0: The Fool
Innocence at the beginning of life. Our “true”, unbound self which we’d all like to believe
exists deep down even if it really doesn’t. Totally spontaneous with nothing to tie them down,
they do not let their experiences control them and instead act on pure instinct.
1. Trust things will work out alright, especially if you’re about to begin something.
2. If people are telling you what to do, trust your inner self more.
3. Failure to follow your instincts or take chances.
4. Recklessness, not being aware enough of your surroundings. The dog’s trying to warn
you back from the edge!
5. Misguidedly trying to force foolishness, doing something crazy for the sake of being
crazy instead of trusting yourself to do what’s right or wise for you naturally.
1: The Magician
Consciousness, action, creation. Turning potential into something real, giving life a direction.
The wand is a lightning rod through which ideas flow into him, but he also knows how to
discharge them through the finger.
1. An awareness of mental power in your life.
2. Someone else’s energy affecting you.
3. Inspiration to start a new project or the energy that sustains you through it.
4. The willpower that comes from focusing on set goals.
5. Confusion or lack of drive that paralyzes you, like depression.
6. Someone who abuses their strong personality.
7. Intense fear and panic that feels like lightning.
2. The High Priestess
Passivity and the wisdom gained from it, mystery, darkness, intuition. Beyond the veil lies the
unconscious mind, if we only knew how to access it.
1. Mystery, things we either do not know or cannot know.
2. Withdrawal, either in a good or bad sense.
3. Great potential not yet realized, or perhaps at this rate not going to be.
4. Fear of life and other people because you withdrew too much.
5. A shift towards passion and involvement with others and with life
6. Losing sense of your inner self because you focus too much on the outside
3. The Empress
Love and sexuality, gentleness and emotion. The passionate, intense approach to life, possibly
at the expense of reason and a moral code. The natural world.
1. A time where we focus on feelings and pleasure over thought, usually but not always in
a good way.
2. Trying to repress your emotions or sexuality.
3. Calm, intellectual awareness, especially where you might have used emotion before.
4. The Emperor
Societal authority and its rules, both written and unwritten. “The system”. Stability. Social
customs good and bad.
1. An encounter with law or custom, good or bad.
2. Stability in your life.
3. A person in your life with great power over you, hard or soft.
4. Benevolence and compassion to temper authority.
5. Immaturity, inability to make hard decisions.
5. The Hierophant
Guides for the masses who aren’t part of the government: priests, educators, etc. and their
doctrines. People who answer our questions and tell us what to think.
1. Orthodoxy, conformity and surrendering personal responsibility to those two. The
Emperor is external enforcers, the Hierophant is our internal obedience.
2. The benefits of education and received culture.
3. Forming original ideas, whether right or wrong.
4. Rejecting one dogma just to fall for another.
6. The Lovers
Love and sexuality, obviously, but also difficult life-changing choices (do you choose your
parents or your lover?). Passion joining with reason to reach a higher level, in this case
through love, but only while the love or sex is at its peak.
1. The importance of love or a specific lover in your life (or an ex!).
2. Choosing between one person/group and another, especially a choice between living
for others and asserting your individuality.
3. The urges we all get to abandon our lives and do something completely different.
4. A destructive or abusive love, or an unproductive way of loving, or a problem
experiencing love at all.
5. Romantic immaturity, clinging to childish romantic fantasies.
7. The Chariot
The strong, mature will which bends the world and its own passions to it. It understands
civilization perfectly, but not necessarily itself or fate; everything is rational for it, and it might
only keep its control through great effort. It can control dualities but not truly reconcile them.
1. Victory, especially through force of personality.
2. A sign that a “won” situation has not been entirely solved, the contradictions were just
brought under control.
3. Willpower alone has not solved this problem; perhaps it is out of our hands.
