Tarot Is

Tarot Is…

Tarot is a deck of seventy-eight cards. Mysterious, hidden potential exists inside this portable, seemingly simple stack of images. To say tarot is “just a deck of cards” is like saying you are “just a person.” Tarot is as complex and nuanced as you. Just as you grow and learn every day, so tarot is an ever-evolving energy. Tarot exists on the outer, visible level through its visual art and deck construction. More importantly, tarot exists in the invisible realm of your sacred imagination and psyche. Tarot is a malleable practice because each time you flip a card and shuffle the deck, you bring tarot into a new space. No one can interpret a card like you because no one experiences the world like you do.

Tips for Deeper Reading

✦ Study card definitions. ✦ Create original meanings of the cards. ✦ What song, smell, and sound does the card exude?

✦ Look for tarot examples in everyday life. ✦ Imagine what happens before and after the card. ✦ Can you find a voice inside the card? What does it sound like?

Tarot Is Useful for

✦ Guidance ✦ Prophesy ✦ Magic ✦

✦ Occult Exploration ✦ Reflection & Meditation ✦ Emergent Creativity ✦

Tarot is a tool for divination. Divination is the art of prophecy, which is the foretelling of future events. To divine with the cards, one uses them to examine the past, present, or future of any situation. Ancient tribes used diviners to predict weather and determine appropriate sacrifices. Kings and queens have always kept soothsayers by their sides to advise and predict the rise and fall of their empires and armies. World’s religions—from Christianity, whose biblical book of Revelation predicts the four horsemen of the apocalypse, to Tibetan Buddhism, which uses astrologers to determine an individual’s manner of burial—employ divination. Modern-day divination includes storefront psychics who weave fortunes under neon signs, televised mediumship, and beloved astrology columns read by millions.

We don’t know who the first tarot reader was. We don’t know where the first tarot deck came from. We don’t know who invented it. The only thing we know for certain is that the desire to unravel ominous portents and understand the past, present, and future is as old as humanity itself. My first tarot experience was…

Tarot is a looking glass. Tarot is a mirror of you. Each of the seventyeight cards sparkles like the facets of a diamond. Each reflects your personality, spirit, and soul. Tarot shows you emotional states such as the Ace of Cups, who is an outpouring of feelings. Tarot reflects your energetic reserves, like the Star, who is you at complete peace when feeling calm, relaxed, and focused. Tarot reflects your mind, like the Nine of Swords, who is a savage, negative thought pattern. Tarot reflects soul evolution, like the Lovers, who are you crashing into another and falling deeply in love. The stately Emperor is you erecting emotional and literal boundaries such as when you walk away from abusive relationships or change its parameters. The Queen of Wands reflects living your passion so brightly the world stops, gasps, and stares. Each card has something to say about you.

Flip a random card. This card reflects me when I…

Tarot is a portal. Tarot is a mirror we can actually walk through as if we were characters in a fairy tale. Crossing the threshold moves you deeper into your own internal reserves. Once we understand how tarot reflects our personal aspects, we can move deeper into this potential. Like a witch moving through a looking glass, you can greet the card’s energy on its own terms.

The Empress, for example, is a pure reflection of your creative potential. Gaze at the card and imagine how you engage in creativity. What do you love to do? How do you do it? What would you do if the sky were the limit? When I see my creative self, I envision myself…

Tarot is a collection of archetypal imagery. An archetype is a universal idea understood by all people regardless of gender or culture. Everyone understands the concept of mother, represented in tarot by the Empress card. Every soul on the planet understands the concept of father, represented by the Emperor. Everyone grasps the nature of unexpected catastrophe contained in the Tower card. Every culture has its wise ones as represented in the Hermit, the clown figures as represented in the Fool, and so on.

Tarot archetypes are a collection of humanity and experience at your fingertips. The cards are a delicate and eloquent reminder that at our core, people are all more alike than we are different. Everyone wants love, security, and happiness. Tarot helps us chart the course toward these things, and archetypes are the time-worn concepts that bring the cards to life. The archetype of the Hanged Man is the mystic. Mystics always make me think of…

Tarot is a gateway into archetypal energy. You can enter the card as a portal into your deeper self (as described above), but you can also move the opposite way and cross into the energetic world of the card’s archetype. For instance, you might decide to enter the threshold into the Death card. Enter the card with your mind’s eye and begin to see beyond

the card's borders. You see Death riding upon a horse, you hear the rushing river, you hear the cries…

Find the Temperance card and look at it. What do you think the inside of this card smells like? What sounds do you hear? Is the wind rustling the trees? Are the birds chirping? Is water lapping on the shore or are crickets chirping? If a song or piece of music was playing inside the card, what would it be? If the figure spoke, what would their voice sound like? What are they saying?

