Court Cards Made Easy

One of the biggest trip-ups in Tarot readings is knowing how to deal with the court cards. Is the court card a person? Who is it? Is it you or someone else? If it's not a person, what else can it be?

I cannot tell you how many people I talk to who are learning Tarot who say, “Brigit, I've got no idea with these court cards. Help me interpret them!”

Today, I want to share with you one of the easiest ways you can interpret the court cards in your Tarot readings. It's really important to keep it simple, and I'm going to walk you through it, plus a few other tidbits along the way to help make it nice and comfy for you when you see a court card in your next Tarot reading.

In this episode, we'll cover:

• Keeping it simple with the court cards
• Asking better questions to get more clear answers
• Understanding the energy of reversed court cards
• Getting to know  your court cards on a deeper and more personal level

Additional Resources:

• Free Workbook: 5 Simple Steps to Read with Confidence
• Blog Post: The Easiest Way to Interpret the Court Cards

Podcast Transcript

You’re listening to the Biddy Tarot Podcast, and this is Episode 77: The Easiest way to Interpret the Court Cards.

Welcome to the Biddy Tarot Podcast, where you’ll learn how to connect more deeply with your intuition and live an empowered and enlightened life with the Tarot cards as your guide. Listen as Brigit and her guests share their very best tips and strategies to help you read Tarot with confidence. And now here’s your host, Brigit Esselmont.

The Easiest Way to Interpret the Court Cards

Hello, and welcome to the Biddy Tarot Podcast. As always, it’s my absolute pleasure to be talking Tarot with you today. Do you know one of the biggest trip-ups in Tarot readings is knowing how to deal with the court cards? When you get it in a reading, and you think, “Holy moly! Is this court card a person? And if it’s a person, is it me or is it someone else? If it’s someone else, who do I know who it is? And if it’s not a person, what else can it be?” I cannot tell you how many people I talk to who are learning Tarot just say to me, “Brigit, I’ve got no idea with these court cards. Help me interpret them!”

I want to share with you today one of the easiest ways that you can interpret the court cards in your Tarot readings. It’s really about keeping it simple – trust me. It’s really important to keep it simple. I’m going to walk you through one of the easiest ways to interpret the court cards, plus a few other little titbits along the way to help make it nice and comfy for you when you see a court card in your next Tarot reading.

If we are going to keep things super, super simple (and I strongly suggest that you do if you’re at the beginning of learning how to read Tarot), then court cards are an aspect of your personality. Let me repeat:

Court cards are an aspect of your personality.

We know that there are 16 court cards in the Tarot deck, and what I believe is that each and every one of us has a little bit (or a lot) of each of the 16 court cards within us. What happens is at different times of our lives in different situations with different people in different interactions, we’re going to be expressing different parts of our personality.

For example, maybe when you're with your kids and they’re being fun and enjoyable, then maybe your Queen of Cups is coming out. Maybe then when your kids start complaining and won’t go to bed until 10 o’clock at night time, maybe your Queen of Swords reversed starts to come out. Maybe when you’re with your hubby, Queen of Wands. Or even if you're with a long-time friend, someone that you’ve known for many, many years since your childhood, maybe you get a bit more playful and your Knight of Wands comes out. Who knows?

If we see the court cards as personality, we see that we can express a court card in different times and different scenarios.

It’s not so much about “You are a Page of Wands.” It’s more that you are expressing your Page of Wands personality in a particular situation. I hope that makes sense.

Now, the other thing I think people get quite hung up on with the court cards is “Is it an actual person, and is it myself, or is it somebody else? If it’s somebody else, then who on earth is it?” This is where things can start to get really complicated, really quickly.

To keep it simple, set the intention that every time you do a Tarot reading, a court card will represent you.

For example, say you’re asking “What do I need to do to find my next job?” and you get the Page of Wands. Now, in your old way of reading cards, you might think, “Page of Wands? Is this me, or is it someone else? Is this someone who is going to get the job? Is it the person that’s going to interview me? Is it my future boss? What is this card?”

Now, in your new Tarot reading self, where you're keeping things simple, you know because you’ve set the intention that whatever court card shows up, it’s going to be about you, so you know that that Page of Wands is a part of your personality that you need to express in order to find the next job. Nice and simple, right?

A court card will represent you, unless the position of the court card appears specifically states it’s someone else.

Of course, if you were doing, say, a Celtic cross and you’ve got a court card in the external influences position, it’s not going to be about you. It’s going to be about somebody else. Let’s say it was the Queen of Swords. You might think about “Who in my life right now is expressing themselves as the Queen of Swords?” It’s not necessarily “Who is the Queen of Swords?” because I think then you can risk getting caught up with “female in her 40’s or 50’s,” things like that.

