Reading the Tarot Aces

I have a problem with reading the aces in the Tarot, my personal method of divination. I have always had this problem, and while it often seems that other people find them perfectly obvious, I cannot be the only person who has this difficulty. I shall therefore consider some ways of looking at the tarot aces. I will be using some of the methods described by Mary K Greer (Twenty-One Ways to Read a Tarot card. Llewellyn Worldwide, Woodbury, Minnesota, 2006), not necessarily in the same order and taking some liberties with the methods. As usual with magical studies, I'm finding the more I go into this the more routes and byways it opens up, and also finding that it is making connections with other things. This is surely the key to knowing you're not wildly off kilter in occult studies: they should open up new stuff, illuminate stuff you think you already know, and ultimately lead you back to where you started! This post will be fairly quote-heavy, I have tried to put in my own stuff as well, but there is no hiding the fact that I have been quite dependent on 'authorities' in my attempt to understand the tarot aces.

The Position and Function of the Aces in the Tarot

The most simple way to divide up the 78 cards of the tarot is into the 'major arcana' and the 'minor arcana'. Before Waite and Smith created the first completely pictorial deck, tarot decks always had pictures on the majors and the minors looked more like our modern playing cards. I remember my father describing the ace of spades as the 'curse of Scotland' (even though it seems that title is more usually reserved for another playing card) and that ace does have a certain drama about it. The aces have both this drama (when you get used to the tarot you can forget how weird some of the imagery actually is) and also a strange simplicity, since the suit symbol is shown (mostly) alone.
So let's look to the books first. We'll be returning to LWB 'meanings' for aces later, but let's just look at what is supposed to be going on. Sandra A Thomson (Pictures from the Heart. St Martin's Griffin, New York, 2003) writes that the aces show spirit-related impetus, opportunities, etc, entering our world. The cards show the opportunity but not us because we have to be open to it. The Golden Dawn titles for the aces are 'Root of the Powers of Air/Water/Fire/Earth' which seems to me another way of putting this. Of course the description of us as not depicted in the card only applies to pictorial deck, since you could say that of all the numbered cards in a pips-type deck.
Rachel Pollack completely reverses this definition, referring to the Golden Dawn in doing this (don't forget that the Rider-Waite tradition of tarot heavily references the kabbalistic Tree of Life, in which there is both ascent and descent, so that these two definitions need not be mutually exclusive):

'In arranging the cards I have followed Waite's example in moving from the King down to the Ace, rather than the other way round. Here too Waite was followed by the example of the Golden Dawn, which saw Spirit as metaphorically descending into the physical world, so that we count down from the higher numbers. Because kings (as traditional symbols rather than political reality) bear a responsibility for maintaining society, and because the king gives an image of maturity, the four Kings all symbolize the most socially-minded stable version of the suit. The Aces, on the other hand, signify unity and perfection. Therefore, the Aces stand for the elements in their purest form. The Ace of Wands stands for Fire itself and all that it means, while the other thirteen Wands cards depict some specific example of Fire, either in a situation (cards 2-10) or as a personality type (the court cards).' (Rachel Pollack: Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom. Element, London, 1997, p. 155)

This places them within a context within the Minor Arcana (we shall return to a system which relates them to the Major Arcana). I like that idea that the ace is the force behind the situations in the other cards. Mary K Greer actually rather treats the Aces as a category within the Tarot of their own, answering a different question to those answered by the other cards, placing them in a 'mode' of their own (the other three modes are Court Cards, which answer the question 'Who?', Number cards 2-10 which answer the question 'What?' and Major Arcana which answer the question 'Why?':

'Aces should be included with the number cards, but they fill their own particular function, answering the question 'Where?' Aces show the element, realm, or sphere where the situation has the most potential, especially for producing something new. The nineteenth-century French magus Eliphas Levi, in Transcendental Magic, explained the significance of the Aces as follows: "The ace of deniers [coins]...is the soul of the world; the ace of swords is military intelligence; the ace of cups is loving intelligence; the ace of clubs [wands] is creative intelligence; they are further the principle of motion, progress, fecundity and power."' (Greer, op. cit. p. 49)

In Qabala the aces are assigned to kether, the highest of the sephira. Lon Milo Duquette puts their position and interraltionship in the qabala like this, talking about the Ace of Wands which in the Thoth tarot is depicted as a huge fiery Tree of Life:

'In a very real way, this image is telling us that, just as all the sephiroth of all four Trees of Life are only aspects of the one supreme Kether, just as all four Qabalistic worlds are really only aspects of the highest world, just as the He and the Vau and the final He of YHVH are really only aspects of the Yod, all the cards of the Minor Arcana ultimately live inside one card, the Ace of Wands.' (Lon Milo Duquette: Understanding Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot, Weiser Books, San Francisco, 2003, p. 166.)

