You have entered the world of intrigue, power, strong wills, and changing faces. History has shown that the royal court can be a dangerous place where people hold their cards close to their chest (no pun intended) and missteps can lead to grave misfortune at the hand of powerful players. That may be a clue as to why the court cards are so hard to understand when they appear in a tarot reading. People are always changing and wear many masks.
When I first started to study the tarot seriously, I would have readings where the court cards came up all of the time. It was incredibly frustrating, but it did force me to learn how to connect and communicate with these important cards in the tarot.
The court cards can be some of the hardest to understand in the deck. I decided to write this book and these exercises to provide you with a further understanding of the cards so that you won’t remove them from your decks (yeah I know you are out there) and the colour will not drain from your face when you flip over a court card. Fear not, the court cards are there to help you better understand yourself and the people around you. They can do this by identifying limiting patterns in your personal and professional lives and allowing you to lean into your strengths. Even after working through this book, the tarot court may still confuse you from time to time, but a little mystery is a good thing.
One of the amazing things about the tarot is that you never stop learning, because there are so many layers to the cards. The meaning and experience of the cards can change depending on the question you ask, the position the card is in, and what cards are next to each other. We all bring our own history and set of experiences to the table as well, which is another layer added to a tarot reading. This is why it can take years to become a proficient tarot reader and a certain knack for being a good tarot reader.
This book will help you explore the court cards in more than one way. This really is a “getting to know your court” book. So the fact that there is more than one definition given or question posed is purposefully done.
The more you work with the tarot, the more you will learn and become comfortable, recognising when each card means a certain thing.
There are a number of exercises in this book and I highly recommend that you use a notebook or blank journal to record your journey. I have a number of notebooks that I use for the tarot and I always date the entries so that I can look back and reflect. Being a visual learner, I really enjoy a brightly coloured journal and have decoupaged my own many times for my notes. Use whatever medium works best for you.
When it comes to selecting a tarot deck to work with try to find a deck with beautiful, detailed, engaging court cards, make sure that the images resonate with you. The more you like the look of the cards or the more they speak to you, the better your experience will be. Don’t be worried if you have a less than positive reaction to some of the cards. That is normal. For example, I find that sometimes the ugliest card of the court is the Queen of Swords, and she is my significator card! I still love her stern face anyway.
Tarot Jargon—significator—This is a card that signifies the person the reading is about. This can be yourself, your client or a third party. It can help anchor the reading so that the outcome is clearer and specifically about that person. For readings where you use a significator, you do not need to interpret the significator cards; they are there to anchor a reading and hold a representational energy.
The most common feedback I have had over the years from students and fellow tarot readers is that when a court card appears in a reading, it is hard to ascertain whether it represents a person in the querent’s life or an aspect of the querent themselves. Or to be really tricky, both. They can be complicated because people are complicated.
Tarot Jargon—querent—The querent is the person the tarot reading is for, the person asking the questions of the cards. It can be yourself if you are reading for personal development and knowledge.
My way of seeing the tarot court is that they are a representation of the archetypes in our lives and the way we interact with the people in our lives. You will know who they are when they arrive in a tarot reading through the behaviours and interactions the querent is experiencing in their situation. This statement is bolded for your benefit as this is important information to remember throughout the rest of the book. If there is just one thing that you take from this whole book when you are looking at identifying the tarot court in your tarot reading, it is paying attention to the behaviours and interactions at play.
Asking what behaviours and interactions you are experiencing and/or seeing in your life will allow you to get to the heart of the tarot court cards at play, and you will know through these if they are the people around you or if they are aspects of yourself. When you are reading the tarot for another person, you can describe the tarot court cards that are in the reading and ask them if any of the behaviours and interactions ring true to their situation or if it is how they are acting and reacting.
Even if every sixth sense you have is telling you that your querent is one of the court cards, remember not everyone is ready or willing to see themselves in a mirror, which is essentially what the tarot is; a spiritual, archetypal, symbolic mirror. When a court card arrives in a reading and it is a positive, vibrant addition, then people are more likely to want to associate themselves with the card. It can be harder to navigate the people and personalities of the tarot when they are reflecting unattractive and difficult behaviours.
Fear not if you are a tarot reader who is just beginning your journey with the tarot and the tarot court by extension. You will cultivate your skills over time and with practice. Every tarot reader, student, professional, and adept has been told they are wrong or at least not 100 percent correct at some point in their journey. If they deny this, they are full of shit. So the tarot court cards are a little elusive, but don’t let that scare you off. They also hold so much knowledge and opportunity to understand ourselves and the people in our lives.
Your Tarot Court is a book that will help you peel back the layers of the tarot court cards and get to know them all deeply and personally. Each chapter presents you with information you can use as beautiful building blocks that will round out your knowledge of these elusive characters and ensure that these tricky bastards don’t trip up your readings ever again.
This book has been written so that the information presented in each chapter is a building block. These are meant to be used together. Each time you learn something new about a tarot court card member, you are adding another layer to your building knowledge. The book is designed to be read in order and the exercises in the book are placed to help you put the information in the relating chapters into use.
There is a section at the back where you are given quick glance cheat sheets on each of the tarot court members, which can be used to refresh your memory if you need to confirm key information or themes—or if you just like to read your books backward. The information presented in those cheat sheets will make a lot more sense if the book has been read in order, but it is also comprehensible enough if you have a good working foundation of the tarot already. So basically, read the pretty words I wrote for you.