Queen of Tarot

The ancient wisdom of the cards

Tarot Reading What lies in my future?

Reading Performed 01/02/2021 at 6:27 PM

Click or scroll down for the meaning of each position and the interpretation of its card.

Visual Layout

The Meanings of these Tarot Cards

Card One

Ace of Cups from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck

Card Meaning When Upright

House of the true heart, joy, content, abode, nourishment, abundance, fertility; Holy Table, felicity hereof.

Card Description

The waters are beneath, and thereon are water-lilies; the hand issues from the cloud, holding in its palm the cup, from which four streams are pouring; a dove, bearing in its bill a cross-marked Host, descends to place the Wafer in the Cup; the dew of water is falling on all sides. It is an intimation of that which may lie behind the Lesser Arcana.

Card Two

Judgement from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck

Card Meaning When Reversed

Weakness, pusillanimity, simplicity; also deliberation, decision, sentence.

Card Description

I have said that this symbol is essentially invariable in all Tarot sets, or at least the variations do not alter its character. The great angel is here encompassed by clouds, but he blows his bannered trumpet, and the cross as usual is displayed on the banner. The dead are rising from their tombs--a woman on the right, a man on the left hand, and between them their child, whose back is turned. But in this card there are more than three who are restored, and it has been thought worth while to make this variation as illustrating the insufficiency of current explanations. It should be noted that all the figures are as one in the wonder, adoration and ecstacy expressed by their attitudes. It is the card which registers the accomplishment of the great work of transformation in answer to the summons of the Supernal--which summons is heard and answered from within. Herein is the intimation of a significance which cannot well be carried further in the present place. What is that within us which does sound a trumpet and all that is lower in our nature rises in response--almost in a moment, almost in the twinkling of an eye? Let the card continue to depict, for those who can see no further, the Last judgment and the resurrection in the natural body; but let those who have inward eyes look and discover therewith. They will understand that it has been called truly in the past a card of eternal life, and for this reason it may be compared with that which passes under the name of Temperance.

Card Three

The Sun from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck

Card Meaning When Reversed

The same in a lesser sense.

Card Description

The naked child mounted on a white horse and displaying a red standard has been mentioned already as the better symbolism connected with this card. It is the destiny of the Supernatural East and the great and holy light which goes before the endless procession of humanity, coming out from the walled garden of the sensitive life and passing on the journey home. The card signifies, therefore, the transit from the manifest light of this world, represented by the glorious sun of earth, to the light of the world to come, which goes before aspiration and is typified by the heart of a child. But the last allusion is again the key to a different form or aspect of the symbolism. The sun is that of consciousness in the spirit - the direct as the antithesis of the reflected light. The characteristic type of humanity has become a little child therein--a child in the sense of simplicity and innocence in the sense of wisdom. In that simplicity, he bears the seal of Nature and of Art; in that innocence, he signifies the restored world. When the self-knowing spirit has dawned in the consciousness above the natural mind, that mind in its renewal leads forth the animal nature in a state of perfect conformity.

Card Four

Two of Cups from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck

Card Meaning When Reversed

Love, passion, friendship, affinity, union, concord, sympathy, the interrelation of the sexes, and--as a suggestion apart from all offices of divination--that desire which is not in Nature, but by which Nature is sanctified.

Card Description

A youth and maiden are pledging one another, and above their cups rises the Caduceus of Hermes, between the great wings of which there appears a lion's head. It is a variant of a sign which is found in a few old examples of this card. Some curious emblematical meanings are attached to it, but they do not concern us in this place.

Card Five

Knight of Pentacles from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck

Card Meaning When Upright

Utility, serviceableness, interest, responsibility, rectitude-all on the normal and external plane.

Card Description

He rides a slow, enduring, heavy horse, to which his own aspect corresponds. He exhibits his symbol, but does not look therein.

Card Six

Ten of Swords from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck

Card Meaning When Upright

Whatsoever is intimated by the design; also pain, affliction, tears, sadness, desolation. It is not especially a card of violent death.

Card Description

A prostrate figure, pierced by all the swords belonging to the card.

