A full tarot deck has 78 cards. Of these, 22 are the Major Arcana and the remaining 56 are the Minor Arcana. The two carry a different weight and texture in a reading.
Major Arcana — The Big Turns in Life
Running from The Fool (0) to The World (21), these 22 cards represent the major turning points and archetypal themes we face in life — love, death and rebirth, awakening, fateful transitions. When several Major cards show up in a reading, it's often read as a sign that this is a genuinely significant period in your life.
Minor Arcana — The Details of Everyday Life
The remaining 56 cards split into four suits — Wands (fire), Cups (water), Swords (air), and Pentacles (earth) — each running from Ace through 10, then Page, Knight, Queen, and King, for 14 cards per suit. Where the Major cards show the big theme, the Minor cards show how that theme actually plays out day to day.
- Wands (Fire) — passion, action, creativity, drive at work and in your career
- Cups (Water) — emotion, relationships, intuition, love
- Swords (Air) — thought, conflict, truth, challenge and stress
- Pentacles (Earth) — material matters, finances, tangible results, the body
Reading them together
When a Major card appears, read it as "this is an important turning point" in the big picture; when a Minor card appears, read it as the specific, concrete flow within that area. Put together, the two naturally connect into one coherent reading. You can look up the full meaning of any of the 78 cards, by arcana and suit, in the tarot card dictionary.