Erica Tucci

You know…in all my excitement around the Tarot and starting the “card of the week” exercise to hopefully provide insights that may help you in making decisions in your life, I neglected the most basic concern. And that is, if you don’t know or understand the Tarot, what I have been blabbering about for the past few weeks may not amount to a hill of beans! Soooo, I would like to give a brief explanation of how Tarot works so that you may see how it can be a powerful tool in giving you direction in every aspect of your life. Working with it helps you to completely accept yourself and learn how to handle the trials and tribulations that are an inevitable part of the cosmic dance of life. Perhaps I might even entice you to learn Tarot for yourself. 🙂

The Tarot is a deck of 78 cards made up of the Major Arcana (22 cards) and the Minor Arcana (56 cards). The Major Arcana symbolizes the “Way of the Hero,” a quest to become an integrated and balanced person, using archetypes that symbolize all the different stages we go through on our path to evolution.

This quest is often called the “Fool’s Journey” because it starts with the Fool archetype (or Initiate, as it is called in the Wizards Tarot deck, which is what I use), which symbolizes the beginning of everything, even before it becomes tangible. During his/her quest to reach the point of complete fulfillment, which is symbolized by the final Major Arcana card, the World, the Fool will encounter all the other archetypes, each representing a different step of the individuation process. Basically, there are three primary phases of the quest, as symbolized by the Major Arcana cards: developing one’s basic drives (comprising the first six cards), construction of ego (comprising the next seven cards) and integration of our conscious and unconscious (comprising the final nine cards).

Then there are the Minor Arcana cards, which are broken up into four suits: Cups, Pentacles, Swords and Wands. Within each suit, there are ten number cards and four court cards: the Page, Knight, Queen and King. Whereas the Major Arcana cards reflect the key archetypes and spiritual lessons in our life, the Minor Arcana reflects the more mundane, day-to-day activities.

What I would like to do for the next several weeks is to elaborate on the three phases of the Fool’s Journey, giving a brief description of the cards in each phase. Then I would like to discuss each of the four suits, reflecting on what each represents in one’s life. Finally, I would like to tell a bit of history of the Tarot so you can see how rich the relationship is between the Tarot’s symbolism and our understanding of the latent knowledge of humankind and the collective unconscious.

There is no end to the knowledge one can attain about the Tarot or the wisdom it imparts, but I hope that by giving you a taste of what it is about, you will see why it can be such a compelling form of guidance as you travel through the labyrinth of your life.

If you’re interested, please subscribe to my blog by clicking the Subscribe button below, to keep receiving posts that I hope will be inspiring and enlightening to you. And if you would enjoy getting a Tarot reading from me, click here.