Working Playing Cards: Hearts & Diamonds
This is Part 2 of a series. Go to Part 1. Go to Part 3
image: a Black person with red curly hair and a sporty dress holding their arms up on a purple gradient background. There’s a diamond in the corner.
Hearts and Diamonds are our red cards in the deck of playing cards. They heat things up, sweeten interactions—whether like honey or cinnamon—and bring results faster than the other suits in the deck.
They have a variable and changeable nature, and need the other suits to stabilize their essence. Think of fire: it can’t burn without fuel. The red cards are the results of other actions, they’re what we see after a great deal of hard work.
This doesn’t mean they matter less, it means it takes far more work to make them last.
Yet sometimes lasting isn’t what we want or need. If you’re looking for a hot night, a new attitude, a text back, or a great new outfit, the red cards—Hearts and Diamonds are where you can look. They bring fun, sex, love, energy and joy into our lives, and when we work them in conjure we often do so to bring about or protect those energies.
I’ll discuss:
✹ Hearts in playing cards
✹ Diamonds in playing cards
Jump to Section:
⟶ Hearts
⟶ Diamonds
image: playing card divination book, leopard print, and button to learn more.
Suit of Hearts
Keywords: Relationships, Emotions, Intuition, Creation, Jealousy, Wishes
Recommendations: Water, Mirrors, Baths, Jars, Home Spaces
Hearts are the suit of the priest class and human desires. Hearts emphasize the turns of fate around our emotional lives.
Queen of Hearts is basically the sibling of the Queen of Cups: they are feminine, maternal, supportive, and faithful.
The Queen of Hearts may not be overtly psychic, but they are in touch with their 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 Hearts’ 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 Hearts brings us our wishes, but also asks us if what we want will actually make us happy.
There is, however, a less capricious wish card in a deck of playing cards and we’ll get to that in a moment.
Three of Hearts sometimes shows up as an affair or a misunderstanding with a group of people. It can be used to figure out who someone you love is cheating with.
Jealousy and envy are assured with the presence of the Eight of Hearts with the Three of Hearts. So too can they be dispelled by working these cards, if you work them right.
Suit of Diamonds
Keywords: Values, Money, Sex, Gains & Losses, Goals
Recommendations: Fire/Burning, Enhancing Other Cards, Expediting Work, Heating Things Up
Diamonds are the suit that manifest in our life in the shortest period of time we’re talking about seconds, minutes, maybe hours. The work of the Ace of Diamonds can be done within the day. It’s coffee with a friend whose job is hiring. It’s the pair of shoes you can finally afford.
This is why it can be helpful to work a card from the suit of Diamonds when you need to speed up a result, or need to expedite a project.
The Ace of Diamonds is a great card for bringing wishes and drawing a financial opportunity, though it isn’t always great for nurturing it. Hence why I’ve sometimes paired it with more stable cards in workings.
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’re waiting to hear back from an important job interview, or need an answer from the airline about your plane ticket for tomorrow morning, the suit of diamonds is where to go.
The Diamonds share the monetary meaning you’ll be familiar with from tarot’s Pentacles, but they’re not purely earthy in nature like Pentacles. The Diamonds are fiery and add heat, unpredictability, and depending on the card, a martian energy to a working.
Instead of thinking of the Diamonds as purely money, it can be helpful to expand their meaning to value and thus values. The Three of Diamonds is especially useful in this regard, for it is the decks card of your values as well as those of the people you’re surrounded by. Work with the Three of Diamonds to get clear about the integrity of your community and crew.
The Ten of Diamonds shows us the risk inherent in forgoing a values assessment, or at least it can. Ten of Diamonds brings us to parties, events, and nightclubs. This can go well, or this can end in violence.
The Ten of Diamonds mirrors the energies of the juke joint in Sinners. It’s wild, unpredictable, and potentially very dangerous. To conjure such a party or protect it you may look to the Ten of Diamonds. Remember others may be looking there too!
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.
Eight of Diamonds is a benevolent card similar to the Eight of Pentacles, but far faster. Think a workshop, networking opportunity, or even sorority instead of a whole college degree. Great for folks working in non-profit organizations or waiting on news of a scholarship.
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!
image: playing card divination book, leopard print, and button to learn more.
Further Thoughts
Hey, I’m Cyrée
I’m a rootworker, diviner, and clinical herbalist. I believe that spirit work is an essential part of all movements for justice. I hope you’ll take a look around, there are plenty of opportunities here to deepen your connection with your gifts (with my guidance.)
New to Hoodoo cartomancy and don’t know where to start? Here are the card meanings I suggest for all fifty-four playing cards as a professional card reader!