My Suit Correspondences & Associations

Today I want to talk about my elemental, directional and seasonal correspondences and associations with the suits in both playing cards and tarot, how they've evolved and why what I use now makes more sense to me. I'm not saying others are wrong, just that those don't make as much sense to me as these ones do. You have to do what makes sense to you. However, you don't have to keep certain associations just because they're what you originally learned through some other system! That's actually the point of making this post, because for so many readers that's what we do and we never question the status quo or try something different to see if it works better for us.

I learned my first associations via Wicca when I was practicing that religion so when I learned my first associations and correspondences in Tarot with the Golden Dawn based Thoth and RWS systems, it was the same and I kept them, so my tarot practice and spiritual practice were the same. That was true for years without me questioning it at all until I started to read with the Victorian Fairy Tarot whose guidebook was written by Lunea Witherspoon who had different seasonal and elemental correspondences for that deck. It was my working deck and her changes made a lot of sense to me, so I started to use those for tarot but I was still using the other for my spiritual practices, and that was causing conflicts within me. 

Later, I started to study Tarot de Marseille with Camelia Elias and I was reading all of her books on top of taking her two courses. Her associations for the suits were different from the others, but made even more sense to me and she used them for her playing cards as well. I found others also used those same ones, as they stem apparently from Dawn Jackson's Hedgewitch system, and so I changed again to the associations and correspondences that I use today. So, what are those?

We'll start in the East with the Coins/Diamonds as Spring and Fire. That makes a lot of sense to me because coins are forged in fire. Also, we have a big ball of fire that rises in the East every day to begin the new day. Have you looked at the Ace of Coins in the Tarot de Marseille? In most decks it looks rather like a big sun with flourishes of energy around it! And, like the Sun card in the Major Arcana, it's one of the most positive cards in the deck. Spring is the time that things start to warm up, the days are lengthening so the sun is getting stronger, lending us more fire energy at that time.

Next we have the South where I have Cups/Hearts as Summer and Water. Lunea Witherspoon and Gary A. Lippencott show a lot of water in their Summer suit because when it's warm is when we tend to spend more time in and near the water, especially here where I live in a lakes region that brings tourists, and drinking more water to stay better hydrated too. 

In the West I have Batons/Clubs as Autumn and Air because the trees grow tall into the air, they provide the air we breathe, and in the autumn we see their true colors for a brief moment before the leaves fall to the ground. While wind may blow from east to west, if you go the west in the USA, you'll see huge expanses of prairies where the wind blows almost non-stop, and the place that's called "Tornado Alley" here is west of me as well. 

Finally, in the North I have Swords/Spades as Winter and Earth. The north is considered cold and snowy in most of the world, and the metal of swords is certainly cold, especially when we use spades and shovels to dig the moist, cool earth. Swords put you into a grave and shovels/spades dig the grave. I also really loved the description that Lunea gave in the Victorian Fairy guidebook of winter being the time the fairies act up and cause trouble out of boredom and confinement, since this is the suit of troubles and conflicts it definitely makes sense that there's more of that in the winter!

I've seen many different associations and correspondences for the suits from all over the world according to the beliefs of a culture at certain times, so in my opinion there isn't a right or wrong set of them, it's just a matter of finding what works for you and then keeping it across systems. I will admit that it's easier to do with the Tarot de Marseille than with the Golden Dawn based decks because most don't have images that contain things that prevent it like images of flames at picnics, etc. I still occasionally use some beloved RWS based decks, but as oracles rather than tarot because of the strong imagery that contradicts my tarot associations, but I will say that I don't use them often for this reason and may one day just get rid of all of those decks.

Love and Light,

~Diane Jarecki