: a choice, a balance to find.
• 3 — growth: first fruits, collaboration.
• 4 — stability: consolidating, sometimes to the point of rigidity.
• 5 — crisis: friction, loss, being shaken back into motion.
• 6 — harmony: balance restored, exchange, generosity.
• 7 — reassessment: taking stock, patience, re-evaluation.
• 8 — mastery: confident movement, work that pays off.
• 9 — culmination: almost at the top, one last push.
• 10 — the completed cycle: fullness or overflow, a chapter closes.

The court cards: Page, Knight, Queen, King

Each suit has four figures, from youngest to most accomplished: the Page (learning, curiosity, a message arriving), the Knight (momentum, a quest, energy in motion — sometimes too fast), the Queen (inner maturity, the element fully inhabited) and the King (outer mastery, the element put to work in the world).

How do you read them? Three options, depending on context: a facet of yourself (the Knight of Swords might be your impatience to speak your mind), a person in your life, or a climate colouring the situation. If the card "looks like" someone specific, follow that intuition; otherwise read it as an attitude to adopt or to temper.

Learning all 56 cards without rote memorisation

There's no need to memorise 56 definitions. Cross your two keys instead: suit × number. The Five of Cups? A crisis (5) in the emotional realm (Water): sorrow, regret. The Eight of Pentacles? Mastery (8) applied to the concrete (Earth): work well done. Then read the image: the Rider-Waite puts a scene on every card, and what you spontaneously see in it is part of the meaning. Finally, keep a reading journal: note the cards and your interpretation of the day, then reread it a few weeks later. That's how the cards stop being definitions and become a language.