The

POWER

of TAROT

To Know Tarot, Read Tarot, and Live Tarot

Liz Worth

Copyright © 2019 Liz Worth.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-9868-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-9867-6 (e)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 04/10/2019

Author’s Note

This book contains anecdotes from my work as a tarot reader. In all instances, identifying details have been changed to respect anonymity. The examples given here are provided solely for purposes of learning.

There are many ways to learn tarot, and there are many different tarot decks out there. This book offers teachings based on how I personally use tarot and covers many questions and lessons taken directly from classes I have taught. I reference the Rider-Waite-Smith deck throughout, but you can adapt these teachings to many other tarot decks.

This work is not meant to be an exhaustive compendium of tarot methodologies but rather a collection of techniques, thoughts, and experiences that work for me as a tarot reader and that I have successfully taught to my students.

I also rely on the elemental correspondences of earth, air, fire, water, and spirit for tarot’s suits, which is an integral part of how I work with tarot.

Why are there no pictures? Like my previous work on tarot, I have decided not to include images here. This way, your references for this book are not influenced by my choices in imagery. I also wanted to encourage you to play throughout this process. Don’t just read these words. Read your tarot cards, too. Pull them out when I reference specific cards. See the examples for yourself, and let tarot become part of the learning process.

Who Is This Book For, and Why Was It Written?

This book is for everyone. It is for tarot readers of all levels, from beginners to experts. It is for people who are seeking answers. Who are looking to make sense of the patterns they see in their lives. It is for anyone who is curious about different ways of thinking and different ways of moving through the world.

When I first started writing this book, I intended it to be a collection of tarot spreads. But every time I started writing, I kept asking myself, “How can I create a book of tarot spreads without first explaining how I use tarot?” Once I started following that question, I realized the answer was a whole book unto itself.

That question got me thinking about the way many of us learn tarot and the way we treat it. We tend to want to rush the process. We expect to be able to start reading the cards right away, even if we’re not fully clear on what tarot is or what we are engaging in when we use it.

We wonder about the proper way to shuffle a deck or if reading reversals makes a difference. We want to know what all the cards mean without wondering how the cards came into existence in the first place.

Reading tarot isn’t just about memorizing card meanings. It’s about understanding what tarot is, what it can and can’t do, where it came from, and what makes it relevant to our daily lives. It’s also about deciding what tarot means for you. And it often takes time and experience to figure that out. This applies to anything we practise, I think. Knowing where something came from and what it was intended for is key to understanding how to think about it and where it fits into our lives today. How can we expect tarot to speak to us when we choose to ignore its own stories?

Tarot is complicated because it has a convoluted history, which continues to echo on into the present. So I started this book by meditating on a question that many aspiring tarot readers have asked me along the way:

“Where do I begin?”

I realized that teaching people how to think about tarot is as important to me as teaching them how to read it. Knowing the technique without understanding the context of what you’re working with only gives you part of the picture. Reading tarot cards is a skill, and one that can be developed. But reading tarot isn’t independent of other characteristics you may already hold or have yet to acquire. I’m not talking just about intuition, either. State of mind, self-awareness, discernment, good communication, and creativity all come into the process of tarot reading.

When tarot becomes a regular part of our lives, the way we use it and what we glean from the cards seem to change as we do. If you are always growing, then your perception will grow with you. Details, ideas, and perspectives become relevant given the ages and stages you are living through.

Staying open to different perspectives by hearing what other tarot readers have to say about the cards is part of that journey. There will be times in your own tarot journey that will push you to see the cards in new ways. If you actively seek new knowledge about tarot, you will find that the world is full of resources to help you challenge your assumptions and experiences with the cards, all in support of your growth.

I believe we become better tarot readers when we stay open to new perspectives. In my years of reading tarot, I have heard countless people say that tarot is a journey, something that you never stop learning. I completely agree, and I live this truth myself. I believe that we can never truly master tarot, because it holds so many possibilities—and also because we as individuals change so much over a lifetime. Who you are when you begin to read tarot will evolve as the years go on. And as you continue to grow, the knowledge that you are able to bring forward will reflect that.

Our world is always changing, too. Tarot can feel personal and self-reflective, but we have to remember that everything we experience is part of something greater. Each tarot card can hold numerous meanings, but those definitions are never static. They will always adapt to reflect the relevance of the times and the realities of their reader.

My intention for this book is not to give you everything you need to know about tarot but rather to help you form or deepen your own relationship with it. These pages are a collection of my own thoughts, experiences, lessons, and learnings with tarot. As you work with this book, you might read things that you disagree with or that differ from what others teach or believe about tarot.

That’s okay. Don’t be put off by differences. I am not presenting this book as the truth, only as my truth, in the hope that it might be helpful.

I trust that you have picked up this book for a reason. I also trust that there is value in new, unknown, or differing ideas. As you will find as you read on, the tradition of tarot is built on reinvention, not consensus.

Come to this book with an open mind, and leave with an open mind.

Within these pages, you will also find questions that only you can answer. Throughout this work, I have included many invitations for you to reflect on your own reactions to what’s here. You might want to keep a journal as you read along, and you might want to keep your tarot deck handy. You can take some of the questions here to your cards for added insight.

Above all else, I encourage you to come to your own conclusions.

Many of the chapters here are inspired by questions people have asked me about tarot and are also based on classes I’ve taught on the subject. I have also included many questions I wish someone had answered for me when I was first starting to learn how to read tarot.

Take your time with these words as you dive in. I think all authors want their books to be read from start to finish rather than by skipping, skimming, or jumping around. But if you do skip around, know that you might be left with some gaps. Even though there may be parts of this book you feel you already know or parts that don’t apply to you, I hope you will give yourself the opportunity to immerse yourself in the full experience.

You won’t find card meanings or individual card interpretations within these pages, though. I have already compiled my meanings in Going Beyond the Little White Book: A Contemporary Guide to Tarot. You can certainly use these books as companions, but remember that at some point, you will need to put the meanings away and just let yourself read the cards as they are.

If you’re new to tarot, you are probably wondering how to do that. Let me show you.

Part One: To Know Tarot

We All Get Here in Our Own Way

I didn’t take the most direct route into tarot. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a veterinarian, because I loved animals. But I also loved ancient Egyptian mythology, the supernatural, crop circles, and Stonehenge. My mother had always believed she’d seen ghosts and used to tell me about a UFO she saw when she was eight.

While I had friends whose parents taught them that all things occult were evil and should never be spoken of, my mom would let me listen to tapes of psychic readings she’d had. I was gifted a Ouija board for my birthday one year, and my friends and I would play with it in the basement while my parents made dinner upstairs.

As an only child, curiosity and imagination filled a lot of my downtime. I had many imaginary friends, including a black cat named Midnight that I would call upon to help me with seances at recess.

As I came into adolescence, I realized my grades in math and science weren’t good enough to justify a career as a vet. But I was good with art and writing, and so I decided to become a writer instead.

Throughout my teen years, I created my own zines, got an internship at a magazine, and started to dream up fictional characters for novels I wanted to write. I sought out open mic nights downtown where I could read my poetry and meet other writers.

I also tried to learn tarot. When I was thirteen, I got my hands on a little paperback book (which I bought at the grocery store, of all places) that taught me how to read regular playing cards. I spent a whole summer studying that thing. In the 1990s, the esoteric went mainstream thanks to movies like The Craft, but the internet had yet to really take off. It wasn’t always easy to find things like tarot decks or decent books on the subject. Especially if you were a teenager living in the suburbs, like me, and the closest bookstore was at the local mall. There, you’d be lucky if the New Age section even had as much as a whole bookshelf to itself. Usually it was taken up by Sylvia Browne titles and outdated horoscope guides left over from the year before.

When I was seventeen, I came across a dragon-inspired tarot deck and decided to buy it for myself. If only I’d known then what I know now about tarot.

First, I would have started with a more traditional deck (more on that later), and second, I would have done more work to learn what tarot actually is before trying to use it.

Instead, I eagerly unwrapped the deck, took the cards out of the box, shuffled them, and then, following the Celtic Cross layout in the little white book, laid out ten cards across my bed. I hadn’t even taken the time to look through them all first. As I turned each one over, I braced myself for a wave of information to rush over me.

I waited…and waited, expecting…

Visions!

Insights!

Breakthroughs!

A full-on film reel of the future playing out before me!

Well, was I ever disappointed when I stared hard at those beautiful, brand new cards and felt…Absolutely nothing.

I saw nothing. My mind was blank. I couldn’t make sense of what the cards were supposed to mean. I flipped through the instruction book that accompanied them and felt even more lost. Some of the cards had only one or two words describing them: “Betrayal.” “Deceit.” “Exhaustion.” “Loss.” Worse, there was no instruction on how to actually apply those meanings to my life.

How in the hell do people do this? I wondered. Maybe I have to clear my head first. Maybe I should meditate or something.

I came back to the cards the next day. I closed my eyes, counted my breaths, and tried to relax. When I thought my head was clear enough, I shuffled the deck, laid out a few cards, and expected…

Fireworks!

Clarity!

Answers!

Wisdom!

Can you guess what I got instead? If you’re thinking…

Nothing.

Nada.

Zip.

Zero.

Zilch.

You are absolutely right.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but tarot requires at least two things: patience and practice. Over the years, I have heard of only a very, very small fraction of people who were able to take to the cards right away (assuming they are even being truthful about it). But for the most part, what I’ve observed is that tarot takes a long time to learn.

Especially if you want to do it well.

When I was in my teens, I hadn’t yet developed the patience the cards require. I also hadn’t considered the idea that learning tarot is like anything else: it is a skill to be developed, like musicality, artistic ability, or athleticism. Yes, some of us can take to these things more easily than others, but even though these individuals may be inherently gifted or predisposed to certain talents doesn’t mean they don’t require discipline and practice in order to master a craft.

I also didn’t yet have a connection with tarot. Like with any interest or hobby, we don’t always click with something right away, no matter how much we want to.

One of the problems was that I was treating my tarot deck like it owed me something. I didn’t really know what it could do or how I was supposed to interact with it. But part of the problem was that I hadn’t really thought about it much, either.

I had immediately assumed that it would gift me with some kind of ability to see into the past, present, or future. I had yet to learn that tarot isn’t a one-way street: the cards don’t do anything on their own. You need to put the work into it. And you need to allow your tarot-reading abilities to strengthen over time with practice. Discouraged and unwilling to challenge my impatience at the time, I put my new cards aside and slowly forgot about them.

It wasn’t until I was in my mid-twenties that tarot re-entered my life. By then I had fully immersed myself in pursuing a career in media, communications, and publishing. I’d established myself as a freelance journalist before publishing my first book, an oral history on punk in Toronto in the 1970s, which I started when I was just twenty-four years old.

By the time the book was done, I was burned out and tired of the freelance hustle. The media industry was changing rapidly, and freelance budgets were drying up. Craving stability, I transitioned into the non-profit industry to do PR and communications.

At first, things were okay. I liked having a steady paycheque for once. My book had been picked up by a publisher, but its release date was still a ways away. I figured I’d work nine to five for a while until my book came out, and then I’d go back to freelancing or find a new path altogether.

On paper, my life looked great. I had my own apartment downtown, I had a good job, and I was soon to be a published author.

When my book’s release date came around, I handed in my resignation. “This is crazy,” my boss said. “You can’t leave to do this. What will you do for money?”

“Something will come together,” I said. Because something always had before.

But my boss was a practical woman. “I’ll give you a three-month leave of absence instead. That will give you time to promote your book.”

I took the offer, thinking that a leave of absence would buy me some time to re-establish my freelance career.

But something had happened to me: I’d gotten stuck in the comfort of the nine-to-five world, and I didn’t even realize it until I was released back into the world on my leave.

I wasn’t motivated to make any kind of change at all. I made half-hearted attempts to connect with some former editors. I tried writing a novel in my time off but never finished it. Often I found myself daydreaming about the things I would do with my paycheques when I went back to work.

My leave of absence came and went. I wound up back at my desk job. I didn’t know it then, but I would end up spending another five years in the non-profit industry.

As those years wore on, I started to feel that something was missing in my life. I have consistently described it as a spiritual void. I no longer felt any connection to myself. I had lost all sense of magic in my life, as though my relationship with the universe had fallen out of synch.

I began to get depressed. Is this how my life will always be? I wondered. It seemed that my life was on hold. When I got to work in the morning, it was as though a big, invisible pause button got pressed, putting out my soul and spirit.

I started following the work of a local astrologer named Phil Booth, finally deciding to book a session to have my natal chart read. Despite my keen interest in tarot, astrology, and other esotericisms throughout my childhood and teen years, I hadn’t given much consideration to these things at all in my early to mid-twenties. Too much of my focus had been swallowed up by work and ambition.

“Do you read tarot?” Phil asked. He said he had other clients with charts similar to mine, and they were all into tarot.

The question struck something in me. I hadn’t thought about tarot since my teens.

“You need spiritual connection in your life. What’s your spiritual path?” he asked.

This question hit me, too. It was the reason I’d come. No wonder I felt a spiritual void: in astrological terms, I was neglecting my basic needs. But even if you don’t subscribe to astrology, it pays to consider the famous saying by philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”

I had cut myself off from my spiritual side. Although it wasn’t intentional, I had nothing to nurture it or stay connected to it.

I had to admit that I’d put a lot of distance between my current self and all the interests I’d had when I was growing up. I had always considered myself a spiritual person and had always found inspiration in magic and the unknown, and yet at the time, I had nothing in my life representing those things.

After that astrology reading, I went out and bought a tarot deck.

Things started to happen. One day while walking to work, I noticed a small pile of books someone had put out on the curb. At the top of the pile was Eden Gray’s classic A Complete Guide to the Tarot.

Playing cards started showing up everywhere. I always walked to work, but I would take different routes every day. No matter which roads I took, I would find a playing card along the way. Over the span of a year and a half, I collected over 150 cards.

When I changed jobs just before the holidays, one of my new colleagues gifted me with a tarot deck. “I saw this, and it made me think of you.”

Even though I’d turned my back on tarot once before, there was no escaping it now. The universe was putting it right in my path.

When I sat down with my new tarot deck, I had a little more maturity than the first time around. I knew it wouldn’t be easy to learn, and I was right. But I also knew by then that if I were serious about learning tarot, I would have to make a commitment to it. The world had also changed a lot, and it was so much easier to find books, blogs, and other resources about tarot than a decade prior.

Before I knew it, tarot was a full-on hobby, becoming a regular part of my life. I studied it, read for myself, and asked friends if I could practise on them. Eventually, after being self-taught for a few years, I started to take classes.

I wanted to understand tarot as deeply as possible. The cards had me hooked, and this time around, I wanted to do tarot right.

I didn’t realize it then, but as those years went by, tarot was slowly transforming me. Every time I pulled a card, it revealed something new or helped to affirm my direction.

And as I slowly learned to put away the books and let my own knowledge guide my readings, I noticed that my life was growing and changing in all kinds of ways because of tarot. It was making me see that there were many ways to look at a situation. It was deepening my self-awareness. And it was showing me the lesson behind events in my life, teaching me how to appreciate frustration, delays, and roadblocks.

This is why I always give beginner tarot students an enthusiastic warning: tarot will transform you. Who you are when you begin to use tarot might end up looking very different as time goes on. Why? Because tarot pushes us to pay closer attention. It puts us in touch with our thought processes. It challenges us sometimes to examine why we think the way we do or why we want what we want. Tarot helps us become more conscious of our actions, beliefs, and potential—and the impact these things have on the people around us.

The things you learn from tarot and the pace at which the learning happens will be unique to you. The way it shows up in your life will be, too. While it seemed to me that I couldn’t get away from tarot if I tried, you might not necessarily have the same synchronicities that I did. Or any at all.

I believe that anyone can come to tarot at any time. All kinds of people have attended my workshops, from high school students to retirees, from parents-to-be to grandparents. I have taught tarot to people who have always believed they have an intuitive gift and to people who never considered themselves intuitive at all.

Don’t be disappointed if tarot feels boring, confusing, or overwhelming at first. Don’t be disappointed if it doesn’t feel like fireworks or if it lacks magic early on. Because in my experience, the magic begins simply in showing up with sincerity, openness, and a willingness to learn.

Before you dive any deeper into this book, I invite you to set an intention for yourself as you read on:

What has brought you here today?

Where are you at in your practice? Are you a beginner, a professional, or somewhere in between?

What does tarot mean for you, and what do you hope to one day do with it, if anything?

What do you hope to find out about yourself through tarot?

What do you hope tarot can help you accomplish?

What do you hope to give others through the practice of reading?

What do you hope to inspire in others with what you learn along the way?

Take a moment to think about these questions. You may find that as time goes on, your intentions change. I will leave it to you to stay open to whatever transformation is necessary for you. If you do come back to this book at a later time, I encourage you to set a fresh intention based on wherever you find yourself in the future.

Examining the Basis of Your Beliefs, Part 1: Fate, Free Will, and Collective Karma

Sometimes I think we learn tarot backward.

So many of us start using tarot the same way I did: by diving right into it. We try to read the cards right away, bypassing any history, context, or established thought about tarot.

I’m not saying there is a right and a wrong way to learn tarot. But after having my own false start with the process, I’ve always had questions:

Why don’t we learn the history of tarot before we learn how to read it?

Why do so many little white books remain so inadequate, when they are the first tarot guidelines many people encounter?

Why don’t we learn what tarot can do—and what it can’t—before we start asking it questions?

For so many of us, our foundation in tarot begins with memorizing meanings. But that’s only one part of the process and only one way of approaching tarot.

Mindset matters, too.

What do you think tarot is, why do you want to use it, and what do you believe it is capable of?

When tarot became my full-time profession, I started to see how much confusion exists out there about what tarot is, what it does, and how it works.

One of the biggest misconceptions about tarot readings is that people believe tarot is omniscient, meaning that the person reading the cards is able to see every decision a person might make and every date or time important events might occur. Many people have come to me for readings who believe that their future is already neatly laid out.

Where does this confusion stem from? There can be many sources. Popular culture has depicted tarot reading and other forms of intuitive and divinatory work from a sensationalist perspective, wherein readers and psychics seem to have godlike powers, able to predict grave danger and great fortune.

These assumptions can also be dependent on the culture you live in. I grew up in Toronto, a big Canadian city. We have psychic storefronts all over the place. They are often lit up with neon signs, and they advertise themselves as places where “all your questions can be answered” through tarot, palm, and crystal ball readings. Even though being able to answer every question is a big claim (can anyone really know everything?), these places often do brisk business—despite these establishments having come under public scrutiny time and again, with serious charges of fraud brought against some of them.

Often, we don’t need to look too far to see how people become confused or misled about tarot’s purposes and abilities. Perhaps your hometown has something similar to mine. Or maybe you have noticed portrayals of tarot readers and other diviners that seem a little too far-fetched.

Tarot is not always what people think it is. And tarot readers are not always what people assume them to be.

Tarot itself can be many things. Yes, we can use it to predict the future, and people certainly do. It is a form of divination and so acts as an oracle.

But it is also a spiritual tool. We can use it to understand ourselves…and our souls.

It can also be a form of fun, entertainment, exploration, and experimentation.

And it can be inspirational, therapeutic, psychological, transformational, or creative.

Tarot can be a form of guidance or healing. It can have practical uses to help you find focus or make a decision.

It can also be absolutely nothing but a deck of cards.

Tarot has only as much meaning as we ascribe to it. And tarot’s uses can be as varied as you would like them to be.

All tarot readers have their own reasons for working with the cards. We should never assume that there is only one way to use tarot, and we should never assume that all tarot readers offer the same style or approach—or that they make the same claims as to what tarot can answer.

It can take time to decide or discover what tarot means for you and what you want to use it for. Or you might already know what draws you to tarot and what you want to do with it. If you’re not clear on it yet, don’t worry. Sometimes you have to let the cards show you how they want to be used, too.

What do you believe happens when we divine?

Tarot reading is a form of divination. Even if you aren’t using it to predict the future or to tell a fortune, it can be argued that tarot is still a divinatory act, as it is a way to see into life’s grey areas. Tarot helps us to read between the lines, to articulate the things we can’t yet put into words, or to bring forward thoughts and feelings that are just under the surface.

But how?

Tarot does work. I have found it to be tremendously accurate over the years—I wouldn’t use it if it weren’t. But to experience its power, you have to know how to work with it and what you believe it is capable of answering.

Which is why it helps to put some shape around your own philosophies.

What do you believe happens when we take the time to lift the veil and find an answer to a question in an unusual place?

When you get a sign or omen, who is sending it to you?

What do you believe you are engaging in when you read tarot cards? Or tea leaves? Or coffee grounds? Or the lines that trace the palm of a hand?

Who, or what, provides and defines the information we find through these ordinary, everyday tools? And what does it mean when an answer shows up?

When you engage in divination, it helps to know your belief systems around these practices—regardless of the methods you are using.

What do I mean by that? First, you should ask yourself if readings help us connect to fate or destiny. If so, does that mean every tarot reading you do should be taken as certainty? Should tarot be looked at as a fateful map on which no possible detours can be taken?

And if that is the case, then who or what is creating this map? If you believe that life is already designed for each of us, then how are those destinies created, and what is it about tarot that helps us see what destiny holds?

If you don’t believe that everything is already set in stone, then that’s important to acknowledge as well. Because that belief system will determine your approach to tarot and the types of questions you may choose to explore.

Even then, you may want to meditate on what you believe tarot helps us connect to. If tarot is a tool that gives us power to see our choices or to connect to our own intuition so that we can design life on our terms, then why does it work this way? Why is tarot interested in helping us like this, and what is it guided by?

There are no right or wrong answers here. There are no absolutes, either.

Personally, I believe the universe speaks to us in many ways. And when we send the universe a message that we want to talk—whether it be through tarot or any other means—we can expect to get a reply.

