Riddle me this, Tarot fans.
Cups=water
Pentacles=earth
Wands=?
Swords=?
My answer in the comments, but if you have an idea, post yours before reading mine.
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Nekodojo
Greg's Thoughts, Ramblings and Other Interesting Stuff
I have two references here that disagree on the mapping, but the one I find resonates better (the reference and their actual answer) says:
Cups=water
Pentacles=earth
Wands=air
Swords=fire
I also find the following associations that seem to make sense to me:
Cups=heart, emotion, creativity, imagination, passion, hopes, dreams
Pentacles=body, physical, material, job/livelihood
Wands=mind, inspiration, intuition
Swords=spirit, will, intention
Any other correlations that come to mind when interpreting the suits?
wands (clubs) = fire: instinct, passion, inherent strength, natural growth
swords (spades) = air: intellect, methodology, invoked force, manipulation
I don’t recall ever seeing anything that matched fire to swords and air to wands… With the decks I’ve used, it wouldn’t make sense. OTOH, all of the decks I’ve used were either based on the Rider-Waite or the Thoth, and both of these come from a Judeo-Christian tradition.
You are probably on to somethign there, it may be varied according to the deck itself.
Well, I’d move the emphasis from the deck to the tradition or discipline, because the deck takes on the symbolism and visual language of the culture it is a product of. So, I guess a more accurate answer to your initial question is another question: in which tradition and/or discipline?
If it came from the Golden Dawn or Crowley’s work, swords represent air and wands represent fire.
If it came from a Chinese framework, it could be something different altogether because many Chinese systems use five elements (earth, water, fire, wood, metal).
If it came from a Chaos Magic discipline, tubas could represent traffic and aardvarks could represent the sound that pinecones make when they drop from trees.
I’m curious as to what your references are for the swords-fire and wands-air mapping.
Wands = Air
Swords = Fire
Wands represent fire, and swords represent air.
As you may have already noticed, both elements have passionate devotees, but it is my considered opinion that one should ponder and contemplate and make one’s own decision.
Many people also try to map suits to compass directions but I think that’s trying too hard, myself.
You are right of course. The correlation (concordance?) seems to be a bit random at best. I have also seen relationships with “humors” (blood/sanguine, bile, choler, etc).
The more different meanings you can attach to something, the more likely you are to find an alternate interpretation of somethign that resonates for a particular situation.
The more different meanings you can attach to something, the more likely you are to find an alternate interpretation of somethign that resonates for a particular situation.
Conceded. And although I was dubious about ‘arbitrary’ meanings, after a minute’s thought I realized that pretty much any of these meanings could be classed as, to some degree, arbitrary.
And, for what it’s worth, I usually see Wands as air and Swords as fire.
I believe wands are air and swords are fire.