I'm Ruined!

[CassieR-1]

Does anyone else see Swords as Fire, Cups as Air, Wands as Earth and Coins as Water?

A long time ago I stumbled on this suite arrangement and it made so much sense to me:
Swords as used in passion and are made by fire (Fire), Cups or drinks are often used when people are talking and sharing ideas (Air), Wands or Batons were used in the fields by farmers (Earth), and back when tarot was made or popular as a gaming deck water or ships were the main way of making money (Water).

I loved it! It's easy for my newbie brain to remember, was very understandable, and quickly stuck with me. I used it for a bit but, me being me, I missed my other tarots, so I picked up my Waites and tried to give myself a refresher course only to learn... Rider-Waite meanings are EXTREMELY CHALLENGING to learn now. Like next level, equivalent to learning a foreign language, challenging!

I was looking at the suites I used to know and thinking, "How in the heck is Sword's Air?"

Has anyone else anyone experienced anything like this before and how did you break it? Or do you have any advise for those who learn another set of meanings before learning the RWS meanings?

 

[The Happy Squirrel]

From my limited understanding, cups, swords, batons, and coins used to represent the various classes in society at the time: swords for knights and the ruling classes, coins for merchants and those involved in trades, cups for the princes of the church and batons for the working classes. So swords is air as in the mind, the cerebral. Cups is water as in the spiritual and emotional side of life. Batons / stave is fire as in passion and the physical energy. Coins is earth as it is highly tied to earthly resources. I have seen decks where the elements are tied to different suits. Silicone Dawn is one of those, and the creator explained very well why she swapped the elemental attributions. My knowledge in this is limited though. So I am sure others can clarify.

 

[madhatter00o]

Rider-Waite meanings are EXTREMELY CHALLENGING to learn now. Like next level, equivalent to learning a foreign language, challenging!

I was looking at the suites I used to know and thinking, "How in the heck is Sword's Air?"

Has anyone else anyone experienced anything like this before and how did you break it? Or do you have any advise for those who learn another set of meanings before learning the RWS meanings?

I think you're right to view it as learning a new language. Sometimes, decks or one's personal approach demands understanding a system in a certain way, and that's fine. ALL decks don't have to be (nor should they be) read in the same way.

Carrying on the new language thing, last semester, I started taking Chinese. (Keep in mind, I was taking these classes in Japanese, so there were a few levels of translation at work... @_@) Anyways, two things in particular were challenging in learning Chinese.

First, the characters were simplified, meaning that they looked slightly different from their Japanese counterparts - the ones I know and recognize. Luckily, the simplification was uniform, so I just had to think, "Okay, so this part here is the simplified part of that part there. Okay... remember that!"

Second, some of that characters that are the same are used for different (though somewhat related) things. For example, the character for "book" in Japanese is used as the "[counter]" for book in Chinese (like, "one book, two books..."), and of course they're pronounced completely differently... XP

Anyways, the point I want to make is that your swords=fire, cups=air, etc. model is just as valid as the RWS elemental system; it's just speaking a different language. Air will always have airy qualities of intellect and communication. Fire will always be about passions that incite action. And so on. To understand the RWS (or any other Deck system that deviates from what you know best), it helps to bracket the system that you first learned (your "first language" or "mother tongue," if you will) and think, "Okay, so Fire is still fire, but it's assigned to wands [or whatever the deck says] here."

Much like if you were to go into a party and everyone was speaking Spanish or French, you have to mentally prepare yourself to be speaking that language all night. (Thankfully, a tarot reading doesn't take all night! ^_^; ) Likewise, when you go to start using the RWS deck, think to yourself, "Okay, I'm not speaking Deck A language right now; I'm in RWS mode."

I hope this helped or at least gave you a new perspective to think about as you learn different decks!

Good luck!

~ Hatter

 

[CassieR-1]

From my limited understanding, cups, swords, batons, and coins used to represent the various classes in society at the time: swords for knights and the ruling classes, coins for merchants and those involved in trades, cups for the princes of the church and batons for the working classes. So swords is air as in the mind, the cerebral. Cups is water as in the spiritual and emotional side of life. Batons / stave is fire as in passion and the physical energy. Coins is earth as it is highly tied to earthly resources. I have seen decks where the elements are tied to different suits. Silicone Dawn is one of those, and the creator explained very well why she swapped the elemental attributions. My knowledge in this is limited though. So I am sure others can clarify.

Which I get, or used to, my problem is the inconsistency behind those meanings. All of the other meanings tie to how they are used/made.Period. And as such you can easily connect them to the elements. But RWS meanings seem to jump around:

Swords connects to the mind (Mind)
Cups to the holy grail (Item)
Batons to how it is used (Uses)
Coins to how it is made (Manufacturing)

I am finding it hard to see the connection between the elements to those suites because I don't see the consistency behind why it was pick out of all the attributes connected to those items. Yes, you can say social status but it almost seem like someone had two list (one with Items and one with meanings) and was trying to connect those two together the best they could. And why is it connected to social status? These are items used by everyone at that time, at least middle class and up, right? I hope this makes sense.

