Tarot and the question of symbolism

I love reading about the origins of tarot. I am by no means an expert and I am certainly not a historian. But I always wonder about the overlap between historical knowledge, intuition and what Jung called the ‘collective unconscious’ - the idea that there are universal archetypal structures in the unconscious mind we all share. Over the last few years, I have been more and more drawn to what is called an ‘open reading’. in tarot. This means that we rely less on fixed or inherited meanings when we read, and more on the patterns or stories that present themselves. How much do we include our knowledge of colour symbolism, for example, when red means passion or danger to a westerner, and luck and happiness to someone in China? How do we decide whether to lay a framework of our collective understanding of symbolism onto a card, or to react to it in the moment, and in relation to other cards? And can we even do that freely?

This article is about the ancient roots of the tarot and traces the symbolism in the imagery. Do we need this information, and does it change the way we respond to a card?

https://www.ancient-origins.net/opinion-guest-authors/symbolism-0010575