Cult of Tarot Forum

It's fascinating how the names for our weekdays evolved - and even more fascinating that in most cultures, they resemble.

It seems that our ancestors identified early on the weird celestial bodies that could show up in different places, as opposed to the fixed stars on whose appearance you could rely from year to year. We call them planets. Since the idea that the planets include Earth and all circle around the Sun is pretty recent, all early cultures included Sun and Moon in the planets and imagined that they all move around the Earth - we call that the Ptolemaic or geocentric universe.


Early humans must have understood that the slowest, Saturn, is the most distant of all, while the quickest, Moon, is closest to us. The Chaldeans already sorted the planets in the order that carries their name until today:

Saturn,
Jupiter,
Mars,
Sun,
Venus,
Mercury,
Moon.


Seven celestial bodies, seven traditional planets.

If you arrange the planets in the Chaldean order in a circle, that's how they look:

And if you draw a seven-pointed star that connects the planets, you will get the following order:

Saturn,
Sun,
Moon,
Mars,
Mercury,
Jupiter,
Venus.

And that's the order of planetary regents. Each of these planets rules over one day per week.


Saturn rules Saturday,
Sun rules Sunday,
Moon rules Monday,
Mars, also called Tiw or Tiu, rules Tuesday (Mardi in French),
Mercury, also called Woden or Wodan, rules Wednesday (Mercredi in French),
Jupiter, also known as Donar or Thor, rules Thursday (Jeudi in French), and
Venus, also known as Freya, rules Friday (Vendredi in French).

This connection between planets and weekdays has been known for centuries.

It's a well-established tarot routine to draw a card per day - seven cards from one deck that allow us to get to know the deck better, to hone our reading skills and get new insights about our daily lives. Many tarot boards, forums and blogs present a daily card from a deck chosen for the week.

In this forum, we don't only draw a card per day but we do the Planetary Week group reading.

You can pick any deck: tarot, Lenormand, Kipper, oracle or playing cards. From this deck, you'll draw one card per day - i.e., seven Daily Cards from your Deck of the Week that allow you to get to know the deck better, to hone your reading skills and get new insights about your life.

In a Planetary Week reading, we don't only draw a card per day but also give it a topic. We focus on motifs, topics, patterns in our lives, inspired by the planetary ruler of every weekday (for background information, look here).

On Saturdays, ruled by Saturn: Obstacles and Blockades,
on Sundays, ruled by the Sun: Inspiration and Goals,
on Mondays, ruled by the Moon: Dreams and Fears,
on Tuesdays, ruled by Mars: Conflicts and Challenges,
on Wednesdays, ruled by Mercury: Interactions and Change,
on Thursdays, ruled by Jupiter: Power and Influences, and
on Fridays, ruled by Venus: Love and Attraction.

The focus words I chose for each planet/day are not binding. If on Mondays, you find yourself contemplating the role of intuition or female health in your reading, that's fine. It also belongs to the Moon. Please don't limit yourself to the two short words I gave. Planetary rule means so much more, and my keywords are not supposed to limit your readings.



There are different ways to perform a Planetary Week reading.

Traditionally: draw a card per day and use the prism of the planetary influence to connect the card to your day and life.

Selective: select a card that suits the topic of each weekday and use it as affirmation and empowerment to improve your life.

Day-by-day: draw or pick your daily card one by one through the week.

Summarily: draw or pick all cards together before the week starts and treat them as a complete reading.

Share pictures if you can or want to.

No matter how we do it - by reminding ourselves of the planetary regents and their influence, we re-connect to the sevenfold cycle of time that our ancestors established, with their eyes to the sky.

There will be a new group reading every week on Saturday (with the most distant of visible planets). Jump in whenever you want.

slightly off-topic, Nemia, but any idea why the early Christians changed the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday? surely the sun/son pun was a serendipitous after-event. was it simply to "be different" than their Jewish predecessors? or was it because the Son of Man/God rose on a Sunday?

Son/Sun wouldn't work in Greek or Hebrew. There are different reasons given, among them those you mention: a wish to distance themselves from Judaism and remnants of Sun-focused Pagan traditions that found their way into eary Christianity (Mithras cult and others - there are even depictions of Christ as Sun god with an aura like Apollo). There are lots of explanations on the Internet and in books about the reasons, but my own explanation is simple. If you want to distance yourself from Judaism with its high importance of Shabat and the many rules to follow, the logical way to do so is to proclaim the "first day" the day of celebration. In Hebrew, the days are numbered according to the story of creation; most other languages have the associations with the planets but the Hebrew language doesn't. Yom rishon or simply yom alef is the first day, i.e. Sunday. It's special, and it connects the story of the Creation with the story of Christ's Resurrection. But the whole topic is very complex, when and why did the Christians decide that Jesus died on a Friday?, and I'm really not competent to know the true answers

(I've been puzzled all my life about the Passover/Easter connection because of the bread. How could Jesus have broken any bread on Passover? There is no bread to be had in any Jewish household over Passover. Never found a good explanation.)

