Symbols and Imagery
The same symbols turn up again and again across the deck: mountains, water, dogs, roses, thrones, pillars. If you recognize the symbols, you can read something even from a card you have never memorized. This page is an index by symbol; each entry lists the cards it appears on, based on the Rider-Waite-Smith images.
Heavenly bodies
The Sun. Consciousness, vitality, things that can be seen clearly. The Sun is entirely about it: a child on a white horse rides out in front of a wall of sunflowers, and nothing can stay hidden. In The Fool a white sun shines in the upper corner of the sky, lighting his way as he sets out. In The Lovers the sun is above the angel's head, so the choice happens in broad daylight. In Death a sun is rising between two towers in the distance, a beginning hidden inside a picture of an ending; many people miss this detail. At the end of the path in Temperance there is a ring of golden light between the mountains. Some read it as the sun and some as a crown; either way it means there is light at the end of the road.
The Moon. The unconscious, cycles, things that cannot be seen clearly. The Moon is entirely about it: two towers, a path climbing up out of the water, and a dog and a wolf howling at the moon. The High Priestess has a crescent moon at her feet, and her crown is a full moon with a crescent on each side; she governs the layer beneath consciousness. The Chariot has a crescent moon on each shoulder of his armor, which some read as emotions pulling in two directions while he holds them in check by will. In Eight of Cups an eclipsed moon hangs in the sky; the turning away happens at night.
Stars. Hope, guidance, distant goals. The Star has one large star and seven small ones, and the large one has eight rays. The Empress wears twelve stars in her crown, usually read as the twelve signs of the zodiac; she governs the whole of nature. The canopy of The Chariot is full of stars, and there is one on his crown as well. The light in the lantern of The Hermit is a six-pointed star, which some read as the Seal of Solomon. What he lights up is not the road ahead; it is the small light he has found for himself.
Mountains and water
Mountains. High places, goals, somewhere that takes effort to reach; also read as the heights of virtue and wisdom. Behind The Fool are snowy mountains; he sets out from a high place. In The Lovers a mountain rises in the distance between the two figures: behind the choice stands something higher. The Hermit stands on a mountaintop; only after finishing his own work has he earned the right to hold up the lantern and shine it downward. Behind The Emperor the mountains are bare: order is hard and nothing grows on it. In Judgement there are icy mountains in the distance, which many people overlook; awakening comes after passing through the coldest place. The path in Temperance leads into the mountains. Among the minor cards, the figures in Two of Wands and Three of Wands gaze at distant mountains and sea, looking at places they have not yet reached, and the figure in Eight of Cups is walking into the mountains.
Water. Emotion, the unconscious, feeling. Water in tarot almost always has to do with the heart. The hem of the robe of The High Priestess flows into water that runs out from behind the veil: that is the sea she guards. A stream runs past the feet of The Empress into the woods. In The Star the figure has one foot in the water and one on the shore, and pours one jug into the pool and the other onto the ground, watering both feeling and reality. In The Moon the path begins in a pool where a crayfish is crawling onto the bank: things in the unconscious are rising to the surface. Temperance has one foot in the water and one on land, and water flows between the two cups. In Death a river runs through the background with a boat on it; in older imagery this is the river that carries souls across. Behind The Chariot a river separates him from the city, and he has already crossed it. In Judgement the figures rise from coffins floating on the water. The entire Cups suit takes place by the water, because this suit is about feeling; see The Suit of Cups.
Among the minor cards there is also Six of Swords, where a boat crosses the water: the water is rough on one side and calm on the other, and once across, things are calm. In the background of Two of Pentacles two ships pitch on the waves; a life of juggling two things is unsteady by nature.
Animals
In tarot, animals generally stand for instinct, set against reason.
Dogs. Loyalty, instinctive companionship, and also a warning. The white dog at the feet of The Fool is jumping; some read it as warning him of the cliff ahead, others as jumping along with him. In The Moon a dog and a wolf howl at the moon. The dog is tamed instinct and the wolf is untamed instinct, and both live in you.
Lions. Strength, desire, Fire. In Strength the woman closes the lion's jaws with her bare hands, using gentleness instead of brute force, and the infinity sign above her head is the same one as in The Magician. Wheel of Fortune and The World each have a lion in one of the four corners; it is one of the four fixed signs, Leo, which corresponds to Fire. The throne of the King of Wands is carved with lions, and his robe shows salamanders and lions.
