Tarot as Representations
So one of the recommended uses I talk briefly about in my zine, tarot in the time of the apocalypse, is to use tarot cards as icons in a parred down travel altar set up. What I didn’t get into too much is how to select these cards to use as representations. I wrote the zine originally with a more experienced practitioner in mind and thought that most folks would select a card based on intuition.
Which will totally work. But recently as I was using cards to set up a petition, I realized there was a lot more I could have said there. Some of it
Astrological Representations
So a lot of people know that Tarot has astrological associations. I knew about a lot of these but I’ve been learning about so many more recently. You can use these associations to create representations of your work with the planets for petitions, prayers, or other workings. If you have decks you don’t need, you can us the card as a base to attach paper talesmins to and give them some rigidity while adding to the correspondences (good for if you need to tuck it in a car visor or a book). Really there are so many options for using tarot as representation for astrological concepts.
The classical planets and the 12 zodiac signs are the most agreed upon from what I can tell and they are as follows.
Classical Planets
Moon - the High Priestess
Sun - the Sun
Mercury - the Magician
Venus - the Empress
Mars - the Tower
Jupiter - the Wheel of Fortune
Saturn - the World
The Moon card is traditionally associated with the sign of Pisces but I’ve swapped these out a few times and not noticed a major difference. I have also substituted Judgement for Saturn when not working with them in an earthly or cthonic capacity and that’s worked alright for me. I try to stick to the traditional associations when reading a spread but when picking a representation it seems like it’s slightly less important.
Outer Planets
Uranus - the Fool
Neptune - the Hanged One
Pluto - Judgement
These are less agreed upon but what I’ve found most common. I use them when reading but I will swap them out when picking a representation. I think they work okay for the most part. But truthfully I don’t work with the outer planets a whole lot and don’t often need a representation of that.
Zodiac Signs
Aries - the Emperor
Taurus - the Hierophant
Gemini - the Lovers
Cancer - the Chariot
Leo - Strength
Virgo - the Hermit
Libra - Justice
Scorpio - Death
Sagittarius - Temperance
Capricorn - the Devil
Aquarius - the Star
Pisces - the Moon
Just as a note, the signs also correspond with parts of the body and can be used to represent requests or petitions in that way too. I have some times used the Emperor (the sign of the head) and the Moon (the feet) to represent that my request is for my whole body. It’s too much to fit into this article but it’s easy to find on Google and something to add into the language of what you can represent.
Representing Fixed Stars
It’s become more popular to work with fixed stars of the Zodiac (Deneb Algredi, Algol, Regulus, etc) and one way I’ve been using to set up an altar to the ones I work with is to select the tarot card that corresponds to the decan that the fixed star is found in and par it with the Star card.
The decans and card associations are too many to list here but the principle is fairly straight forward. There are 4 elements of the zodiac (Fire, Earth, Air, Water) and they correspond with the four suits of the Tarot (Wands, Pentacles, Swords, Cups; respectively). The Aces embody the elements themselves. Without the Aces, each suit has 9 cards, that are then divided by the three modalities of the Zodiac (Cardinal, Fixed, and Mutable). Each of these modalities has three cards representing the three decans of each sign. Each decan covers 10 degrees of a sign and have associations themselves.
Cardinal signs are at the beginning of each season, so they are equated with the beginning of each suit (2,3,4). Fixed signs are in the middle of each season, so they are equated with the middle of each suit (5,6,7). Mutable signs are at the end of each season, so they are equated with the end of each suit (8,9,10). Using this you can figure out what decan belongs with which sign.
Say you want to represent Algol, who is at 26 degrees Taurus. Taurus is a Fixed (5,6,7) Earth (Pentacles) sign. 26 degrees is between 20-30 and so is in the last decan of Taurus. Meaning the card you’d select would be the 7 of Pentacles.
Sun, Moon, Rising
So on occasion, when I realize I probably won’t be using a deck but I want to keep it around, I’ll pull a few of the cards and use them as artwork. One way I’ve done that is by displaying my Sun, Chart Ruler, and Rising Sign using Tarot Cards. I don’t have any presently to show as an example but I will get stiff paper, attach cards in a grid, and put it in a cheap frame. Now that I know the decans, I would also include the decans in addition to or replacing the sign cards. I use the World here for Rising Sign because it has felt right to me and at one point incorrectly learned Saturn as being associated with Judgement so I still use that when laying out cards for this kind of artwork.
For instance:
The Sun - The Chariot - 2 of Cups
The World - The Devil - 3 of Pentacles
Judgement - The Star - 3 of Swords
Hell of a combination, I know. The reason I’ve done Chart Ruler instead of Moon is purely because I have a total solar eclipse in my natal chart so they’d use the same sign and decan cards and this way I don’t have to have a second deck.
I’m actually working on turning this layout into a spread/worksheet. More on that in another post though.
Deity Representations
I have used tarot cards as deity representation a lot in my practice, especially with travel altars as I mentioned. But it really could be extended to others as well. This is where there’s more intuition and less structure to go off of so what I say here is by no means law. Artwork of the cards themselves will dictate quite a lot.
