Four 
One of the layers of the tarot is the connection to the four directional elements. For the purposes of this book, the suits are designated using the following elements.
The Cups—Water
The Swords—Air
The Wands—Fire
The Pentacles—Earth
The strengths and weaknesses of the elements come into play with the tarot court as well as elemental chemistry. This interaction is how the elements relate to the other personalities of the cards.
Tarot readings with a high representation of any element can give you an indication of the landscape of the querent’s situation. It is also important to note what elements are completely missing, as this will also give you a lot of information on how the querent can tackle the situation.
Here is a simple sample reading with a dominant element in play and how you can incorporate your understanding of the elements to help your querent while adding depth to your readings.
This three card spread is:
1. Past
2. Present
3. Future
Three Card Tarot Spread
For this reading, our querent is going to be called Suzie. Suzie has come for a reading about her relationship. She is not sure why she keeps attracting the wrong person into her life. The cards that have come up for Suzie in her reading are:
1. The Page of Cups
2. The Seven of Cups
3. The Eight of Cups
The Page of Cups tells us that in the past Suzie has come to love with a lot of wide-eyed optimism and has been really focused on her relationships. With this being her sole focus, which is also supported by the other two cards being cups/emotions cards, she has created a situation where it is the end of her world when things don’t turn out how she expected or wanted. The Page of Cups can also represent someone who can be rather clingy emotionally and can find it hard to process and communicate their emotional needs. In other words, they throw tantrums. These are some of the factors from the past that are coming into play in the present.
The Seven of Cups in the present lets us know that she is now faced with a choice, a lot of choices, in fact. She has to decide if she is ready and willing to make a change in how she is approaching her love life and also find some ways to enrich her life outside of her relationships.
The Eight of Cups is super positive in her reading for the future. It shows that she is ready to go it alone for a while and explore who she really is. She is walking away from some prospects (represented by the cups in the tarot card), but she does so with confidence.
Suzie’s elemental reading is all about her emotions, which tells us that without the other elements present, her focus on love is actually a hindrance for her finding a relationship that is healthy and sustainable. If she can bring in some earth for grounding, self-care, and practicality; fire for creativity, inner knowledge, and ability to transform; and air for logic, inspiration, and emotional intelligence, she will be well and truly beginning to round-out her amazing capacity to love. All water all the time makes for a weeping mess when things get hard.
Apply this to the tarot court and you will also see how the querent is experiencing and dealing with their situation and how the people in their lives are interacting with them and what is happening. This is true for both the tarot court’s position—if there are a lot of queens in a reading and also their suit or if there are a lot of wands in a reading. So there can be a court station dominance as well as an elemental one represented in a reading.
The Knight of Cups is going to tackle a problem differently than the Knight of Wands. The cards hold the same position in the court hierarchy but their behaviours, reactions, actions, strengths, and weaknesses will be more aligned with their suit element. The Knight of Wands will easily take charge and will instinctively act in a situation, whereas the Knight of Cups may pause to see how they feel and what the emotional ramifications of a choice may be first.
Any court card that is a member of the wands suit will increase the energy and intensity of any of the tarot court cards of the swords suit. Fire cannot live without air—it needs it as fuel. Without air, fire will diminish. If you have a tarot reading where there are a lot of these two elements, things are very active, moving, and intense.
Pentacles and cups react with each other and increase their energy. The two heavier elements that will always look for the lowest place to settle, they support each other. If you have a tarot reading where there are a lot of these two elements, healing, and growth are themes and things may be moving a little slower.
Wands and pentacles oppose each other. Earth will put our fire. Fire cannot burn stones or soil. It is too dense. Cups and swords oppose each other. Both of these elements need a container and cannot support each other.Cups and wands also oppose each other’s energy as water is a natural extinguisher to fire.
Swords and pentacles dilute each other’s energy; they actually can’t affect each other. There is always a little air in the soil, so they can join together, but they are also very opposite feeling, air being light and quick, and earth being slow-moving and dense.
When you have laid out all of your cards, even if you conduct a tarot reading and turn over one card at a time, take a look to see what elements are at play in the reading and where their positions are. Do the cards oppose or support each other?
When the court cards are included in the reading, contemplate how their elemental association interacts with the reading, situation, outcome, and challenges. In fact, look at all of the positions in your reading. How would they deal with their situation? What are their elemental strengths and weaknesses?
This brings us to elemental actions, something else that can be brought into consideration when looking at tarot elements, which are the combination of natural state and tarot court card power, how those elements naturally are in their environment, and the reaction of the court card.
Air—Breeze, gust, tornado, flow, and pressure
Earth—Mountains, rocks, slow, and steady
Water—Moves in a cycle, always going back to the source, permeates all things
Fire—Wild, sudden, transforming, and changing everything it touches