The Four Suits
Each suit carries an element and a theme. Learn what Wands, Cups, Swords, and Pentacles are really about.
The Minor Arcana are divided into four suits, and once you know their elements you can read half a card before you know anything else about it.
Wands are fire — drive, passion, creativity, the spark of will and action. Cups are water — emotion, love, intuition, the life of the heart. Swords are air — thought, truth, conflict, the clarity and the cut of the mind. Pentacles are earth — money, work, the body, and everything you can build and hold.
When one suit dominates a reading, that element is the weather of the whole thing: a run of Cups makes it a matter of the heart; a run of Swords, a matter of the mind. Reversals and hard cards within a suit usually point to that element blocked or in excess — Swords tipping from clarity into overthinking, Cups from feeling into overwhelm.