Welcome to the fourth lesson in my Reading Tarot series! If you’ve missed the first few lessons in this series go check it out first. Previously we covered patterns in numbers.
In this lesson, I will go through balance in the cards, referring to negatives and positives, reversed meanings and distribution of suits in spreads. For this lesson I used my trimmed Wild Unknown Tarot.
Reading Layers & Patterns
In these couple of lessons, I will focus on reading various types of layers and patterns in the cards to help you out when interpreting readings. Some of these methods may be more applicable to how you read than others, but being aware of the various ways may help you get a general feeling of the reading more quickly.
The 4 layers & patterns I will be going over in the series are as follows:
- The Fools Journey, seeing growth or progress in the cards
- Numbers and their themes
- Balance, reversals and distribution of suits
- Depiction, or visual clues
Balance Layers
We can find balance in everything in our lives, and so too, in Tarot. This is a way of reading most often attributed to reading reversals, which I have covered in the blog before. However, we find balance in more than just when we read reversals.
For those unaware, “Reversals” refers to when the card faces us upside down in a reading. Some people choose not to shuffle reversals into their decks, and others swear by it. With how I have learned to read Tarot reversals are important, but it is not required to successfully read Tarot, but the idea of it can be applied to most if not all types of card divination.
It is likely you have certain associations with some of the cards that lean more towards negative or positive connotations. With negative cards people often think of the suit of Swords, the Tower and maybe even Death, whereas more positive cards you may think of the the suit of Cups, the Sun and the Lovers for example. Usually the cards we associate one way or another are depicted or described in their meaning to be more one or the other. However, I’m here to tell you there’s a balance of negative and positive in EVERY card. Some are more a ’50/50′ kind of deal, and some more a ’90/10′ situation. Even the most positive cards can have a negative edge, and even the most negative can bring you a splash of good.
Let me give you an example. The Empress is a card often associated with the divine feminine, growth, fertility, creation and nurturing. She’s often depicted as a pregnant lady. We would probably say that the Empress is a positive leaning card. So what are her negative attributes then if there’s balance in every card? Let’s take the aspect of nurturing. Taking care of others is seen as a positive thing, but when taken too far can become smothering, or mean one neglects themselves in the process. A mother who is too protective of her young, restricts them and their growth, only inviting anxiety when she cannot exert the control of safety and comfort for them.
Another example. The Tower is a card often seen as a bad omen bringing with it massive upheaval in ones life. It is a revelation that shakes your very foundation and will bring with it unexpected change. As often depicted too, it hits like lightning. How can something so devastating to one’s life be positive? People absolutely do not like change, especially when they cannot prepare for it or if it means they have to admit they were wrong or misguided to end up in this situation. However, change means growth. Insight often means truth, and allows you to rebuild something with that insight and the growth that came with such revelation. Making mistakes and accepting them while hard and unpleasant, will help us in the long run.
It is definitely easier to see the positive and negative sides of some cards over others. Sometimes context helps you understand the good or the bad, the cards around it in a spread. In general, understanding both sides of a card will help you better understand it’s theme and why even bad things though unpleasant, are important in life.
Suit of Swords
I want to go over the suit of swords specifically, as it is notorious for being seen as the ‘bad’ suit, compared to the other 3 suits in Tarot. I often hear people say they find the suit overall incredibly unbalanced when compared to the others, having a definitely more negative leaning feel to it. I must admit that I felt this sentiment too before I went to study the cards more deeply when I made my own Tarot deck, but have since gotten a better understanding of it.
The suit of Swords is also often linked to the suit of Spades in playing cards, and definitely is a more negative suit in those systems, being often seen as a firm no, or not without a challenge or sacrifice.
The suit of swords rules the mental landscape. Our thoughts, ideas and communication but also our fears, distrust and the mental component that is part of emotionally loaded situations where we rationalize, or over-analyze things. It is knowing when to move past something, the importance of communication and how to overcome challenges we often impose on ourselves.
I do still think it is a tad more negative leaning than some other suits, but that may also be because it’s so very confronting. By no means am I saying the other suits are all sunshine and rainbows, but they feel more balanced, be it in how they are often described or depicted. The negative side to the suit of Pentacles often hints at poverty, the suit of wands often conflict or competition and the suit of cups often emotional distress, while these are all things we can and to some degree definitely experience, it feels much more situational and less confrontational than what goes on in our minds, unless you have specifically experienced those negative aspects in severe cases. I think we can link the negativity in the swords back to the other suits quit well.
The only way you will see something negative in a more balanced light, even if it’s just a little bit of positivity, is by looking into it. The cause, the effect, the results and what they might mean in the context.
Fear was definitely the strongest keyword I found in this suit myself, but also, that we have the ability to dispel it inside ourselves. That doesn’t always mean to just take the leap of faith, sometimes it means accepting the situation for what it is and what you can work with. Fear and understanding is what this suit really is about.
Balance patterns in spreads
Stepping out of the negative and positive meanings themselves, the distribution of balance in a spread can give us some context. I don’t mean balance as in, things being equal, but more so, do the hypothetical scales weight more one way or another. When I speak of balance in readings I look at 3 things:
- The amount of reversed vs. upright cards
- The amount of challenging vs. easy cards (negative vs positive in some cases)
- The distribution of the Major and Minor Arcana and the 4 suits.
Reversed doesn’t equal opposite meanings, at least, it doesn’t have to. However, it does often indicate there is something going on there, there’s more attention in that part of the spread. Distribution of attention is a part of reading balance.
Challenging cards can be negative cards, but often are cards that hint towards themes you or the querent have difficulty with, that hint at change or complicated situations with other people involved. Easy cards are often cards about stability, new starts and are often more positive or neutral leaning cards. Knowing how challenging or easy the context is may give you an indication of it’s balance.
The distribution of the Major and Minor Arcana and the suits tells you the balance in context. Major’s are bigger life themes vs the more everyday spiel of the Minor Arcana. Having more of one particular suit means it’s more leaning to that theme, for example an excess of Cups means it will be more emotionally involved.
All these ways of reading layers and patterns can be overwhelming if you try to apply them all, so I advice to just try them out one by one and see for yourself what works for how you read the cards.
Balance Exercises
To see if you understand balance as a way of reading, you can try to answer the following questions for yourself, or do the following exercise to become more familiar with it.
- What do we mean with balance in the cards?
- Why can the suit of swords be considered more negative?
- What are ways of reading balance in spreads?
Exercise: The Light and Dark
What you need: a deck and/or source with card meanings, Notepad
The purpose of this exercise is to better understand the layers of cards you have a more black or white look towards. What I ask you to do here is similar to how I went over the Empress and Tower earlier in this lesson.
For this exercise you take a card that you associate almost exclusively positive or negative, or significantly more leaning one way or the other. Go over the meaning and depiction and ask yourself why you feel this way about it, what motivates or supports that association. Next you will try to see what the opposite side of it is. If it was a negative card, what good can we find in it or can it bring, and if it was positive, what negative aspects can it have. Again, try to support your argument with the depiction or meaning, or similar context.
That’s it for now! Check out Lesson #5 – Reading Layers & Patterns 4: Depiction next.
Path of Ashes 