June Oracle Study Group: Playing Cards

Morwenna

Sorry I haven't looked in on the thread in a while.

I've seen Spades as Earth before, when Diamonds are Air. Clubs as Air is logical, if you go with the Wands=Air Tarot system.

But I don't get Diamonds=Water and Hearts=Fire. I suppose one could rationalize that emotions can be fiery...
 

Mi-Shell

Oh!
Thanks for your input, Morwenna!
I also thought, that this whole system is odd.....
The card images are beautiful, and maybe the deck is great for playing games, but for card readings - I am not so sure......
 

Morwenna

Yes, I am wondering that as well.
When I look up "standard Playing cards meanings", then I get the feeling, that my cards do not reallly jive with them,
the Hearts are Fire - predators,
the Clubs are Air - birds
the Diamonds are Water = Water Beings and
the Spades are Earth - Herbivores
I always figured the Spades as representing Air and that messes me up.....
Maybe I was wrong there to begin with?
What are your thoughts, Morwenna?

Thank you for having a look! ♥

Sorry I took so long... :(

Well, some systems discard the Tarot equivalency and use Spades for earth, and trade them for Diamonds. This especially jibes with those who call the Diamonds the fairest-haired people and Spades the darkest. (My mother always said that Hearts were the fairest-haired, but oh well...)

I suppose one could look logically at the connections in a different way. Spades, for example, are derived from Swords (look at the Italian word for the Sword suit). But in English a spade is a garden shovel. A modern interpretation, true, but a valid one.

But I can't see Diamonds as meaning anything but Earth anyway--unless you look at the way actual diamonds are spoken of by jewelers. I don't remember the exact words, but there's something to do with water... maybe the clarity...

Hearts can be passion, which can be represented by fire. In popular lyrics it often is.

As for Clubs=air, that's one interpretation of Wands in Tarot as well, though not the more common one (there are threads about that controversy).

The only problem with these is that their common suit meanings go more with their Tarot ancestors than with these other interpretations. For instance, Spades is usually the suit of troubles. (But just to throw a monkey wrench into this too, the Scandinavian--and German, as I've learned recently--use the Clubs as the trouble suit... Well, if air = the trouble suit, that might explain the use of Wands for air in some Tarot systems, the ones from which clubs=trouble are derived.)

I guess you just have to pick your battle. :)