I had a text from a friend just now calling the Aces 'the Surprise!!! cards or the I dunno right now cards'. Maybe better leave it at that!

Description

Morgan-Greer

The first and most fundamental step of Greer's ways to read the cards is for the querent to describe (without interpreting in any way) the card in front of them. The first thing to notice is that in no tarot deck are the suit symbols the only things on the ace cards. I shall attempt to describe the Aces in the Rider-Waite Smith deck (interesting to compare them with the Marseille aces, since that was the type of deck used as the basis for RWS), without giving too many insights into my fevered imagination.
The Ace of Cups shows a right hand emerging palm up from a cloud on the right side of the card, holding on its palm a gold-coloured chalice, out of which stream five streams of water which flow down to join the water in a lily pond at the base of the card. The hand is surrounded by a radiance, and surrounding the streams coming from the chalice are what look like drops of water. The background is a neutral grey. Above the chalice is a dove, holding in its beak a circle with a cross on it; the bird is flying downwards as if to place the circle in the chalice. The chalice has on the outside of its bowl a W or possibly an upside down M.
I have immediately gained a new insight into this card from merely describing it, since it has never struck me before that the water flowing out of the chalice is actually joining a greater body of water. What is happening in this card is part of a greater whole, and actually contributes to the whole although its presence may not be apparent when you look at the whole picture.
The Ace of Pentacles shows a right hand emerging palm up from a cloud at the left hand side of the card. The hand is surrounded by a radiance and holds in it a pentacle. The pentagram on the pentacle is arranging single point upwards. At the base of the card is a garden. A lawn is at the lowest, nearest, part with some daffodils growing on it. A yellow path leads to a hedge further back, in which is an arch, through which can be seen two blue mountain peaks. The background to the card is a neutral grey.
New insight for me personally again from doing this exercise: I had never noticed that the garden contained daffodils until I blew up the card to look closer and describe it. I'm obviously now going to join the army of people who look for obscure details in RWS cards!
The Ace of Swords shows a hand emerging on the left hand side of the card, closed around the grip of a sword, with the back of the hand to us. The sword is a bluish coloure and has a guard (sorry, don't know the proper name) to stop the hand going onto the blade. The hand is surrounded by a radiance and the blade of the sword is surrounded by four yellow flame things. Around the top of the blade of the sword is a yellow crown with red jewels. Hanging from the crown is a mistletoe branch on the left side and a palm branch on the right side. At the base of the card are purple-blue mountains in the distance, and the background to the card is a neutral grey colour.
The Ace of Wands shows a hand in a palm towards us position, thumb up anad fingers around the end of a stick, coming out a cloud. The hand is emerging from our right to left of the picture, but the cloud does not go off the picture, so that the hand is actually emerging from nowehere. The stick is thinner at the bottom than at the top, and at the top is a sort of lump. There are some shoots with green leaves (three shoots) coming out of the stick, and there are also some leaves around the stick, which are not connected to it by a shoot. The hand is surrounded by a radiance. The base/background of the card shows a green countryside scene, with a stream, some trees, and a green hill. There is a castle on top of the hill. The background of the card is a neutral grey colour.
I ought to do that more often. Never noticed the castle before. Doh!