I know others may feel that God speaks through the cards. Or Goddess. Or a higher power. Or their own intuition. And maybe all those forces and more use tarot as a vehicle for their thoughts.

It would be arrogant of me to say there can be only one source or one possibility here. The important thing is that you are clear on your own approach to tarot and on what you believe you are engaging in when you use it: fate, free will, or something in between.

Fate versus free will

Even as you form the basis of your beliefs, you will have to work through what each of these concepts looks like for you.

Before I go on to explain these concepts as I see them, please bear in mind that there is no one true answer here. I can tell you what I think, but I can’t tell you what is real. These are all ideas that people have contemplated, philosophized about, and fought over for thousands of years.

Maybe these questions aren’t meant to be answered. Maybe we as humans are not meant to know all the secrets of the universe. I am certainly not here to fight over anything or to claim that my way is the best way. I only illustrate these ideas to help you form a foundation in your approach to tarot.

If you do believe in destiny, then what does that mean for you? Is every single moment of your life predetermined, right down to what you will eat for breakfast tomorrow or what you will wear? Or is destiny more about driving you toward a few major milestones in your life, with lots of room to decide things for yourself?

Some people believe that jobs, relationships, and lifestyles are meant to be. And if that’s true, why would the universe care about who someone marries? Why would the universe put so much energy into making sure certain individuals get promoted at work or end up being able to purchase their dream home?

And if everything is fated, then what is the purpose of decision-making? Is choice just an illusion?

These ideas can inform the questions you bring to your tarot readings and the way you read the cards. They are also important to contemplate if you want to read tarot for others—especially if you ever want to read professionally. Reading for others can really open your eyes to how many people believe that materially, financially, and emotionally, they are meant to be living out a specific story.

And if you believe everything is already set in stone, then does that mean you don’t believe circumstances can change? At what point does fate override our own thinking?

For example, if you take a fate-based approach to tarot, will you let someone ask a question like “What can I do to be more successful in my business?”

Do you believe people have a choice in making themselves more successful if their business is struggling? Is success within our own hands, or is it left up to some kind of higher power? Someone who believes solely in fate might say that there is no point in taking these actions if nothing can be changed.

Does fate mean that we move through the world robotically, our desires, actions, and intentions preprogrammed and firing off at scheduled times in our lives? If so, why are we given the ability to make choices and decisions if we actually don’t have any authority over our paths?

Not only that, but is there is even a point in reading tarot? Or saying a prayer, casting a spell, or making a wish?

If the future is certain and set in stone, then what’s the point of knowing it? Why ask about something that you have no control over?

Wouldn’t it be so much more useful to know about a possible setback so that you could make different decisions now that would help you avoid it? This is where tarot as empowerment comes into play—and exercises our free will.

Consider, too, that the universe—or God, Goddess, or whatever names you may have for higher forces—wants us to be creative. The universe wants us to grow, change, and evolve.

We have freedom of thought for a reason. We are also given personal power—the power to be independent and to be individuals. That means taking responsibility for our actions and making the choices we feel are best for us—not waiting for fate to intervene via a tarot reading. When people come to me for readings assuming I am going to tell them what their path is or what they should do, they are surrendering their power to me in that moment—something I strongly discourage.

No one can tell you how to walk your path or live your life. That is a personal journey, and it is the true work of one’s life. Besides, what you choose to put your time into each day will have a great bearing on where you find yourself down the road.

Tarot’s contemporary reputation is rooted in empowerment. Many modern-day tarot readers, myself included, use tarot as a way to help themselves gain confidence in who we are and how we want to exercise our free will in this world.

Still, we can’t choose everything that happens to us. Illness and disease, socioeconomic circumstances, natural disasters, and other people’s actions can all affect the paths we hope to find ourselves on.

Fate may take many forms

Consider, too, that fate is not always a predetermined event but rather something that occurs through cause and effect.

Every decision you make has a consequence. Sometimes the consequence won’t be so obvious. Life requires risk, and sometimes the risk is in simply accepting that there can be unintended consequences to your actions.

But if we are mindful of our actions and do our best to take the right steps toward what we want, then we have a better chance of steering ourselves toward the destinies we hope for.

The law of cause and effect reminds us that we are creating the realities we live in. Your actions will define who you are and the shape your life takes more than any prediction or prophecy ever will.

Collective karma and the fallibility of predictions

Sometimes I read for people who believe that life concerns itself with just a few things: love and marriage, fame or success, and raising a family.

Often they assume they are destined for greatness on all levels. Sometimes they believe their goals have to be attained by a certain age, and they feel deep anxiety when they realize their lives are not taking shape the way they have assumed they would by now.

These ideas are mirror images of a very standard narrative sold to us in Western mainstream culture. It is the white-picket-fence dream that traps so many people into the assumption that life is going to unfold in a very specific way by a very specific time: finish school, get a great job, fall in love with a person who also has a great job. Then…buy a house, start a family, and live happily ever after—all before reaching a certain age.

Or people have dreams about celebrity or riches. They want to believe that a big break is just around the corner. People come for tarot readings hoping to hear they will be rich one day and that all their hard work will pay off. Or that they don’t have to work at all because opportunity will somehow land right in their hands.

But we have to question why destiny or fate would only ever lead to the same few outcomes for each of us. If these are the only narratives available to us throughout our lives, then things would get pretty boring, wouldn’t they? And what happens to the people who are making different choices outside these ideals? And what happens when these traditions or aspirations change with the times?

If we are to believe in fate, then we have to also believe that fate may not always be kind. What if you are destined to put your heart and soul into a music career, only to have it go nowhere? What if failure is fate?

The thing is, I don’t believe the universe owes anyone a great marriage, a shot at fame, or a white picket fence. If destiny is real, then sadly it must come in the form of hardship for many people.

It can also come in the form of a greater lesson. There may be a reason why some people don’t ever find love. There may be a reason why some dreams don’t work out.

Where we can exercise free will in it all is in paying attention to what’s in front of us. Sometimes we are meant to take one path so that we can get to the next. It may be painful when the first path doesn’t bring us to where we want to be, but when we see that everything in our lives leads to something else, we can begin to apply our past experiences to our present realities.

We also have to take the hint. You probably won’t get a memo from the universe telling you that you are making a bad decision. Instead, you might want to ask, “Do I feel I’m making the wrong choice?” If you do, that’s probably something to pay attention to, first and foremost. We each have to teach ourselves to read between the lines, figure out what feels right for us, and become aware of any tendencies we may have to sabotage great things when they do arrive.

Free will comes into play here, too, because we each get to decide how we handle setbacks. I have read for people who had beautiful opportunities available to them, only to have them show up a year later saying nothing has changed. Why? Because at no time did they reach for what was available to them.

I have also had clients who were going through very difficult times. Some people explore every possible solution while others sit back and hope someone, or something, will rescue them.

Which of those people do you think is better off in the end?

Whether you believe that hardship comes through the hand of fate or from simple misfortune, the reality is that every situation will require some kind of action. We may not always have a choice in what life gives us, but we can choose how we respond.

Don’t forget, either, that there is a bigger picture. We are not islands, and the world we live in today can look very different tomorrow. Why? Because the decisions that each person, government, business, and community make all have an influence on our collective and individual realities.

Tarot readers can help people remember that there is always more to consider when we seek definitive answers. Astrologer Dane Rudhyar talked about karma – the results of our actions – not just as an individual experience, but a collective one[1] . Collective karma is seen in the actions of our societies and world as a whole. There is a direction every community goes in with every decision it makes, past and present. Whether we as individuals took part in those actions or not, we experience the results of those decisions together.

Basically, we are all connected. The way we vote, shop, live, communicate and connect all lead to residual effects in our local and global realities. Actions the collective is taking will impact us economically, socially, or environmentally, and those macro-level concerns can influence our individual dreams.

For example: You may do a reading to explore the potential success of a new business. Things may look great in the reading based on the querent’s plans and capabilities. But if the economy tanks unexpectedly in a month’s time – which tarot might not show – this person’s business may be affected by the downturn. Be practical about the broader perspective.

We always have to remember that tarot reading can help us see certain aspects of our lives, but to see the bigger, or biggest, picture may not always be possible.

Don’t forget that we are also influenced by the environment, including astrology. We live in a universe. Earth’s water is influenced by the moon. Just as we as individuals are not islands operating under solitary agendas, our planet is not an island, either. It is in a constant dance with other orbiting planets that all represent different energies within the universe we share.

In the practice of astrology, planets can bring on events that feel fated, collectively and individually. But how those events unfold is always up to us, too. We are all influenced by the energies of our environment, and those energies can be subtle or even subconscious. We might not always be aware of why we’re feeling what we’re feeling, but those urges are driving us to ask certain questions or break away from certain ties.

We can’t stop the planets in their tracks; they each have their own orbits and so will introduce different energies at different times. But we can appreciate that we are part of something greater, and the universe gives us nudges in many different ways. We can choose to ignore those nudges, but in my experience, it benefits us to pay attention to the signs rather than ignore them.

They are there for a reason, and the reason is to help us attain personal and collective growth.

The universe wants you to make choices

Some religions, like Christianity, teach that there is a heaven and a hell and that if you make the right decisions, you will go to heaven.

While some may take these concepts literally, believing these are actual places, I prefer to think of them as metaphors or codes. Heaven and hell can be things we create for ourselves, or for others, depending on our actions. These places might not always be so extreme or permanent as they are made out to be.

When we speak of destiny, we have to ask ourselves who has created our stories for us. Who, or what, has already decided what will happen? And have they made our decisions on our behalf before we even get to those points in the plot?

Because when we see themes of heaven and hell, karma, and other realms that reflect the consequences of our actions, this tells us that God—or the Divine, or whatever name you call the universe—is leaving it up to us to create our own fates. God wants you to choose what is right or wrong. Otherwise, if our fates were already decided, why would spiritual paths teach us about choices?

Why would these choices between good and evil, or right or wrong, exist?

Sometimes the decision is the destiny.

We see this a lot in tarot reading. As you practise with tarot and experiment with different questions and answers, you will see this, too.

Destiny is not just about specific events but also about spiritual lessons you are meant to live through and embrace. Sometimes those lessons come in the form of the decisions you make. Some people make the same mistakes over and over again, repeating the same patterns all their lives.

For example, I read for a lot of clients who say, “I always fall for the wrong person.” When I look at their cards, I see the same messages over and over: they fall for people they believe they can save, change, or rescue, not realizing that it’s not their job to save everyone. Their destiny is not necessarily in these relationships but rather in how these relationships are meant to help them grow.

Think of examples in your own life where you have done the same things and gotten the same results. Or think of people in your life who repeat patterns. These lessons don’t always come in the form of romantic relationships, either. They can show up in many ways. I have a lot of friends who never finish what they start. Does this mean they are destined to be stuck in a life of unfinished business? Not at all. Their destiny instead may be to rise to the occasion or to push past their comfort zone with commitments.

So if you are reading tarot in a way that assumes events are fated, and you get messages that say things like “You need to make a decision here” or “You have to do this, this, and that before you can get there,” don’t get disheartened. Trust that the cards are helping you take charge of your own destiny, one step at a time.

Fate is not a guarantee

Many belief systems support the idea that we come into this world with certain gifts, talents, and challenges and that we are predisposed to certain ideas, interests, and attitudes toward work, love, children, and so on.

Tarot can help us uncover these characteristics and understand what we are supposed to do with them. Individuals who are skilled at painting, for example, might be meant to have a creative practice throughout their lives.

But even if we have been given certain skills or are naturally inclined toward certain pursuits, it doesn’t necessarily mean that is what we will become famous for. And it doesn’t mean the universe will grant us a healthy career. Or gift us with a large family.

When we talk about fate, we have to be open to the possibility that it may be important for our souls to have certain experiences but that our spiritual purposes are not always going to be made to fit into a capitalist system. Or that our paths may not always be practical or even possible given the circumstances of where or how we live.

It can still be important that you focus on the things you love and feel drawn to, but it is up to you to find responsible, feasible ways for these things to fit into your life. It can be easy to get caught up in society’s obsession with productivity, ambition, and high achievement, but fulfillment expresses itself on many different levels, and many can be small, personal, and private.

Sometimes life’s lessons can also be things we resist very strongly. Like love. Many people seek out tarot readings because they want to know when they will fall in love and settle down. But tarot doesn’t always give an easy or obvious answer here. Sometimes the cards speak of other lessons, like learning to love yourself first or learning to be alone for the present time. I have also seen many readings that tell people they need to figure out what they are able to offer to a relationship first.

Rather than giving us grand promises, the cards seem to help us see where our personal work is.

On that note, it’s also important to know that the sooner we do that work, the sooner things can change. The answers we get in a tarot reading should never be taken as eternal. Just as our destiny may not be set in stone, neither is any one answer we get from the cards, which is why I always avoid speaking in absolutes. Telling someone they will never find love, happiness, or success is not very encouraging, but it is also not likely to be true. Life can be long, and there are many chapters we get to experience.

Are we here for a reason?

Just as we can feel pressured for our destiny to become a career path, we can also mistake purpose for a paycheque.

Do you believe that your soul has a calling?

I do, but it’s not always in the form of a job or role. This is another important distinction, especially when we are treading the lines between fate and free will.

Your soul is not concerned with the same things your mind wants. Your mind wants to work. Your soul—an eternal energy—has little interest in what your resumé looks like or in how many hours you put in this week.

Instead, your soul wants to learn. It wants to evolve.

This means that a soul’s path can come in the form of a lesson or a pattern that needs to be broken. It may come in the form of learning to be an independent person or in living your life as a good friend. It may come in the form of breaking traditions or in learning how to be emotionally available.

If we look at the soul’s purpose as an aspect of fate, it challenges some of the ideas discussed above as well, reminding us that our spiritual work is not always the same as our day job.

So when you get inspired or blocked, pay attention. What is this idea or barrier asking you to do? What is it trying to tell you? What decision do you need to make from it?

These are the ways in which our destiny unfolds—often in small increments, in gradual realizations that lead us from one thing to the next, leaving us with a lot of room to make up our own minds.

Let tarot widen your perspective rather than narrow it

When we get too caught up in assuming specific outcomes for ourselves, we are at risk of missing the point altogether.

Instead of using tarot with the belief that it will show you your past, present, and future with crystal clarity, let it show you what you need to know right now. Tarot can help you see what you are missing, what your choices are, and where other opportunities or forks in the road exist that you may not have considered—which can all be helpful as you take responsibility for the path you are walking.

Tarot reading is not a one-way street. You have to make sense of the information and decide how it applies to you. Your level of self-awareness and willingness to reflect on your life’s lessons will have as much to do with any outcome as fate or destiny can have.

“If tarot isn’t innately driven by fate or a higher power, then what am I believing in when I use it?”

Tarot is not connected to any religion or spiritual path. But tarot reading can be a spiritual act in that it helps us develop faith within ourselves. Through it, we can find connection and guidance as it helps us navigate our paths.

Of course, seeing tarot as a spiritual act is a choice, and so this is another opportunity for you to shape your beliefs.

Really, it is up to you to determine what you feel you are tapping into with tarot.

For me, I don’t see a separation between tarot and our spiritual selves. We are not divorced from the universe. I have always felt guided by something greater, but I don’t get hung up on the language I use to describe it. I also don’t worry about proving that there is “something else.” I feel it, and that’s enough for me. And tarot is one of the ways I exercise my spirituality.

That doesn’t mean that everyone sees tarot as a spiritual act, though. Sometimes when I am reading for clients, I ask, “How do you connect with your spirituality?” And they tense up. “I don’t,” they tell me. “I have an aversion to religion.”

And yet, personally, I don’t see spirituality and religion as the same, even though they can be. I see spirituality as something more creative, something more loosely defined.

Still, however you want to explain it, I believe that tarot requires some kind of willingness to believe.

Even if it’s just to develop belief in yourself. Spirituality can be found and practised in all kinds of ways, including developing faith within your own actions and abilities. Which is something tarot can help with.

Tarot reading isn’t about asking for miracles to happen. It isn’t about living through arbitrary moral codes or following convoluted, outdated traditions. It isn’t about assuming that there is only one possible way to live your life. It is not about imposing arbitrary restrictions on yourself or denying your true nature. It is not about conforming to an established set of ideals, and it is certainly not about pressuring yourself to subscribe to a belief or path that doesn’t resonate with you.

Tarot is about being willing to ask yourself, “What can I make happen next?”

“I really believe that some things are meant to be”

Me too.

Even though I encourage free will, there have been times in my life when things worked out in such a way that it felt magical. I have felt I have met the right people at the right time. I have found myself making a wish one day and seeing it come true the next.

I think it’s important to acknowledge that magic can happen in many ways and that it is an ongoing part of our experience.

But when we start to look at whether something is “meant to be,” we have to remember that fate or destiny doesn’t take all the work out of our hands.

For example, I believe that I am meant to be a writer. Even though I have tried many times to quit writing, I can’t seem to get away from it, no matter how much I want to. I have felt called—compelled—to write certain books, as though they chose me.

But I know that books don’t write themselves. Even if an idea nags at me, I have to choose to sit down and follow through on it. That means making time in my schedule to brainstorm, write, research, and do whatever else the creative process may require of me.

It also means I have to spend time rereading my work, revising it, and eventually moving it toward publication.

All those things require my free will. Whether or not I am actually meant to be a writer has very little to do with how much writing I actually accomplish, because fate alone will not force my hands to type away at my keyboard. Nor will it stage whisper my book to me.

Just because we believe something is meant to be doesn’t mean it won’t require us to follow through on our intentions. It also doesn’t mean there won’t be pressure, hiccups, or major setbacks along the way.

It also doesn’t mean that everything you do will be perfect every time. Neither fate nor destiny is a harbinger of excellence. You have to be careful not to confuse the two concepts. Don’t walk away from something great just because it feels like work sometimes.

Make space for what you want

In my experience, the things we want most in life don’t just magically show up on our doorsteps one day. Which is what I always remind people of when I’m doing tarot readings: if you want something, you have to be consciously inviting it in—even if you believe it’s coming your way.

Whether you believe everything is predetermined or not, be intentional with your life, and encourage others to do the same. Why? Because the universe might want to see you doing some of that work we’ve been talking about.

Here’s an example: Years ago, a friend of mine asked me if I would do a reading for her on whether she would ever have a baby. She was single, and she didn’t want to have a baby without a partner.

Her cards didn’t give a simple yes-or-no answer. Instead, the messages all told her she would have to break out of her normal routines if she wanted to explore motherhood.

She wanted a partner but wasn’t doing anything to find one. She was working a gruelling schedule, and her job took up most of her free time. “Maybe the cards are asking you to make more time for other things,” I suggested. But my friend had trouble setting boundaries with a demanding boss and was resistant to the idea of saying no to him.

We talked about her need to make space in her life for different experiences. At the time, she was making room for only one thing: her job. How could she have time to meet new people, date, or begin a relationship if work was getting all her time and energy?

My friend knew that if she did have a baby, her schedule would have to change.

But how would the baby happen? Just as lovers don’t arrive on our doorsteps, babies don’t, either.

“I just want to know if motherhood will ever happen for me, though,” my friend said as we looked at her cards. The reading wasn’t saying it wouldn’t, but it was saying that things would have to change in order to know for sure.

Things didn’t change, though. My friend kept doing everything exactly the same, and her desire for a baby continued but remained unfulfilled.

We have to take responsibility for our own wishes. These types of questions—“Do you see this happening? Is it in the cards?”—are fine to bring to the tarot, as long as you are ready for the cards to give you homework in order to create the possibility you desire.

If you are not making space in your life for the things you want, how do you expect them to find their way into your world?

Does destiny have an expiration date?

Sometimes you might feel that tarot is promising something that is meant to be. You might get excited when it does come to be, thinking, I knew it all along!

But then…everything changes. A serendipitous relationship breaks up. A business goes bust. A dream home gets destroyed in a storm.

Consider that we may be destined for certain things for only so long. If you subscribe to the idea of fate, then entertain the idea that a relationship or job might be written in the stars—but only for a few years.

Just because something doesn’t last forever doesn’t mean it wasn’t meant to be part of someone’s path.

Destiny is not about having a singular journey. It is not about getting to one point and never having anything change from there on in. If this were the case, we would all be living one story for the rest of our lives.

And thank goodness things do change. How many people have had happy relationships turn sour? How many people have woken up one day to realize they have outgrown their dream jobs? How many people have become bored, unfulfilled, or stagnant after years of the same old, same old?

Change is part of life. To look at a reading, or any prediction, as a static outcome is too limited a perspective. Tarot should help us stay open to change, not box us in with the belief that we have only one way to go from here.

Besides, it’s always important to ask yourself whether you believe that we each have the power to change our own destiny. Because if we do, then that’s where tarot’s potential may best be found: in the ability to help us see our options, obstacles, and directions so that we can ask ourselves whether we like what we see or if it’s time to make a change.

In other words, tarot doesn’t hold your fate. You do.

Examining the Basis of Your Beliefs, Part 2: Intuition, Psychic Ability, and Omniscience

Here’s an internet meme I have seen floating around for several years now that I think very accurately describes the experience many of us have with tarot:

What I thought tarot would be like: I can see the past, present, and future so clearly!

What it’s actually like: Damn, I just got called the fuck out by a deck of cards.

Sometimes people come to tarot readings expecting them to be intensely psychic experiences. It seems, at least in my corner of the world, to be widely assumed that tarot readers will be able to give names of people who will enter your life or accurately list off dates when significant events will take place.

This is why I think it’s so important to know what you believe is possible and whether you believe the future is already written.

“Is a tarot reading the same thing as a psychic reading?”

You could probably ask a hundred tarot readers this question and get a different answer each time.

