Learning Tarot

I want you to hear that first, because most people who buy a deck open the little booklet, see 78 meanings to learn, and put the whole thing back in the drawer. You do not need to memorise anything to start. You need to look.

How I came to the cards

I was an avid tarot reader in my early twenties. It did not take me long to realise the limits of it, and I moved on to using no tools at all, just my own sense of things. That lasted many years.

When I came back to tarot, I came back differently. Now I read with the birth chart open beside me: the numerology, the astrology, where the planets are for that person right now. The cards are chosen with all of that already in view. I call it channelled selection. The chart shows the shape of a life, and the cards show what is moving through it this season.

Some people treat the cards as magic and some treat them as a party trick. I treat them as a mirror with 78 faces. What you see in it depends a great deal on how still you are when you look.

What is in a deck

Twenty two of the cards are the Major Arcana. These are the big themes: the Fool, the Lovers, Death, the Star, the World. When one of them turns up, something larger than this week is being talked about.

The other 56 are the Minor Arcana, and they are where everyday life happens. They come in four suits, Cups, Wands, Swords and Pentacles. Each suit runs from Ace to Ten and has four court cards: Page, Knight, Queen and King.

Arcana simply means secrets. The big secrets and the small ones.

Which deck

Start with the Rider Waite Smith deck, or one drawn closely on it. It was published in 1909 with pictures by Pamela Colman Smith, and it was one of the first decks to put a full scene on every Minor card. That matters to a beginner. A picture of a person doing something is far easier to read than a plain row of five swords.

Every card I describe on these pages is the Rider Waite Smith image, and so is every Tarot Card of the Week in the daily posts.

Once you know that deck, pick up any other you like the look of. Most modern decks are built on the same bones.

The exercise: one card a day

Here is how I would have you start.

Every morning, shuffle the deck, ask "What do I need to know about today?" and pull one card. Before you read a word about it, look at it for a full minute. What is the person doing? What is the weather like in the picture? What is the first thing your eye goes to?

Write down what you see and what you feel, a sentence or two. Then look it up if you want to.

That evening, read your note again and ask where the card showed up in your day.

Do that for a month and you will have met a good part of the deck, one card at a time, in the middle of your own life, which is the only place the meanings ever stick. You will also notice that some cards keep coming back. Pay attention to those. A card that keeps turning up is a whisper, and you know what happens to whispers that get ignored. They get louder.

A few things worth knowing

Do not ask the same question three times in a row because you did not like the first answer. The first answer was the answer.

Do not read for yourself when you are in a state. Grounding comes first, always. If you would not drive in the mood you are in, do not read in it either. The Meditation and Grounding area shows you how.

Heavy cards are a mirror. When Death, the Tower or the Devil turns up, the card is showing you something you need to see clearly. Nothing in the deck hands down a sentence.

And you are the reader. The cards give you pictures. What they mean for you, today, is yours to decide.

Where to go next

How to Read a Card gives you five questions to ask of any card, and they will have you reading straight away. The Major Arcana, the four suits, the court cards and reversed cards go deeper when you are ready, and The 78 Cards gives every card in the deck its own page.

You will be your own teacher. You will be your own guide. All I will do is help you to remember what you already know.

If you would like the cards read against your own chart, my readings are here.