The elements

What we therefore have at this point is a depiction (in decks of the RWS tradition) of the essence of the four elements. In an occult sense these four cards depict the building blocks for everything. Sometimes I am so slow. It took me literally years after I got interested in witchcraft to realise what the tables of correspondences in the books are getting at. I was also hoodwinked by the traditional names of the elements. This was something that only became clear when I read somewhere that sexual orientation can be a manifestation of a polarity, just as the elements are manifestations of energies. The reason Alexandrian witches are so obsessed with male-female polarity is that they work with a model in which everything is divisible into two genders. This is absolutely not to say that everything in their tradition is about sex! It means that the philosophy underlying their tradition divides the cosmos up on those lines, in their workings this pattern is both celebrated, embodied, and implemented to continue this pattern.
The philosophy underlying the tarot divides everything up into four (yes I know many people would say five, because there may be Spirit considered as a separate one. For the record Spirit can be used to refer to the Major Arcana, but here I am using a division based on four because I am solely talking about the elements. It will appear here that I am neglecting Spirit and ignoring the Major Arcana. That's because I am. Temporarily). So everything can be attributed to one of these categories, which similarly will have various attributes, such as warm, dry, wet, etc. There will also be shades of meaning in each of these correspondences: a cold bath might be nice on a hot day but being thrown in the sea from a ship in a gale would be fatal. It cannot be overstressed that these four images (out of a total of 78) are a summary of everything. They are a small part of the big picture, but include literally all possibilities.
The cards indicate the potential, but this manifests for us in concrete events - these correspondences again - so that the sorts of experiences manifested by the underlying energy we call Air would be different from those of Water, and so on. This may sound obvious, but it is one of the things that make divination work: we find a map of everything, and see where we are in it.
In the Tarot the elements are represented by four things: Swords, Wands, Cups, and Pentacles, themselves perfectly capable of being slotted into a table of correspondences, and themselves manifestations of the underlying energies at work in the four suits. Given that the aces are the the potential for the elements, what we have here is (imagine the broad Dorset accent) 'not what the thing seem, but what it be'!
This would put the lie to many of the traditional 'fortune telling' interpretations of the aces - new beginnings and so on - if therefore the aces don't even represent a beginning but what comes before: if nothing is greater than God, kether is that nothing.

Comparative tarot

Golden Tarot of Klimt

There is no substitute for looking at another deck when you're stuck for an answer. A turning point in my understanding of the aces came when a friend showed me his Tarot Art Nouveau deck: I was looking round for a new deck, and elected not to buy that one because there are way too many nipples. That's similar to the reason I can't read with the Brotherhood Tarot. Ahem. But what this tarot does do is show people in the Ace cards, so that there are actually things happening. Instead I bought the Golden Tarot of Klimt, which similarly shows people doing things: Cups shows embracing, Pentacles showing, Wands looking inwards and Swords rejoicing in victory. Of course it is also important that these are only my personal impressions of these cards: others may see them differently. I was personally disappointed by the Tarot of the New Vision: it is interesting as one person's view of what is going on in the Rider Waite cards from different perspectives, but I feel they don't leave enough to the imagination for fruitful readings.
I originally learned Tarot on the Morgan Greer deck, and to this day that and the Aquarian Tarot which obviously heavily influenced it are my duvet decks. Morgan Greer is as if Monty Python did a tarot deck, although I would recommend Rider Waite to a beginner as Morgan Greer lacks some of the detail. I learned to read in the way associated with pictorial decks, of actually looking at the pictures and letting them speak to me, but I now find this method curiously dissatisfying. When I was describing the Rider Waite cards above I found myself thinking, 'So what?', and I think that that method of reading tarot cards falls down in the Aces because they don't usually show real experiences which manifest the underlying 'energy' of the card. I am beginning to find that pictorial minor arcana don't do it for me any more anyway, I think because I now have a better understanding of the theory underlying the pictures. The pictures can only ever show one manifestation of the energy of the card, and yes the pictures can change for us depending on where we are, but I have been surprised at some of the stuff I have got from non-pictorial minor arcana decks. I dearly love the Crystal Tarot, unfortunately my phone camera isn't good enough to do justice to the gorgeousness that is those cards. I have recently bought a Grimaud Ancien Tarot de Marseille, and am approaching it gingerly, because it's like spending time with the granddaddy of all modern tarot decks. Most of the time when reading for myself I use an amalgamated deck made of several decks, which is pictured at the top of this post.
The Marseille Tarot was heavily influential on the Rider Waite deck, but there is another influence on both that deck and on Crowley's Thoth deck: the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the importance of which in modern English-speaking occultism cannot be overstated. There is a rumour which is still peddled in some websites and books that the Rider Waite deck is that used by the Golden Dawn. This is not true: in the Golden Dawn you actually had to make your own deck, using descriptions in one of their manuscripts, and so to prove this rumour wrong, and also to provide another source for comparison, here are the descriptions of the aces from the Golden Dawn's Book T:

Aquarian Tarot (after borderectomy)

OF THE ACES

First in order and appearance are the four Aces, representing the force of the Spirit acting in, and binding together the four scales of each element and answering to the Dominion of the Letters of the Name in the Kether of each. They represent the Radical or Root-force. The Four Aces are said to be placed on the North Pole of the Universe, wherein they revolve, governing revolution, and ruling as the connecing link between Yetsirah and the Material Plane of the Universe.