I know tarot readers who call themselves psychics, and I know tarot readers who try to get as far away from the psychic label as possible. And then, plenty of people are in the middle: those who may not consider themselves psychic but will admit that when they read the cards, somehow it becomes a psychic experience. It’s as though a veil gets lifted, but it may not always be intentional, and it may not be something that is controllable or expected. Some readings end up feeling more magical than others, although that may not be a reader’s intention each time.

Why? Because tarot can also be practical. But so can a psychic reading. When you engage in processes that are non-linear like these, the messages you get might not always be miraculous.

Sometimes we need to check our own assumptions—and expectations—about what a psychic experience really is. Like anything else, magic can come in many forms.

More than anything else, I find that people get the messages they need to hear. Does that always mean it’s what they want to hear? Of course not. And how readers communicate, the style in which they deliver a reading, will also have a lot to do with it.

That goes for any type of reading, tarot or otherwise. Many people who work intuitively take a choice-based approach, with readers preferring to encourage their clients to make their own decisions and take charge of their own paths.

In other words, tarot’s work sometimes starts from within. The magic it holds feels more like a mirror than a crystal ball.

Tarot does not make us all-seeing and all-knowing

One of the biggest struggles I have faced in my time as a professional tarot reader is sometimes feeling like a vending machine.

I don’t mean for that to sound crass. But sometimes people bring a laundry list of questions to me, wanting to get through as many as possible within an hour:

“Will my neighbour sue me?”

“Will I die early?”

“Do you see me winning the lottery? I buy tickets twice a week…”

“What was I in a past life?”

“What does my friend really think of me? I feel like she has pulled away…”

“Just for fun, can you tell me what my life would have been like if I had studied art instead of finance?”

“My skin is always very dry. What is causing that? I don’t trust my doctor when she says it’s nothing to worry about.”

“I want to have a baby next year. What will my child end up being when it grows up?”

Sometimes I get questions people probably don’t need tarot to answer for them. Such as the time I was asked if my client would ever meet the royal family. We might consider the odds and circumstances: Is this at all a possibility for you in any way?

We’ll talk more about formulating questions for tarot readings later. But first, I wanted to explore this as part of the basis of beliefs we bring to tarot.

Why? Because when we use tarot, and when we let others come to us for readings, it’s important to know where our parameters are. It’s not up to me to judge whether a question is important—if clients bring it to a reading, I assume it matters to them—but I do believe that tarot readers have a responsibility to explain how tarot works for them and what they believe it can answer best.

Why do people sometimes take a kitchen-sink approach to the questions they bring to tarot? One reason may be that there are readers out there who advertise that they can answer all your questions. Others promise “100 per cent accuracy” in their readings, which implies that any question you bring will be answered clearly and truthfully.

But those promises assume a conclusion already exists for every possible situation. They also mislead people into believing that tarot is some kind of vending machine for information and that it can tell us anything and everything, even about people who are yet to be born.

Not only would this mean that tarot readers can know exactly what is going to happen to you based on any question but also that they also know what everyone else is going to do, too. Just as the idea of fate assumes that we know the decisions of other people who are involved in our present or future paths—from employers to partners, friends to family members—the idea that tarot readings, or even psychic ability altogether, give us the ability to know all answers at all times is an assumption that requires careful consideration.

Do you think it’s possible to know everything? Do you think it’s possible to accurately and adequately answer any question anyone may have?

It’s common for people to seek out tarot readings to ask about jobs they are applying for: “Will I get an interview? Will I get hired?”

Say the interview process for a job requires that you meet with three different people. Each of those people will be making up their own mind. Plus, each will be measuring you against other candidates.

We can read on a question like this, but a lot of variables must be taken into account. In my experience, the more people involved in a situation, the harder it is to promise any kind of definitive outcome. You can’t get into each interviewer’s head, and you also don’t know who else they are interviewing and what kind of impressions those people are making.

All we can do in a reading sometimes is look at the potential outcome or the possibility surrounding the situation.

“But isn’t tarot all about going off my intuition? I thought it was just about whatever I see, feel, or sense.”

I get this question a lot from people who are learning tarot, but I also get it from clients who ask how my readings work: “Do you just pick up my energy? Do you see things around me?”

Those assumptions come into the mechanics of card reading, or cartomancy, itself. Even though people come to me for tarot card readings, they somehow overlook the fact that the cards have something to do with it.

I don’t “pick up” messages from anyone’s energy. I don’t read their thoughts. I don’t see spirits standing at their shoulders.

Tarot reading is card reading—I literally read the cards. The information comes from the images in the cards we pull. I also work within the context of any question a client may bring. The interpretation I give is based on the question we are exploring. The process is very creative and can sometimes feel like putting together a puzzle. It is intuitive in the sense that I may have a series of random images I must intuit a meaning from—a meaning that is relevant and useful to the person sitting across from me.

When I explain it, it all sounds pretty basic, doesn’t it? It might be much more exciting to say that I can read minds or that I do pick up on energies or auras, but the truth is, I just read cards.

We’ll talk more about the process of card reading later, but I wanted to touch on it here, too, for any aspiring tarot readers who are expecting to have to perform a psychic or supernatural act of some kind.

These ideas are all based in assumption—and are another example of how tarot gets used in a backward manner: people engage in it before they understand what it is or how it works.

Tarot reading is not energy reading. It is not clairvoyance, mediumship, channelling, or aura reading. Can it be combined with other types of readings? You bet. Can tarot be a psychic experience if the reader has such skills? Absolutely. Can practising any form of divination, like tarot, open you up to other abilities in time? I think so—but it doesn’t always happen that way, and not everyone wants it to.

The thing to remember here is that tarot is also just tarot, and you don’t have to learn all kinds of other intuitive arts to do it.

If you did, you wouldn’t need the cards at all. You can learn mediumship if you want to speak with the dead. You can learn clairvoyance or channelling if you want to prophesize the future without using tarot. You can learn to read tea leaves, runes, or palms if you would rather do that instead.

Tarot is not synonymous with these practices, though, and learning one does not mean you will immediately take to another. Each of these practices is individual, special in its own right, and can give you a different type of reading. While tarot can be used for future-telling, I often recommend that people who are looking for a very psychic experience explore other methods, such as channelling, clairvoyance, or mediumship. Even then, not all readings, and not all readers, are about making cold predictions.

Not all readers use tarot as a jumping-off point for other types of readings, either. I have seen some people use tarot cards or astrology charts to “get their intuition going” and then pull messages out of thin air, not following the cards at all. I have met with clients who’d had readings like this before and were confused when I spent so much time looking at my cards.

If you want guidance from the tarot, then you must allow yourself to be a translator of its images—and people seeking readings must be patient with the process. Consider, too, that readers are not solely charged with trusting their intuition in a reading. Those receiving such messages have to follow their instincts, too, in how they process the information they receive in a reading—and what they do with it.

Still, I can understand where so much confusion over tarot comes from. Throughout history, humans have been fascinated by prophecy and prediction. Tarot cards have often been sold to us as a psychic tool to support such practices.

So it’s no surprise that people continue to seek out tarot, believing that the cards will tell them everything they need to know.

But why do so many of us take these promises at face value?

Can anyone actually see the future?

Does a stranger really know your own life better than you do?

And if tarot did gift us with omniscience, giving us immediate, accurate insight into absolutely anything we needed to know, why don’t more people use it?

There are so many tarot readers—and other diviners—who work tirelessly to point out that these ideas are all misconceptions. Nothing, and no one, has all the answers.

“So where does intuition come into it, then?”

So many lessons on tarot centre on the same message: “Trust your intuition.”

“First thought, best thought” is another saying that is popular in tarot circles. Yet there’s more to tarot reading than just what you feel or think off the top of your head. Tarot has systems. If it were a purely intuitive practice based only on feeling, we wouldn’t spend so much time learning how to read the cards, and we certainly wouldn’t have had so much ink spilled about tarot over the years, either.

But what is intuition, anyway?

Intuition can mean different things to different people. Some might look at it as a source of higher power while others might see it as a gut feeling—something that comes from deep within our bones.

Intuition can be an inner compass, something that guides you through the layers of your own numerous thoughts and emotions. The mind, heart, and body can all speak to us in different ways and simultaneously want different things. Intuition might be the way you determine which of those voices is right for the moment, even if it’s not the loudest.

By definition, intuition means an ability to understand something right away, without first needing to rationalize or reason through it. But that is a definition, not necessarily a truth for all. In my experience, intuition can take time to work through. Depending on how fast someone reacts, intuition may show up as a thought that you deliberate over for days, weeks, or months. It can be a niggling feeling that sends many people to seek out the work of the tarot to help find confirmation of it.

Intuition is synonymous with instinct

When we think about intuition, we might think of it as a hunch, a strong feeling that we get even though we aren’t sure where it’s coming from. Intuition can feel like a guiding force that helps us see which path to choose or that nudges us toward a new idea.

It can also be that feeling you get when something doesn’t feel quite right or when you’re not entirely sure you can trust a person or a situation just yet, even though you might not know why.

This inability to explain or articulate why you know what you know is part of intuition’s fabric. We get so used to listening to our mind and all of its reasoning that we forget that not all our knowledge resides in our brain. Other aspects of our bodies and souls speak to us, too. Intuition can come from a subconscious place, something from within us that doesn’t need language. It just is, and it just knows.

But when it comes down to it, whatever language you put around it, it will probably come down to one basic principle:

Intuition is trust—trust in yourself.

We all have the ability to be intuitive. Even though trusting in ourselves sounds like it should be innate, it can take practice and patience to develop that trust. We have to maintain relationships with ourselves the way we do with anyone else, and our own trust can become broken or insecure for any number of reasons.

A big reason people come to me for readings is that they don’t trust themselves. Their questions often begin like this:

“What should I do? I am afraid of making the wrong decision…”

“What is right for me? I just want to be sure…”

“I keep having this feeling that something is off, but I want a second opinion just in case…”

Even when we know what we want to do, we can struggle to say yes to ourselves. Tarot can validate these feelings. The intuition is already in place; tarot just reflects the truth of what you are feeling, as though to say, “You are right on time with this. Go forward.”

Pop culture has depicted tarot as something that can shock you with its predictions and prophecies. And yet more often than not, tarot readings don’t always offer many surprises. Instead, they substantiate what someone already feels, wants, or expects.

And to me, that confirmation is much more powerful than giving a reading so highly predictive that nothing can be verified at all until it actually happens—if it happens at all.

“Is having a hunch the same as making a prediction?”

Because tarot reading has so often been associated with psychic experiences, a lot of people seem to believe that intuition is more like ESP—extra-sensory perception.

I think it’s important to distinguish between the ideas of psychic activity and intuition, if only because, in my opinion, the word psychic can end up blocking a lot of people from accessing their intuition—and even recognizing that it’s just there, all the time.

It also challenges the synonymous connection between intuition and instinct. If we are to believe that intuiting is the same as predicting, then are we saying that instinct is also predictive? Instinct is part of our survival mechanism. It can tell us to trust or to flee. It does not exist to help us answer questions about an ex’s new girlfriend or give us guidance on selling a home, which are common questions people bring to tarot.

If we confuse intuition with psychic ability, it gives the impression that you have to be gifted in order to access your own inner knowing. When people don’t have visions or premonitions, it becomes a barrier. They begin to shut down their own intuition and reach outside themselves in search of others with a sixth sense.

But intuition is part of our nature. If you do want to explore ESP, psychic ability can be something to develop. But I see it as a different function than intuition. Intuition isn’t something we have to go out and develop, the way someone might learn how to become clairvoyant, for example.

Intuition helps us take that next step, even if it’s a leap into the unknown. But if we expect it to tell us exactly how everything will turn out, we are not using it properly. Growth comes from making our own decisions, taking risks, and embracing uncertainty. And those are all things that reading tarot can help you explore, as it gives you a look at the themes and potentials you are living through.

Think about the times when you have made a decision to break away from something. Or when you took a leap of faith. How did it feel to take charge of your life?

My intuition versus your intuition

In readings, people get surprised when I ask, “What is your intuition telling you?”

They are surprised because they expect me to tell them what my intuition has to say about their question.

But one of my rules of tarot reading is this: I don’t know what’s best for you.

If intuition is instinct, then one thing to remember about it is that my intuition is wired to serve me.

Your intuition—your instinct—is wired for you. It is there to help you survive, there to serve your needs.

This is another example of tarot’s ability to empower rather than dictate. If you are reading for others, the cards will reflect their truths, not yours as the reader.

Intuition will still factor in on the reader’s part, though. But for me, that comes from the process of intuiting the cards themselves. Even when you are highly familiar with your tarot deck’s artwork and meanings, you are tasked to puzzle it all together in a new way every time.

Reading tarot is a very creative process. Sometimes you might be reading for people who give you very little to go on. You won’t know anything about their likes or dislikes or much about the situation they are inquiring about. And then you have a series of disparate images from which you need to weave together a narrative or answer to help guide them. That is where tarot gets intuitive for the reader: via the relationship with the cards and the resonance they may hold for a complete stranger or an unknown outcome.

Intuition in tarot can help you trust in the patterns you see in the cards and urge you to articulate one interpretation over another. Sometimes you will even find that no matter how many card meanings you memorize, the meanings just don’t fit the question, and you need to trust yourself to take a reading in an unexpected direction. That is intuition at work.

My intuition might also help me feel connected or at ease with the person I’m reading for or help me sense if that person is feeling uncomfortable or nervous.

But my intuition doesn’t make me privy to someone’s deepest, darkest secrets. It doesn’t make me an instant expert on anyone’s longings or emotional, sexual, or material needs. Each of us is responsible for knowing what we each need to survive and thrive. When people turn to tarot, or a tarot reader, with the expectation that someone or something else will be able to figure all that out, they are giving up their power.

I don’t believe the universe wants us to lay these responsibilities at someone else’s feet. Our own lessons are based in learning how to provide for ourselves and protect ourselves as we go through life.

Intuition is not advice

The worst tarot readings I have had were the ones that made me feel like a captive audience for someone else’s opinions.

Some people love to tell other people what to do. They think they have all the answers. But tarot requires humility, too.

How do you know your advice is right for someone?

Sometimes people have to make mistakes. And sometimes what looks like a mistake to one person can be a blessing for another. It might lead them to exactly where they need to be. And it might not be a mistake at all, just a different choice than you might approve of for yourself.

Watch your bias when you are reading tarot, whether it’s for others or for yourself. There are so many things in this world that people have been shamed for. We can feel guilty for all kinds of reasons, and we have been led to believe in what we should and shouldn’t do—but by whom, and for what reasons?

There may be times in your life when you find yourself in a situation you never would have expected. It might be messy and confusing. It might push you to see yourself in a new light, and you might not like it. Likewise, if you read for others, you will probably read on situations that you might not personally approve of.

But what you think or feel about someone’s choices has nothing to do with the work of tarot. The work is to do the reading, and that requires an ability to stay neutral and stay on message with the cards.

I have had tarot readers tell me the exact opposite of what I needed to do, all because the readers let their opinions come into the session rather than sticking to what the cards were advising.

Bias can also come up when people bring questions that may challenge your morals. I have heard of tarot readers shaming people for having affairs, getting cosmetic surgery, and so on. This is never acceptable. Readings should be safe spaces for people to find guidance, and those wanting to read tarot for others must be able to accept everything that people bring with them, regardless whether they agree with their clients’ decisions or lifestyles.

Remaining non-judgmental is the key. And your intuition will be stronger for it, and so will the people you read for, because it is not muddied by your own advice or opinion on what to do or what you think.

Intuition is not always a warning sign

Another reason I’m wary of confusing advice with intuition is that intuition isn’t always as black and white as saying yes to this or no to that.

Using your intuition isn’t always about averting disaster. It is not always about being suspicious of everyone you meet or basing every decision purely off your first feeling.

Some people take things to an extreme when they feel it out. For example, if you meet someone at a party, and you’re not sure what your first impression is, does it mean there is something untrustworthy about the person? Does a first impression always have to be stellar or perfect? We all have certain expectations and standards that we impose upon others, consciously and unconsciously. Be careful not to confuse these standards for intuition, as you might misread someone who doesn’t immediately fall under a prescribed category.

Of course, not everyone makes a strong first impression at all. Just because you can’t get an obvious read on someone, or something, right away doesn’t mean it’s good or bad. Most of the time, life is full of nuance. We can’t always jump to wild conclusions and blame it on our intuition. Be careful not to assume the worst about someone or create a misleading narrative for yourself before you have given someone a chance or before you have all the facts. There is a fine line between intuition, paranoia, and delusion.

Likewise, if you are going off positive feelings—for example, if a great business opportunity comes your way, and you want to say yes immediately—it never hurts to move ahead with practical, down-to-earth next steps. Sometimes naïveté, gullibility, or optimism can push us to see what we want to see in a reading, a relationship, or an opportunity just as much as suspicion can cause us to see danger where there is none.

Learn to separate your feelings, and practise patience as much as possible. Impulsiveness can easily be confused for intuition.

Intuition is not just a passing thought

Some people confuse any passing thought they have as intuition or psychic ability. As I mentioned earlier, some tarot readers lay down a few tarot cards “just to get going” and then let their intuition do all the talking.

To me, there is a difference between a tarot reading and an intuitive reading. As I’ve said before, when I read tarot, I actually read the cards. I am not piecing together a stream of consciousness based on whatever thought or idea comes up. While this might work for some people, I find that it’s much easier to stay relevant and focused on the question at hand when I let tarot do the talking. I don’t use tarot cards as a jumping-off point for my own thoughts.

Thoughts can lead us astray. Just as some of the worst readings I’ve received are the ones that felt like pure advice, I have also felt the same about readings that didn’t answer any of my questions at all. In fact, I felt invisible and unheard as a result, all because the readers just said whatever came into their heads or whatever they felt was relevant.

While it is always important to trust in your own knowing, it is just as important to develop discernment with it and to have some kind of reason for why you are feeling what you are feeling. When we use tarot, we can show the images and patterns we have followed to bring a certain message forward. When we speak purely from our thoughts, we have nothing to back it up with, no rhyme or reason behind it.

I used to have a friend who thought he was psychic. We would make plans to meet for coffee. But just as I was on my way out the door, he would call me and say, “I picked up that you’re uncomfortable at the coffee shop, so let’s not go there. I’ll meet you at the park instead.”

But I’d never said anything about going the park or about being uncomfortable. And, perhaps most importantly, I didn’t want to go to the park at all. I wanted to go to the coffee shop. Somehow, though, he would convince himself that whatever he thought he had read between the lines—even when there was nothing to read—was the truth.

The more this happened, the more frustrated I became. My own wants went totally ignored, pushed aside for what my self-described psychic friend was “picking up” on. And even when I told him he was wrong, he wouldn’t accept it, believing I was trying to downplay my true feelings. It wasn’t an easy friendship to maintain, and eventually I had to break it off.

So don’t let your intuition create drama, confusion, or misleading situations. That is not what it is for.

And if you are reading tarot for others, and you do feel that your intuition is kicking in and has a message to deliver, don’t force it upon someone else. Offer it up by saying, “This is what I’m feeling. I’m not sure what it means for you, so I will just put it out there,” and then bring your focus back to the cards.

But don’t take it personally if the message doesn’t resonate with them. There are people out there who feel it’s their job to impose their views, knowledge, or insights on others—as though every thought they have is a piece of wisdom that must be shared, and they do so without giving any mind to the possibility that they might be wrong.

Sometimes a thought is just a thought and nothing more.

Intuition can be wrong, and not everything is “a sign”

I was booked to teach a workshop in Portland, Oregon. It was a long way for me to travel, and with no direct flight from Toronto, I had to take two planes, transferring in Calgary, Alberta.

I have always been afraid of heights, which means that flying is not really my thing. Despite that, I’ve travelled extensively and flown many, many times, often by myself.

A few nights before I was due to head off to Portland, I had a dream that a woman walked up to me and said, “You are at the end of your body. You’ve spent all the time you can in this form.” I woke up abruptly, thinking, Wow. Maybe this means I’m going to die soon, which was followed by the sinking realization that I had to get on a plane in a few days.

As you can imagine, I was no longer feeling very excited about my trip. Even though I’d been looking forward to it for months, I was having strong doubts about going.

But I couldn’t call it off, could I? I didn’t want to. Still, the dream followed me all week. On my way to the airport, I paid attention for other signs—delays that might be telling me to hold off, for example. I thought about my father, who had been sent on a business trip to Montreal in the 1960s. He got stuck in traffic on his way to the airport, and the jam was so bad he missed his flight completely. That plane ended up crashing, and everyone on board was killed.

I got to the airport without issue. No traffic jams, no flight delays, no issues at security. In fact, everything seemed to be encouraging me to get on that plane. I even ran into a friend who worked at the airport, and he got me in through priority check-in, making everything a breeze. Is this universe ushering me into my final moments? I wondered. It’s eerie where our thoughts can take us if we allow ourselves to contemplate the worst.

When it was time to board, I thought, Okay, I still have time to turn around. I could just go back home right now. Which I was seriously considering. I looked down at my bag that held all my notes for the workshop, which I’d planned to review on the long flight ahead of me. If I don’t go, and it turns out I was afraid for nothing, I will have to live with the regret of passing up this great opportunity—all because of one weird, little dream. Is that a good enough reason to give up now?

I got on the plane, and of course everything was fine. I made it to Portland, delivered my workshop, and made it back home feeling accomplished and at ease.

This was a great reminder to me that not everything is a sign. We have to remember to exercise our own best judgment in all situations—intuitive or otherwise. Just as it can be frustrating to learn tarot because there is no one, clear-cut process to follow, listening to your intuition is the same. It is a fluid process, a very personal one that asks you to accept that sometimes you will be right, and sometimes you will be wrong.

Part of getting the hang of it all is learning what feels significant to you, what doesn’t, and what you want to do.