 

[CassieR-1]

I think you're right to view it as learning a new language. Sometimes, decks or one's personal approach demands understanding a system in a certain way, and that's fine. ALL decks don't have to be (nor should they be) read in the same way.

Carrying on the new language thing, last semester, I started taking Chinese. (Keep in mind, I was taking these classes in Japanese, so there were a few levels of translation at work... @_@) Anyways, two things in particular were challenging in learning Chinese.

First, the characters were simplified, meaning that they looked slightly different from their Japanese counterparts - the ones I know and recognize. Luckily, the simplification was uniform, so I just had to think, "Okay, so this part here is the simplified part of that part there. Okay... remember that!"

Second, some of that characters that are the same are used for different (though somewhat related) things. For example, the character for "book" in Japanese is used as the "[counter]" for book in Chinese (like, "one book, two books..."), and of course they're pronounced completely differently... XP

Anyways, the point I want to make is that your swords=fire, cups=air, etc. model is just as valid as the RWS elemental system; it's just speaking a different language. Air will always have airy qualities of intellect and communication. Fire will always be about passions that incite action. And so on. To understand the RWS (or any other Deck system that deviates from what you know best), it helps to bracket the system that you first learned (your "first language" or "mother tongue," if you will) and think, "Okay, so Fire is still fire, but it's assigned to wands [or whatever the deck says] here."

Much like if you were to go into a party and everyone was speaking Spanish or French, you have to mentally prepare yourself to be speaking that language all night. (Thankfully, a tarot reading doesn't take all night! ^_^; ) Likewise, when you go to start using the RWS deck, think to yourself, "Okay, I'm not speaking Deck A language right now; I'm in RWS mode."

I hope this helped or at least gave you a new perspective to think about as you learn different decks!

Good luck!

~ Hatter

Lol thank you! I am starting to think I might have to treat the RWS like I treat Japanese.
"She is a girl and also Shi, a sound used in the Japanese Language, get used to it!"

I just wish there was a reason behind it to better help me understand.

 

[angelika]

Some are clearer to me than others. But the Pentacle was a symbol associated ( amongst other things) with merchants before tarot came about. So the earthy nature of money is clear to me here. Cups hold water and water has been associated with feelings and intuition in many cultures for a long time. The other two are less obvious I would agree.

 

[The Happy Squirrel]

For me:

Knights and the ruling classes: the mind
The clergy: the spirit
Merchants: earthly things
'Working' classes: physical energy

Sword = knights and Kings (glory, honour, courage, noble, war, conquest)
Chalice = church and clergy (holy grail, blood of Christ in mass, centre to the Eucharist, etc)
Coins = commerce (money)
Stave = the most raw of all the symbols as you could just snap it off a tree

 

[Grizabella]

If you think of Wands as being torches, that might help.

Coins, of course, are money but in most decks associated with pentacles.

Cups hold liquids and are associated with the feelings.

Swords swish through the air.

I don't have any trouble with associating those things. But this is why I encourage people to learn on Rider Waite. Once you've learned on that, then it's easy to read almost any deck, where if you start with another type of deck, you may end up only able to read that one deck well and not others.

Have hope, though. I'm sure you can adapt much more easily than you now imagine possible.
​

 

[CassieR-1]

If you think of Wands as being torches, that might help.

Coins, of course, are money but in most decks associated with pentacles.

Cups hold liquids and are associated with the feelings.

Swords swish through the air.

I don't have any trouble with associating those things. But this is why I encourage people to learn on Rider Waite. Once you've learned on that, then it's easy to read almost any deck, where if you start with another type of deck, you may end up only able to read that one deck well and not others.

Have hope, though. I'm sure you can adapt much more easily than you now imagine possible.
​

Oh! I hope this didn't come across wrong I still love the system and meaning but I just didn't think that the two would be so different that France and English were closer. I think this is more of an cautionary tale to the 5% of RWS beginners who, who actually look for another system other then RWS, because a book mentioned there was others and they felt they had the means memorized and "down."

Thank you for the quick associations to help me remember the suites. While I am still extremely curious as to why they were chosen in the first place, I think I can at least start re-learning the RWS and not slamming books closed, more confused then I started

Out of curiosity, do you know any other meanings besides the RWS ones? And how did you learn the system without issue?

 

[AJ]

I use this mental cheat sheet

Swords = knowledge
Cups = pondering that knowledge
Wands = action on knowledge
Coins = result