I. The Root of the Powers of Fire

ACE OF WANDS

A white radiating angelic Hand issuing from Clouds and grasping a heavy Club which has thress branches in the colours and with the Sigils of the Scales. The right and left hand branches end respectively in three Flames and the centre one in four Flames, thus yielding Ten the number of the Sephiroth. Two and twenty leaping Flames or Yods surround it, answering to the paths of these. Three fall below the right branch for Aleph, Mem and Shin. Seven above the central branch for the double letters. And between it and that on the right, twelve - six above and six below - about the left hand Branch. The whole is a great and Flaming Torch. It symbolises Force, Strength, Rush, Vigour, Energy, and it governs according to its nature various works and questions. It implies natural as opposed to Invoked Force.

II. The Root of the Powers of the Waters.

ACE OF CUPS OR CHALICES

A Radiant white Angelic Hand issuing from clouds and supported on the palm thereof a Cup, resembling that of the Stolistes. From it rises a fountain of clear and glistening Water; and spray falling on all sides into clear calm water below, in which grow Lotus and water lilies. The great letter Heh of the Supernal Mother is traced in the spray of the Fountain. It symbolises Fertility, Productiveness, Beauty, Pleasure, Happiness, etc.

III. The Root of the Powers of Air

ACE OF SWORDS

A white radiating Angelic Hand, issuing from clouds, and grasping the hilt of a Sword, which supports a white radiant celestial Crown from which depend, on the right, the olive branch of Peace, and on the left, the palm branch of Suffering. Six Vaus fall from its point.
It symbolises invoked as contrasted with natural Force; for it is the Invocation of the Sword. Raised upward, it invokes the Divine Crown oof Spiritual Brightness. But reversed it is the invocation of demoniac force, and becomes a fearfully evil symbol. It represents therefore very great power for good or evil, but invoked. And it also represents whirling force, and strength through trouble. It is the affirmation of Justice, upholding Divine authority; and it may become the Sword of Wrath, Punishment and Affliction.

IV. The Root Powers of the Earth [Sic]

ACE OF PENTACLES

A white radiant Angelic Hand, holding a branch of a rose Tree, whereon is a large Pentacle, formed of five concentric circles. The innermost Circle is white, charged with a red Greek cross. From this white centre 12 rays, also white, issue. These terminate at the circumference, making the whole something like an astrological figure of the Heavens.
It is surmounted by a small circle, above which is a large Maltese Cross, and with two white wings; four roses and two buds are shewn. The hand issueth from the clouds as in the other three cases. It representeth materiality in all senses, good and evil, and is therefore in a sense illusionary. It shows Material gain, Labour, Power, Wealth, etc.
(Israel Regardie: The Golden Dawn (Sixth Edition, Revised and Enlarged), Llewellyn Worldwide, Woodbury MN, 1989, pp.542-3.)