“How do I develop my intuition?”

I don’t have to become aware. I don’t have to start seeing or even learn how to listen. My body is already aware. I already see. All I need is to be open to my awareness, remain conscious of what it is I am already seeing.

—Hugh Prather, I Touch the Earth, the Earth Touches Me, 1972

Intuition strengthens the moment we start seeing that it is always there. As I have said already, we are not divorced from the universe. Everything we do can be rooted in awareness. Including tarot.

Which is why I have always maintained that we don’t need to carry out complex rituals or heavy meditative states to read tarot or to access our intuition. Our intuition is what we already feel or sense. The cards are the cards, and you are you. Together, a message can be found when the two come together.

But why is it that so many of us struggle to trust that we are already aware?

Take a moment now, before you read any farther, to close your eyes and just breathe. And as you do so, take note of what you are aware of. What sounds do you hear? How do your clothes feel against your skin? What is going on in your body right now? Don’t judge what you notice; just observe it.

This is one way to practise awareness.

Many of us are conditioned to look outside ourselves for validation. We turn to our families, doctors, gurus, experts, teachers, and friends in the hope that someone will say, “Yes, you are making the right choice.”

But what happens when validation fails us? If we put too much trust outside ourselves, we might end up taking bad advice.

I was raised by parents who, although well intentioned, felt that emotions were inconvenient. So was illness, both mental and physical. To my mother and father, it all got in the way of work and other routines they felt had to go on no matter what, as if every day should be exactly the same.

I had an eight-year career in the charitable sector. My last job in the industry was at a non-profit organization for youth mental health, where I worked as a manager in the marketing and communications department. I had been so excited when I took that job. It was exactly what I was looking for at the time. But a lot of changes happened within the organization in my first year there. The environment became unpredictable and toxic, and the job didn’t turn out to be exactly what I was expecting.

As time went on, I started developing a deep pain in my shoulder blades. I had never experienced chronic pain before and was worried. For the next three years, I hopped around from one appointment to another, seeing massage therapists, acupuncturists, doctors, and chiropractors. One day, I was talking to a massage therapist who suggested reconfiguring my workstation to see if that helped. “Sometimes that’s the only thing you can do, because it’s not like you can just quit your job,” she said.

I almost wanted to say, “But that’s exactly what I need to do: quit!” In that moment, I knew I had to get out.

I’d been journaling, setting intentions, working with coaches, and reading a lot of articles about transitioning careers. Even though I constantly heard myself saying things like “I need to get out of this place” or “I can’t imagine myself staying here another year,” I was stuck.

But when I shared my feelings with my parents, they balked: “Everyone has to work, you know. Do you think we always liked it? No. This is just how life goes.”

“But I don’t feel right,” I would say. “I’m really not happy. I don’t know what to do.”

“Go to work on Monday, and just be thankful you have a job,” my mother would tell me.

It was some of the worst advice I ever took.

The longer I stayed, the more my body hurt. The pain was starting to move down my back and my arms. My hands and wrists ached.

A few months before my five-year work anniversary, I was called in to a boardroom and offered a severance package.

It was the exit sign I was waiting for. I signed the papers and decided to never look back. Something had been telling me all along that I wasn’t on the right path. And that was validated for me even further when in just a matter of days, a few years’ worth of chronic aches and pains vanished from my body. It was as though I’d been carrying an unseen weight on my shoulders, and finally it was lifted.

It was also a major lesson in listening to myself. In the weeks after my layoff, I kept asking myself, “Why did I wait so long to let this go?” I also wondered why I had put so much stock in what my parents had to say about it. They’d had no idea what was best for me at that time and would have told anyone to keep the job, no matter how backbreaking it was.

I had known all along what I needed most, but I hadn’t come through for myself. I was taking all the wrong advice when I should have been taking my own from the start.

From that point on, I decided to never let myself down again.

Fear, excitement, worry, stress, dread, inspiration, and motivation are all signs, too. That feeling you can’t shake, the one that follows you around for weeks, can be a call. What starts as a sense of restlessness, for example, may be what pushes you to look for a new job or find a new home. And through that process, you end up finding yourself in the right place at the right time with something better than you had before.

Awareness is a state of mind. There is no separation between yourself and your path, and how awareness feels for you can take many forms.

Cultivating awareness

Pay attention to all that you feel and sense.

If you live with someone, how does the atmosphere change at home when the person has had a bad day? When can you sense that something is off in others? What do you pick up from their body language, expressions, and tone of voice?

Intuition isn’t always about having second sight. It is about sensing what is near you and being sensitive to changes in the patterns within our environment. That environment includes everything from plants and animals to the flow of traffic to the people sitting next to you on the bus to your colleagues at work or peers at school.

Read everything: nature, people, patterns of the day. Don’t wait until you pull out your tarot cards. Practice “seeing” whenever you can.

Pay attention, too, to synchronicities—magic moments in which you seem to be in the right place at the right time. For example, you might find yourself singing a song and then, an hour later, hear it at the coffee shop down the street. That might be a sign that everything is as it should be right now. Or that the universe is listening to you.

The first time I started paying attention to synchronicity was in my teens. I was really interested in poetry and spoken word in high school, and I wanted to find some poetry readings I could go to. But it wasn’t always easy to find out what was happening, especially since I was living in the suburbs and all the cool stuff was going on downtown.

I had just been talking to my boyfriend about it all when we were walking down the street one day, and a guy came up to us. “Hey, do you like poetry? Because I host an open mic night, and the next one is on Friday. You should come.” And he handed us a flyer for the show.

There I was, looking for poetry, and it walked right up to me on the street. I went to that open mic night, and it was the beginning of a whole new chapter in my life, one that opened me up to many new people, ideas, experiences, and long-lasting friendships.

When we look for the ways in which the universe speaks to us, we cultivate awareness and so deepen our intuition in the process.

“Where does intuition reside?”

Take a moment to think about the word intuition. If it helps, close your eyes, and visualize the word right in front of you. Repeat it to yourself, and notice if you feel it anywhere within your body.

Where does your intuition reside? Where does it rise up? Where is it most active?

I often feel my intuition in my chest. Especially when I feel trapped by something. By paying attention to this, I’ve noticed that for me, intuition can feel easy. When I say yes to something that is a no-brainer, like a coffee date with a great friend or a good opportunity, I don’t feel any tension at all.

But when I’ve committed to the wrong plans or overextended myself, I feel a nagging tightness in my chest that does not go away until I do something about it. I’ve started to use these feelings as barometers to show me that I’m on the right track.

Of course, it’s not always easy to know if it’s the right thing to do. The reality is, you might never know what a decision will lead to. Nothing is ever 100 per cent foolproof. All you can do is follow what you feel is best for you in that moment.

And sometimes, we have to make mistakes and ignore our intuition in order to know what it feels like to have known something all along.

“Do your intentions reflect tarot’s power?”

I believe that tarot can be used to help guide us through daily life. It can help us sort out an everyday decision or find a bit of focus when we feel scattered. It can also help us develop our intuition, not by giving us godlike powers to see deep into the future but by validating our own thoughts and feelings.

But I often wonder if these powers get diluted, or at least misused, when we lose sight of tarot’s simplicity. Do we miss the point when we treat it like a magical vending machine or expect it to answer all our everyday thoughts?

Is tarot’s best use to muddle through worries about office politics, for example, or to find out whether your nephew will fall in love soon? Or is tarot something that better serves questions about our souls, dreams, ancestors, intuition, or spiritual paths?

I feel there is room for tarot to serve both ends of the spectrum, from high magic to mundane, material reality. But I also feel that if we allow ourselves to spend too much time speaking to the tarot about mundane things, we lose touch with ourselves and our own magic.

I also often wonder how limited we are by our physical bodies and our senses—including our intuition or instinct. We can only know so much, and we don’t know what our limitations really are in this world or if there are things we can’t see or could never comprehend.

So when we spend too much time caught in the day-to-day, worrying about what an ex-lover is up to or whether tomorrow is a good time to ask for a promotion at work, we may be missing the broader perspective that tarot can help us see.

What Is Tarot, Anyway?

When I first got into tarot, I didn’t really question where it came from or what kind of history was attached to it.

I approached it with the basic assumption that tarot existed for the sake of divination. I assumed that tarot was made to be read and that its sole purpose was to help us find answers to our questions—questions I assumed already had an answer. I hadn’t yet pondered the idea of free will or wondered what kind of responsibility I had over the life I lived.

I’m also embarrassed to admit that early on, I wittingly skipped the introduction in my beloved guidebooks because I was in such a hurry to read the damn cards.

Not that some of my older guidebooks helped much. Scattered throughout my own early journeys into tarot were bits and pieces of tarot’s history, but it was mismatched, a patchwork of details that didn’t add up. First, I read that tarot originated in ancient Egypt. Then, in a tarot workshop I attended, I was told that tarot predated Christianity and that it was a pagan divinatory system that once depicted ancient gods and goddesses that Christianity then tried to erase.

One local tarot teacher offered a class that taught about connections between tarot and Kabbalah, an ancient spiritual path. I’d never heard of Kabbalah before, and the class sounded a little too esoteric for my beginner’s mind. Another guidebook I’d picked up made astrological connections to the cards, another layer of meaning I wasn’t sure about just yet.

It all left me a little confused. How could tarot have so many different meanings, systems, and spiritual beliefs tied to it? If it was Egyptian, how was it also pagan? If it was pagan, how was it also Kabbalistic? If it was any or all of the above, how was it also astrological?

And if I also had to learn about ancient wisdoms, symbols, mythologies, gods, and goddesses, where was the best place for me to begin learning about tarot?

I didn’t know it at the time, but what I was seeing was the result of tarot’s evolution: a convoluted, recorrected, reimagined journey throughout history.

Tarot has had so many different theories layered onto it that knowing what to believe can be difficult. Especially in this day and age, when we have access to so much information. But that also means we have to work a little harder to sift through it and to remind ourselves that just because something is presented as fact doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true. Especially when we are walking spiritual paths.

I admit that I found the mystique around tarot’s history extremely interesting. I wanted to believe that tarot had been divinely channelled, that it was the inherently magical, esoteric tool I had come to believe it to be.

But why were there so many different ideas about tarot’s origins? Whenever I worked with my tarot cards, I felt like I was missing something. There was a gap in my knowledge, but I wasn’t sure what to fill it with. Each of tarot’s origin stories both frustrated and intrigued me. Eventually, I started to feel so blocked by that confusion that I knew I had to get the full picture before continuing.

While I don’t necessarily think we each need to become experts in the history of tarot, I do think that knowing its backstory is important. After all, if you are turning to tarot to help you become more knowledgeable and attuned, it only makes sense to ensure that you use it from a knowledgeable place yourself.

So where did tarot come from, anyway? What are its roots? And what is it supposed to be used for? Keep in mind that learning the history of tarot is a study unto itself, one that has been masterfully undertaken before. (See the reference list at the back of this book for additional resources.) I’m not here to give you a full history lesson on tarot, as that isn’t all that this book is intended to be, but I am including the information I feel can offer you a foundation from which to work.

Tarot originated in medieval Europe. Despite the intriguing myths that surround its history, it has humble beginnings as simply a card game. Tarot’s earliest appearances date back to Italy in the 1400s.[2] Just like the tarot decks we know today, it consisted of seventy-eight cards, having twenty-two trumps (now known as the Major Arcana) and fifty-six pips (now known as the Minor Arcana). The game is considered to have been similar to bridge.[3]

As a game, tarot’s pip cards, from the aces to the tens, didn’t feature people, but they did include many symbols that we see in tarot today, including cups, coins, swords, and batons. They also included the court cards, from the pages to the kings. The trumps also depicted many of the images we continue to see on tarot cards today, including the Empress, the Hanged Man, Death, and the World.

Traditionally, tarot is heavy on Christian imagery. The Hierophant that we see in so many decks today was originally the Pope; the High Priestess, the Popess. We see angels on cards like Temperance and Judgement, and we also see the Devil, another Christian figure.

The traditional tarot images are strong indications that these cards did not spring from Egyptian or Kabbalistic roots. In medieval times, Christianity was already a dominant force by the time tarot came around. In tarot’s images, we also see a reflection of the society it was born into: a place where kings and queens reigned and death, the devil, and superstition lurked around every corner. The shadow of the Black Death, the great plague outbreak of the mid-1300s, would likely have continued to hang over Europe’s psyche.

Tarot’s popularity grew as a card game, but so did concern around its uses. In the year 1500, an anonymous sermon condemned tarot as a device of the devil[4] long before it was to be popularized as a fortune-telling tool.

Tarot has modest beginnings when we think about it as a distant cousin to bridge. It’s much sexier to imagine tarot being discovered in an ancient Egyptian tomb or having descended from pre-Christian pagan rituals.

But tarot’s true lineage shouldn’t take away from its uses as an insightful source of guidance. Something about human nature pushes us to read messages in the world around us. Anything can become an oracle if we want it to be. People throw bones and sticks to find meaning in their patterns. We look for messages in coffee grounds. We find insight in our dreams and nightmares.

And so perhaps it was only a matter of time before tarot evolved into what it is today. Tarot isn’t as old as astrology, which dates back to the second millennium BCE, or as old as the I Ching, which was published in the ninth century BC. Runic inscriptions date back to AD 150, so tarot doesn’t predate runes, either.

Tarot seems youthful in comparison. It actually wasn’t until the eighteenth century that divinatory meanings began to be attached to tarot cards,[5] when European occultists began looking at tarot as an esoteric tool rather than a game.

The eighteenth century was also the point in time when many of the myths about tarot originated. Drawing a connection between tarot and ancient Egypt is attributed to French occultist Antoine Court de Gébelin. In 1781, Court de Gébelin published “Monde primitif, analysé et comparé avec le monde moderne,” in which he made the false claim that tarot was a relic of Egyptian mysticism that was brought to Europe by gypsies.[6]

It has been said that Court de Gébelin’s theories gave us tarot as we know it today, although the downside is that his beliefs—which have been unverifiable throughout history[7]—also perpetuated many misconceptions about tarot,[8] misconceptions that we as modern-day tarot readers should be mindful not to perpetuate.

Etteilla, a pseudonym for Jean-Baptiste Alliette, is another name that is important in tarot’s history. Etteilla wrote on cartomancy, including positional spreads that followed esoteric principles.[9] This influence carried on as interest in tarot continued and into the birth of contemporary tarot, which again is quite young. The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, founded in 1888, played a hugely important role in tarot as we know it today. In 1909, Golden Dawn member A. E. Waite published the Rider-Waite-Smith (RWS) deck, illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith. This is the deck that many contemporary tarot decks are based on or are influenced by (whether the artists are aware of it or not).

In the late 1930s, Aleister Crowley, (in)famous occultist and Golden Dawn member, created the Thoth deck, illustrated by Lady Frieda Harris. The Thoth deck is inspired by the Egyptian Book of Thoth, where we see the theories of yesteryear’s occultists live on with the continuation of tarot’s supposed connection to ancient Egypt.

These two decks, often credited with popularizing tarot into the present day, also adopted the ideas presented by occultists several centuries before, blending astrology, mysticism, and Egyptian mythology into the tarot, even though these connections were theoretical and had no basis in historical fact.

And so this is where we see how tarot became entwined with differing systems. As various individuals took interest in tarot, they reinvented it, embedding their own interests and fascinations into the cards, imposing—or infusing—these cards with the information they hoped tarot held…or felt it should.

“But what about Kabbalah? I’ve heard other tarot readers talk about how the two go together”

First, let’s understand what Kabbalah is. Many describe it as an ancient form of Jewish mysticism, yet the Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Education and Research Centre—said to be the largest group of Kabbalists in Israel and around the world—says that a “common misconception about Kabbalah is that it is a religion or mysticism.”

Instead, the Bnei Baruch centre says that Kabbalah is a wisdom can help us attain a “higher level of reality.”

I first heard about Kabbalah through the tarot community. Books and tarot decks have been published that merge the two, and classes and seminars are offered to help tarot students learn how to connect tarot to the Kabbalistic Tree of Life.

And yet, it’s curious that these offerings all seem to come from the tarot world rather than from Kabbalistic teachings. As Rachel Pollack notes in her seminal book on tarot, Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom, there is much Kabbalistic literature out there, yet it fails to mention tarot at all.

Here in Toronto, we have a Kabbalah Centre, where I have studied Kabbalah to understand it for myself. In the Kabbalah Centre’s beginner class, students are taught that Kabbalah uses tools like astrology, the Zohar, and the Hebrew alphabet. Tarot is again conspicuously absent from the discussion.

Even more tellingly, the Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Education and Research Centre lists tarot as one of the misconceptions about Kabbalah.[10]

Kabbalah as I have studied it is not a form of magic or divination. It discourages prediction and encourages creation. The Tree of Life is not a tarot-reading technique but a metaphor for higher consciousness.

So why, even when Kabbalah seems to deny tarot, does this connection exist, and why does it live on? For that, we look back to the 1700s and the writings of French occultist Éliphas Lévi (a pseudonym for Alphonse Louis Constant), who is credited with making the connection between tarot and Kabbalah.

It was Lévi[11] who began to associate tarot’s Major Arcana with the Hebrew alphabet, a concept that we see repeated in some present-day teachings on tarot. As Helen Farley notes in A Cultural History of Tarot, a Kabbalistic origin would more likely have seen tarot emerge with Hebrew lettering or imagery rather than with its medieval Christian designs. And if these attributions are steeped in ancient times, why did they not come about until the nineteenth and twentieth centuries?

Despite a lack of historical evidence to prove the two are linked,[12] this connection has persisted for centuries. As I mentioned earlier, esoteric interpretations between tarot and Kabbalah have prevailed, as the popular RWS and Thoth decks took inspiration from these ideas and also incorporated Kabbalistic philosophies into the tarot. There are also different ways to learn Kabbalah and different approaches to it, like Hermetic Qabalah, which is steeped in esotericism and makes stronger connections to tarot—and differentiates itself from Kabbalah with a variance in spelling.

But does that mean we have to connect them at all?

I think it’s important to acknowledge that some contemporary tarot readers have worked extensively to connect tarot and Kabbalah, and it is fair to say that even if no true link between the two practices exists, there is now a tradition for some tarot readers to incorporate Kabbalah into their work.

I don’t want to challenge or diminish beliefs that work for other tarot readers. I am more interested in presenting a factual depiction of tarot’s history so that aspiring readers can make informed decisions about the tarot and so that they know that Kabbalah is not a requirement for tarot reading.

If you are interested in Kabbalah, I recommend that you learn it as it’s meant to be known. Don’t put it through the filter of tarot, where it can become diluted or confused as a tarot-reading technique. Instead, let Kabbalah stand on its own, as tarot should stand on its own, separate from other practices or paths.

“I heard that to understand tarot, you have to understand astrology.”

Poor tarot. It can’t just be itself.

This is why it’s important to understand a bit about tarot’s history. As you are starting to see, people have been trying to make tarot more than what it is.

Again, this isn’t to undermine anyone else’s experience or expertise but just to get to the bottom of it and understand that in tarot, you may encounter some myths you will need to bust through.

I also want to make it clear that I’m aware these systems do work for some people. But the only historical link between astrology and tarot is one that was created by occultists who assigned these systems to the cards.

Which is one of the reasons I don’t subscribe to the idea that the energies of the planets or zodiac signs are “encoded” or “embedded” in the tarot. Plus, it doesn’t help that, in forcing two already complex systems together, the methodologies that have emerged over time to bring tarot and astrology together are convoluted and impractical.

An astrology chart is a map of the sky, and tarot is a deck of cards.

When you read astrology, you are interpreting nature, which changes constantly. When you read tarot, you are reading the same images over and over again, only with different questions each time. Both practices can be rich and enlightening, but they are separate from each other.

Astrology is thousands of years old, yet tarot dates back only to the 1400s as a card game, evolving only more recently into the esoteric tool we know it as now.

Another reason to challenge the connection is that astrology did not give birth to tarot. If tarot had been invented by astrologers, then it would make sense to use them together.

Astrology is a different animal altogether. It is the practice of studying planets that are in constant motion, which is hard to compare to tarot cards, which are static. Astrological transits, aspects, and retrogrades are all fields of energy. We can look at certain tarot cards and say that they remind us of the personalities of the zodiac—the Queen of Wands might be a Leo, for example—but as someone who is trained in astrology, I hesitate to assign planets or transits to specific cards the way I have observed in other methods. Like anything else in our environment, the skies are always changing.

We also have to account for the fact that both tools evolve in their own ways. Look at how tarot is growing. Every year, new decks come on the market, with many emerging tarot artists reinterpreting the cards. Really, if tarot has any tradition at all, it’s that it never stays the same.

Look at the fact that we now know there are thousands of planets in our universe—many more than we were aware of at the dawn of astrology. Which ones will eventually become part of our astrological system? If we entertain the idea that tarot and astrology are linked, how do we account for new planetary discoveries and ensure they get added to the cards?

Tarot also predates the discovery of many outer planets that have become so important in modern astrology, like Pluto, Uranus, and Neptune. And some planets, like Pluto, are newer discoveries with very long orbits. That means we still don’t know the full astrological influence they will have on our world. So to assign planets to tarot cards when we don’t even yet know the full effect of all that we are working with doesn’t feel very practical to me. It can also become a barrier to our own progress and understanding of the cosmos. If we do choose to assign planets to the tarot cards, we need to ask ourselves if there is room for new assignations to reflect the growing discoveries in our own universe.

Some people speak of tarot and astrology almost conspiratorially, suggesting that the astrological connections were removed or erased from tarot and later added in. But a belief exists that humanity discovers new planets when we are ready to increase our consciousness. The lessons and energies that each new planet brings as it is integrated into the practice of astrology only arrive when we are ready to embrace its lessons.