Card Seven

Nine of Cups from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck

Card Meaning When Upright

Concord, contentment, physical bien-etre; also victory, success, advantage; satisfaction for the Querent or person for whom the consultation is made.

Card Description

A goodly personage has feasted to his heart's content, and abundant refreshment of wine is on the arched counter behind him, seeming to indicate that the future is also assured. The picture offers the material side only, but there are other aspects.

Card Eight

The Empress from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck

Card Meaning When Upright

Fruitfulness, action, initiative, length of days; the unknown, clandestine; also difficulty, doubt, ignorance.

Card Description

A stately figure, seated, having rich vestments and royal aspect, as of a daughter of heaven and earth. Her diadem is of twelve stars, gathered in a cluster. The symbol of Venus is on the shield which rests near her. A field of corn is ripening in front of her, and beyond there is a fall of water. The sceptre which she bears is surmounted by the globe of this world. She is the inferior Garden of Eden, the Earthly Paradise, all that is symbolized by the visible house of man. She is not Regina coeli, but she is still refugium peccatorum, the fruitful mother of thousands. There are also certain aspects in which she has been correctly described as desire and the wings thereof, as the woman clothed with the sun, as Gloria Mundi and the veil of the Sanctum Sanctorum; but she is not, I may add, the soul that has attained wings, unless all the symbolism is counted up another and unusual way. She is above all things universal fecundity and the outer sense of the Word. This is obvious, because there is no direct message which has been given to man like that which is borne by woman; but she does not herself carry its interpretation. In another order of ideas, the card of the Empress signifies the door or gate by which an entrance is obtained into this life, as into the Garden of Venus; and then the way which leads out therefrom, into that which is beyond, is the secret known to the High Priestess: it is communicated by her to the elect. Most old attributions of this card are completely wrong on the symbolism--as, for example, its identification with the Word, Divine Nature, the Triad, and so forth.

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Card Nine

Wheel of Fortune from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck

Card Meaning When Upright

Destiny, fortune, success, elevation, luck, felicity.

Card Description

In this symbol I have again followed the reconstruction of Eliphas Levi, who has furnished several variants. It is legitimate--as I have intimated--to use Egyptian symbolism when this serves our purpose, provided that no theory of origin is implied therein. I have, however, presented Typhon in his serpent form. The symbolism is, of course, not exclusively Egyptian, as the four Living Creatures of Ezekiel occupy the angles of the card, and the wheel itself follows other indications of Levi in respect of Ezekiel\'s vision, as illustrative of the particular Tarot Key. With the French occultist, and in the design itself, the symbolic picture stands for the perpetual motion of a fluidic universe and for the flux of human life. The Sphinx is the equilibrium therein. The transliteration of Taro as Rota is inscribed on the wheel, counterchanged with the letters of the Divine Name--to shew that Providence is imphed through all. But this is the Divine intention within, and the similar intention without is exemplified by the four Living Creatures. Sometimes the sphinx is represented couchant on a pedestal above, which defrauds the symbolism by stultifying the essential idea of stability amidst movement. Behind the general notion expressed in the symbol there lies the denial of chance and the fatality which is implied therein. It may be added that, from the days of Levi onward, the occult explanations of this card are--even for occultism itself--of a singularly fatuous kind. It has been said to mean principle, fecundity, virile honour, ruling authority, etc. The findings of common fortune-telling are better than this on their own plane.

Card Ten

Queen of Cups from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck

Card Meaning When Reversed

The accounts vary; good woman; otherwise, distinguished woman but one not to be trusted; perverse woman; vice, dishonour, depravity.

Card Description

Beautiful, fair, dreamy--as one who sees visions in a cup. This is, however, only one of her aspects; she sees, but she also acts, and her activity feeds her dream.

Card Eleven

Eight of Pentacles from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck

Card Meaning When Upright

Work, employment, commission, craftsmanship, skill in craft and business, perhaps in the preparatory stage.

Card Description

An artist in stone at his work, which he exhibits in the form of trophies.

Card Twelve

Ten of Pentacles from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck

Card Meaning When Reversed

Chance, fatality, loss, robbery, games of hazard; sometimes gift, dowry, pension.