Snakes. Wisdom, temptation, or shedding the skin and being reborn, depending on the card. In The Lovers a snake coils around the tree behind the woman; that is the image of Eden. The belt of The Magician is a snake biting its own tail, the ouroboros, read as cycles and eternity. On the left side of Wheel of Fortune a snake slides downward: Typhon, whom the tradition identified with the Egyptian god Set, read as the force that pulls things down. In Seven of Cups a snake rises out of one of the cups.
Birds. Thought, news, a view from above; they appear mostly on Air cards. A bird flies over the head of the Queen of Swords, and her throne is carved with birds and butterflies. The throne of the King of Swords also has butterflies, and two birds fly in the sky. In The Star an ibis, the ancient Egyptian bird of wisdom, perches in the tree on the right. The woman in Nine of Pentacles has a hooded falcon on her hand: instinct that has been tamed. The eagles in the corners of Wheel of Fortune and The World correspond to Scorpio and are read as Water.
Horses. The direction and speed of action; each of the four Knights rides one. The horse of the Knight of Wands rears with its front hooves in the air and charges fastest. The horse of the Knight of Swords gallops while its rider leans forward. The horse of the Knight of Cups walks, slow and steady. The horse of the Knight of Pentacles stands still. Death rides a white horse, and so does the child in The Sun. On both cards the white horse is read as pure, unstoppable force: one brings an ending and the other a beginning.
Fish. Feelings, things that surface from the unconscious. A fish pokes out of the cup of the Page of Cups, and he seems surprised by it himself. The clothing of the Knight of Cups has a fish pattern. Beside the throne of the King of Cups a fish leaps from the water.
Others. In the lower right corner of the Queen of Pentacles there is a rabbit, read as fertility and abundance. At the feet of the Queen of Wands sits a black cat, read as the instinct she has tamed, and by some as a witch's companion. A sphinx sits on top of Wheel of Fortune, and climbing up the right side is Anubis, with a jackal's head and a human body. The Devil himself is a composite beast: a goat's head, bat wings and eagle's claws. The crayfish in the water of The Moon is something crawling up from the depths.
Plants and flowers
White rose. Purity, a love that has gone beyond desire. The Fool holds a white rose in his left hand; it is what he carries as he sets out. The banner of Death shows a white five-petaled rose on black, which many read as the mystic rose of the Rosicrucians: something in the ending that does not die. These two cards, one at the start and one near the end, hold the same flower.
Red rose. Desire, passion, earthly love. In The Magician red roses and white lilies grow together in the arbor overhead and the garden at his feet: he wants both desire and purity. The woman in Strength wears a garland of roses at her waist and on her head, and that is what she tames the lion with.
Lily. Purity, things of the spirit. In The Magician the white lilies at his feet are paired with red roses. On the carpet beneath The Hierophant are crossed keys, and some versions show lilies nearby too. The white flowers at the garden gate in Ace of Pentacles are read by some as lilies.
Sunflower. Vitality, following the light. In The Sun a row of four sunflowers rises over the wall behind the child. The Queen of Wands holds one in her hand, and her throne is carved with sunflowers too; she is the brightest card in the Wands suit.
Pomegranate. Abundance, the feminine, and also read as the seed beneath consciousness. The veil behind The High Priestess is covered with pomegranates and palms, and what it screens off is the sea. The robe of The Empress has a pomegranate pattern. One of these cards governs the unconscious and the other governs nature, and both use the same fruit.
Wheat and grapes. Harvest, material abundance. At the feet of The Empress is a field of ripe wheat. The woman in Nine of Pentacles stands in a vineyard whose grapes she grew herself. The figure in Seven of Pentacles leans on his hoe and looks at the pentacles on the vine, waiting for them to ripen.
Sprouting wands. Every staff in the Wands suit is growing new leaves: the fire is alive. The wand reaching out of the cloud in Ace of Wands has the most leaves, and some people have counted ten falling leaves, read as the ten sephiroth of the Tree of Life uncertain. See The Suit of Wands.
Buildings and objects
Thrones. Power, position, something settled firmly in place. The stone throne of The Emperor has rams' heads at its corners: Aries, hard order. The seat of The Empress is cushioned, with the symbol of Venus on the cushion: soft abundance. Justice and The Hierophant both sit between two pillars. Of the sixteen court cards, all four Kings and four Queens are seated, and what is carved on their thrones shows what the suit governs: lions and salamanders for Wands, fish and the sea for Cups, butterflies and birds for Swords, bull heads and fruit for Pentacles. See The Court Cards.
Pillars. Polarity, a threshold, passing through the middle. The High Priestess sits between two pillars, one black and one white, marked B and J: Boaz and Jachin, which stood before the door of Solomon's Temple. She sits between the two poles. The Hierophant has two grey pillars, and so does Justice; both are about judging between two sides. The Moon and Death each have two towers in the distance with the path passing between them; on these two cards the towers are a gateway.