For the Greek and Roman deities associated with the planets, the choice is pretty easy; the Magician can be a representation of Mercury, the Empress for Aphrodite, etc. For Kemetic deities that were syncretized with Greek and Roman deities, you can also use those correspondences too. I have used the Magician card to stand in for both Hermes and Yinepu for instance.
For other deities, my recommendation is to stick with the court cards as your basis. These already are often read as actual people in a given situation and the artwork in a lot of decks will only include a single person - which is just helpful for me personally when using it as a representation in an altar set up.
However, where you want to call a deity in a specific role, combining a court card and a major arcana can be really powerful. When I use the cards in my work the Morrigan, I always use the Queen of Swords as my base. But if I want to call her in her role as prophetess, I might combine the Queen of Swords and the High Priestess. If I want to call her in her role as battle raven, I might combine the Queen of Swords and the Tower.
If you work with the Elements as entities or as guardian spirits, you can utilize the Aces for their representation as they are the embodiment of the purest qualities of each element. This also works in combination with a Court Card for deities you are calling in connection with their association with an element. Say if I wanted to represent Geb, I might use the King of Pentacles and the Ace of Pentacles.
Ancestor Representation
I have not done a lot of this personally though in the times I have tried it, it has worked pretty well. Court Cards not only refer to people but often have associated ages as well and in a pinch I’ve used the Court Card associated with the gender and age that someone passed away. I have not used this yet for someone who has passed away that was nonbinary but I would probably default to using the Knight or the Page as they’re less gendered, even though they correspond with younger age groups. It’s imperfect and I’ll write more on this later as it evolves.
The age groups associated with the court cards (as I learned them) are:
Page: young, usually under 35
Knight: someone mid career, age 35 - 50
Queen and King: someone at their height or who has reached old age, 50+
I tend to pick the suit for what they were most known for; were they really emotionally oriented (Cups), did they work really hard (Pentacles), were they especially known for their intellect (Swords), or were they fiery and artistic (Wands)?
If you want to use the cards to honor your dead generally, you can always use a representation of a psychopomp who opens the way for you if that’s a part of you practice. You can also just use the Death card, perhaps in combination with the Six of Cups. I am much more likely to do this than represent a specific ancestor but I have needed to on occasion and this is roughly what I used.
Spellwork Representations
This honestly could - and hopefully will - be it’s own article or zine at some point but I did want to mention a little bit on using the cards for spellwork on the fly. The main ways I’ve used them so far is either to petition the spirits of the Major Arcana for assistance or use the pips to specify what I want to happen.
The former is pretty straight forward. I personally have found the Major Arcana to be spirits in of themselves, which makes sense to me coming from a Chaos magic background, and I have petitioned them with offerings like I would any other spirit. The Magician has seemed to be most open to this so far but others are helpful in their own ways.
The latter works the best if you’ve worked with the cards long enough to understand their concrete meanings. Often beginners will have these very general understandings, that are still accurate by all means, but hard to take action on. If you’re at a point in your tarot practice where you can see for instance the 4 of Wands know it’s connotations with marriage and contracts or the 9 of Swords associations with bringing on nightmares, then this method should work for you.
Sometimes I’ll combine this with a deity representation and lay a pip before it as my petition and then give offerings and burn a candle or incense. Just using them as representations for what I want to happen alone hasn’t worked well but using them in combination with something else has. Have someone walk over the 5 of Pentacles or 3 of Swords enough times and there will be consequences. Just as walking under the 6 of Wands or the 10 of Cups will bring blessings.
Conclusion
So I hope this was helpful to someone out there. It’s been super helpful for me to just grab my deck and go in so many situations. I can grab it and then scrounge for offerings when I get some place and not feel like I’m without something core to what I need.
And I know there are so many variations on this. This is by no means the be all end all of how you can use them and I do hope to expand on some of them in later writing, but I do think this is a decent springboard to experiment with.
How do you use your tarot deck for representations?
Bringing back this classic.
Not sure if the anon the other day follows me, but here are some concrete ways I incorporate tarot in my life.
This is something I want to get back into - I was keeping the tarot card for the planet that rules each day on my desk and it was very grounding.
For those interested:
Monday - the Moon - (traditionally) the High Priestess, (modern) the Moon
Tuesday - Mars - the Tower
Wednesday - Mercury - the Magician
Thursday - Jupiter - Wheel of Fortune
Friday - Venus - the Empress
Saturday - Saturn - (traditional) the World, (some modern) Judgement
Sunday - the Sun - the Sun
Get fancy, make it a little ritual. Burn some frankincense and say one of these hymns and give any prayer requests. Play a song for them.
Other Thoughts:
Thinking of getting a 3 card tarot display stand so I can have the Sun card out with the card for the sign the Sun is in and the minor arcana card for the decan it’s in. Or my the same thing but for my time lord for the year (this year it’s Mercury, might be hard next year when it’s the Moon).
I’ve considered using the Aces to represent aspects to use a display as a reminder of a transit I want to stay mindful of.
Ace of Cups - conjunction
Ace of Pentacles - trine
Ace of Wands - square
Ace of Swords - opposing
But I haven’t tested that out yet and it’s not rooted in a traditional correspondence. So.
But yeah - hope this helps some folks who followed because that ask got a little traction.
