Tarot card meanings - Major Arcana

Take a leap into the unknown! The Fool is about taking risks. He may indeed be seen as a fool by those around him.It indicates that you need to think outside the box. The Fool also can be a warning to take care - that pitfalls lie ahead.

Conscious awareness of yourself and your world. New initiatives, new dreams and creative ideas. Very much a card of manifestation. Skill with communication, self-confidence. You need to get out there to make things happen!

Abundance, womanhood. Great prosperity and self-awareness. The Empress nourishes as well as receives. Bountiful fate, the weaving of destinies. Sensuality, fecundity, receptivity. Harvest. May indicate you need to take care of yourself.

Authority, integrity, focus, vigour, willpower. The Emperor indicates a strong masculine energy, someone with real influence and power. Patriarchal issues - obedience, duty, family, control. It can also show a tendency to tyranny and workaholism.

A choice to be made - whether to grow or stay the same. Necessary growth. Separation from aspects of the past. Honesty - to yourself or others - about who you are. The dawn of sexual awareness, or sometimes of maturity.

Successful control of your life. Will, ability and ambition. Presenting yourself in the outside world. Sometimes shows that your unconscious is going in a different direction to your conscious will. Determination, healthy assertiveness.

Withdrawal to follow the promptings of your unconscious. Deep guidance - the voice of your soul that whispers or, sometimes, shouts. Fear that must be faced in order to grow. The inner search.

A new cycle of life. Change - inevitable and usually beneficial. Feeling part of the cosmic cycle. The workings of fate or karma. Good fortune.

Reversed: a negative trend. Battling against the current. Fate, seen as malevolent. The inability to learn from mistakes.

Turning received wisdom upside down in order to gain your own truth. Voluntary sacrifice, rebirth and freedom. Cutting ties. A feeling of oneness with the universe. Healing of ancient wounds. Putting yourself outside the norm.

Death of an old life or values. Stripping away the ego to allow the birth of a new self. Change, either voluntary or enforced. Necessary endings.

Shadow issues - perversion, greed, envy, deceit. Materialism, sexual difficulties. Expediency, lack of integrity. Addiction, denial. Feeling trapped in your head or your life.

Cosmic illumination. A world-shattering event. Destruction of outdated situations or paradigms. Disasters or cataclysmic events over which we have no control. A new world emerging from the ruins of the old. Purification.

Fears, deceit, terrors of the night. The collective unconscious rising up into everyday reality. Ability to loosen psychic control, enabling a connection with enchantment and the realms of the fantastic.

Illumination, transformation, renewal. Letting the warmth into your life, in the form of love, achievement, success, abundance. Clear vision, removal of old blocks. Joyful liberation. The emergence of truth. A holiday in the sun.

Rebirth; a new life. A call - to make some fundamental change in your life, to let go all constraining considerations and reach for the sky. Attainment of some deep, long-held ambition. Surrendering to the divinity within you.

Spiritual fulfilment and integration. Awareness. The successful completion of an important project that resonates on many different levels. A feeling of love and connection permeating your life. An end and a new beginning.