Card Description

A man and woman beneath an archway which gives entrance to a house and domain. They are accompanied by a child, who looks curiously at two dogs accosting an ancient personage seated in the foreground. The child's hand is on one of them.

Card Thirteen

Seven of Wands from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck

Card Meaning When Upright

It is a card of valour, for, on the surface, six are attacking one, who has, however, the vantage position. On the intellectual plane, it signifies discussion, wordy strife; in business--negotiations, war of trade, barter, competition. It is further a card of success, for the combatant is on the top and his enemies may be unable to reach him.

Card Description

A young man on a craggy eminence brandishing a staff; six other staves are raised towards him from below.

Card Fourteen

Four of Wands from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck

Card Meaning When Reversed

The meaning remains unaltered; it is prosperity, increase, felicity, beauty, embellishment.

Card Description

From the four great staves planted in the foreground there is a great garland suspended; two female figures uplift nosegays; at their side is a bridge over a moat, leading to an old manorial house.

Card Fifteen

Ace of Wands from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck

Card Meaning When Reversed

Fall, decadence, ruin, perdition, to perish also a certain clouded joy.

Card Description

A hand issuing from a cloud grasps a stout wand or club.

Card Sixteen

Ten of Cups from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck

Card Meaning When Upright

Contentment, repose of the entire heart; the perfection of that state; also perfection of human love and friendship; if with several picture-cards, a person who is taking charge of the Querent's interests; also the town, village or country inhabited by the Querent.

Card Description

Appearance of Cups in a rainbow; it is contemplated in wonder and ecstacy by a man and woman below, evidently husband and wife. His right arm is about her; his left is raised upward; she raises her right arm. The two children dancing near them have not observed the prodigy but are happy after their own manner. There is a home-scene beyond.

Card Seventeen

Five of Pentacles from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck

Card Meaning When Upright

The card foretells material trouble above all, whether in the form illustrated--that is, destitution--or otherwise. For some cartomancists, it is a card of love and lovers-wife, husband, friend, mistress; also concordance, affinities. These alternatives cannot be harmonized.

Card Description

Two mendicants in a snow-storm pass a lighted casement.

Card Eighteen

Nine of Wands from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck

Card Meaning When Reversed

Obstacles, adversity, calamity.

Card Description

The figure leans upon his staff and has an expectant look, as if awaiting an enemy. Behind are eight other staves--erect, in orderly disposition, like a palisade.

Card Nineteen

Ace of Swords from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck

Card Meaning When Upright

Triumph, the excessive degree in everything, conquest, triumph of force. It is a card of great force, in love as well as in hatred. The crown may carry a much higher significance than comes usually within the sphere of fortune-telling.

Card Description

A hand issues from a cloud, grasping as word, the point of which is encircled by a crown.

Card Twenty

The Hermit from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck

Card Meaning When Reversed

Concealment, disguise, policy, fear, unreasoned caution.

Card Description

The variation from the conventional models in this card is only that the lamp is not enveloped partially in the mantle of its bearer, who blends the idea of the Ancient of Days with the Light of the World It is a star which shines in the lantern. I have said that this is a card of attainment, and to extend this conception the figure is seen holding up his beacon on an eminence. Therefore the Hermit is not, as Court de Gebelin explained, a wise man in search of truth and justice; nor is he, as a later explanation proposes, an especial example of experience. His beacon intimates that "where I am, you also may be." It is further a card which is understood quite incorrectly when it is connected with the idea of occult isolation, as the protection of personal magnetism against admixture. This is one of the frivolous renderings which we owe to Eliphas Levi. It has been adopted by the French Order of Martinism and some of us have heard a great deal of the Silent and Unknown Philosophy enveloped by his mantle from the knowledge of the profane. In true Martinism, the significance of the term Philosophe inconnu was of another order. It did not refer to the intended concealment of the Instituted Mysteries, much less of their substitutes, but--like the card itself--to the truth that the Divine Mysteries secure their own protection from those who are unprepared.

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Card Twenty One

Three of Swords from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck

Card Meaning When Reversed

Mental alienation, error, loss, distraction, disorder, confusion.

Card Description

Three swords piercing a heart; cloud and rain behind.

Details of this Tarot Reading

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