Nemia wrote: ↑18 May 2018, 14:08 It's fascinating how the names for our weekdays evolved - and even more fascinating that in most cultures, they resemble.

This is interesting! Will be keeping an eye on this. Thanks Nemia

Ha! Raven of Summer! Any plans for the Summer Solstice...?

I think having a Planetary Week reading group will be great. It will be like Deck of the Week but richer, more magical and more attuned to the wisdom within and around us.

wonderful, nemia!

i love the different topics assigned to each day of the week and am looking forward to these daily draws!

nice idea to have a daily reading.
do you have any truck with the allocation of planets to cards, collated by the golden dawn for example -
Saturn - World
Sun - Sun
Moon - High Priestess [Moon]
Mars - Tower [Emperor]
Mercury - Magician
Jupiter - Wheel of Fortune
Venus - Empress

as for the Passover question - the Jews as far as i know ate bread, just not leavened bread. what they called matza, which symbolizes their time of indenture in Egypt and liberation. on that note, i have read an Apocrypha where Christ states a follower should never eat leavened bread, but only bread without yeast all year round.

I use the majors of the weekdays as daily focus cards but it would be too confusing to mix them in the Planetary Week. Obviously, when you get the Empress on a Friday, it makes her stronger - but my idea was to let the planet introduce the topic, like asking us a question. On Friday, that question would be: what about love and attraction in your life right now?

Let's see how it works. Life means tweaking stuff until it works If people want to take the majors on board, they're welcome. I'd prefer to focus on the daily card and the planetary theme right now.

I've been the mod for the Deck of the Week readings on another forum for a year now and the practice has really enriched my tarot skills.

It being World Tarot Day, I am getting pretty excited and might over commit. With that said, I REALLY like this idea and want to jump on board. Do we start this Saturday? Makes sense to me. Do we post what deck we are using for the upcoming week? If so, starting Saturday 5/26 I will use my faithful Daughters of the Moon (my first deck, my go to deck for all things).

I am in

Do we start tomorrow?

Yes we do!

I just re-read this entry and it is so interesting I just wanted to bump it for anyone who hadn't seen it before.

I have by now incorporated a number of decks to show the day of the week - one on my altar, one on my tarot calendar, and one on my daily card mini easel. I want to show the decks here so others who consider buying a deck for such use have an idea how it might look.


First of all, I have these wonderful Solar System cards which are nice for hobby astronomers and have no astrological or esoteric association at all.


This is the deck I use on my altar.


I like these cards because they reflect the fact that from gazing at the stars, you can end up a physicist with telescopes, or a tarot reader and astrologer, or both. They're precise depictions of the planets as science has shown them to look.


In a different, more artistic style, the Arcana of Astrology depicts the planets, among other astrologically relevant celestial bodies:



(I'd love to have also the astronomical deck by the same artist... her style is so beautiful). This is the deck I use on my tarot calendar to depict the ruling planet of the decan - right now, it's Venus.




Then, I have the Renaissance deck called the Mantegna Tarot with the planet cards that show how Roman mythology (based on Greek mythology) envisioned the gods who gave their names to the planet:



These gods embody the characteristics of each planet as it appeared to the ancient star watchers. They're personifications and have entered the consciousness of all human cultures (in different ways, of course, but as far as I know, there is no human culture without star lore).

I use the Mantegna along with my daily card to see how everything is connected.


My newest deck is the Cosmos Tarot and Oracle deck with very beautiful and expressive planet cards that touch on some Greek/Roman motifs but much more freely than the Mantegna, and much more eclectically.


I like feeling the connection between celestial bodies and time. Right now for example Venus and Jupiter are very close to each other. Tonight, when Jupiter's day changes to Venus' day (when Thursday turns into Friday), I'll watch them (well, it's going to be Friday morning until they come out). By changing my cards daily, I have given a nice rhtyhm to my week. A returning pattern.

Of course, many other decks can be used - actually, every tarot deck has a Sun, Moon, Tower (Mars), Magician (Mercury), Wheel of Fortune (Jupiter), Empress (Venus) and World (Saturn) card, and when they appear in a reading on "their" days, I feel they're strengthened.