The Four Suits of the Minor Arcana

The fifty-six Minor Arcana are organized into four suits, and their old Italian names still show through in most modern decks: Wands (originally Batons), Cups, Swords and Pentacles (originally Coins). Each suit runs from Ace through Ten, plus four court cards — Page, Knight, Queen and King — for sixteen cards per suit.

Wands are usually read as the suit of action, ambition, creativity and raw energy — the "what am I doing" of a reading. Cups cover emotion, relationships and intuition — the "what am I feeling." Swords deal with thought, conflict, communication and difficult truths — the "what am I thinking," often the suit associated with tension. Pentacles (or Coins) are grounded in the material world: money, work, health, the body — the "what am I building."

Noticing which suit dominates a spread is often more useful for a beginner than reading every card in isolation. A reading full of Swords points to a mental or communication-heavy situation; a reading full of Cups points to something emotional underneath whatever question was actually asked.