Start Reading the Cards Right Now

Chapter One

Tarot, Magic, and You

Start Reading the Cards Right Now

Tarot reading is like wading in an icy swimming hole on a cool summer night. Diving in is easier than tiptoeing. You can read tarot right now. There’s no need to be versed in occult secrets. You don’t need to be the love child of a certified witch. You don’t need to memorize card meanings.

The most important part of tarot reading is the intuitive space you create while gazing at the cards. Tarot’s power springs from you. You hold the magic. You hold the power. You arrive at a message. The cards are simply a tool with which you can engage your intuition.

You are a walking symbolic dictionary. Your life is chock-full of symbols holding deep associations and profound meanings for you. It is exquisite that your experience of symbol, color, sound, and shape is unique to you. No one will ever read the cards or arrive at the answers just like you.

You already know what the cards mean because tarot is a reflection of the human psyche. Everything you have or will experience is reflected in the arcana. The cards are a reflection of life. Every day you grow richer with experience. Apply this knowledge to the cards.

Key to Reading Tarot

✦ Trust ✦ Open ✦ Tell the Story ✦

Don’t let preconceived notions of tarot throw you off your reading game. You may have suffered the prickly experience of walking into a metaphysical shop and asking a question only to have an employee blow you off or make you feel silly because you didn’t know what something was. Maybe you’ve met a psychic or “tarot expert” who wore their esoteric knowledge like a tattooed arm sleeve. The saddest thing someone can do is make you feel like a dummy when you ask a question or overkill you with their presumed knowledge. Rest assured, if this has ever happened, it was all about them and never about you. Don’t let a negative past experience affect your ability to read the cards.

This isn’t to say you shouldn’t have respect for schools of occult knowledge or someone with years of tarot experience. You should. Tarot knowledge is enriching and exciting. But trust me, I’ve seen ten-year-olds read

cards brilliantly with no experience. Their tarot interpretations are amazing. Why? Simple: they respond to the card instead of fear. Children are not afraid to get it wrong.

Don’t be afraid to get it wrong. Fear of being “wrong” is the single biggest impediment to all readers. Nothing throws up insurmountable barriers like fear. Tarot is steeped in hundreds of years of esoteric theory and rich highly structured meaning. Will knowing this add depth and richness to your readings? Absolutely. Do you need all that stuff now? Not at all.

Everything you learn from here on out is a tool for your tarot toolbox. Everything falls away the moment you start reading cards. Focus on what you see. How does the card make you feel? What messages are you receiving? Tarot is an ever-evolving art form, and you move it forward every time you read a card. Start from scratch. Toss your fear a pack of cigarettes and tell her to go outside and grab a smoke. Lock the door once she’s out there. Focus on the cards at hand.

Flip a card. What do you see?

Tarot is storytelling. You are a natural-born storyteller. Stories are universal. This is why a good astrology column feels like it was written just for you even when 14 million other people with your sign think it is just for them. It doesn’t matter if you are predicting a future outcome, examining the past, or looking for guidance. No matter how you use tarot, you are telling a story.

There are two stories we constantly weave: the stories we tell ourselves and the stories we tell others. The voice inside our head is the inner storyteller. The inner storyteller chatters incessantly. It makes value judgments and assesses situations. The inner voice takes every story and makes it about us. Someone looks at us sideways or cut us off in traffic and we take it personally. The decisions we make, the thoughts we think—all spring from our inner narrator.

The second voice is the outer voice. We use this when we tell stories to others. We get home and tell our family the story of our crazy day. We are telling a story when we tell someone our personal history or glorious future plans.

If I placed a wordless illustrated child’s book in your hands and asked you to tell me the story of what you see, you could easily do it. If I showed you three photographs from a recent trip to India and asked you to tell me what I was doing, you could. If I opened a magazine and asked you to make up the story behind a random editorial fashion shoot, you could do it. If I placed three tarot cards in front of you and asked you to tell me what story you see like you are reading a graphic novel, you could do it. So: 1: Shuffle the deck. 2: Draw three cards (turning reversals upright if any are upside down). 3: Tell me the story. The story I see is…

Trust what you see. No one sees, feels, and experiences the world like you do. Tarot’s power is in the abstract nature of its symbols, each of which holds particular meaning for you. Symbols like sun, moon, and skull hold universal connotation, yet how you interpret this symbol is unique to you. This is the key to unraveling the message of tarot. It is your golden ticket. This is your message.

Find your meaning the same way you catch an alluring stranger’s eye from across a crowded room. Your body feels it before your intellect does. An internal tremor occurs. A spark—no matter how small—is lit. Can you figure out what it means to you? Examine the symbol the same way you’d look closer at a beguiling stranger. What intrigues you? Do you resonate with their energy? Do they look like a bowl of ice cream oozing with caramel sauce? When a symbol captures your attention in a tarot card, do the same thing. If a rainbow calls out to you, consider what rainbows mean to you. Do they make you happy and fill you with hope? If

the figure on the card looks confident, consider what confidence means to you. Is this card talking about confidence? Run with it!

