Tarot Cards Associated With Love

The following is an excerpt from the Tarot Spreads For Love book by Kat Elmwood.

Is there a card in the tarot that couldn’t be associated with matters of the heart, if read with the right perspective? While love and relationships can infuse the narrative of any deck, there are certain cards and groupings that speak more directly to matters of love. 

Card Groupings

Major Arcana Cards

Since the Major Arcana cards connect to the bigger, fateful events in our lives, drawing a Major Arcana card in a love reading foretells significant moments. This might be the earth shifting experiences of falling for a lover, becoming a parent, or losing any loved one, or any major life moment that is directly shared with a partner. 

Forces beyond our earthly control may be at play in the Major Arcana and lead us to think of matters of pre-written fate and destiny. If you’re looking for a card that represents the one true love you are fated to be with (if you believe in The One), then the Major cards are probably where you will find this person.

Minor Arcana Cards

The Minor cards are our day-to-day moments. Minor Arcana cards typically delve into the more nuanced feelings, little moments, minor conflicts, or conversations. These might also refer to things you do with your partner in general life rather than the overall relationship itself. 

Each card in the Minor suits has its special relevancy depending on its number. Some of these can be especially relevant to love spreads. For example, two cards represent unions; five cards represent turning points; three cards represent group dynamics; and ten cards represent outcomes. When an Ace card appears in a tarot reading, we are traditionally looking at the entire spirit of the suit condensed into that card in a raw form. See the discussion on the Ace of Cups below.

Cups

The suite of Cups is all about the feminine energy of emotion and inner consciousness. Cups deal in matters of relationships, intuition, creativity and feelings, so they are prime high energy cards for any reading about love. 

The Cups are associated with the water element. It’s flowing, ever moving, and life giving, a power just as gentle as it is torrential and terrible. Just like love. When water stops moving, it grows stagnant, just as when our emotional states stop moving. 

Swords

We traditionally think of the Swords cards as masculine representations of action and outward power. Conflict comes heavily into the realm of Swords. As such, when we see a Sword card in a love reading, it might refer to actions one needs to take in a relationship, whether that’s positive or negative. It might also refer to direct conflict within love, perhaps even the breakdown of a partnership. 

It need not be always bleak to see a Sword card in a love spread. The Swords here might also refer to matters of tough love (common in family or friendship dynamics). Swords are also associated with matters of communication, a critical factor in any relationship.

The Court Figures

The Court cards are the four figures at the end of each Minor Arcana suit. They are Page, Knight, Queen, and King. 

Some think of these figures as being personality traits of the suit, evolving progressively through these Court’s ranks. The Court cards, even though they appear as figures, need not represent specific people in the querent’s life. They might, of course, but they could also be all about personality traits, or philosophies.

Pages

The most youthful member of the Court, the Page approaches the suit’s energies with curiosity and playfulness. While still in the process of growing into the nature of their suit, Pages engage with the suit’s qualities with a fresh mind devoid of judgements. The Page might be the person newly in love, full of idyllic notions and visions of happily ever after, before real life comes to complicate matters.

Knights

Knights are keen, powerful, and smart characters. Despite these strengths, Knights are still youthful. Knights are noble and strong, they do good work, and are capable of great things, but they are prone to recklessness and imbalance without proper guidance. In matters of love, the Knight is passion without much reason, all heart and not a lot of mind. See the Knight of Cups below.

Queens

Queens are the ultimate feminine energy of their suits. They are all about creation and inward reflection and wisdom, and take their power from an inner source. Queens are the wise women of love, the grand matriarchs of the realms of the heart. She has had her hardships, her grand passions and now offers all the wisdom tempered from all kinds of life experiences to the querent.

Kings

Kings are the ultimate masculine energies of their suits. Kings are outwardly focused, wise, and strong. Kings might refer to paternal or dominant figures, protectors, leaders, and providers.

