Tarot Lessons: The Suits and The Chakras
If you are a student of the Foundational Tarot Course, you’ll be familiar with the elemental energies and their relation to reading the minor arcana. Well, I wanted to expand on that a little bit more.
Today, I want to show how I apply the suits and their energies to the seven main energy points within the body because it’s something that has helped me massively up my Tarot reading game.
When it comes to reading the Tarot cards, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: it’s all energy.
The Four Tarot Suits and their Elemental Correspondences
I can’t really dive into the chakras without first addressing the way I see the four elements, earth, wind, fire and water and how they connect with these four Tarot suits.
Elemental energies are the main way I read the Tarot because it’s something tangible that I can grab hold of. I know what fire would look and feel like, I know what earth looks and feels like – I have real-world experience dealing with all four elements, so it makes it easier to translate higher consciousness messages into actionable advice.
If you’re not already familiar with how the four Tarot suits correspond with the four elements, it goes a little something like this:
- Wands = Fire
- Cups = Water
- Swords = Air
- Pentacles = Earth
Each of those elements conjures a feeling within us: fire ignites passion, earth offers stability, etc., so when we get a suit card, we can instantly understand what the energy of that card feels like and what it could be referring to. If we get a cups card, we know that there is water energy present, and therefore, we need to take a look at our emotional world. If a sword card pops up, then we know that it’s our mind or communication that needs to be looked at.
Elemental Correspondences with the Seven Chakras
It’s not just the suits that can have elemental correspondences; the chakras also embody the four elements. Starting from the top to the bottom, it looks like this:
- Crown Chakra – Air
- Third Eye Chakra – Air
- Throat Chakra – Air & Water
- Heart Chakra – Water
- Solar Plexus Chakra – Water & Fire
- Sacral Chakra – Fire & Earth
- Root Chakra – Earth
Unlike the suits, though, the chakras, as you can see above, can have links to more than one chakra at a time. This perfectly showcases the complexity of the human psyche, which is often why Tarot reading can be very tricky at times – there’s a lot happening inside our bodies!
We can use the elemental correspondences to identify where in the body that card’s energy is sitting, which makes it a lot easier to understand what the card is referring to. So, for example, if you get a pentacle card, you know that you’re dealing with earth energy and therefore you need to look down in the Sacral and Root chakra for answers.
If you’re thinking, “Cat, I have no idea what Chakras are or what they mean“, then don’t worry, check out this awesome beginner’s guide from Well + Good that perfectly explains all seven of the main chakras.
I often find that when people think about the Tarot, they think about fortune-telling and the cards dictating information to them, rather than relaying information that you need to hear in order to make a change and realign. Thinking about the cards in this very holistic and energy-specific way means that you stop seeing the cards as omens and more like guardian angels.
Taking this approach to Tarot has massively helped me up my well-being routines and allowed me to do inner work that has a much deeper and more meaningful outcome. Applying the Tarot suits to the key energy centres in the body is a great way to embody the guidance of the cards, rather than just allowing these messages to wash over you and leave no real impact.
If this is a way of reading tarot that feels like it could be beneficial to you, then make sure to take a look at the Foundational Tarot Course by clicking the button below. Using elemental energies like this forms a big part of how I teach tarot, so if you’d like to learn more, that’s the place to be.