It's interesting just over a century later (yes, it was as recently as that) to read the Golden Dawn's rituals and papers, to note how occultism has changed in that time, and been - I will say it - dumbed down! Reading these descriptions is like a compendium of occult symbols, so that my cunning plan in including these descriptions was to lead to some of Greer's other methods of interpreting cards. One is the symbology, and one of the things I love about occult studies is that you never get there, they  are never ending: the above descriptions explain some only of the symbols and could provide a springboard into a lifetime of study into colours, symbols, qabala, etc.
The other method referenced in these descriptions is one that - to be frank - I don't like very much, the method of keywords. I try to avoid this method because when I was learning tarot I used it to learn 'the meanings' by writing keywords on my original deck. As time went on I found this method limiting, although I think the keywords given above are not as limiting as they sometimes are. This is also the reason I personally don't use reversals (oh yes I can use them, I just don't choose to): I feel that the shades of meaning in the 78 cards are more than enough, adding reversals into the equation limits the possible meanings of the upright cards. That said, if a card does end up reversed in a reading I tend to read it in whatever way feels right at the time, but that's a whole different post!
Other ways to understand the cards come to mind here: drawing them, as if one were an initiate in the Golden Dawn, would be an interesting exercise. It would not only lead one into the cards themselves, but also drawing things is an interesting exercise in how you personally see the thing. Particularly if you can do this with someone else, it would be interesting to see how each person interprets the description when it is actually drawn.
Acting out the cards is another method I like to use. The querent is not always necessarily the obvious 'person' in the card: for example if you see yourself as the hand in the tarot cards, it would feel very different to hold the wand than it would to hold the overflowing cup. Similarly it would feel different to be the cup, and would then change the 'dynamic' of the card very much to how you would feel about the hand holding you.
One of the ways I have only recently discovered to read the cards is to see the minor arcana as referencing the major arcana of the same number: I discovered this method in some of the literature on reading the Marseille Tarot. I think this method may be relatively little known to English-speaking tarotists, because the approach to tarot amongst Francophones seems to be relatively uninfluenced by the kind of approaches engendered by the Rider Waite deck and its derivatives. They will often do Majors-only reading using a Marseille deck, and if they want more detail use an Etteilla or Lenormand deck. Anyway using this method would first and foremost connect the Aces to the Magician, and this approach works particularly well with the aces, because in most modern occult tarot decks the magician is shown with the symbols of the elements on the table in front of him, symbolising all possibilities lying in front of him. In one deck (sorry, can't remember which one) the magician is actually confronted with four possible routes to go down. I personally wouldn't like to have to choose only one: if I were the lovely Neo in the Matrix I would definitely want to swallow both pills when given a choice!

Book Meanings

Finally there are the meanings given in books. I don't wnt to give the impression, because I have left this method until last, that I would look down on it. Although I was brought up on the idea of looking at the cards and developed an early disdain for Little White Books, I have since overcome that attitude and now think that books are a valuable way to gain a new insight into a card when you're stuck. It also stops you from being stagnant in your own little tarot world (other ways would include using a different deck and drawing a clarifying card). So here are some traditional book meanings from Mary K Greer's The Complete Book of Tarot Reversals (Llewellyn Worldwide, Woodbury, 2001). Book meanings can also be very helpful in identifying the concrete situations in which the energies manifest. I include the reversed meanings for those who like that sort of thing.

Ace of Wands: Letter. Command, edict, decree. Announcement. Beginning, birth, commencement. Invention, Fortune, Enterprise. An adventure. Force, authority, order. Origin. Principle, pre-eminence. Premise, cause, reason. House, lineage, family. (p.98)

Ace of Wands Reversed: Fall, decadence, ruin, decline.Collapse, vexation. Lost or damaged goods. Unproductive work. Clouded joy. Illegitimacy or trouble with a birth. Tyranny, cruelty, persecution. Abandonment. A bad start. Hopes not realized. (p.99)

[She also gives 'yes' to this card upright and 'no' to this card reversed.]

Ace of Cups: Home, hearth, abode, family. Table, banquet, nourishment, feasting. Invitation. Good Cheer. Opulence, overindulgence. Good news. Fertility, birth. Love, passion. Kindness. Abundance. Beauty. Joy. Constancy. (p.118)

Ace of Cups Reversed: Change, novelty, revolution, alteration. Erosion, mutation, metamorphosis. Inconstancy, instability. Unrequited love. False-hearted. Sterility. Exchange, barter, sale. Donation. Benefits scorned. (p.119)

Ace of Swords: Difficulties. Accidents. Strife, battles, aggressiveness. Bravery. Strength, justice, power. Excess. Triumph by force. Authority. Conquest. Glory. Competition. Potency. Temper, passion. Conception. (p.138)

Ace of Swords Reversed: Slander. Disaster. Punishment. Tyranny. Injustice. Loss of Power. Destruction.Obstacles, hindrance. Prejudice. Seed. Sperm. Conception. Impotency. (p.139)

Ace of Pentacles: Perfect contentment, happiness, felicity. Prosperity. Sudden wealth. Enchantment, ecstasy, pleasure, satisfaction. Accomplishment. Complete solar medicine; gold. A "talisman of fortune." (p.158)

Ace of Pentacles Reversed: Finding of treasure. Wealth. Purse of gold. Profit. Opulence. Prosperity without happiness. Priceless. Sum total. Principal. Capital. Waste. Greed, meanness, avarice. Materialism. Wealth that corrupts. Fool's gold. (p.159)