Plain-language meanings for all seventy-eight cards: no jargon, just what each one is really saying.
A tarot deck holds seventy-eight cards. The twenty-two Major Arcana are the "big story" cards, tracing a journey from The Fool's first step to The World's completion. The other fifty-six are the Minor Arcana, split into four suits that each cover a different corner of ordinary life. Every card carries an upright meaning and a reversed one (when it appears upside-down). Tarot is best used as a mirror for reflection, a way to slow down and see your situation from a fresh angle, not as a fixed prediction.
Every card below is set out the same way, and in full — around six hundred words each. On the Card describes what the picture actually shows and how it’s composed, then Symbols in the Card takes it apart one detail at a time: the images are the oldest part of tarot, and most of the meaning is already drawn into them. Upright and Reversed give the card’s two readings, and In a Reading explains what it’s actually asking of you and how it behaves beside other cards. In Your Life brings it down to love, work and you; Pairs & Combinations shows how three common neighbours change its meaning, because cards modify each other far more than most guides admit. Yes / No is the quick answer when you only asked one question, and When? gives a timing. Each card closes with a single line of advice: if you remember nothing else from it, remember that.
A note on the timings, so they read consistently rather than being invented per card. For the Major Arcana they come from each card’s traditional planet or zodiac sign: sign cards point at that sign’s season, planet cards describe a pace rather than a date. For the Minor Arcana the suit sets the unit and the number sets the count — Wands in days, Swords in weeks, Cups in months, Pentacles in seasons, from Ace as one through to Ten as ten. The court cards name a condition to be met instead of a count. Treat all of it as a lean rather than a promise: what a card really describes is how a thing moves, not the date it lands on. Reversed, timings generally stretch.