Tag Archives: Suit Meanings

Card Reading, Cartomancy, Divination, Divination Master Post, Fortune-telling, Playing Cards, Reading Example

Reading the Colors and Suits – Cartomancy with Playing Cards

5 Comments

In playing card divination, a lot of emphasis is given to the two colors and the four suits. The two aspects must not be separated from one another as they give us valuable information. However, since the two colors are a binary distinction without much refinement, they tend to describe general trends that can be easily overruled by other considerations. It’s best to leave them out unless they strike you.

In general, red cards indicate life and movement, but an excess of red can show instability. On the other hand, black cards show inertia and slowness, but when there’s too many of them they create obstruction. A good mix of red and black shows a balanced situation. This is especially true if we are describing a situation rather than predicting an outcome. For instance, I remember once doing a reading for a friend on the beach. She had just met a new guy. The spread was:

2♥ – 7♥ – 8♥ – J♥ – 3♥

Obviously, this spread consists only of Hearts and it is only red. This is consistent with the newness of the relationship, but it also shows us that there is nothing except some infatuation going on. The cards don’t predict a breakup, but they show that the relationship won’t last after the initial excitement has gone. We would need some black cards to anchor the red ones. We don’t even need to interpret the single cards, although we could. This is a fun summertime romance. Let’s leave it at that. Result: they broke up in winter.

Here is another example. A woman was asking if there would be reconciliation with her husband.

3♣ – 2♠ – 4♣ – 6♣ – 5♣

The Three of Clubs is the marriage and the Two of Spades is the argument. My question to the querent was how long ago the breakup had happened. She said it had been less than a week. The cards are obviously predominantly Clubs and all black. Therefore, they show that inertia will prevail. They don’t show reconciliation proper. They simply show that the breakup wasn’t really a break so much as an argument. The situation is unsatisfactory, and there is no love, but the cards show that it will go on.

Now, suppose that the same question had been asked by the same person and that she had gotten the same cards, but this time the breakup had happened three months ago. There is no reconciliation in the cards, and a new status quo has set in, which will tend to preserve itself (black color)

Red and black

Let us now analyze the suits. Suits tend to reinforce their particular meaning: Spades bring sorrow and blockage, Hearts feelings and joy, Clubs work and toil, Diamonds money and energy. In the first example, we only have Hearts, which shows feelings. It would be helpful to get Clubs, because Clubs show effort, and we all know that true love is a full time job. In fact, in a larger spread, it would even be nice to see some Spades in the past position, together with positive cards showing that the couple has gone through a lot and now has reached a point of stability.

In the second example, however, we have mostly Clubs. Here there is no fun left, and the situation goes on simply because it has been going on for a while, but it remains just drudgery.

Another important thing to take notice of is when a card that symbolizes either a person or a significator for a specific question shows up surrounded by cards of the same suit, or at least by cards that give us a coherent picture.

Here’s an example. A man asked about his relationship.

4♠ – Q♣ – 5♠ – 3♣ – K♦

The woman shows up as the Queen of Clubs, surrounded by two Spades. We don’t care about which Spades. The point is that she cannot move. She is impeded in some way. The reason is given by the Three of Clubs and the King of Diamonds: she is married.

Here is another example: a man asked if his new business venture would flourish.

K♣ – J♥ – 5♣ – 8♦ – 6♣

We don’t need to spend much time fiddle-farting with card meanings. The Eight of Diamonds, the card of business, is hemmed in by Clubs. No, the business will not flourish. It won’t go belly up, but at least for a very long time it will be just toil with little rewards. Yes, we could add that that Jack of Hearts shows he’s naive, but let’s not complicate things, for now. Sometimes the prediction is just obvious.

Cartomancy, Divination, Divination Master Post, Fortune-telling, Playing Cards

Playing Cards | The Four Suits

Leave a comment

The two colors divide into four suits, two for each color.

Red splits into Hearts, which represent emotions and easy triumph, and Diamonds, which represent energy and the reward for positive action taken. Of the two, Hearts are generally more positive.

Black splits into Clubs, which represent effort and toil and the need to act, and Spades, which represent serious trouble. Of the two, Spades are more negative.

At a glance it is clear that Hearts tend to be antithetical to Spades, while Clubs and Diamonds complement each other.

Hearts signify love, family, emotion, religion, art, philosophy, nourishment, miracles, celebrations, gifts. They give freely (out of the goodness of their heart, you may say). They are connected to the home environment, and by analogy to the inner side of the individual. They are also connected to warm climates and the sea and all bodies of water. They are also erratic and lazy. They are associated with the clergy and with nobility.

Spades are the opposite. Whereas Hearts give freely, Spades take away easily. They represent obstacles, enmity, obstructions to the querent’s desires, restriction, punishment and all things that are either bad for the querent (sickness) or are neutral to positive but cause pain or are associated with it(medicine, the legal system, the state). In a word, all those things that create a rigid armor of rules and punishments that keep the individual from getting what he wants. They are associated with cold climates and the mountain, and with hostile environments in general. They are connected with the army and with the state as a means of threatening the citizens.

Hearts are Spades cannot be reconciled. They represent two opposite modes of existence: pure bliss and pure pain, heaven and hell. When only Hearts and Spades litter the reading, you have either miracles or tragedies, depending on which one prevails.

Clubs and Diamonds are the conciliation of the pure redness of Hearts and the pure blackness of Spades. They represent toil and rewards. Toil implies difficulties and the need for action (but also the possibility of action), while rewards imply some action, or they wouldn’t be rewards, but gifts (Hearts).

Clubs are associated with action, physical activity, the physical body, and with the world “out there”, as opposed to the inner reality of the Hearts. They symbolize vegetation and growth, both in plants and in humans, and they stand for the countryside and for the peasantry or with the common folk, those who need to work to get by. They also are a symbol of other people outside of the querent’s family, as an extension of the idea of “out there”. Usually, Clubs are friends or more distant relatives. Clubs are different from Spades because the latter often signify obstacles that are either impossible or very hard to plough through, while Clubs put the accent on action, and therefore on the turning of something from an obstacle into a resource. If Spades are a wall that confines the querent, Clubs are a steep slope to climb.

Diamonds show the rewards reaped from the toil of the Clubs. They signify money, energy (because money can be transformed into anything that money buys, just like energy can be transformed into anything that is made of energy). They also signify the mind and progress, inventions, etc. They are associated with the city and with merchants and the bourgeoisie. They differ from Hearts, the other red suit, because although they are still connected with some sort of inner side of the querent, it is more practical and aimed at achieving the goods of this world. It is inventiveness rather than contemplation, science rather than philosophy or religion.