I think this is a beautiful theory, and because I place my beliefs within this framework, I don’t support the idea that any planets were somehow removed from tarot and later added back in. Tarot does not act as a map to the sky. An astrology chart does.

I always caution against looking for ways to force tarot and astrology together, because it can muddy the waters of both practices.

I believe that knowing either tarot or astrology really requires a commitment to learning both rather than thinking of them as one and potentially diluting your understanding of both.

Instead, let tarot show you how good it is, as it is.

And if you’re worried that using one over the other might mean you’re missing something, consider this: in my experience, the messages in a tarot reading can be very similar to what you might see in an astrology reading. Both will reveal themes, patterns, and energies that are relevant at the time.

This can happen with all types of readings, no matter what tools you are using. We are all connected to the same energies and forces. There are just different ways of tapping into those messages. Tarot is only one of them.

So what should you do with this information? And why does this matter?

Tarot’s history shows that no one has authority over this deck of cards. What began as a card game was later reimagined into an esoteric tool. All the people who have written about it, theorized on it, or interpreted it were taking it upon themselves to do so.

What was it about tarot that piqued such interest? What was it about the cards that inspired people to see them as something more than just a game? What was it about tarot’s patterns that inspired us to read between the lines? How tarot has evolved and its continued change and adaptation to the times may actually be a closer indicator of tarot’s true nature: that it doesn’t have to be just one thing. The constant thread of invention throughout its history further breaks the assumption that tarot exists solely to see the future, because it was not originally intended for such purposes, anyway.

Tarot’s fluid character might be frustrating to those looking for tried-and-true processes to follow. But because tarot was never specifically designed as a divination system, there have never been hard and fast rules to follow when using it. I always encourage tarot readers to take inspiration from this rather than feel overwhelmed by it.

How liberating to think that tarot can be such an open process! Yes, there are techniques and approaches you can learn that will help you understand the cards and read them for their messages. But to know that tarot can be as simple or as complex as you wish to make it is very freeing. If the idea of learning all kinds of other paths like numerology, astrology, and Kabbalah feels overwhelming, let the load become lighter as you accept that none of those things are integral to tarot to begin with. And if you do adopt other methods into your readings, just make sure they enhance the experience, not confuse it.

Tarot is not a kitchen sink. But when we treat it like one, it clogs up our ability to flow with the cards themselves. Occultists of centuries past may have sought out complexity in their work with tarot, but we needn’t follow suit. The pressure for tarot to be overly complicated can actually become a major block to us as readers, because it creates doubt in our own processes. If you are doing a tarot reading and can’t relate an astrological or Kabbalistic (or Qabalistic) reference to clients in a way that is relevant to their lives, you are probably not working with the right techniques. Don’t be afraid to simplify.

Knowing, too, that tarot’s history is rife with misconceptions and inventions should help you practise one of the most important lessons that tarot can teach, which is to think for yourself.

Éliphas Lévi wrote, “An imprisoned person, with no other book than the tarot, if he knew how to use it, could in a few years acquire universal knowledge, and would be able to speak on all subjects with unequalled learning and inexhaustible eloquence.”

But whose knowledge does tarot contain? If we want to put faith in tarot, to pull wisdom from it, we should spend some time thinking about our own beliefs, ideals, and views of the world—and be willing to shape, challenge, and define our own belief systems in the process.

What truths do you think tarot holds? One common experience many of us have through reading tarot cards is that often the answers we seek are already within us.

“Does knowing tarot’s history diminish its power?”

At first, it might seem difficult to put your trust in tarot, knowing that it is an invention rather than something that was divinely inspired or created with divinatory intentions. But then, it’s also helpful to think about it as something that has naturally sparked people’s curiosity over centuries.

It may be just a deck of cards, but so many of us have looked at tarot and felt there is something more to it. The occultists of centuries past may have opened the doors to tarot, but I wonder: If they hadn’t let their inspiration lead the way, would tarot have ignited something similar in someone else?

Maybe tarot is a force to be reckoned with. Maybe it can’t be ignored. Maybe it has always just been a matter of time before it took hold of our imaginations.

Either way, tarot—at least in the way I look at it—is now charged with hundreds of years’ worth of ideas, intentions, hopes, fears, dreams, and theories. Think about the residual energy of that collective consciousness.

Think about how many people throughout history have turned to the cards as readers or seekers, bringing their questions to it, infusing it with their energies and interpretations. Whether people have brought superstition or faith to the cards, respect or disdain, love or misgivings, all that energy has been directed toward tarot.

Its symbolism and stories can be looked at as an oral history of sorts, where we as readers might share a bit of wisdom inspired by a certain colour or pattern that we see in the cards.

Maybe we infuse its meanings with our own histories and experiences, or maybe we weave in cultural folk tales from our own communities and upbringings. Maybe we use it as a storehouse for our own perspectives from this moment in time.

There exists a belief that deities gain and maintain power based on the strength of society’s beliefs in them. The more people focusing on a deity, the stronger its presence becomes. While tarot is not a god, I wonder if the same idea can be applied to the potency of this pack of cards.

The collective consciousness continues to strengthen. Every year, more eyes and hearts gaze toward tarot. It gains new respect with every generation, and the more we each use it, the more we can get from it.

So I encourage you to absorb whatever perspectives you can about tarot. Find what fascinates you. Use the ideas and techniques that work for you. But pay attention to your own observations, too. Don’t feel that you have to simply stick to whatever lessons you take from someone else. No one has authority over tarot. It has no ruler, no owner. We are all responsible for it, and we can all add to its knowledge.

Here are some questions to help you connect to the spirit of tarot. You can reflect upon them, journal them, or pull a tarot card to help answer them:

What do I need to know about tarot’s past?

What rule do I need to break to better connect to the cards?

How does tarot want to reveal itself to me?

What Is Tarot For?

To determine what tarot is for, it helps to know its limitations as well as its possibilities. A hammer has very defined functions, and we know exactly when we need to pull it out of our tool box and put it to work.

Tarot can be looked at in a similar way: as something in your tool box you can use when you need it. It takes our questions and helps us process our own thoughts, affirms our feelings, or gives us a different angle to consider.

But how do the cards work, exactly?

Tarot doesn’t do anything by itself. Some people think the cards hold energies, and maybe for some people they do. Personally, I don’t subscribe to the idea that the cards have their own consciousness; rather, I believe they need our eyes on them to make them come alive. Still, they seem to have their own personalities and an uncanny sense of timing that can’t always be explained.

Unless you are handcrafting your own deck, tarot is made in a factory. It is a product like anything else. Where the magic resides is within you and your interpretations of the cards. The cards alone are just card stock. The artwork is a replica of an original design. The cards are just cards, meaningless without human interpretation to give them significance.

Remember that tarot cards used to be playing cards. Their inherent nature is not steeped in divination. If we use tarot to divine, we do so through our own human invention, which is all tarot is—a person-made creation.

If you teach yourself to read images, you can, in theory, read any tarot deck, regardless of its style. The messages don’t come out of the cards but from your own skills and abilities. If a deck seems to have a personality or style—and trust me, they often do—it is because of your own understanding of it and the relationship you develop with a deck.

Even though Éliphas Lévi believed that tarot could give us universal knowledge, what is likely closer to the truth is this:

Tarot doesn’t know everything.

You know by now that I don’t believe tarot gives anyone preternatural abilities. It doesn’t turn anyone into a mind reader, and it doesn’t provide us powers to know exactly what anyone is thinking, feeling, doing, saying, or needing at any given time.

A tarot reading is also not written in stone. It can also change, because our minds change. Even if a message feels loud and clear, it doesn’t mean it will hold true for all eternity. You might be going in one direction today, but a year from now, you might wake up one day and decide you want to change your life completely.

Tarot helps us see where we are at and what today’s choices may bring

Just as I don’t believe that every single moment of our lives is already mapped out for us, I don’t believe that tarot can tell us what our lives will be like decades from now.

Instead, more than anything, I see tarot as something that helps us stay present. Yes, we can use readings to get a sense of where a certain decision may take us. Readings can look at possible outcomes based on the paths we are taking at this time, but I try to look at those outcomes more as potentials rather than promises.

I don’t believe tarot knows more about your own life than you do. Stay open to the reality that many decisions remain in your hands, waiting to be acted upon. A reading can only show you the potential of whatever you are already working with. If you try to look too far into the future, the outcome may be less likely, because anything can happen between now and then.

Treat your life as a blank canvas, and use tarot as one of the tools you can colour it with. Let it show you what may unfold on certain paths. Let it show you the detours or roadblocks that may arise so that you can decide how to handle them.

As Ansel Adams said, your life is your art. You have a hand in the final outcome of any chapter you are living through. If you don’t like the message in a reading, you don’t have to assume it is the only answer out there. Pay attention to the assumptions, actions, and attitudes you are undertaking at the time, and ask yourself, “Is there something I am not acknowledging? Is there something I need to do differently than I expected?”

Tarot is great for having conversations with yourself

Whether you are reading tarot for yourself or for someone else, it is a personal conversation—a way to connect with your inner dialogue.

Some people call this intuition or the higher self. I don’t get hung up on the titles we use, because for me, I think it is all the same: we are one with ourselves. But sometimes we need a little help getting untangled from our thoughts.

Minds get cluttered. We have trouble separating our thoughts from our feelings or our feelings from the facts. Most of the time, the truths we are living through are varying combinations of all of the above.

Let tarot be a mirror for your innermost thoughts. Let it be something that helps you get out of your head for a moment by focusing on the images of the cards.

What can they tell you in this process? It will depend on what you want to know.

Sometimes that is the question: “What do I need to know right now?”

“What do I need to focus on?”

“What does the universe expect of me?”

“What do I expect of myself?”

“What matters most to me right now?”

“What do I need to stop doing?”

“How did I get here?”

These are just a few examples of questions to get you thinking about how you can use tarot to help clear your path. (We’ll talk more about formulating questions in a later chapter.)

Self-awareness can grow so much when we use tarot, because it encourages us to look at where we have come from, where we are at, and where we can go next. But it also leaves us to do the work. Without effort behind it, a tarot reading is just another source of information. Tarot is for finding opportunities for action, pause, or reflection in our lives. The rest is up to us.

Tarot helps us tap into energies, themes, and chapters in our lives

Most of us are familiar with sayings like “It’s the end of an era,” right?

Tarot can help us see the shape of the chapters we are living through. We all cycle through different phases, interests, and themes in our lives. A job might represent a chapter in someone’s life, for example, or a home.

Some chapters in our lives last longer than others. While I find that tarot is not always a reliable source of timing (we’ll talk more about timing later, too), it can show us what we are living through at the moment.

Why is that important to know? Because, again, it gives us an opportunity to centre ourselves in the here and now. If we can appreciate the time we are living in, then we can better align ourselves with what life is asking of us at the moment and appreciate the lessons we are living through.

For example, if your tarot readings keep showing you that you’re living in a time of transition, growth, and change, this can help you accept any turbulence or uncertainty you are facing at the time. Which can be very helpful if you are struggling to create stability or hold on to an old routine or habit that suddenly isn’t working so well anymore. You can learn not to fight what’s happening and instead go with the flow of your life.

When we allow ourselves to see that life is a series of stories, then we can learn what it is we are supposed to be doing at any given time. Think of tarot as a way to find the plot or write yourself a new one.

Sometimes we might find ourselves living through intensely creative periods or very slow periods. Months or years may go by in which we crave love and partnership yet find ourselves alone. Tarot can help us understand what the purpose of these experiences is, what we can learn from them, and how we can appreciate them.

Why are our lives like this? There can be any number of reasons and influences. Depending on what you believe, the chapters we live through might be work that the soul is craving to experience. It might be astrological, influenced by the energies of our universe. It might be due to some personal lessons, healing, or growth that you are due to experience.

Whatever you believe is at work, tarot helps us better understand the times in our lives and live with purpose throughout every chapter.

“Do tarot readings work better if they are self-reflective? What if I really want to do predictive readings?”

I don’t believe we have to choose one or the other. In fact, I encourage practice with all kinds of readings.

Some people prefer to stick with self-reflective readings. There can be any number of reasons for this, all coming down to personal preference and beliefs.

Not everyone is comfortable making predictions, either. Some people don’t predict because they admit that nothing is certain. Again, tarot might give us a sense of potential, which is only ever as good as a “maybe.”

That being said, nothing is wrong with using tarot for predictive purposes if that is what you want to do and if you find that is how the cards speak to you. Just know that however you choose to use tarot will take practice, and you will have to give yourself time to see if your predictions hold true before promising seekers that you can see their future.

How much practice does that take? It will be different for everyone, but know that it’s best not to rush things with tarot. It can take time for you to learn what it means when certain cards show up and what they portend. It can take time for you to feel comfortable making predictions, and it can also take time for predictions to unfold—months or even years can go by before we see things come true or not. And of course, the more specific the predictions, the higher the chances they can be wrong. But don’t let the potential for error stop you from exploring. The process of learning tarot can be very freeing, because it is a chance to experiment. Whatever you decide tarot is for, allow yourself the time and space to explore, and have patience with the process. See what you like to read on, and see how tarot works for you.

Tarot can be wrong

So can we. Human error is always going to be a factor in tarot reading.

Which is something you have to account for no matter what you are using it for.

Polygraph tests, pregnancy tests, and DNA tests can’t even promise a 100 per cent accuracy rate, so why should tarot be any different?

Even if you are taking a more empowered, inspirational, reflective approach to tarot and you read for others, you might not necessarily nail their headspace or mood exactly. The cards can only give you direction to go on, but you need to figure out how to follow those signs. Sometimes you will stumble. Especially early on.

When I started my tarot business, I made it clear that the only accuracy I can promise is within my own ability to read tarot. I know what the cards mean, and I know how to interpret them based on a question, spread, and any card combination. Based on that, I can promise that I will give you the most honest interpretation I can from the cards that are on the table. My accuracy comes from knowing tarot, not from knowing the future or knowing what’s best for anyone else. I can only offer a message based on what I am reading in the cards.

I used to read at an event with someone who believed that tarot was never wrong but that a reader could be. When you consult an oracle, you have to be open to the possibility that your question might not be answered the way you expect it to be.

For example, you might find that the cards don’t make any sense (of course, this will happen more often when you are still learning, so appreciate it as part of your learning curve), give an outcome that doesn’t transpire, or offer advice that is the exact opposite of what you need to do at the time.

I have also heard tarot readers say that sometimes tarot just doesn’t cut it. It isn’t always the right thing to turn to for every situation, because it might not be able to give the clarity someone needs, or it might not be enough. Tarot isn’t a replacement for other supports in your life, and it certainly isn’t meant to become a crutch to lean on for every decision or choice you want to make. While tarot is for finding answers, it doesn’t promise that every question we have can be fulfilled.

Sometimes tarot and any predictions or insights we glean from it might feel abstract. And I think that can be part of our own work coming to the surface. It might be a way of admitting to yourself that there is no easy answer right now. Or that you have to figure it out for yourself instead of looking to the cards. Or that you are not meant to know the answer just yet.

Part Two: To Read Tarot

How to Begin

As I mentioned earlier, when we talk about reading tarot, there is one major thing that in my experience tends to get lost in the shuffle:

The word reading.

Read is a verb. There is an action here. And so, when we talk about tarot reading, we have to be sure that we are talking about actually reading the cards.

And yet, just as people often think that reading tarot just means going off your intuition, whatever it may be telling you, people also sometimes think that the cards are somehow not part of the “reading” at all.

I remember getting such a kick out of a guy I met on the street once. I was putting up posters for a tarot workshop I was teaching.

“You read tarot? That is so cool,” he said. Then he stepped back and started hopping up and down. “Read me! Read me! Tell me something about myself.”

“It doesn’t exactly work like that,” I said. “I’m a tarot card reader. I don’t read people. I read cards.”

As you’ve learned by now, to read tarot, you don’t need to know how to read auras or “pick up on” unseen or unspoken energies. You don’t need to know how to read palms or astrology charts. You don’t need to know how to speak to the dead or to channel a guide.

Some tarot readers do have those skills, and those are talents that can be developed outside of tarot.

But remember that at the end of the day, tarot is enough on its own. And if you want to read tarot, you have to first learn how to look at the cards.

So start there. If you feel overwhelmed by the idea of tarot, or if you feel pressured to have a psychic experience in the process, let it go. Just remind yourself, “All I need to do is look at what the cards are showing me and go from there.”

“But I feel like tarot is so hard to learn. When I read the card meanings, it all makes sense, but when I try to do a reading on my own, everything goes blank. Why?”

It’s normal to feel overwhelmed when you are learning to read tarot.

And it’s normal to feel totally connected to it one day and confused by it the next.

There is a learning curve to tarot, like most things in life. Because so many of us have been conditioned to think about tarot as something purely intuitive, it’s not surprising that new readers sometimes expect to take to it like a duck to water.

But tarot can actually take a long time to really get comfortable with, and aspiring readers will all have their own timing in how and when they get to that point. And really, what’s the rush? You will be better for having taken the long road with tarot, because confidence and comfort is what will give you the boost you need to make tarot your own.

But why does it take so long to get there? Because tarot is a different way of thinking. It is a different way of seeking information.

When we are learning tarot, we tend to rely heavily on a book of meanings. We pull a few cards and right away reach for the guidebook to look each one up. Or we try to interpret the cards on our own but then want more, and so we start scouring books, blogs, and online forums to go as deep as possible.

And that is okay when you are learning—the meanings can offer a good foundation from which to work from, and it’s always good to study from multiple sources.

But think about why you feel more comfortable reaching for a book than staring at a tarot card. The card and the book can give you the same answer. Why does it feel easier to come to the same conclusions through text rather than an image?

Because words are what we default to when we communicate. Even though we are highly visual creatures that rely on colour, light, body language, fashion, and so on to understand each other and express ourselves, we rely heavily on text and language, too.

In school, a lot of our learning happens through reading. In everyday life, people turn to words in books, blogs, magazines, advertisements, ingredients lists, and recipes. When we converse with each other, we use words. Dialogue is integral to our communication with each other, whether it’s through a lecture, debate, or heart-to-heart chat.

Words are a comfort zone for many of us. It is much faster and easier to decipher a block of text about a tarot card than it is to interpret the imagery and symbolism of the artwork.

That is why tarot feels so hard. It is a different way of absorbing information. We are not used to finding answers in images; we usually rely on words to help us come to an understanding.

So when you learn tarot, you are learning another language. You are learning to put your own vocabulary around a set of images that doesn’t always hand over its meanings so easily.

When you look at tarot cards, you have to be willing to push yourself to think differently. And you have to be willing to be wrong sometimes, especially when you are still learning. After all, tarot will demand that you make a statement or draw a conclusion based on a picture that might look like it has nothing to do with what you want to know.

Changing your thinking patterns can be uncomfortable, because any kind of change usually is. Tarot feels hard because you are actually rewiring your mind.

Use the right tarot deck

Another reason tarot can be so hard to learn is that you might be working with the wrong kind of tarot deck.

Even though it’s easy to assume that tarot is tarot, not all decks are created equal. Some are easier to read than others.

Remember, tarot doesn’t hold any energies itself. As tarot reader and author Camelia Elias observes, the myth is that the cards must speak to you. As Elias points out, you are the one posing a question to the cards, which means that you are the one who speaks first.[13]

Likewise, you will be the one who articulates what you see in the cards.

When you ask tarot readers how to choose a tarot deck to read with, the answers often fall into two categories: some say you should start with a more traditional deck while others say you should choose a deck that you are most drawn to.

However you make that choice, know this: the deck you use matters. A lot.

Many beautiful tarot decks exist out in the world these days, but beauty does not always make for an insightful tarot reading. If you can’t make anything out of the images themselves, then you will struggle to put together a cohesive reading.

Our own tastes are also deeply personal. Just because a certain tarot deck is popular or comes highly recommended doesn’t mean you will be able to read it. For example, a sparse, minimally decorated tarot deck may not feel as straightforward in its messages. By the same token, a deck with complicated geometric designs or busy details might not be any easier to connect with.

The way a deck looks depends on its artist’s rendering of tarot’s images. Since tarot is so often left open to interpretation, tarot has numerous styles that don’t necessarily adhere to tradition or standardization. The intentions, ideas, and styles deck creators put into their tarot decks will influence and impact the interpretations you are able to make based on the cards.

So what kind of tarot deck should you choose?

As with many things in tarot, there is no hard and fast rule.

When new readers ask me what kind of tarot deck they should learn on, I often recommend the classic Rider-Waite-Smith. While not everyone is immediately taken with its artwork, this is the deck many modern decks are styled after. This is also the deck that has so deeply influenced tarot as we know it today, so it will give you a frame of reference if you do eventually branch out into other tarot decks. A lot of contemporary interpretations, spreads, and reading styles are also keyed to the RWS. So for me, it makes sense to start where so many other tarot readers have.

Of course, there are other classics that I think make great starter decks, too, like the Universal Tarot, the Golden Tarot, the Sharman-Caselli, and the Morgan-Greer, which are all very similar to the RWS.

But those are just my recommendations—a few suggestions from a wide range of possibilities. Because while I generally advise new tarot readers to start with the classics, I also know that sometimes it is more compelling to start with a deck that you feel naturally drawn to.

“But wait—I heard you’re not supposed to buy your own tarot deck. Is that true?”

This is a long-held superstition, but that’s all it is—superstition.

How else do you expect to start reading tarot if you don’t go out and get yourself a tarot deck? Besides, reading tarot is so much about living with intention and purpose. Waiting for someone to give you a deck—to decide your tarot journey for you—is counterintuitive to tarot’s purpose.

If tarot can be such an empowering tool, why not take the matter into your own hands and be the one to decide that it’s your time to read tarot?

If you have been gifted a deck, then that’s fine, but don’t feel that’s the only tarot deck you can work with. Remember that you’re the one who’s going to be reading the cards, so you need to be able to work with the tools you’ve got.