Choose a simple goal for a gateway journey. Will you ask for a message or observe some particular element? Decide what piece of information you’d like to uncover or what experience you’d like to have. Venture inside the card with your mind’s eye. What do you discover? My message from the Temperance card is…

Tarot is an energetic container. You can step inside a card and literally infuse yourself with archetypal energy. You know how being near a happy person makes you feel happy? The same empathic process works with tarot. You can access any quality you desire and infuse that quality into yourself through the appropriate card.

Let’s say today you have an interview for your dream job. Select the Magician card, enter it in your mind’s eye, and imbue yourself with his charisma. This will help to ensure a sparkly and impactful meeting.

Focus on the card image. What do you see, smell, and hear? Move through the borders of the card. Stand in front of the Magician and request that he share some of his energy with you. Allow the transfer to take place, thank the archetype, and exit the card.

Alternatively, you can bathe in a card’s energy. This is similar to experiencing a sound bath, where students lie in a restorative position while chimes, gongs, and singing bowls are played. The sound washes over the students, thereby cleansing their bodies.

To bathe in the energy of a card, prepare as you would for a gateway experience. Study the meanings of a card and reflect on the card’s image

until you can feel, hear, and taste the card. Once you can picture the image with clarity, close your eyes and move into the card with your mind’s eye. A card whose energy I am drawn to is…

Tarot is a gateway to the supernatural. It’s hard to stop with just one card. It keeps you coming back for more. You find yourself haunting the local bookshop. You delight in discovering any magical or esoteric system that can be placed on top of tarot’s structure. The astrological alignment of each card draws you deeper. The next thing you know, you are studying Qabalistic theory and calling to the four corners with the cards under a milky white moon. You use tarot for immediate creative solutions and discover wild psychic pops are beginning to occur for you. Tarot provides an opportunity for you to create sacred rituals. You come to the cards for one reason and you end up using it for a myriad of other witchy, wonderful things. The supernatural fascinates me because…

Tarot is an exquisite art object. The oldest tarot deck we know of was commissioned in the fifteenth century by a wealthy and powerful family in Northern Italy. The Visconti-Sforza deck was created to celebrate the marriage of two wealthy and powerful Italian families. It was painted by miniaturist artist Bonifacio Bembo in a gothic style. The deck is emblematic of its time, richly detailed and gilded in gold paint. The cards contain family members, familial symbols, and heraldic devices. You can visit cards from this deck in person at the Morgan Library in New York City. Call the museum ahead of time to see if they are on display.

Beguiling art will keep you returning to your cards. Find tarot styles resonating with your taste. The deck’s theme, one that matches your aesthetic, is important, especially when learning and integrating tarot meanings. We project ourselves onto the cards. You will want a deck with a mood, style, and swagger you aspire to.

My favorite style of art is… My usual mood is… My aesthetic is…

Tarot is used for gaming. Tarot was used as gaming and gambling cards in taverns across medieval Europe. These decks, printed on thin paper, were cheap and widely available. Carved block stamps were inked, stamped, and crafted into decks. The flimsy and ephemeral nature of these cards meant most were destroyed by time. Every now and then, a stash of old cards are discovered inside plaster walls, tucked away in dusty European attics.

Tarot was different than a traditional fifty-two-card pack because it carried an extra suit called the major arcana. Medieval Europe’s general public was mostly illiterate. The church and powers-that-be used universally recognized images such as the Wheel of Fortune, Justice, Death, the Lovers, and the World to convey the morals of daily life.

Life is often compared to a game. You play. Games of chance are transformed into the examination of personal fortune, luck, and destiny. Do you believe you can change your luck? You take your chances. You roll the dice. You play, you win. You play, you lose. I believe I have power over my destiny because…

Tarot is the book of you. The first tarot books were published in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and written by male authors, many of whom used the cards primarily for magical purposes and based their work on older medieval grimoires. We know that fortunetelling, while not exclusively, is largely a female art form. It always has been. Women have not historically written esoteric books, owned publishing companies, or edited the newspapers. Therefore, the history of fortunetelling, especially fortunetelling though tarot cards, remains largely unknown and unrecorded.

Magic Is…

✦ Alignment ✦ Connection to seen & unseen worlds ✦

✦ Knowing you are a conduit of power ✦ Simple actions = impactful results ✦