Veils. Things that are covered, things it is not yet time to see. The veil behind The High Priestess hides the sea. There is a purple curtain behind Justice. In Seven of Cups all the cups emerge from clouds, and a cloud is a kind of veil too.
Towers. A man-made height, something that believes itself secure. The Tower is entirely about it: lightning knocks off the crown at the top, two people fall, and a tower built on a cliff was never stable to begin with. The two towers in The Moon and Death are gateways, which is a different reading.
Bridges and boats. Transition, moving from one place to another. In the background of Five of Cups a bridge leads to a castle; he could see it if he turned around, but he only stares at the spilled cups. In Six of Swords a boat carries people to the far shore. In Three of Wands there are ships at sea: his goods have gone out. The ships in the background of Two of Pentacles pitch on the waves. The throne of the Queen of Cups is decorated with shells and little cherubs, and she sits at the water's edge.
Keys. Access to secrets, doctrine. The two crossed keys at the feet of The Hierophant, one gold and one silver, are read as the revealed and the hidden, the conscious and the unconscious.
The infinity sign. Infinity, cycles, a channel between spirit and flesh. There is a sideways eight above the head of The Magician and another above Strength; the green band in Two of Pentacles loops into this shape, and so do the ribbons that tie the top and bottom of the wreath in The World. All four cards are about flow between above and below. The Magician draws down what is above, Strength tames what is below, the Two of Pentacles keeps both ends moving, and The World closes the whole circle.
Crowns. Authority, which may also be empty authority. The crown knocked off the top of The Tower is read as false authority built on sand. The Emperor, The Empress and The Hierophant each wear one, and each governs a domain of their own. The star on the crown of The Chariot is something he earned himself. A crown hangs on the tip of the sword in Ace of Swords: the victory of the mind.
Lantern, scales, wreath. The lantern of The Hermit holds a star that lights the road he has walked. Justice holds scales in her left hand and a sword in her right: weigh first, then judge. The laurel wreath of The World is a completed circle. The rider in Six of Wands has a wreath on his head and another on his staff: victory, but a small and temporary one.
Colors
The colors in the Rider-Waite-Smith deck are deliberate; Pamela Colman Smith painted with a fixed set of correspondences. The main ones:
Red. Action, desire, blood. The Magician wears a red outer robe, The Emperor is red from head to foot, Justice also wears a red robe, and the robe of The Hierophant is red. On the Major Arcana, a red robe is mostly read as having the power to act.
White. Purity, beginnings, things that have not been stained. The rose of The Fool, the white horses of Death and The Sun, the inner robe of The Magician and the white dress of Strength. White on something that moves means unstoppable; white on something worn means inner cleanness.
Black. The unknown, the unconscious, things that have not yet been seen. Death wears black armor, The Devil is set against a black background, and the sky in The Tower is black. Black is not bad in itself; it simply has not yet been reached by light.
Yellow. Consciousness, intellect, light. The skies of The Fool, The Magician, Strength and The Sun are all yellow, and these cards all deal with matters at the level of consciousness, or with times when consciousness is equal to the task. The grey-sky cards (The Hierophant, The Hermit and Wheel of Fortune, and beyond them most of the minor cards) speak of a neutral state that has not yet settled.
Blue. Water, emotion, spirit. The High Priestess wears a blue robe; the sea is what she governs. The sky in The Star is blue. All the water in the Cups suit is blue.
Grey. Wisdom, neutrality, being beyond good and bad. The pillars of The Hierophant are grey and the robe of The Hermit is grey; both cards are about having moved past seeing everything in black and white.
The clothing of The Fool is often used to discuss color. His outer garment is black with a pattern, lined in white; his boots are yellow, and there is a red feather in his cap. One reading links black, white and red to the three stages of alchemy, nigredo, albedo and rubedo (blackening, whitening, reddening): a person moving from chaos to purity to completion. On this reading the Fool sets out wearing the whole path on his body uncertain. The correspondences between colors, the four Kabbalistic worlds and the ten sephiroth of the Tree of Life are more complex; see The Kabbalah and the Tree of Life.
How to use this page
When you come across an unfamiliar card, first look for any of the symbols listed here. Lots of water: read toward emotion. Distant mountains: read toward goals. An animal: ask whether it is tamed or wild. Two pillars: ask which two poles the querent stands between. Symbol readings cannot overturn a card's meaning; they add detail to it. For the meanings themselves, see The Major Arcana and The Minor Arcana.