“So how do I know if I’m working with the right tarot deck?”

Beauty and style may not be the best measurements of a deck’s readability. Think about it this way: a restaurant might have great music and ambience, but it doesn’t necessarily mean the food is great. I have been drawn to so many beautiful sets of tarot cards in my time, only to leave them sitting in their boxes unused, because when I try to read them, they don’t give me much to go on. I have often noticed that the students who bring highly stylized tarot decks are the ones who struggle the most to connect with the cards during the lesson.

The truth is that just because something is labelled as a tarot deck doesn’t mean you’ll be able to work with it. Tarot cards can be easier to read when the illustrations tell a story, show an action, create a mood, or introduce a setting. So what are some details that I look for in a tarot deck to support those elements?

First, I recommend looking for movement and body language. This is why I prefer decks that depict people. While I love some of the nature-themed tarot decks out there that offer beautiful illustrations of animals, sticks, and insects, I find that they leave me with…animals, sticks, and insects to interpret (unless, of course, the animals are anthropomorphized with human traits). But so many of the readings I do are rooted in relationships, whether with the self or with others. We are in bodily form. We move, we act, we feel, we think.

So I like to see people in my tarot cards, because those images offer body language, eye contact, and relatable actions. An image of sticks or stones may not be as relatable, so it won’t inspire as much discussion. When I see a person in a card, I can ask myself things like the following:

Which direction are they facing?

What are they looking at?

What are they doing? Are their hands full, or are they open and ready to receive?

What are the people in these cards holding?

Are they sitting, standing, running, walking, or riding?

What might they be feeling?

How many people are in each card, and how they are interacting?

If you have your tarot cards handy, you might want to pull a few out at random to see what your cards are up to.

When you start to see actions in tarot cards, they become verbs for us to act upon in a reading:

“Look at it this way…”

“Let go of that…”

“Hold on to this…”

Look for emotion and varied experiences

I also look for a tarot deck that has a range of emotion and tone and that isn’t afraid to get serious. Some contemporary decks avoid cards like Death and the Devil, changing their titles to reflect themes of rebirth, transformation, and materialism instead.

I know some people like to work with tarot decks that only inspire positivity. And there’s nothing wrong with that as a personal preference. But for me, the more variety a tarot deck offers in terms of highs, lows, and in-betweens, the more accurate I can be with it.

My tarot-reading style has always been to embrace whatever comes: the good, the bad, and the ugly. I like tarot because it’s so honest. Yes, it can carry some dramatic images and ideas. Yes, it can inspire nervousness at times, but it also helps us accept reality.

If you are looking at a tarot deck with a softened tone, think about whether it reflects your energy and approach to life.

Think, too, about how close you want to live to the truth. Do you want a deck that will help you stay aware of challenges, overcome blocks, and simply be real about what’s up? If so, choose a deck that has moods and that reflects the many facets of our lives, from serenity to struggle, from loss to celebration. It’s okay if some cards are sad, or scared, or angry, because that’s how life is—full of ups and downs.

Again, there is no right or wrong answer here, just the answer that works for you.

Look for colour schemes

The colours in each tarot card can reveal so much in a reading:

Are things bright and warm, or are they cloudy and cold?

Do you see a pattern in the cards that goes from light to dark, or vice versa?

Do you see clusters of bright cards and clusters of dark ones? What might that tell you about the energy in your reading?

How are the landscapes, skies, and background coloured in your cards?

Where are things hot and dry, or where are they lush and green?

When is it nighttime, when things are in the dark?

When is it sunny, when everything is illuminated?

These can all be important cues to look for in a reading, which is why I recommend working with a deck that has a varied colour palette. If its artwork is minimal or relies on a basic colour scheme through and through, it may be more difficult to connect with the moods and experiences we are looking for.

Look at tarot as a whole

There are seventy-eight cards in a tarot deck, yet so often we look at only one or only a few at a time when we are doing readings.

Even if you’ve been using tarot for a little while already, take all your cards out and lay them down together, in order: group the Major Arcana together and then each of the suits. Take the time to look at each one. Contemplate the significance of the order they appear in. Look at how the deck works as a whole rather than card by card.

Do this whenever you buy a new deck or if you are working with a familiar deck but haven’t really taken time to just look at the cards and their colours, patterns, figures, and symbols.

“But what about the card meanings? Where do those fit in?”

The meanings do matter. They can form a solid foundation for your understanding of the cards. But as we’ve already discussed, the deck you are using matters, too, so don’t treat it simply as a bridge between you and your guidebooks. Tarot’s artwork is not secondary to the process of reading, and it’s not something to bypass.

“How long does it take to know if a deck is right for me?”

Looking at a beautiful illustration is different from making sense of it. Just as we may first be drawn to a person through physical attraction, it can be harder to sustain a deeper relationship if we start to realize that we can’t connect on other levels. Reading tarot will require you to go beyond any superficial preferences as you learn to speak its language.

At the end of the day, you’re the only one who will know whether a deck is right for you. It’s up to you to decide what to commit to.

When you start to understand the various components that factor into a tarot reading, it can be easier to figure out which tarot deck might be best for you. But if you’re really new to tarot, it’s likely that any deck will feel difficult at first. After all, you are learning a new language. It won’t all come together overnight.

So remember that no matter what you end up working with, there will be a learning curve to take on. Even if you find yourself deeply attracted to a deck’s artwork or energy, it doesn’t mean that your readings will come effortlessly. Don’t be disheartened if the deck you have chosen—the one that feels so right for you—doesn’t feel quite so natural at first.

How long should you try to make it work? There is no hard and fast rule I can give you to follow on this. For me, I find that three to six months is a good amount of time to get used to anything, tarot or otherwise.

Your own nature will play a role here, too:

Do you have trouble following through or sticking to a plan?

Do you take on new projects with great enthusiasm but drop them just as fast?

Do you get impatient if you’re not good at something right away?

Are you stubborn to the point where you won’t let yourself try a different method, even after months have gone by with no progress?

Know yourself.

Only you can judge whether you have been putting in enough time and practice to make tarot work for you.

Reading the Major Arcana

Out of tarot’s seventy-eight cards, twenty-two are part of the Major Arcana. The other fifty-six cards are the Minor Arcana.

The cards making up the Major Arcana, or simply the Majors for short, were originally the trump cards when tarot was merely a card game. They were renamed when tarot began its transformation into a divinatory tool.

The word arcana means secret, which gives us a clue as to the nature of these two parts of the tarot. What might a major secret reveal to you? What does a minor secret look like?

The Major Arcana contains the cards that begin with the Fool and end with the World. This is also where we see some of tarot’s most notorious cards, like Death, the Devil, and the Tower.

If you haven’t already pulled out your cards and looked at them together, I really recommend you do so as you read this chapter. Separate the Major Arcana from your tarot deck, and spread them out in front of you in numerical order. Put the Minors aside for the moment.

When we start to look at the Majors, we can really see tarot’s medieval origins at work. This will be especially obvious if you are using a Rider-Waite-Smith deck or something similar, but no matter what style your deck has taken on, the connections remain.

For example, what is now often called the Hierophant (Major Arcana number five) was originally the Pope in the tarot trumps. The High Priestess was the Popess. We also have the Devil and the angels in cards like Temperance and Judgement.

In medieval times, many developments in medicines and vaccines would not be seen for centuries to come. Infant mortality was high. Life expectancies were much shorter than they are now. Death may have felt like it never very far away, as war, poor health, famine, and more were ongoing concerns for many.

Today, however, we continue to work with the Death card, and why not? Death is still as much a part of life as it has ever been, although now, in tarot, we tend to see it more as a metaphor for endings and transformation rather than physical mortality.

Look again at the Major Arcana, and ask yourself these questions:

What kinds of sequences do you see taking place on this path?

What kinds of body language are happening between the figures here?

If you were the Fool walking along the road of the Majors, who would you meet along the way, and what would happen when you did?

What purpose or lesson might that person teach you?

I hope you are beginning to see that the Major Arcana is full of mystical, magical experiences as well as obstacles, decisions, and transformations.

In tarot, everything is a circle

The Fool’s Journey is a common term in contemporary tarot to describe the lessons and events the Fool encounters throughout these cards. It is often compared to the narrative of the Hero’s Journey, which began to be studied in 1871 when anthropologist Edward Taylor started to examine the common plot points in heroic myths and tales.[14]

Scholar Joseph Campbell is credited with popularizing the concept of the Hero’s Journey. In his 1949 book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell describes the journey this way: “A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.”

The Hero’s Journey has a cyclical nature, one that is replicated throughout the tarot. While the Hero’s Journey isn’t intrinsic to tarot, it is a helpful way to understand the order of the Major Arcana.

The Fool, which represents us individually, begins with a call to strike out into the world. The Fool’s number is zero, a truly embryonic energy waiting to add up to something. The card that follows the Fool is the Magician, which can be viewed as one of the “supernatural wonders” Campbell speaks of. The Magician teaches the Fool about making their own magic. Since each of us is the Fool at various times in our lives, we can look at the Magician as a card that reveals to us the tools that are on our altar, ready to be used. These tools may be knowledge, talents, decisions, or anything else you feel you have at your disposal.

The Magician is followed by the High Priestess and then the Empress, two powerful energies that can teach the Fool the power of intuition, instinct, and creativity. Here the Fool is gifted with deeper self-awareness and intuitive action.

As you look at the order of the cards in the Major Arcana, you can start to see the ebbs and flows of energy along the way. There are times when the Fool must stop, listen, and learn, as we see in cards like the Hierophant or the Hermit. And there are times when the Fool must take the reins and get going, as in the Chariot, or surrender to the changes initiated by the Wheel of Fortune.

The appearance of the Hanged Man may also be another time to pause, or it may be a time to sacrifice, as it sits before the Death card. What do you think the Hanged Man is speaking of in this position? What have you experienced in the times leading up to a significant change in your own life? Sometimes we can see that the end is coming. We can feel the doors closing on a job or a relationship. We can feel change in the air. During these times, we might decide to hang out and wait, as the Hanged Man does, or begin to take stock of what we will be giving up as we prepare to say goodbye to a chapter in our lives.

Even though the Death card makes a lot of people nervous, I have always found it worth noting that it is the thirteenth card out of twenty-two. This tells us that in tarot, there is always life after death, and it speaks to one of tarot’s main teachings: whatever begins must eventually end, yet whatever ends will help us begin again.

The Fool, like the Hero, descends into the abyss of the unknown. Here, the experience may be difficult, but it leads to rebirth and awakening, and the Fool rises again.

Not that rebirth is always easy, especially in the realm of the Major Arcana. Temperance sits between Death and the Devil, which always makes me think of the narrow road the Fool must walk at this time. If the Fool tries to go back the way they came, they end up facing Death again. This is a point of no return. Yet to move beyond Temperance, the Fool must go through hell, where they meet with the Devil.

But Temperance is often symbolized by an angel, and so while the road to rebirth may be bumpy, Temperance brings temporary salvation before completing a difficult descent.

The Devil may also be seen as part of the rebirth process. People sell their souls to the Devil, and so this card may ask, “Where do you feel you’ve sold your soul? What parts of your spirit are you in the process of reclaiming at this time?” On the Fool’s Journey, what’s at stake can come into full realization now. A choice can be evident: stay trapped in the underworld, or find liberation by making different choices this time around.

The Tower is another card that stirs up a lot of mixed reactions. Here, we have more change. Walls tumble down in the Tower. Our sense of security, structure, and foundation can become compromised. Is it all to support the acts of freedom, truth, and liberation that begin in the preceding cards? Is it all to warn us against developing a false sense of security?

Once we are out of the Tower, we can look up at the stars. There we see the Star followed by the Moon and Sun. Here is another cycle, one that reminds us of the constant passing of time from night to day. It reminds us of the ever-changing world we live in, the impermanence of it all. Still, there is trust in the fact that the sun will rise again. No matter how dark or desolate the night gets, dawn will eventually break, and we will be able to see our way forward once again.

In the Hero’s Journey, atonement often follows transformation. We can find a parallel to this in the Judgement card, which brings another message of rebirth. The word judgment can sound negative—sometimes people take the card literally and believe they are being judged for their actions—but in my experience, it comes more like an awakening or a wakeup call. For the Fool, this is where transcendence begins.

The World is the final card where everything comes together. Whatever call is answered with the Judgement card, whatever successes or lessons have been accomplished on this path now reach a culmination point. This is a card of experience, accumulation, and wholeness. But it also heralds an ending. Why? Because there is nowhere left to go in the Majors except back to the beginning. And so here we see the cycle of birth and growth, life and death, rebirth and awakening. Over and over again, this is what the tarot teaches us about life: that everything is a circle.

“Are the Major Arcana cards more important to pay attention to than the Minors?”

While the words major and minor may seem to suggest that the Majors are more significant than the Minors, I always stress that all the cards are important. Remember: tarot works as a whole.

In tarot, we work with the natural elements. When we talk about the Minor Arcana, we’ll explore how each suit connects to one of the elements of earth, air, fire, and water. The Majors are the fifth element of spirit or soul. And so these cards can speak to universal shifts, to concepts or changes that are impacting you to your core. As a result, the Majors can be seen as representing bigger chapters, themes, or transitions in your life.

The Minor Arcana can represent the day-to-day world, which can feel just as pressing. Spiritual work can be subtle; we might not even be conscious of it all the time, whereas day-to-day issues will demand immediate attention but are all part of your bigger picture.

You can’t have the spiritual work without the material world to apply it to, and vice versa. Both the Majors and Minors matter, just like the big and little stuff of your life adds together, too.

“What can I do to understand the Major Arcana on my own time?”

Memorize the order of the Majors so that you know where each card sits on the Fool’s Journey, and explore the significance each placement has for you.

Reading the Minor Arcana

The Minor Arcana, the remaining fifty-six cards in the tarot, comprises four suits. Typically these suits are called Wands, Cups, Swords, and Pentacles, although those names may vary by deck.

Those names might also appear as rods or batons instead of wands, vessels or chalices instead of cups, and coins or discs instead of pentacles, for example.

Why might there be a difference? The creator of your tarot deck may have had a different vision about how to communicate those energies.

What the suits are called is not as important as the elements that they represent. Even though the title of a suit might change, its elements won’t. The elements of earth, air, fire, and water are an important part of tarot reading. Understanding the elements will help you interpret the cards and understand the seasons of your life.

If you think of the energy of the Major Arcana as indicative of the element of spirit—an intangible energy that may come from the soul, universe, higher power, collective consciousness, or anything else you might connect to such an energy—the Minor Arcana is where those bigger spiritual energies begin to manifest as reality.

How? In our day-to-day lives. The Minor Arcana can represent thoughts, feelings, conversations, people, events, decisions, inspiration, and action—things that can mentally, emotionally, and physically unfold in the here and now.

While the cards of the Major Arcana may seem to have more weight to them, more significance, or more longevity in the transitions they initiate, we shouldn’t write off the Minors as “lesser” secrets. We live in the here and now. And the elements we see throughout the tarot remind us that one can’t exist without the other.

And while some of us might aspire to continue to transcend this world in order to sustain a connection to spirit, the truth is that much of the work of our lives—our soul’s work, our personal evolution, our maturation—happens in small ways. We learn so much from each other. We learn from our mistakes. We live to regret so that we can uncover the strength of our integrity.

In the Major Arcana, we see many magical beings that we may aspire to become, like the Magician or the High Priestess. We may be attracted to these energies and our ideas of what they represent because they hold some kind of ideal for us.

In the Minor Arcana, things can get messy. We see cards that depict loss, conflict, isolation, and loneliness. We might look at some of the court cards, and instead of being inspired, we could feel repelled. Especially if a card reminds you of an unhappy situation or an aspect of yourself that you would like to change.

If the Minor Arcana is where we find so much of “the work,” then it makes sense that the cards we see here are not always the easiest to accept. Sure, plenty of cards in the Minors show joy, celebration, and ease, too. But when we shuffle a tarot deck and lay a few cards down, we always have to expect that our reading might point out something we don’t want to see right then. Especially if there is a decision we’ve been putting off or a conflict we’ve been avoiding.

While the themes of everyday life might feel mundane, it’s important to remember that a bigger picture exists for all of us. Tarot’s messages won’t always be magical, but they might instead remind us to find magic in the mundane. Sometimes even the smallest change in perspective or the smallest realization can become a new rule by which we live or a new idea that eventually leads to something bigger.

It can also be easy to assume that a major life moment will be obvious. We don’t always see how the little things add up until we look back at how far we’ve come.

Through the Minor Arcana, we are reminded that friendships, careers, successes, and masterpieces are often built over long periods of time, with stops and starts and small adjustments made along the way.

The structure of the Minor Arcana

Each suit within the Minor Arcana contains fourteen cards, beginning with the aces, which are equal to the number one. From there, the cards are numbered from two to ten. After the tens come the court cards, although they are not usually numbered. Instead, we can see these as the cards that rule the kingdoms of each element, and the aces to the tens are the people, places, and things that live within those kingdoms.

You can look at the aces as the seeds that get planted in the grounds of those kingdoms, as gateways or paths to those places. The people who rule over those kingdoms from the court cards can represent the highest potential for those seeds.

Understanding the elements in the Minor Arcana

The elements of earth, air, fire, and water are not exclusive to tarot. We also see them in astrology, earth-based paths like Wicca, and many other paths. Learning the qualities of these elements will not only give you a deeper understanding of tarot but can help transfer that understanding into other practices if you so choose. The elements will also help you feel more connected to the nature around you and within you as you begin to recognize the fire of passion and creativity, the stability of earth, the expression of water, and the voice of air.

And if you understand the elements already, you might find that thanks to this prior knowledge, you connect more easily to this part of tarot.

If that’s not the case, and the concepts of the elements are new to you, don’t worry: this chapter will help.

First, keep in mind that the elements are key to our survival. We need air to breathe, fire to warm us, water to replenish us, and the earth to feed and hold us. And we need them all to work together, in various combinations, so that we can do all of the above and more.

Earlier I mentioned astrology’s reliance on the elements as well. You might know your sun, moon, or rising signs and what elements they are in. But there is more to your astrological signature than that. In astrology, you will find that your natal chart holds twelve different houses, each representing a different area of your life. And each house is ruled by one of the twelve zodiac signs. This means that some areas of your life are ruled by fire, others by earth, air, and water. Essentially, from an astrological perspective, we all embody the four elements to varying degrees.

So we are already intimately connected to the elements, both physically and spiritually. Tarot is another way we can understand and appreciate the natural rhythms within our physical and spiritual landscapes.

Applying the elements in a reading

One of the easiest ways to connect with the elements is to think about what they do: Fire burns. Water flows. Air moves. Earth holds.

Think about the supportive and destructive aspects we see in nature. Nature is an important guide in our understanding of tarot. If nature is life, and if tarot is a reflection of our lives, then it only makes sense to learn from both.

Think, too, about how these elements all exist within you. Some people experience a bit of each element every day. If you love routine and look forward to going to the same job each day, you might be exercising the stabilizing, routine-loving energy of earth—the Pentacles.

On the other hand, if you are restless and love creating change or are always rushing into new projects and plans, you might be feeling the spontaneous, inspired energy of fire—the Wands. We’ll look more closely at each suit in the pages to come, but I want to get you thinking of what these things might look or feel like on a personal level.

In tarot, the elements can also help us understand the weather of a situation: Is something hot and burning? Abundant and healthy? Washed out by rain?

Moodiness, impatience, uncertainty, creativity, stubbornness, and other traits can be seen in the elements. Each suit, and so each element, has its own pace, themes, and functions. Understanding what each element connects to gives you boundaries and parameters for working with the Minor Arcana. The elements can also help us see what is working for us, or against us.

But don’t wait to begin experiencing the elements through tarot alone. As you learn more about the elements, pay attention to how you are already seeing and feeling them within yourself.

Working with the Elements of the Minor Arcana

When you are working with the elements, think of them as parameters to help you stay within the boundaries of your reading. The elements all have different specialties—things they connect to or focus on—as well as speeds at which they move.

Be mindful that the following is a guide and reflects the way I interpret tarot. You may have different relationships with the elements, or you may find that they express themselves to you in other ways. Use this as a jumping-off point; never feel confined by it.

Fire: The suit of Wands

As fire is the fastest-moving element in the suits, you can trust that when it shows up in a reading, something is heating up. Life can feel like it’s moving quickly, or you can experience momentum or urgency with whatever you are focusing on at the time.

Because fire is so fast, it is impatient, restless, impulsive, quick to act, and quick to temper. Fire is also the spark of inspiration that can send you down a new path or light you up with a brilliant idea. So this element strongly connects to creativity, passion, courage, and ambition. Fire burns, dances, mesmerizes, brightens, rages, and excites. Fire is wild and hard to control. It is unpredictable.

Fire is driven, determined, and fearless.

Take some time to study the cards in your suit of Wands. Look at where you might see examples of this. It is common to find Wands cards featuring people carrying heavy loads, stepping into the spotlight, competing with each other, or rushing forward.

“What does fire help with?”

Fire gets things moving. It is a great element for those feeling stuck or craving change in their lives.

This is also the element for creative, entrepreneurial, independent, or adventurous initiatives. It is an action-oriented energy that brings us our brightest ideas and greatest potential. It is where we find the energy to push through toward a goal or to blaze our own trail. So many ideas and opportunities can come with fire that everything can feel fast and furious. If you have been slow to act on an idea, fire might be telling you that the time has come to make your move.

Ego can be strong in the element of fire (which can also be a hindrance—we’ll talk about that in the next section), so if your reading is centred around cultivating confidence, autonomy, authority, or leadership in your own life, this element can speak to the health or potential of your own inner spotlight. Confidence counts here.

