Understanding Cartomancy’s Hearts & Diamonds
A magenta diamond on a lavender and purple gradient background
Some of this will seem familiar to those who read tarot, but I caution those folks not to think it too similar.
There are important differences between the suits in tarot and those in playing cards. Those differences are essential to understanding these tools.
Suit of Hearts
Keywords: Relationships, Emotions, Intuition, Creation, Jealousy, Wishes
Hearts and Cups are one of the two mostly direct correlations between tarot and playing card cartomancy.
That said, it’s important to understand how the meanings of different cards have changed over time, mostly with changing social mores. Still, it is a suit of love, marriage, jealousy, and wishes.
Queen of Hearts is basically the sister of the Queen of Cups: she is feminine, maternal, supportive, and faithful.
The Queen of Hearts may not be overtly psychic, but she is in touch with her intuition. One thing that’s interesting to me is that the Queen of Hearts is nurturing, but not necessarily traditional.
This, I believe, is because the focus in cartomancy is everyday scenarios.
The Queen of Heart’s power is a function of the ability to provide care to loved ones. This is true for the King of Hearts as well.
Nine of Cups and the Nine of Hearts also function in extremely similar ways. I
f you understand one, you basically get the other—wishes come true but be careful that you want what you have asked of the universe.
There is, however, a less capricious wish card in a deck of playing cards and we’ll get to that in a moment.
The card in the suit of Hearts that is most divergent from its meaning in tarot is the Three of Hearts.
Where Three of Cups is a community party with abundance, laughter, friendship, and joy, Three of Hearts sometimes shows up as an affair or a misunderstanding with a group of people.
Of course, this is the other side of the Three of Cups, it’s just not as highlighted. Just something to keep in mind. In conjure, it can be used to figure out who someone you love is cheating with.
Suit of Diamonds
Keywords: Values, Money, Sex, Gains & Losses, Goals
The Diamonds are far less conservative and slow moving than Pentacles.
While they both deal with money, there’s also another similarity between these two manifestations, which is that they are both the most variable suits in their respective decks.
It’s easy to reduce either Diamonds or Pentacles down to money, when both of them want to talk about value—in intrinsic ways, like personal values, and also concrete monetary value.
The Ace of Diamonds is a great card for wishing.
I lay it down when there’s something important I need, particularly financially. I use it when I’m applying for grants and other fiscal support, and it works!
It can be used with the Ace of Clubs, which we’ll talk about next week, to draw a new job or better paying clients at a small business.
If you want some affection with no strings attached, or want to heat up an existing partnership the Four or Ten of Diamonds are a great choice for that kind of work.
You can see how vastly those usages differ from the Four and Ten of Pentacles, which are downright stodgy at times and certainly convey none of the carefree passion that their cartomancy counterparts represent.
Eight of Diamonds is similar to the Eight of Pentacles, and either card can be worked with to ask for a scholarship or fellowship that’s tied to an institution. Philanthropic cash can also be pulled using this card.
If you want a promotion, I recommend the Ace of Diamonds, Six of Diamonds, and the King of Diamonds—the last particularly if you are working with a reasonable boss.
Did I miss a card you’re curious about? Let me know in the comments, and I’ll reply to you there!
hey, i'm cyree jarelle. I run collective cartomancy. I help queers, feminists, and leftists connect with their intuition using tarot and cartomancy. More on me.