Kings representing female querents? And queens males?

I'm quite good at tarot except a few cards give me trouble, still learning the meanings to court cards, pentacles and wands. My huge struggle is the court cards (especially pentacles and wands). Everyday I do reading to get over my struggles but today I hit a huge speed bump . I was doing just a general reading asking how I should go about my day when I pulled the king of cups! I was baffled as heck..I mean I know that men can be represented as queens, females Kings..but I've never had this happen before! Plus struggling with the courts as it is I'm not sure how to interpret this. Maybe it's saying I need to be more emotionally "dominant"? I'm so lost as to how to interpret Kings and queens when the querent is the opposite gender. Please help.

Think of the Courts as representing energies or progress along a spectrum. Both the Queens and Kings represent mastery of the suit's qualities. Being a Water card, the Queen represents internal mastery of the characteristics. The King is a Fire (or Air, depending on which system you use) card, so he represents mastery of the characteristics that can be applied externally.

We can't discuss the specific card as a) it appears you're talking about a complete reading and those are discussed in Your Readings and b) you haven't interpreted the card yourself. So what we can discuss here in UTC is strategies for interpreting the cards without actually interpreting them.

That actually helps a lot. I just need a general strategy for interpreting when a querent is signified by an oppsite gender card. So queens are internal while males are external expressions of their energies?

AngelicCartomancer said:

That actually helps a lot. I just need a general strategy for interpreting when a querent is signified by an oppsite gender card. So queens are internal while males are external expressions of their energies?

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Yes, so a K can take the Q's internal energy and express it out to the world.

Thanks for the help! I can see the meanings way clearer now then just get hung up on the gender itself. Thanks rwcarter! Things make much more sense and I can continue to learn easier without one more struggle added to the mix.

AngelicCartomancer said:

Thanks for the help! I can see the meanings way clearer now then just get hung up on the gender itself. Thanks rwcarter! Things make much more sense and I can continue to learn easier without one more struggle added to the mix.

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You're welcome. I've been working with tarot for 26 years and still don't have a complete grasp of the courts myself. One of these days I'm going to devote some serious time into fully understanding the courts.

I hope to devote more time with the courts myself. I think books and resources don't focus on them as much as they should. Also not in depth enough.

I think of the courts like this and this elemental system works for me but it differs from the one that most people seem to use:

Pages - Air - beginnings, immaturity, people who need to learn the lesson of their suits eg. Page of Pentacles - needs to gain practical experience, messengers.

Knights - Fire - action, movement, change (speed depending on the element).
More mature than the Pages but still not reached full maturity in the realm of their element - think teenage mentality.

Queens - Water - Mature, has reached a level of mastery of their element that's internal so they understand their elements and how they affect themselves and others.

Kings - - Earth - The master of their elements and they've reached the level of maturity that allows them to manifest their elemental qualities in the world in general so for example, the King of Cups can control his emotions and he's good at helping others, the King of Wands is showy, has a fiery temperament and is a good leader.

Every time I read a new book (and I've been reading a lot lately, the Kindle and an exercise bike make a perfect combination ), I'm especially interested in how the court cards are presented. In practice, I take a different approach depending on whether I'm reading for another person or myself.

Reading for myself, unless the circumstances clearly indicate another person, I consider the court cards to primarily show characteristics or attitudes I should either adopt or avoid in the situation, and secondarily as impersonal forces that may be at work in the matter. There are no gender-unique aspects involved, the focus is more elemental. I use the Golden Dawn model of Pages as Earth, Knights as Air, Queens as Water and Kings as Fire.

Reading for others, I first explore whether they represent other people who may be involved, since that usually gets the most immediate reaction. After that, I go into the ideas of personal attributes and/or external forces. If I happen to be using a significator card in the spread, I ask the sitter to choose one from a range of options; usually they just go by the visual appearance rather than my "personality type" explanation.

My long-standing approach in reading the courts has been to use Aleister Crowley's "moral characteristics" from the Book of Thoth as a place to start.

This is a wonderful question. I've been playing around with Tarot ever since I got a reading when I was 16 , nearly 40 years ago. It's only recently I've understood the journey and how it applies. Lots of psychic experiences in the past 18 months helped me. I guess it was time.

In regards to your question: Yesterday I did a reading about a meeting I have today with a woman. She has always been the QofS. I asked how she would be with me in our meeting. The KoC came up. I interpreted this as: She would keep her emotions in check.

But I what Barley wine says makes great sense and this by rwcarter "Yes, so a K can take the Q's internal energy and express it out to the world." makes me worry about my meeting today. If the QoW woman I'm meeting today uses KoC energy to bring out her worst. Hmm.

Here is a video bye Kelley-Ann Maddox that helped me understand some things about the court cards: https://youtu.be/OX3ELopQShM?list=PLC3EaiC721EJ68B6c0USOju9gT8ZKVmAF

Melanchollics pips and court thread helped me understand lots too. Here: http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=112327