Fire can help us follow our passion, because it’s such a compelling urge, something that lights us up.

“How can fire harm?”

“Don’t play with fire,” we’ve often been told. Why? Because it burns.

Fire can be deeply destructive, raging uncontrollably through forests, homes, and barns. Once a fire builds, it can be difficult to contain.

When we are deep in the element of fire, we might feel a fierce determination to succeed or win. Fire can make us competitive, but it can also make us stubborn. It pushes us to act, but since it likes speed and momentum, it doesn’t help us slow down.

So what happens then? We burn out. With the element of fire, we have to be careful about stress and overexertion. Fire’s vitality, ambition, and drive can be wonderfully productive. But what happens when we don’t know our own limits? What happens when inspiration leads to overwhelm? If we become overextended by taking on too much or ignoring our own limitations, we create energetic imbalances that lead to depletion.

Fire can also hurt if we get too close to it or don’t tend to it properly. What happens when our passions rage out of control? Or when our lives are dominated by anger or impatience? What happens when ego, independence, or vision leads to megalomania?

Jealousy, anger, aggression, and unhealthy competition are all considerations when we look at how fire can harm. Remember that this is the fastest-moving element, so it will also be the quickest to react—for better or worse. Fire may not always lend itself best to situations that require sensitivity.

Another struggle we see with fire is that it must learn to follow through. It can burn up so quickly that it doesn’t finish what it begins, so if you see fire dominating a reading, you must ask yourself what can help ground and centre some of that energy so that it doesn’t get caught up in the heat of the moment. Ideas can be very exciting, but following through on them is a whole other story, and the follow-through is fire’s weakness.

“What should I think about when I’m interpreting fire energy in a reading?”

When reading the suit of Wands, look to see what is heating up for you. The images you see in the cards will help indicate when the fire element is warming something in your life or causing tension. Continue to practise seeing when you look at the cards:

What do the images hold?

Do you see someone fighting or someone in control?

Do you see a spark of inspiration being handed to you, or do you see yourself being carried away by too many possibilities?

You might also want to ask yourself questions about creativity, ambition, inspiration, or other themes that fire likes.

And if there is something you are working toward or excited by, ask yourself, “What can sustain my fire right now? What can I do make sure this inspiration doesn’t fizzle out?”

What are some of the things you find inspiring? Maybe the Wands are telling you to spend some time with your sources of inspiration.

What can you do to inspire others? We don’t always know what kind of impact we can have. Is there someone in your life who could use a word of encouragement? Think of how you can give someone a boost of confidence.

Is there a project waiting to be started or completed? Part of the confidence of fire is its ability to take initiative. It isn’t always easy to finish a project, but that is where confidence can come in. If you are holding back on something because you’re not sure it’s “good enough,” why not push yourself out of your comfort zone and get going on it?

If fire is dominating your reading, pay attention to the pace at which you’re moving: Do you need to slow down? Or get motivated?

Fire is also highly visible. How can you dress like fire? Or laugh like fire? It would be loud and boisterous, bright and cheerful. Think of the ways you might express yourself with a bit of fire inside.

Air: The suit of Swords

Air is the second-fastest-moving element. It connects our thoughts, ideas, communication, truth, and knowledge.

The suit of Swords itself is often a challenging one. Some people hate seeing Swords in their readings, but I think the suit’s elemental connection is part of the reason the Swords look so intense. This is the suit, and element, that most directly connects to our minds and mental energy. Think of how intense, how worked up, your mind can make you sometimes.

Our heads can be messy places where our worries, fears, and to-do lists reside. But that doesn’t mean this suit, or its element, is always a challenge. Remember, we need the elements to survive, and we certainly need air.

What is air, and what does it do?

Air is weightless. It moves in all directions. Air is the atmosphere. It changes weather patterns. It is the wind that can bring in a storm or part the clouds. Air also scatters seeds on its breeze so that new life can take root in the earth. If the element of air represents our ideas, we can look at the suit of Swords as a place that carries our ideas on its winds.

Symbolically, we can think of air as what helps us carry our own words and ideas—seeds themselves—into the world so that our thoughts can become things. We can also think of the flight of birds: Where can air give us wings? How can it help us take flight?

Air is what we breathe. We hold our breath when we are tense or scared. We sigh with relief.

In this suit, we are reminded that our thoughts and words are like swords: they can hurt or help. Swords end in a point, so these cards can tell us to get the point or make a point. Hence, we see strong themes of intellect, communication, assertion, truth, honesty, ideas, and decision-making throughout these cards.

We wield power through what we think and what we say. If the wind can carry in a storm, then so can our presence. If you speak with the wrong tone or the wrong intention, the atmosphere in a room can change.

The images you see in the cards will help indicate how the element of air is influencing you. Are things stale, unmoving? Do the images look stuck or scared? Or do they seem clear and in control? Which cards here look to be making decisions or stating their minds, and which ones seem to be holding back or deliberating their next move?

“What does air help with?”

It might not always be easy to see the suit of Swords as supportive. Symbolically, it’s easy to perceive why: swords are weapons. Here we have a suit that depicts sharp objects. Blades of steel or silver are cold, pointed, and dangerous.

In tarot, you always have to be willing to push yourself to make broader connections to the cards. Remember that in the element of air, it’s important to be assertive. These cards might be encouraging you to use your voice or develop it.

Speak directly. Be honest and up front. Or demand that behaviour from those around you if it’s necessary.

While the element of air gets a reputation for being flaky, spacey, and indecisive, the power of the tarot’s suit of Swords can be anything but. With all the intellectual energy and communicative ability this suit holds, it’s natural for it to connect to things like writing, brainstorming, networking, teaching, public speaking, learning, and so on. If you have an idea to share, a book you want to write, or a new direction to take in your life, the element of air can help.

You can also see the Swords as the winds of change in the air. These cards might ask if you’ve been sitting on a decision long enough or if it’s time to break free of something you know is in your way. Swords are sharp, and you can think of them as tools to help you cut away any weeds growing in your path.

Those weeds might be showing up as indecision, something the element of air loves to talk about. So think of where you can cut your way to clarity. When I read tarot, it’s not uncommon to see a lot of Swords in readings for people who are asking about the right time to make a move in their lives. “Just do it,” these cards seem to say. This is where we get “eureka” moments when we know exactly what needs to be done. Swords can show that the solution you are seeking is on the way—or already at hand.

Use your thoughts to create things. Use your thoughts to shape your reality, and trust in the power to think for yourself.

“How can air harm?”

Visually, the artwork in the suit of Swords can have a chilled, discouraging tone compared to what we see across the other suits. Even though every suit has its ups and downs, the Swords tend not to depict as many successful or joyful moments as the Wands, Cups, or Pentacles.

If this suit’s element is the place of the intellect where we see our thoughts in action, then we have to accept that those thoughts will sometimes appear as worries, indecision, betrayal, doubt, and fear. A lot of air can also indicate overthinking or a tendency to analyze or second-guess something.

Tension can be reflected in the Swords because our minds create stress. Our worries sit up in our heads, keeping us busy with all the worst-case scenarios we can dream up. Our thoughts can be scattered, and sometimes they cause us to speak too soon, causing pain or friction. They can cause us to consider too many options, creating blocks and inaction. Just as the winds can change at any moment, so can our minds.

Like fire, air needs something to keep it grounded in reality. Otherwise, like the wind, it can blow in any direction. Flakiness, changeability, and indecision can all result if air is expressing itself in a more challenging way.

Because the Swords are so communicative, you might have to be mindful about how your words are coming across. Or how other people’s viewpoints are affecting your own. Let’s face it: people talk. Gossip, undermining, criticism, speculation, and insensitivity can all be factors here. You might have to ask yourself, “Is someone else’s presence or perspective causing me to feel a chill in the air?”

And of course, there are also times when we have to ask if we ourselves are the ones stirring up bad winds. Only you can know if you are operating at your highest integrity and with the clearest of intentions.

Which sword is it time for you to wield, and how will you exercise that power? Sometimes the Swords make people uncomfortable in a reading because of their push for decisiveness or honesty. And those are not always easy things to achieve, especially if someone has a fear of commitment, which every decision requires. Reading the Swords can also highlight struggles with speaking up or feeling scattered and unsure about a future direction.

The element of air and its suit of Swords remind us that we each carve our own path. How we do that will determine whether our own swords are being used for good or ill…or something in between.

“What should I think about when I’m interpreting air energy in a reading?”

First, you might want to think about all the actions you can associate with it. Air blows, pushes, breathes, howls. It carries seeds in the breezes. It cools us down. Heats us up. Moves. Stagnates. Destroys, like a hurricane. It is an unseen force.

Energetically, air is a cerebral element. It encourages you to think, connect, talk, and share ideas. Writing, journaling, brainstorming, and strategizing are all things air enjoys. So you might want to explore questions like “What is on my mind right now? Is there a book I want to write? A plan I’d like to think through? A friend I’ve been meaning to catch up with?”

Sit down with a notebook, and start jotting down your ideas. Or record them. Or bounce them off someone whose perspective you can count on.

What opportunities, questions, or dilemmas are presenting themselves to you now? You might have to make a quick decision or clear your head about something. Focus on whatever feels like it is cluttering up your mind. What is making you uncertain? What is at the root of your indecision? Who do you want to be?

Remember that air can bring in warm weather patterns and cool ones. Which ways are your winds blowing? If you are seeing a lot of Swords in a reading, it can be helpful to ask, “Is a storm on the horizon, or is the sky clearing?”

Think about what you are saying, promising, or mulling over at the time. Those Swords may be indicative of which way the wind will blow based on what’s top of mind or on the tip of your tongue. Pay attention, too, to the presence that others bring into your life.

Learning is another important activity for air. What do you want to know more about? How can you feed your curiosity right now? Is there a seminar or workshop that would help you get ahead in your work? Or is there a subject you’d like to learn purely for pleasure? When you feed your curiosity, you expand your mind.

And speaking of expansion, one of the simplest ways to embody this element is to breathe. Take a deep breath, and let your belly expand. Let your lungs fill as deeply as they can. Pay attention to your breathing throughout the day, and see whether it helps to centre yourself in this way.

Water: The suit of Cups

Water is a slower-moving element—not the slowest, but slower than fire and air.

This element can also be softer and gentler than fire and air, as water is the element most connected to the heart and the emotional world. Water’s themes include feelings, relationships (both love and friendship), intuition, flow, confusion, ease, comfort, care, and sensitivity.

Emotions can be complex, though. They ebb and flow, and changing moods can be just as hard to deal with as changing minds. Sometimes it’s hard to tell them apart.

In tarot, the watery suit of Cups can occasionally be challenging to connect with. It all depends on the person. Some people keep their emotions at a distance, preferring to disconnect from that part of themselves. There can be any number of reasons for this.

The impact and understanding of water in a reading can be highly dependent on individuals’ levels of emotional availability and their willingness to develop an awareness of their emotions. For some people, emotions are barely given any attention. Some of us are more inclined to focus on our thoughts, which are not always the same things as our feelings. And some of us aren’t always sure how to separate them out. Others might choose to ignore their hearts, deciding that to-do lists, ambitions, duty, or other agendas deserve higher priority.

Yet some people can feel everything very deeply and intensely. And sometimes the depth of emotion can get to the point where they don’t feel they can move forward at all.

Water can be deep or shallow. It can be a running river or a stagnant swamp. We can get stuck in our emotions, wallow in them, or drown in them. When we read the element of water, we must look at whether the images we see suggest the level of depth and flow. Cups can run empty, just like our hearts.

“How can water help?”

This is the realm of intuition and connection. The place where you are encouraged to follow your heart and feel your way forward. Inspiration, spirituality, and hope are also common threads in this suit.

It can help to think about how some of these themes connect to the element of water. We are buoyed in water. When we fall in love or make a new friend, we can feel like we are floating.

When you think about water, think about what renews or refreshes you. You can be fuelled by the support of friendship, for example, or by a random act of kindness.

Seeing a lot of water in a reading can also indicate that things are in flow. The suit of Cups can herald a lot of happiness and fulfillment. You can think of this as the place where your cup is full, assuming we are seeing positive images that can reinforce easier messages.

A lot of water can indicate the importance and quality of your relationships and can give you permission to focus on love and social ties, such as making sure you make time for the people who matter most. For some of us, that comes easily, but it’s not always simple for everyone. A great many people struggle with prioritizing their relationships against their workloads. We can also struggle with knowing whether it’s the “right time” to look for love, especially if we’re not sure we have enough of ourselves to give.

An abundance of Cups cards might tell you that it’s time to do what makes you happy. Water isn’t about doing what looks good on paper but rather what looks good to the heart.

“How can water harm?”

Remember that water ebbs and flows. If this is the place where love flows, then it will also be the place where hearts break against the shore. Feelings and emotions can dry up. Our cups can also be drained, leaving us dry or parched and so emotionally depleted.

Feelings can drown us, too. Sometimes we aren’t the ones causing those undercurrents. That’s where the suit of Cups can warn of emotional manipulation or moodiness that may cause stormy seas. For example, if you are in a relationship with someone whose moods change like the tides, then you will probably have to learn to ride those waves—or decide whether you want to.

Think about the changeability of water. It can flow, but it can flood, too. Just like fire, water can be destructive when there is too much of it too soon. Or when we don’t know how to swim. It can pull us under or carry us away. Things also dissolve in water, and so this element can also speak to confusion or a lack of clarity, particularly when it comes to personal boundaries. Water can seep into all kinds of crevices, so this suit might show where our energy is leaking away or where other people’s baggage is seeping into our personal lives.

Water, like fire, can be hard to control or contain. As you study your cards, think about the range of qualities that water can have and how water’s up-and-down motions can mirror our own emotional experiences. Where might you see challenging currents in the suit of Cups?

If we are not careful, emotions can cause us to be reactive instead of proactive. Even though flow can be great, it can also be hard to rely on. We can’t stand on water; it doesn’t give us much solid ground to work from. So if water is dominating a reading, it can help to ask, “Where is your anchor right now?”

When we are out to sea in the element of water, we can see loneliness and isolation in the same suit that gives us love and support. We can also see romantic ideals that may not be fully realized without that anchor—that groundedness—to help them stabilize.

Emotional manipulation, guilt, sadness, grief, and hopelessness can also come up in the suit of Cups.

“What should I think about when I’m interpreting water energy in a reading?”

First, you might want to think about all the actions you can associate with water. Water drifts. It is fluid, agile. It flows, cleanses, and rejuvenates. Water fills you up. It reflects. Makes waves. Splashes. Dissolves. Evaporates. Adapts. Carries. Runs deep or shallow.

Sensitivity is a major theme in water. If you see water dominating a reading, you might want to ask yourself, “What am I sensitive to right now?”

Is sensitivity a common theme for you? How does it serve you? How does it hinder you? Can your sensitivity be developed further somehow?

Think about your reaction when life rains on your plans or expectations. Has there been a time when you retreated from the world over disappointment or disillusionment? Is there something happening in your life right now that you might need to protect from the rain?

Is there a feeling, mood, or concern that is overriding your experiences right now? Perhaps it’s time to look at the flow of that emotion. What kind of tide does it ride in on? Does it highlight any past memories or experiences you no longer want to be affected by? Ask yourself if there is anything you want to surrender to the waves so that it can be carried back out to sea.

Is your cup full or empty? Or waiting to be topped up? What can you do to replenish yourself if you are feeling emotionally stagnant?

What are some practices you enjoy that help you feel better? Maybe you want to connect with the element of water through a nice bath or dropping in at a local pool for a swim. Maybe there is a body of water nearby where you can go to meditate.

Some people make it a goal to drink more water, which can be another way you embody this energy. Keep track of how staying steadily quenched makes you feel.

Earth: The suit of Pentacles

Earth is the slowest-moving element.

Why? In earth, things are taking form. All the ideas and inspiration we see in fire and air and all the heart and soul we see in water come together in earth.

The common themes that connect to the suit of Pentacles are work, money, practicality, financial stability, and nature. We also see home and the body here more than in other suits, because earth is where we find our foundation, take shelter, and create security. This is the suit of manifestation but also of groundedness. Earth is the gravity we need to keep us tethered to reality.

We can’t do much if we spend all our time in just one element. For example, if we are in air too often, we’ll always have our heads in the clouds, dreaming up possibilities without any action to see them all through. We can’t find our footing if we constantly drift from one feeling to the next without any clear sense of direction. As you might have noticed by now, we can make very literal connections to the elements in order to understand them better. In earth, things take root. The seeds that are carried by the element of air, for example, need to be buried in order to grow. A fire can’t be built without a pit. Water needs something to nourish or a place to contain it. Earth can be all these things and more.

Earth moves slowly because ideas take time to go from concept to reality. When we manifest something—whether it’s a creative project or a financial plan—we are giving it life. We are changing its makeup. It begins as something intangible—an idea, a feeling, or an urge—and takes shape as we realize our vision.

But that all takes work, which is why the suit of Pentacles also picks up on themes of mastery, commitment, dedication, and work ethic. Steady progress and real-world accomplishment can be found here, provided that the earth—the soil—is receiving the proper nourishment. With the Pentacles, it is time to ask, “Is my garden growing?”

Pay attention to the other suits that appear with the Pentacles. Are there ideas in any Wands or Swords cards that have potential to take root? Are there any relationships, hopes, or dreams in the Cups that can grow?

The images in the cards will always be your guides as to whether or not things are flourishing. As with any suit, the Pentacles also have their cards of loss, depletion, futility, and frustration. Understanding the energies of the elements and how they work together while working with the visual cues from the cards themselves is how information comes to be synthesized in a reading.

“How can earth help?”

When we have a lot of earth in a reading, it can feel exciting, because the Pentacles cards are typically decorated with coins. Depending on the reading, this can be a literal windfall. Work opportunities, financial stability, and success can all be possibilities when you see a lot of money in a reading, and these are the cards I look for first when I am reading about work or career. (But note that an absence of earth doesn’t necessarily mean a career path won’t be successful.)

Earth is where we grow our crops, and in today’s world, many people are focused on reaping rewards through their jobs or businesses.

But these cards are not always about work in the literal sense. The suit of Pentacles is where we are often reminded that life can contain so much and that the things we work for can take longer than expected or unfold differently than we thought.

It’s not uncommon to have high spiritual, philosophical, or creative aspirations while simultaneously pining for the mundane: to be able to afford those new shoes or to be home in time to make dinner tonight. We have to accept and embrace all sides of ourselves, including the human experience of everyday life. This is the suit of the 3-D world, the earth itself, and the needs of our souls, spirits, and bodies combined.

If Pentacles is the suit where all our ideas come together, it is also the suit that reminds us that our basic needs must be met in order to best execute our grandest plans.

Think of the roots of a tree—how deep and wide they can get over time. With the Pentacles, you might have to think about the strength of your foundation and the health of the roots you are growing at the time.

If you are in a tumultuous time in your personal or professional life, the element of earth can be a stabilizing force. It can suggest that you have the power to settle things down or that other factors are coming together to help you feel more supported.

Remember to think about what may be buried beneath the surface of all that earth. Are other riches waiting to be dug up? Not every reading will be about money or work, so you have to be able to bend your understandings of the cards to fit a range of situations in which you wouldn’t necessarily expect them to turn up. The foundation the Pentacles suggest may be something different than the obvious connections to material gain.

For example, maybe there is something you need to dig into a little deeper. Maybe there is a new seed to plant or a buried treasure somewhere in your life that is waiting to be discovered.

Whatever you are trying to establish for yourself—be it a relationship, a creative practice, a new family, or a career path—the cards may be asking you to invest in your plans and goals first, trusting that the reward will eventually come with time, patience, and investment. Because this element is so focused on work, the message may be one that asks you to do just that: work. But also, you might have to wait, as this suit teaches us that good grows in time. In the Pentacles, your life is your harvest.

“How can earth harm?”

Be mindful that an abundance of earth doesn’t always mean you’re going to have an abundant crop. Work is work, and earth will remind you that not all the seeds you plant will take root.

Because earth is the slowest element, a reading dominated by Pentacles can also mean that nothing is moving. Things get stuck in earth. They get stalled or muddied. Or they simply need time to sprout.

It also takes the rest of the elements to make those seeds grow, so if earth is dominating a reading, life might have tons of potential—but what else is missing? Are other elements absent, and if so, why?

Is your heart not in it (water)? Is your passion not there (fire)? Is there a lack of clarity and direction (air)?

Yes, it can be helpful that plans become anchored in earth, but that also means we can dig our heels in. Stubbornness can be a strong theme with the Pentacles. Have you ever become so attached to an idea or goal that you held on to it for way too long? Patience comes from planting a seed and tending to the soil diligently every day, waiting for a sprout. Stubbornness comes from watering a dead plant, hoping it will grow when no signs of life are left at all.

The flip side of earth as a stabilizing force is that it’s not necessarily the most passionate element to see in the tarot. Sometimes earth-heavy readings can indicate that things have become too routine in our lives. Earth is where we can get into a rut if we’re not careful. So if boredom is plaguing an area of your life, a reading dominated by Pentacles may be asking you to look at what’s happening.

Just because something feels safe and familiar doesn’t mean it’s right for you. Maybe your soul needs change. Maybe your creative spirit desires a little bit of uncertainty so that it can be reinspired.

Because earth moves at a slower pace, there is always a risk of being overly cautious here. Without some fire or air to keep things lively, great ideas might never take root. Without some water—some heart or desire—to wet the soil, the earth will dry out, unloved and untended.

Themes of control can also emerge in this suit. Be mindful of what you are clinging to or whether the energy in your actions is flowing in a reciprocal way. In tarot, everything is energy, including money. If you are reluctant to share, spend, or invest (materially or otherwise), the cards might be showing that you need to spend some money, time, or energy rather than pinch every penny you make. Put something out into the universe, and see what you get back.

