Fool to Chariot: finding your feet in the world

The first row of the Major Arcana is about growing up, in the widest sense. It begins with someone who knows nothing and ends with someone in charge of their own life, at least for now. Along the way are the gifts you start with, the people and institutions that shape you, and the first choice that is really yours.

Top row: 0 The Fool, I The Magician, II The High Priestess, III The Empress. Bottom row: IV The Emperor, V The Hierophant, VI The Lovers, VII The Chariot.

For each card below there's what you can see on it, what it tends to mean, and how it tends to show up in a reading. Treat the meanings as a starting point. The picture, the question and the cards around it will always say more.

0 · The Fool

A young man in bright clothes walks towards a cliff edge with his face turned to the sky. He carries a small bundle on a stick and a white rose, and a little dog jumps at his heels. He hasn't noticed the drop, or he doesn't mind it.

The Fool is a beginning before you know what you're beginning: openness, trust, the willingness to step out without a plan. In a reading he often turns up at the start of something new, or when you're being asked to take a risk on instinct. He can also be a warning about the cliff. Whether it's freedom or carelessness depends on what's around him.

I · The Magician

A figure stands at a table holding a wand up to the sky with one hand and pointing to the ground with the other. On the table are a cup, a sword, a pentacle and a wand, the four suits of the deck. Above his head is the sign for infinity.

The raised and lowered arms are usually read as drawing power from above and bringing it down into the world. The Magician is the will to act and the skill to do it: having the tools, and knowing you have them. In older decks he was a street conjurer at a stall, which keeps a useful edge on the card. He can be the person who makes things happen, or the one who is very good at seeming to.

II · The High Priestess

A woman in blue sits between two pillars, one black and one white, marked B and J. Behind her hangs a veil patterned with pomegranates, hiding what lies beyond. She holds a scroll marked TORA, half covered by her robe, and a crescent moon lies at her feet.

Where the Magician acts, the High Priestess waits and knows. She is intuition, the inner life, what you sense before you can explain it. In a reading she often suggests that the answer isn't out there yet, that you should pay attention to what you feel, or that something is still hidden. The older French decks call her La Papesse, the female Pope.

III · The Empress

A crowned woman sits on cushions in a field of ripening wheat, with a forest and a stream behind her. Her shield carries the symbol of Venus.

The Empress is nature, abundance and care: growth, the body, comfort, creativity, things being nourished and coming to fruit. She often points to fertility in the broad sense, a project or a relationship growing well, or to the part of life that needs looking after. Pollack reads her as the natural world itself, born from the meeting of the Magician's energy and the High Priestess's depths.

IV · The Emperor

An older man in armour under a red robe sits on a stone throne carved with rams' heads, holding a sceptre and an orb. Behind him are bare mountains.

The Emperor is order: rules, structure, authority, the father in the old sense. He is the world as society arranges it. In a reading he can be someone in charge, a need to take charge yourself, or a situation that needs firm limits. Pollack notes that how good his rule is depends on time and place. Structure protects, and it can also confine, and the cards around him usually show which.

V · The Hierophant

A figure in a triple crown sits between two pillars, raising a hand in blessing. Two crossed keys lie at his feet, and two followers kneel before him. The old French name is Le Pape, the Pope. "Hierophant" comes from ancient Greece, where it was the title of a priest who revealed the mysteries.

The Hierophant is tradition and teaching: institutions, belief, education, the knowledge a community hands on. In a reading he can be a teacher or a mentor, a formal path such as a course or a ceremony, or the pull of "how things are done". Like the Emperor, he can be support or constraint. He is also the counterpart of the High Priestess: she keeps the hidden knowledge, he teaches the public kind.

VI · The Lovers

A naked man and woman stand beneath a great winged angel in the sun. Behind the woman is a tree with a serpent; behind the man, a tree of flames. It is Waite's version of Adam and Eve.

The card is older than that picture. Early Italian decks simply called it Love, and showed a couple drawn from Renaissance betrothal portraits. The Marseille deck added a second woman, so the young man stands between two of them while Cupid aims overhead. That brought in the meaning many readers still use: a choice. The Lovers is love and union, but also the moment you choose what you value, and that is often what it points to in a reading.

VII · The Chariot

A young man in armour stands in a chariot under a starry canopy. In front of it lie two sphinxes, one black and one white, facing different ways. He holds no reins.

The image goes back to the processions held in Rome for a conquering hero. Pollack points out that the sphinxes are not reconciled: they pull in different directions, and only the charioteer's will holds them together. The Chariot is drive, determination and success through effort, and the first time the traveller steers his own course. It ends the first row on a win, but a tense one. In a reading it often promises progress if you keep hold of what pulls you apart.

The row as a whole

Look at the eight cards together and the shape shows. The Fool starts with nothing. The Magician and the High Priestess are what he's given: acting and knowing. The Empress and the Emperor are the two kinds of parent, care and order. The Hierophant is the wider world's teaching. The Lovers is the first choice of his own, and the Chariot is the self he builds out of all of it.

When several of these cards turn up together, the reading often concerns your place in the world: work, family, learning, who has authority, and how much of it is yours.

What to take from this

• The first row is about the outside world: what you're born with, who shapes you, and the self you make.
• The cards come in pairs. The Magician acts and the High Priestess knows; the Empress nurtures and the Emperor orders.
• The Chariot ends the row on a win that still needs holding together.

Next, the second row, from Strength to Temperance, where the journey turns inward.