It’s more about “Who is expressing themselves as the Queen of Swords?” because they may not be the Queen of Swords. They may just be interacting with you in that particular way in that particular moment, but when they interact with someone else or time passes, you start to find that she might be more like a Queen of Cups or Page of Pentacles. It can always change.

Coming back to the point – “Is it me, or is it someone else?” Set the intention that it is you (or the person who is asking the question).

Now, as you become more confident and more experienced with your Tarot readings, then you don’t have to stick to this rule.

I find when I’m doing a Tarot reading, most of the time when I see a court card, I relate it to myself or whomever I’m reading for, but every now and then my intuition might kick in and say, “I’m not sure it’s me. I think it might be someone else or something else.” I can be more flexible, but that’s because I’m feeling really comfortable and confident with the court cards.

You’re going to feel like that soon – trust me. If you don’t feel like that now, it’s coming. It really is. But for now, to help you get really confident, just stick to that nice keep-it-simple rule, and treat a court card as a representation of you and the personality that you're expressing.

Now, you’re probably starting to realise that it’s important to make sure that it’s clear if it’s somebody else or you. I was talking before about the Celtic cross with a court card in the external influences being somebody else; it’s not you.

Ask good questions

You need to ask good questions and use good spreads to help you really determine when a court card is yourself or somebody else.

For example, if you ask “Should I move in with my boyfriend or someone else?” and then you get a court card, you might be a little bit stumped because you don’t know if it’s you, if it’s your boyfriend, or if it’s somebody else, because the question that you’ve asked is kind of a little bit all over the shop. “Should I move in with my boyfriend or someone else?’

Instead, what you need to do is plan ahead a little bit. Think about “If I ask that question and I got a court card, what would I do? Freak out? OK, I’m not going to do that.” What you might do instead is break down that question into more specific questions, or include them as positions in the spread, so it’s clear about who the card relates to.

For that example, you might ask the question “What might I experience if I move in with my boyfriend?” That’s one card. “What might I experience if I move in with myself or on my own?” There’s another card. “What might I experience if I move in with someone else?” And another card.

Now, also notice that I have shifted the question from “Should I move in with…” to “What might I experience if…” The idea around that is that you can get an idea of “If I do choose that path, this is what might happen,” versus “Should I do it or shouldn’t I do it?” Ultimately, you have the choice about whether you do it or you don’t do it.

Let’s say you asked “What might I experience if I move in with my boyfriend?” and you get the Page of Wands. Well, that Page of Wands will relate back to you, but it’s more like “What aspect of your personality will be expressed or shown if you move in with your boyfriend?” You see how that works, right? So then you're not so much worrying about if the card if somebody else, but it’s more about you and how you're relating in that situation.

The neat thing is if you’re focusing in on yourself and how you're responding and behaving and acting, that’s the bit that you can do something about.

If you ask the question “What’s my boyfriend going to be like to live with?” that’s a way to get a very specific answer. If you get the Knight of Wands, then you realise he’s going to be a little bit frisky. Things might be a bit exciting at home. Ultimately, you can make a choice about that as well. You can say “Do I want to be living with a Knight of Wands personality?” Yes, or no? Maybe not. Maybe you're in a Queen of Pentacles moment, and you think “No, I just want stability, and I don’t need lots of excitement and spontaneity and friskiness. You can still make decisions that way.

Think ahead about “What question can I ask that’s going to make it really clear if it’s myself or somebody else if I get a court card?” This takes practice. Just try it on for size. Try some different questioning techniques, and see what happens.

We’ve talked about what court cards mean (personality), and we’ve talked about whether it’s you or somebody else, and ultimately it’s you, unless you’re asking a question where it’s clearly someone else. We’ve also talked about asking good questions so that you're clear on who the card does relate to.

Now, what about reversed court cards?

You might be someone who says, “Reversed cards? No, thank you. Why are we even talking about it?” But there are many of you who do use reversed cards in your readings, and you might be wondering, “What does a reversed court card mean?”

For me, the way that I see reversals is it’s an internalisation of energy. It’s energy that’s expressed inwardly and not outwardly. The upright card is more about expressed energy outward.

In terms of a reversed court card, it might mean that there’s a private aspect of yourself. There’s part of your personality that you are keeping to yourself. You may not be expressing it outwardly.

Maybe you’re asking about work, and you had the Queen of Pentacles and the reversed Page of Cups. You might present yourself as the boss lady with the Queen of Pentacles, but underneath it all you’ve got this Page of Cups that’s wanting to be expressed, and that’s that more creative piece, or maybe even more emotional piece. But with it being in the reversed position, you don’t necessarily want it to be expressed in that environment. It can be a private part of your personality.

