nisaba
<grin> You're right, it's been asked (and answered) in this very thread more than once, but I'm happy to explain.
Pentacles are years because they are Earth, and of all the four elements Earth is the slowest-moving.
Cups are months, because they are Water, and water is more fluid and mobile than Earth, but less fluid and mobile than either air or fire, and so is second-slowest.
Swords/Air comes next, because it is faster-moving than Water and so represent weeks.
And lastly Wands are fastest of all, at days, because Fire is the underlying energy that powers the movements of everything else: Earth, Water and Air. Fire can also be seen as Light, and scientists tell us that nothing can move faster than light.
This is all just common sense applied to periods of time.
Sometimes there is a little room for overlap. I suppose, this is just a function of how many cards are in each suit. When I talk to clients, I always express time in terms such as "approximately four days" or "about eight months". You couldn't double-check a chronometer with it and it's not an exact enough stopwatch to time an Olympic race, but it is accurate enough.
I decided on this method some time in the late 1980s, I think, and I decided it was much more accurate when you used a separate deck to the one you are actually doing the reading with, a few years later, probably in around 1993 or 1994.
Pentacles are years because they are Earth, and of all the four elements Earth is the slowest-moving.
Cups are months, because they are Water, and water is more fluid and mobile than Earth, but less fluid and mobile than either air or fire, and so is second-slowest.
Swords/Air comes next, because it is faster-moving than Water and so represent weeks.
And lastly Wands are fastest of all, at days, because Fire is the underlying energy that powers the movements of everything else: Earth, Water and Air. Fire can also be seen as Light, and scientists tell us that nothing can move faster than light.
This is all just common sense applied to periods of time.
Sometimes there is a little room for overlap. I suppose, this is just a function of how many cards are in each suit. When I talk to clients, I always express time in terms such as "approximately four days" or "about eight months". You couldn't double-check a chronometer with it and it's not an exact enough stopwatch to time an Olympic race, but it is accurate enough.
I decided on this method some time in the late 1980s, I think, and I decided it was much more accurate when you used a separate deck to the one you are actually doing the reading with, a few years later, probably in around 1993 or 1994.