If you listen to my Self-Care Tarot podcast you’ll know that I often talk about elemental energies in relation to reading the minor arcana, well I wanted to expand on that a little bit more. Today, I want to show how I apply the suites and their energies to the seven main energy points within the body because it’s something that has helped me massively up my Tarot reading game.
When it comes to reading the Tarot cards, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, it’s all energy baby!
I wrote a whole blog about how Tarot reading works, at least my style of Tarot reading anyway. It all focuses on your energies – all the different energies that are swirling about your body fighting to be prioritised every single time you wake up in the morning.
The Four Tarot Suits and their Elemental Correspondences
I can’t really dive into the chakras without first addressing the way I see the four elements, earth, wind, fire and water and how they connect with these four Tarot suits.
Elemental energies are the main way I read the Tarot because it’s something tangible that I can grab hold of. I know what fire would look and feel like, I know what earth looks and feels like – I have real-world experience dealing with all four elements so it makes it easier to translate higher consciousness messages into actionable advice.
If you’re not already familiar with how the four Tarot suits correspond with the four elements, it goes a little something like this:
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Wands = Fire
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Cups = Water
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Swords = Air
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Pentacles = Earth
Each of those elements conjures a feeling within us, fire ignites passion, earth offers stability etc. so when we get a suit card we can instantly understand what the energy of that card feels like and what it could be referring to. If we get a cups card we know that there is water energy present and therefore we need to take a look at our emotional world, if a sword card pops up then we know that it’s our mind or communication that needs to be looked at.
Learn how the four elements help you interpret the Tarot cards in the Elemental Energies in Tarot guide and workbook
Elemental Correspondances with the Seven Chakras
It’s not just the suits that can have elemental correspondences, the chakras also embody the four elements. Starting from the top to the bottom, it looks like this:
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Crown Chakra – Air
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Third Eye Chakra – Air
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Throat Chakra – Air & Water
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Heart Chakra – Water
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Solar Plexus Chakra – Water & Fire
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Sacral Chakra – Fire & Earth
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Root Chakra – Earth
Unlike the suites though, the chakras, as you can see above, can have links to more than one chakra at a time. This perfectly showcases the complexity of the human psyche, which is often why Tarot reading can be very tricky at times – there’s a lot happening inside our bodies!
We can use the elemental correspondences to identify where in the body that card’s energy is sitting, which makes it a lot easier to understand what the card is referring to. So for example, if you get a pentacles card, you know that you’re dealing with earth energy and therefore you need to look down in the Sacral and Root chakra for answers.
Blog recommendation: A Beginners Guide to Chakra Crystals
Handy Infographic to help a little bit more
To make things a little simpler, I thought I’d pull together a handy infographic that pulls everything together. And also because I am a Canva junkie and I wanted to use the infographic templates.
You can click on the image to open it up to its full size and save it if you like for future reference.
It shows you which chakra each Tarot suit corresponds with, the elemental energy that it embodies and also the traits of each of the suits.
If you’re thinking “Cat, I have no idea what Chakras are or what they mean“ then don’t worry, check out this awesome beginners guide from Well + Good that perfectly explains all seven of the main chakras.
I often find that when people think about the Tarot, they think about fortune-telling and the cards dictating information to them, rather than relaying information that you need to hear in order to make a change and realign. Thinking about the cards in this very holistic and energy-specific way means that you stop seeing the cards as omens and more like guardian angels.
Taking this approach to Tarot has massively helped me up my well-being routines and allowed me to do inner work that has a much deeper and more meaningful outcome. Applying the Tarot suits to the key energy centres in the body is a great way to embody the guidance of the cards, rather than just allowing these messages to wash over you and leave no real impact.
If you’ve read to the end of this blog, first of all, good on you, second of all may I suggest you check out The Self-Care Tarot podcast? I cover topics very similar to this in each weekly episode and help you to use the Tarot cards in a way that helps you in personal and spiritual development.
Plus, if you’ve read through all of this and you’re like “yes! this is the type of Tarot I need right now!“ then don’t forget that you can book a video or email Tarot reading with me by heading to my Tarot Reading page.