Now, the reversals can also be a sign that you're learning how to express this part of yourself. It’s not fully developed just yet, and it’s something that’s emerging within you, but you're not quite ready to put it out there. Maybe it’s the Knight of Pentacles reversed, and the Knight of Pentacles is often about routine and staying to a structure and so on, but with the reversal of it you might be with your training wheels on how to do routine, and you might be resisting routine, even. The upright energy of the Knight of Pentacles isn’t being fully expressed in your life at that point, but is something kind of whirring around in the background.

Here’s another example. You might ask, “What can I do to find a new job?” and you turn up the Queen of Cups reversed. There are a couple of ways of looking at this card. You might say the Queen of Cups is about emotions and feelings and communicating those feelings, but in the reversal it might be about keeping emotions to yourself in finding a new job. It could even be about self-care, using the energy of the Queen of Cups to serve yourself, instead of serving others. Or there might even be something around emotional alignment on an internal level.

As you're looking for a new job, you might want to be checking in for your emotional alignment. Does this really fit your values and how you want to feel in a job? Again, it’s that private process that’s going on. You may not be talking about it in your interviews saying, “Oh, this job makes me feel so wonderful!” It might be something that you're actually thinking about in private in your own quiet time.

The last piece I want to talk about here is how to get to know your court cards.

I am such an advocate for going beyond the book meanings and tapping into the real essence of the Tarot cards, and there’s no better way of doing that than making this personal and intuitive connection with the Tarot cards.

When it comes to your court cards, make them personal.

One way of doing this is to take out all of the court cards from your deck, and think of at least one person that you know that represents that card. You might take the Page of Pentacles and you think, “Who do I know that’s like the Page of Pentacles?” Write that down. You might also write down why you think this person is like the Page of Pentacles. Then do that for all 16 court cards, and you’ll start to get a really nice personal connection with those court cards.

Now, another exercise that you can do is for each court card ask yourself, “When am I this particular court card?” For example, “When am I the Page of Wands?” Maybe it’s when I’m following a new path, or I’m expressing a new part of myself spiritually. You might even want to relate a specific time or life experience to that card. You might think about to “When was I the Page of Wands? I remember the Page of Wands was when I was first learning Tarot, and I was learning about my own spirituality and my own spiritual path. I was excited to open up and grow on that path.” Maybe that’s the time I remember of when I was the Page of Wands. Then you might think, “When was I the Page of Pentacles? The start of my career, my first real corporate job, walking into that office in my suit and my little briefcase, and starting this new career and being all excited about it.”

Then I might fast forward and ask, “When was I the Queen of Wands?” It was only a few hours ago I was on a webinar with 50 of our community members live, and I was talking about feedback, and throughout that whole webinar I couldn’t help but just be radiating as I was talking about how to deal with client feedback. That’s an example right there.

Think about it: When am I this court card, or when was I the court card? You’ll start to create that beautiful personal connection with the courts.

Quick recap:

• Keep it simple with court cards. Treat the court cards as an aspect of your personality and as you (versus other people), unless it’s in a specific position related to other people.
• Ask good questions so that it’s nice and clear when you do receive a court card what that means and who it’s related to.
• With the reversed court cards, see them as private energy or not fully expressed energy.
• Finally, get to know your court cards on a deeper and more personal level.

Master The Tarot Card Meanings

Now, of course if you are really digging getting into knowing the court cards, then make sure you check out my online training program “Master the Tarot Card Meanings.” In this program, I show you exactly how to build a personal and intuitive connection with the Tarot using simple yet powerful techniques for interpreting the Tarot cards. I’ll show you all of the must-know systems that sit behind the Tarot cards, and I also give you an amazing amount of different exercises that you can do to really embody the cards’ energy and bring the Tarot to life so that when you go ahead and you do readings for yourself and for others, it’s as if the stories just lift up out of those cards, and you go way beyond just what you can read in a book.

By the end of the “Master the Tarot Card Meanings” program, you're going to know how to build a deep and personal connection with the Tarot cards, plus you’ll know how to intuitively and confidently interpret the Tarot cards without ever having to memorise meanings or rely on your books. Ultimately, this program is designed to help you become more confident and intuitive as a Tarot reader, and use the Tarot to transform people’s lives and make a real difference.

It’s a really special program, and you can check it out at BiddyTarot.com/MTCM. Now, if the program is closed, make sure you jump on the wait list so that you’re the first to know when the program is open again.

Awesome. I have really enjoyed talking with you about how to interpret the court cards easily and effortlessly, and now I hope that in your readings you’ll find it a lot more enjoyable when you see a court card appear. I hope you have a great week ahead, and I can’t wait to chat with you again very, very soon. Bye for now!

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