World Tarot Day

For the first time ever I am celebrating World Tarot Day! To be fair I had no idea it existed, but it makes total sense. There are days celebrating so many weird, wonderful and not so wonderful things.

Of course, Tarot Day requires a special post, and I was thinking, what should I write about? I did not want to write a vague post that would contribute nothing or that would just be foggy and incense smelling. I decided to write something that celebrates the Tarot by speaking about its complexities.

As today is a day, my mind went to time and I thought, what better topic than Tarot’s links to time and how it expresses time.

All the information I am sharing is available in the thousands of books about the tarot, easily available online, but this brief, easy and digestible pieces of information that I am sharing is just meant to give you an idea of the topic and then, the world is your oyster, if you are interested to learn more about it.

I did mention this before, I am quite fascinated by the technicalities of the Tarot, not just its magic and mysticism, although I have to be honest, I also do strongly believe in them, in the alchemy between the tarot, the human existence and our minds, that leads to magical and unexplainably accurate readings.

So, about Tarot and Time.

One of the things that fascinated me very early about the Tarot was that the cards are not just random symbolic images floating in mystical space. There is an actual structure behind them. Layers over layers of correspondences, systems, patterns and link that connect the cards to astrology, numerology, elements, seasons, planets and, of course, time itself.

The more you study the Tarot, the more you realise that many of these old systems were trying to create a symbolic map of human existence using archetypes and the knowledge we had gathered that far.

One of the simplest examples is the connection between the days of the week and planetary energies.

Monday is traditionally associated with the Moon. Tuesday with Mars. Wednesday with Mercury. Thursday with Jupiter. Friday with Venus. Saturday with Saturn and Sunday with the Sun.

And because the Tarot also has cards associated with planets and zodiac signs, some cards naturally resonate more strongly with certain days.

For example, Monday and The Moon card make perfect sense together. Intuition, emotions, dreams, uncertainty, inner worlds, all those very lunar things. Friday connects beautifully with The Empress because of Venus, beauty, pleasure, creativity, love and abundance. Sunday and The Sun card are probably the most obvious pairing in the deck. Even somebody who never picked up a Tarot deck can almost instinctively understand that one.

Some Tarot readers actually pull cards differently depending on the day, or pay more attention to certain themes during certain planetary days. But that is for the experts, I am not that skilled yet.

And this is where Tarot slowly stops feeling like ‘pick a random card and invent a meaning’ and starts feeling much more like a symbolic language with its own internal logic. Although, intuitive readings are very accurate also, they use our internal symbolism.

Another fascinating layer is astrology.

The Major Arcana cards are also connected to zodiac signs and planets. The Emperor is associated with Aries, Strength with Leo, Death with Scorpio, The Star with Aquarius and so on.

This means that certain cards can feel stronger or more relevant during certain periods of the year.

For example, Scorpio season already carries themes of transformation, endings, emotional intensity and rebirth. So, if the Death card appears during that period, many readers would interpret it diferently than if it appeared at another time of the year. Not necessarily as a literal ending, but more as part of a natural cycle of change already happening around us.

And then we get into the really interesting territory: Tarot and timing.

This is probably one of the most debated subjects in Tarot reading because, unfortunately, the cards do not come with subtitles saying ‘this will happen next Thursday at 4:37 PM.’ Life would certainly be easier if they did.

Still, over time, different systems appeared that tried to estimate timing through the cards.

One popular method connects the suits to different speeds of manifestation.

Wands are usually associated with days because they are fast, fiery and energetic.

Swords are often connected to weeks.

Cups to months.

Pentacles to years because they are slower, material and grounded.

So, for example, if somebody pulls the Three of Wands regarding an upcoming event, some readers may interpret that as roughly three days. The Three of Cups may suggest three months and the Three of Pentacles could point toward something developing over a much longer period.

Of course, Tarot is never mathematics. It is symbolic language. Sometimes frighteningly accurate symbolic language, but still symbolic.

Another beautiful structure hidden inside the Tarot is the connection between the suits and the seasons.

Wands are connected to Spring.

Cups to Summer.

Swords to Autumn.

Pentacles to Winter.

And once you notice this, the emotional atmosphere of the suits suddenly makes so much sense.

Wands feel energetic and full of movement, just like Spring.

Cups feel emotional, fertile and overflowing like Summer.

Swords often carry tension, reflection and difficult truths, very similar to Autumn, when things begin to die away and the world becomes sharper and colder.

Pentacles feel stable, practical and slow, like Winter itself.

Even numerology plays a role in how Tarot expresses cycles and time.

All Aces carry the energy of beginnings.

Threes usually represent growth and expansion.

Fives bring instability, conflict or disruption.

Nines often feel like the final stretch before completion.

Tens represent the end of a cycle and the transition toward another one.

This repeating structure is one of the reasons Tarot starts feeling strangely coherent once you study it long enough. The cards may look mystical and chaotic at first, but underneath them there is an almost architectural framework holding everything together.

And honestly, this is one of the things I love the most about the Tarot.

Not just the mystery.

Not just the magic.

But the strange feeling that behind all these images of towers, moons, skeletons, lovers, suns and wandering fools, there is an attempt to understand time, human nature and existence itself through symbols.

And whether one believes the Tarot is mystical, psychological, spiritual or simply a fascinating symbolic system, I think there is something undeniably beautiful about that.

Happy World Tarot Day All!

Fruitful Readings!