Randomly flip a tarot card. The thing that catches my attention about this card is…

Always go with your first instinct and watch how quickly your intuition develops. Trusting your instincts with the cards spills over into your regular life. This leads to inner and outer alignment between your authentic self and the universe. You’ll make decisions faster and with more certainty. Wanna know a secret? Reading cards is no different than interpreting a snapshot of the room in front of you. One day you’ll be able to read any life scene, event, and moment of anything happening as if it were a tarot card. Trust yourself. Know what you feel and feel what you know. All the answers you’ve ever sought are inside you.

Randomly flip a tarot card. My instinct tells me this card is about…

Shuffling is a fun and easy way of infusing the energy of your question into the tarot. You don’t need to be a Vegas dealer to do it. Go with what feels right for you.

Card Soup (easiest): Spread the cards facedown on a table and mix them with your hands. Scoop them back together and begin drawing from the stack.

Card Cut (fairly easy): The deck is split from one hand to the next by letting sections of the deck fall into the other hand.

Casino Shuffle (advanced but worth it): Cut the deck in half so you have two small piles, one in each hand. Use your left and right thumbs to shuffle them together and combine. Repeat at least three times until the deck is mixed.

Leaping Cards: A card or two often leap from the deck when you are shuffling. Read these cards as extra information!

Laying out the cards can happen in many ways.

Stack of Cards: Traditionally, the cards are held in one hand or placed on the table. The cards are chosen off the top of the deck and flipped from left to right in order to determine if the card is upright or reversed.

Half Moon: Spread the cards out in a half moon or rainbow shape in front of you and select cards at random.

Straight Line: Same as half moon but in a straight line.

Choose your card where the energy calls you. This is a fun system for pulling cards for chakra readings. Choose the cards from a vertical line that matches the body’s chakra locations.

Table of Cards: Spread your cards out across the table like card soup and choose from where the energy calls you. Counting Down: You can count down a specific number and then pull a card or cards. Choose a specific number to align with numerology, day, month, or age, for any reason you like.

Reversals are cards appearing upside down in a spread. Do not worry about reversals if you are just beginning. Turn them right-side up. You are not cheating. Your reading is still valid. There are many ways to read a reversal, and turning them around is one of them. To read more on the art of reading reversals, see page 75.

Read cards for yourself by writing down the messages and information as they come to you. It can feel overwhelming at first. It is natural to question yourself. Be kind. Take your time. Have fun.

Write down your answers and intuitions as they occur. Record your readings even if you only note the card and a keyword. This will help you focus your thoughts. It is helpful to read your cards aloud to someone else (even if you are reading for yourself). Reading aloud and writing it down helps you articulate the story you see unfolding in the cards.

How the cards influence each other is often described in older esoteric tarot books. These books will sometimes provide the meaning of a card and say that if it is positioned near a “good” card in a spread, its meaning is magnified in a positive way. Conversely, if it appears near a “bad” card, the meaning of the card will be subtracted or made worse.

To call the cards “good” or “bad” is an antiquated black-and-white viewpoint. Each card is a world unto itself, a literal universe with bright, shiny aspects and dark and repressive aspects—just like us!

Instead of good and bad, consider the energetic essence of the cards to be like the energy of other people. If you stood next to someone who was vibrant like the Sun card, their energy might influence you and make you feel uplifted. If you stood near a High Priestess type who surrounds herself in sacred silence, you might be inclined to lower your voice. If you stood next to a King of Wands type exuding wild, passionate charisma, he might heat you up a bit. Feel the energetic essence of the cards to see how they affect one another.

Here’s a simple system for intuitive reading. Close your eyes and clear your mind by focusing on your breath for a few moments. Inhaling breath will ground you. Exhaling breath will release unneeded energy. Feel your feet flat on the ground. Root into your seat. Feel the solid foundation beneath you. Focus on your third eye center. It glows with energy. Spin this energy upward to create a gentle vortex so inspiration will infuse you from above.

Shuffle the cards. Ask a question either aloud or in your mind. Flip a card. Observe. My message/answer is…

Final Word: If you’d like one final comment from the tarot about your reading, here is a fun system: flip your remaining stack of cards over. Read the bottom card as your final word.

What I don’t know about the cards is everything. Tarot students are often nervous to “get it wrong.” New cartomancers don’t realize that their self-proclaimed ignorance is really their strongest asset. The key to effective reading is waiting for the information to come to you.

Reading for yourself is tricky, especially when we develop habits and ways of seeing the cards. We dive into the cards and visit psychics or intuitives for information we don’t know.

When reading for ourselves, how can we break out of reading ruts? How do we keep readings fresh and insightful?

Simple: Ask the cards what you don’t know. 1. Clear your mind. 2. Shuffle the deck and pull a card. 3. State out loud, “What I don’t know about the _____ card is that ________________.”

4. Fill in the blanks by selecting a card and finishing the sentence. Don’t try too hard. Let an aspect of the card strike you. State it clearly. Articulate it out loud or write it down.

Once you figure out why this particular answer came to you, discover why it is relevant to your situation.

You will know your information is helpful if: 1. The information surprises you or makes no immediate sense.

2. Upon reflection, the information holds particular resonance for you.