Individual Cards

The Lovers

For obvious reasons, The Lovers card is most directly associated with love and relationships. In Rider-Waite-Smith traditions, The Lovers card traditionally depicts a couple, usually naked, standing in a lush garden (connoting the Biblical Eden), watched over by a divine angelic figure. A mountain, symbolizing hardships to conquer, looms between them.

Traditionally, The Lovers card need not specifically refer to a relationship or partnership. This card is about a choice between two paths, and a profound connection between two forces. These choices need to provide harmony, aligning the yearnings of the heart with the values of the higher self. 

In love readings, we are most likely going to read this as choices we make in relationships; perhaps a choice of partners, or perhaps even a choice we might have to make between a partner and our self. It is about emotional and spiritual alignment, ensuring our relationships serve us wholly as physical beings.

The Two of Cups

This card is traditionally associated with partnership and mutually beneficial unions. It can represent the beginnings of a romantic relationship, or the deepening of bonds of any loving nature.

The Ten of Cups

As a ten card, the Ten of Cups signifies fulfillment. In relationship terms, this would be emotional contentment and blissful harmony within the union, be that a romantic relationship or any other bond. The Ten of Cups traditionally has strong associations with familial togetherness.

The Ace of Cups

This card is associated with new beginnings in matters of emotions. It can indicate the start of a new romantic connection, or the deepening of existing feelings. As with all Ace cards, the Ace of Cups is the height of emotion. It’s a passionate primal energy.

The Knight of Cups

The Knight of Cups is a romantic and charming individual. Think of the quintessential knight of chivalric tales, such as the Knights of the Round Table. It can represent someone who is emotionally expressive and may bring messages of new love or proposals. The Knight can come with a warning, though. As Knights are not fully mature cards, your passionate Knight might not be acting with the full benefit of learned wisdom.

The Four of Wands

The Four of Wands is traditionally associated with celebration and harmony. In a romantic context, the Four of Wands might speak to the joy and stability within a relationship. As a Wands card, this is about manifestation, so it might be speaking to the work we need to do within a relationship to reach these contented states.

The Tower

The Tower card is often considered the most negative card in tarot tradition. It is about destruction and upheaval, cataclysmic events that shake our very foundations. Of course, it’s difficult to see these things as positive when they are occurring. However, if we look at the negatives of The Tower card within the whole narrative of the tarot, we see that this destruction follows a building up of challenging energy that, once erupted, results in renewal, change, and growth for the better. 

In a love and relationships tarot reading, The Tower most obviously means a breakup, but it might also refer to another disruptive and transformative turning point. 

The appearance of The Tower in spread, particularly when dealing with matters of the heart, can be frightening if viewed with pessimism, but remember that while initially disruptive and potentially hurtful, the Tower’s impact is ultimately constructive allowing for the emergence of a stronger, more genuine connection with your partner, with a new partner, or with yourself.

The Star

The Star is a card of hope, renewal and inspiration, and is typically a delightful and positive card. In the narrative of the Major Arcana, the Star card follows the Tower, the ultimate symbol of destruction. So the hope embodied in this card is the light following dark, the renewal at the end of the struggle. The Star is a card of healing and replenishment.

This is a strong feminine card, and as such, we might consider that this hope and renewal comes from within ourselves, not from others. But since it also speaks to celestial notions, we might also infer that we are supported in our healing by universal forces. Be open to the love of the universe and let it guide you toward blessings of happiness. 

The Sun

The Sun card in a love tarot reading radiates positivity and joy, symbolizing warmth and fulfillment. When we follow the narrative of the previous three cards within the Arcana, we see the destruction from The Tower leading to the inner renewal and then internal searching of The Star and The Moon, culminating in the joyous warmth of The Sun.

When reading for love, The Sun heralds clarity, honesty, and a deep emotional connection between partners or the self. It embodies vitality, encouraging us to embrace our genuine selves within a nurturing partnership, or within our graceful autonomy.

Tarot Spreads For Love
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