Colors Associated with Suites and Elements

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 24 Jan 2004, and now archived in the Forum Library.

WalesWoman	24 Jan 2004
I'm sure I've seen color associations with the different suits and now can't find them, nothing in any of the books I have or in my notes. Just got a commission and I'm working on a project for someone creating Goddesses, R/T to Tarot and Astrology, sort of for a web site. I'm basing each Goddess on the four Queens, Seasonal, Elemental, and qualities each represents. The only thing I can think of is; pinks, pale blues, pastels for Spring/Water/ Cups, strong yellows, reds and green for Summer/Fire/Wands, oranges, rusts, reds, browns for Fall/Earth/Pentacles, blues, purple, greys, black, white, silver, for Winter/Air/Swords. I'm actually doing 5, the Main Goddess and then the "sub-Goddess" So I thought of the archetype of the Empress for the Central figure, but she is Spring...so that is making me run in circles and I'm not wanting to get dizzy from this. I'm thinking the World Dancer would be the best lady for the job. Any clues or suggestions, am I getting on the right train here?

Macavity	24 Jan 2004
Perhaps this would give you some ideas? http://realmagick.com/articles/77/1977.html I'd imagine selecting one or two main colours and then blending in others, dependent on artistic feeling... or some colour theory? Perhaps, if your deities have a zodiacal association, you could also use one of the colours associated with planets or signs? There are also the Golden Dawn and Qabalistic colour scales (qv) used by Frieda Harris in the Thoth deck. These are documented here and there - Otherwise, the Thoth Court cards may be helpful in this respect? Some of the other card colours, though thoroughly purposeful, may not look quite as "natural" to the non-Tarot eye? ;) Macavity P.S. As a non-artist, faced with a website colour selection task, I scanned in some Tarot related book covers, Tarot Cards etc., reduced the pallet to fewer colours, then found the nearest web-safe colour etc. Barring Copyright - Whatever works? })

WalesWoman	24 Jan 2004
Wow, really nice references there at that site for colors and meanings. Thanks a lot, I think that's a great beginning for me.

Mystic Zyl	25 Jan 2004
I have always associated yellow and silver with east the swords...green with pentacles the north...blue with cups the west and red and black with wands the south.

WalesWoman	25 Jan 2004
Wonderful, I'd completely forgotten about the directions!!!!

Osher	23 Feb 2004
The Tarot of the Old Path uses colours, flowers, in fact every element, even the tree used for the rods, to indicate something. Maybe investigate this side for some answers? Personally, that is one reason why I love TotOP so much.

The Colors Associated with Suites and Elements thread was originally posted on 24 Jan 2004 in the Talking Tarot board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Talking Tarot, or read more archived threads.