“What should I think about when I’m interpreting earth energy in a reading?”

There are many ways to work with the element of earth.

First, you might want to think about all that you associate with it. Earth digs. Buries. Holds seeds. Feeds roots. Provides a foundation as the ground we stand on. Supports. Holds. Muddies. Dries out. Is fertile or sour. Grows. Sprouts. Anchors. Grounds.

Think about what you hope will sustain you for the long term. What do you hope to rely on as your foundation, your home, or your sense of security?

What is moving slowly for you right now? Does it need more patience from you, or does it need another element—fire, air, or water—to get things going?

What is your relationship to caution, impulse, or change? Do you like spontaneity, or do you tend to cling to security?

What is your relationship to work and money? Is there a lesson you feel you still need to learn around either or both?

This is the element that asks you to get your hands dirty. If you feel disconnected from the earth—if you feel untethered or ungrounded right now—why not go out into nature and let your body connect with your environment? Take off your shoes and let your bare feet touch the ground. Dig your hands into the soil or the sand of a beach. Skip stones in the water. Rest your back against a tree.

Garden, or buy a plant for your windowsill. Set an intention for the plant, something that you’d like to see grow in your life.

“What happens if I have more than one suit or element in a reading?”

This will likely be the norm. Unless you are just doing single-card readings, you will see all kinds of card combinations when you work with tarot.

If you tend to see a lot of the same element or suit, however, then that’s something to pay attention to. The same can be said if you never seem to pull a certain element. Is it good or bad to have these things happen? I wouldn’t say it has to be either/or. It may be that’s the kind of energy you’re in or that’s the kind of energy you’re comfortable with.

Remember that you know your life better than anyone else. If you are very comfortable with fire energy, for example, and pull a lot of Wands, you might be okay with that. But if you don’t relate to the element of fire at all and prefer to work at a slower pace, perhaps a repetition of Wands is telling you to open up to fire more often.

It can be easy to look at just one element at a time, but it’s important to learn how the cards work in combination. What do you do when all the elements interact with each other?

I like to think of this as looking at “the weather” of a reading. Remember that the elements can all be found in nature. They reflect our environment. Look at how the elements in your reading can support each other, for better or for worse. What they help each other with will be dependent on the reading itself: Are they spreading a forest fire or sparking your imagination? Remember that it’s up to you to decide whether the energy of a reading is helping or hindering the situation.

Let’s look at some examples of how the elements can be combined.

Fire and air (Wands and Swords)

What do you think happens when you put the two fastest elements together? Things can spread like wildfire. Ideas, conversations, and thoughts can all be moving at a rapid speed. It can be an exciting time, but it can be a challenging time to stay grounded, especially if there is an absence of earth in the reading.

Focus may feel elusive with a lot of fire and air in the mix. Fire and air blend independence, ego, confidence, drive, ideas, opinions, and blunt communication.

Pay close attention to what you’re saying or doing at this time, as impulse will be strong. It can be a great time to say yes to opportunities or to get others on board with your vision or plan, just as long as you’re sure you want what you’re asking for. Sometimes things come together sooner than we expect, so be prepared to act.

It’s also important to watch your words, because reactions can be knee-jerk. If you are seeing a lot of tension in the images of the cards, you might want to stay aware of any potential arguments or disagreements or of a tendency for strong opinions to flare up.

Word can also spread like wildfire, so be mindful of speaking harshly of others, and beware of falling for rumours you hear. When these two elements get together, they create a lot of hot air. In daily life, that means people can be rude, boastful, demanding, and catty.

Be careful, too, about sharing ideas and concepts. If you are seeing a lot of conflicted cards in these two elements, you will want to be careful that others aren’t out to compete with you or take credit for an idea you came up with.

Fire and water (Wands and Cups)

Fire plays by its own rules, and water follows the heart. This is where creativity and ambition, or drive and determination, meet. It is the place where action is fuelled by desire.

Together, these elements can support your sense of fulfillment. Water can reflect your heart’s desires, and fire can help you prioritize those values. This is where you can learn to do what you want rather than what you feel obligated to.

But fire can sometimes be too much for water to handle. Water likes to feel things out first, and fire just wants to move.

In turn, water can put a damper on fire’s enthusiasm. Think about what might be needed to anchor these two elements. Things can be very dynamic, but sustaining a relationship, career, or creative endeavour over the long term can take work if it is all fire and water.

Fire and earth (Wands and Pentacles)

Fire has all kinds of potential, and earth does, too. The key with both is to find the right pace at which to work. With earth, plans might move too slowly, to the point where things get stuck or buried altogether.

Fire’s problem, on the other hand, is in finishing what it starts. Fire has plenty of motivation to get going, but it can’t always sustain the momentum. Or it can become distracted by another idea, take on more than is realistic, or start something without thinking it all the way through first.

Together, they can be effective if we learn to strike a balance between the two. Fire can help earth build momentum, and earth can help fire follow through. With this elemental combination, your creativity, passion, and drive can make the earth move.

Ideas can take root here. Often when I see these two together, I get a sense of whether an idea will grow into something sustainable or not. Remember that earth makes things real. It can take all the vision fire brings and turn it into gold. But if the cards aren’t as favourable, they might be warning of a bad crop, so take it as a note to fine-tune your plans.

This combination can also remind you to practise self-care and take your time as you move toward big ambitions. This is where long-term planning meets current inspiration. Taking your time can slow things down, yes, but it can also remind you that you won’t be any good to anyone if you burn yourself out to get to the finish line. Trust, too, that you might be on to something good if you nurture it consistently. The work has to be there; there is no overnight success when we see earth (although fire would like to believe otherwise).

Air and water (Swords and Cups)

This is where the head and the heart must align. Water can help to soften air’s tendency to be blunt, but like the blending of fire and water, air might not be enough for water’s sensitivity, either.

When these two elements are together, decisions and discussions can come from too much of an emotional place, or sensitivity could be lacking in a situation. Emotional unavailability may come into question. Remember that this doesn’t apply only to romantic relationships. We have to be emotionally available to friends, family, colleagues, and ourselves, too.

Water can help air learn how to be more sensitive, open, and vulnerable, and air can help water gain perspective and clarity on a situation. The key is that they both have to understand where the other is coming from. If air is being too rational or critical and water is being too wishy-washy or muddled, then things get confusing. Because these elements communicate very differently, it may take work in any situation, personal or professional.

Depending on the context of the reading, if we are viewing these like weather reports, things might also get a bit stormy. The Cups and the Swords both have some difficult cards, so look at whether some winds of change are blowing in. What do these cards suggest is on the horizon in terms of feelings, perspectives, and conversations?

Air and earth (Swords and Pentacles)

Similar to fire, air can have tons of ideas but might not always know how to apply them in a concrete way. Here, earth can help air focus when its head gets lost in the clouds. Possibility can become reality when earth and air get together. Pay special attention to all kinds of conversations, as words take on new weight here.

Air can sometimes get carried away with lofty plans, speculation, or other trains of thought that may require more discernment or a down-to-earth perspective.

That also makes earth and air a strong combination for problem solving, as long as air applies its logic and earth its practicality. That can be part of the magic found between these two, just as long as earth doesn’t get too fixed or stubborn in its ways and air doesn’t become flighty or indecisive.

Another potential problem with these two is that if air’s atmosphere is too dry, it can create drought. So depending on the context of the reading and the images you see, be mindful that the cards may be warning of opportunities that may dry up or fall flat.

Remember, too, that many of the images we see in air’s suit, the Swords, can indicate mental blocks—fears that leave us at a standstill, crippling indecision or a total lack of direction. Since earth loves stability so much, we might have to look at whether we are slowing ourselves down or delaying decisions out of fear of change.

Water and earth (Cups and Pentacles)

Water feeds the earth to help things grow. These two elements can work well together because water wants to feel safe, secure, and at home, and earth can provide that security.

Water is idealistic, but earth is realistic, so together they have to meet in the middle. You might want to follow your heart on something, but earth will ask you to figure out the practical details of what that means.

Together, though, they have to be careful not to become too lost in one another. Water gets absorbed into the earth, so you must make sure that a situation is not looking muddy. Sometimes we pour love and attention into something—or someone—to the point of oversaturation.

Earth isn’t in a hurry to make any sudden moves, so water might have to work a little harder to stay fresh and flowing here, especially if the cards are looking like challenges or if the context of the reading is feeling a little murky. Water can become buried or stagnant if it doesn’t find a way to move, but earth has to be careful that it’s not resisting the flow of life.

“What if the Major Arcana cards are in the mix?”

How might the element of spirit influence your weather report?

Spirit can enhance all the earthly elements we’ve covered. It can wake things up from deep within. You wouldn’t necessarily look at the Major Arcana interacting as weather, because spirit is intangible, and this is a more philosophical or ethereal element.

Remember that in the Minor Arcana, where fire, earth, water, and air exist, we see themes and elements that influence our day-to-day decisions, conversations, and actions.

With the Majors, we see bigger themes, chapters, and realizations unfolding. We see bigger lessons we might need to accept or understand. I encourage you to think about what themes of spirit might mean for you. Are there spiritual connections you see here? Are there life-changing events?

For example, what if you are seeing a lot of fire and water and feel that these cards are urging you to follow your passion in your career. But then you notice you have also pulled the Devil. What should you make of that? Well, perhaps the Devil is asking you to think about “hellish” work situations or jobs that made you feel like you were selling your soul. The Devil can also speak to things that make us feel stuck or trapped and disempowered, encouraging you to break free now by following your passion instead.

So think of the Major Arcana as helping you see the greater themes, the “big picture” of a situation. Look to these cards as learning opportunities or as places where there are storms or sunshine in your life.

Getting to Know the Numbers in the Minor Arcana

Now that we have looked at each of the elements, let’s look at the numbers in the Minor Arcana, from the aces to the tens.

You might be wondering why I am focusing only on these numbers. Why not look at the numbers in the Major Arcana, too? Mainly because I find it’s a helpful teaching technique. It’s common for new tarot readers to feel overwhelmed by the idea of memorizing seventy-eight cards. When we break it down and start by looking at tarot in smaller pieces, first by focusing on the five elements and then by looking at the numbers one through ten, the pressure to know it all right away starts to subside.

This lesson is meant to help you learn to see what’s in your tarot deck by finding differences and similarities across the suits, as this approach helps us apply similar principles to more than half the tarot deck.

Studying the numbers

To learn about each number and how it works within the suits, I recommend grouping the numbered cards together. So when you study the aces, look at the four aces together. When you study the twos, look at the twos together, and so on. This will give you a sense of how each number works within its own element.

Let’s take a look at each of the numbers in turn.

Aces

Begin with the aces. Lay down all four aces together. Look at them: How are they different? How are they similar?

The aces represent the number one. What does this number make you think of? Often these cards are associated with new beginnings or new cycles. You can think of them as the Fool’s younger siblings, always ready to start a new adventure. But the kinds of new beginnings they initiate will be coloured by their element. For example, the Ace of Wands may be a new creative beginning while the Ace of Pentacles may begin in work or health.

Twos

The twos can be about partnerships or pairings, duality, polarization, or choices. When you group the twos together, which of those themes do you see in the cards in front of you?

What does this number make you think of? Sometimes I associate common sayings or phrases with the cards, like “two heads are better than one.”

Look for parallel themes between the cards as well as their deviations. How does the Two of Swords compare to the Two of Cups, for example?

Which cards might indicate choices rather than partnerships? Where are the two being divided, and where are they coming together?

Threes

Three is the number that sets us beyond the early stages of the aces and any decisions or commitments that have been made in the twos. So the threes can feel like progress or a maturation process.

But remember that we still have a ways to go before reaching the culmination point in the final number: the tens. This means that the threes are not places to sit back and rest. Instead, they can be places to build from. Threes usually mean that it’s time to move on or move up from where you are.

When you are ready, look at the threes together. Again, what do they have in common with each other? How do they differ?

Are there people in these cards, and if so, what are they doing? Look at what they are holding, working on, enjoying, or struggling with. What do these images suggest has been established? Where is progress still to be made?

Fours

Four is a nice, even number. It gives us four corners, bringing to mind balance, moderation, and stability. Yet this number can be especially varied across many tarot decks.

How does it look in the cards you have? Is there any unease, boredom, or rest in the fours? What does this tell you about what occurs after the progress of the threes? Look at the next step you see. Where is the growing pain, respite, or reward?

Fives

What do you notice when you group the fives together? Often the fives bring tension, challenges, and angst in tarot. Why might that be?

Perhaps it’s because the evenness of the fours is disrupted with a new addition. In life, our equilibrium can be thrown off balance by all kinds of things, big and small. An unexpected expense, a new responsibility, or a change—even if it’s welcome—can force us to readjust.

Look at what your cards are showing. Even if you do see challenging images in the fives, try to think of where the opportunity or lesson might be. And remember, the fives are just the halfway point. The story doesn’t end here, which is important to keep in mind when the cards look a bit tricky.

Sixes

What do you notice when you group the sixes together? What story do they tell after any chaos or tension the fives introduce? Is it for the better or for the worse? What kind of balance and harmony gets restored or reassigned?

Like the fours, the sixes often hold a diverse range of messages and energies.

Sevens

In tarot, the sevens can stump you sometimes. You might be tempted to think of these cards as “lucky number seven,” but you might not necessarily see that translate into the Minor Arcana once you lay them out.

Instead, the sevens might indicate something personal you need to overcome. They can be internal, self-reflective cards. Focus, openness, decision-making, and clarity can all be strong themes that emerge in the stories of the sevens.

Look at what you see, and let your eyes find the possibilities.

Eights

The number eight is the same shape as the lemniscate, the infinity symbol. What kind of cycle or transition might that suggest in your cards? When you look at all the eights together, where do you see movement, endings, or breakthroughs? Where is the potential for risk or failure? In the eights, your own priorities are becoming clearer as we get closer to the finale in the tens.

Nines

What do you see in the nines? Here, we are a step closer to the tens, and yet how might that translate in real time when we look at it through the elements?

Are any of these cards demanding more work or commitment? Are any promising a sweet conclusion?

What do you see coming together here, and how have you felt when you were nearing the end of a journey? Sometimes the paths we are on test our limits. No matter how much we want to reach a goal, it can be tempting to give up in the final hours when our energy is spent. Doubt sets in as we begin to wonder whether everything will really come together the way we hope it will.

When you look at the nines, what does each card signify as a final step, sign, or barrier before the attainment of a goal?

Tens

Finally, we reach the tens, where cycles and chapters close. We see themes of completion here, but in tarot, endings can be good, bad, or somewhere in between.

What do you see coming together when you look at the tens? What do you see coming to an end? How do these cards suggest we reach that ending? What might be waiting on the other side?

Think of what each element represents and how that may suggest what these tens look or feel like in the day-to-day.

The numbers as actions and prompts

The numbers in tarot can also be used as inspiration in a reading. They can give us ideas about what to focus on, how long to work on something, or how many ideas or options to explore.

Let’s put a question on the table as an example:

“I have a lot of hobbies, but my job has been very busy this year, and I haven’t had any time to focus on what I want to do. How can I get back to my passions, and which ones should I make a priority?”

If I pulled three cards and saw the Eight of Wands, Two of Swords, and Ace of Wands, I would be very interested in the numbers here. Pick up your tarot deck and pull out these cards to see for yourself. Notice that we start with a lot—eight Wands—but end with just one thing—the Ace of Wands. The numbers decrease when we read from left to right, just like a sentence.

In the centre, we have two Swords.

Don’t forget to factor in the elements. The Wands connect with creative energy and the Swords with decisiveness and clarity.

What do you think the answer might be? Given that the numbers diminish here, I would say that it’s time to narrow down all those hobbies. There’s so much going on in the Eight of Wands, but the Two of Swords suggests whittling those interests down to your two favourite passions.

As the reader, I might ask, “Which of your hobbies do you miss the most? Which two do you hold closest to your heart?”

Once you are clear on your two top picks, the Ace of Wands suggests focusing on only one of them. If one of those hobbies is creative or is something that really inspires you, I would lean toward that in order to connect with the fire energy of the Wands. Then, give that hobby your all—knowing that eventually you can add more to your routine. But for now, this reading suggests narrowing down the possibilities in order to immerse yourself in a single passion.

“Do I always have to use the numbers? What if they just don’t fit with the reading?”

You can apply this technique in so many different ways, but don’t feel it’s a rule you have to apply every time.

For one thing, you might not always have a perfect sequence of numbers like the example above. Another thing is that not every technique will be relevant or useful to the question you’re exploring.

I find that using the numbers as prompts is best when you are looking for an action-oriented answer and are using just a few cards to find that answer.

Remember that you are the driver here. It takes practice to allow yourself to take a breath, look over the numbers, and reflect on whether they apply to the reading or not.

Allow yourself to get creative with the numbers in tarot, but don’t worry about fitting them in every single time. Part of the fun is allowing yourself to explore different techniques and using what you feel comfortable working with. Let your creativity—your intuition—lead the way, and learn how and when you want to apply a technique like this.

Court Cards and the Kingdoms They Rule

Of all the cards in the tarot, the court cards are usually the ones new readers have the most trouble learning.

Why are they so challenging? Maybe it’s because the courts usually depict people who are sitting in thrones or standing in fields. The knights might be rushing by on horses, but even then, there isn’t much to go on in terms of a story to piece together.

But once you connect to the courts, you will find that these cards can be just as layered in their meanings as any other in the tarot.

We will talk about the court cards at deeper length in this chapter, but first, I encourage you to go through the same exercise with the courts that you did with the numbers and group them together.

For simplicity’s sake, I will refer to the court cards by their traditional titles: pages, knights, queens, and kings. As with the names of the suits, the titles of the courts can vary depending on the deck you are using. Sometimes the pages are daughters or sons; the queens, mothers; the kings, fathers. I trust you to adapt these lessons to reflect the roles within your deck. Even if your deck has a different approach to the courts, the lessons and exercises here will still help you understand the history and energies behind these cards. You can apply this knowledge to your readings as you wish later on.

Group the pages together, and look at their differences and similarities. Don’t worry if you don’t know what a page is yet—we’ll get to that in a moment. For now, just let yourself look at the cards. Who are these people? Do they look young or old? What are they doing? Which one of them are you most drawn to, if any?

Next, move on to the knights, and do the same thing. What do you see when you put all the knights together? How are your knights connected, and how are they different? Each has its own style, energy, and approach. Look at how they express themselves in terms of the speed at which they ride their horses and the expressions on their faces. Think, too, about what you associate with knights overall.

Now group your queens together. Where are they sitting? What are they looking at? Are any of them holding something? Look for patterns and variances. If you were in a room with these four queens, which one would you most want to talk to? What kinds of personality, energy, and demeanor do you think they would have?

Moving on to the kings, look at them as you did the queens. What kind of power do you think each of these kings has? How do you think they make their decisions? Do they look at you head on, or do they avoid eye contact?

Begin to think about what the body language of the court cards might mean in a reading. For example, these cards can show the ground you are standing on (pages), the horse you rode in on (knights), and your seat of power or the authority you can command (queens and kings).

Through their gestures and expressions, these cards can also show you where you are averting your gaze or where you need to face something head on.

“What are the court cards, anyway?”

The court cards feel hard to read at first, and it doesn’t help that a lot of conflicting information exists about what they are supposed to mean. I find that all the cards in tarot have a range of meanings, so I never limit any cards to just a single representation.

The courts can feel challenging for another reason, too, as these cards may subconsciously trigger ideas we have about authority, hierarchy, social status, and class systems. Power, control, and rulership are not always seen as aspirational qualities. It’s important to remember that like any other cards in the tarot, the courts are energies, ideas, possibilities, and potentials.

Some tarot resources teach that the court cards always represent people. I tend to avoid any hard and fast rules like this in tarot at all; each of tarot’s seventy-eight cards has the potential to represent many things. Sometimes cards will be people, but they can also be aspects of ourselves or something else altogether.

To assign gender, appearance, job roles, or identity to a mere sixteen court cards is extremely limiting. This approach doesn’t come close to reflecting the diversity of our world, and it reinforces outdated or irrelevant gender roles. So don’t assume a king is always a man or a queen is always a woman. These cards can simply come up to speak to certain personalities or facets of a person. One tarot card can never fully represent someone, anyway. We are always changing, growing, and showing up in the world in different ways for different situations.

Historically, when we go back to the origins of tarot, it is believed that the game of tarot grew out of a fifty-two-card playing deck.[15] We can see the parallels between the two when we look at the Minor Arcana: a deck divided into four suits, starting with the ace and including a royal court. Tarot added four knaves into that court, which we now know most often as the pages.

While kingdoms and monarchies may not play as big a role in some parts of the world as they used to, the tarot is a product of medieval times, reflecting a different point in human history. That’s also where part of the block can come with the courts. While the cards of the Major Arcana feel like timeless archetypes and the Minor Arcana tell us stories of events and emotions, the court cards can seem further out of reach because we may not quite know how to relate to them—or how we want to relate to them.

“Who’s in the court?”

This won’t turn into a history lesson about royalty and monarchies, because that’s not why we’re here. But it can be helpful to understand the roles the court cards are rooted in.

In tarot, the pages are said to sometimes represent children. This is quite a literal connection, given that in medieval times, pages were young boys who worked as attendants to knights or noblemen. They would begin these roles at around seven years of age and serve as pages for seven years. During that time, these kids would clean clothing and weapons, learn about battle, and run messages.

The pages could later go on to become squires, with eligibility for knighthood beginning at the age of twenty-one. This gives you an idea of the magnitude of progression we’re really seeing between a page and a knight when we look at tarot cards. A lot of work, skill, and maturity has to take place to get from one to the other.

Queens have reigned throughout history. In medieval times, a queen would have been an adviser to the king, someone who could act as a liaison between the community and the kingdom. With succession to the throne being a male birthright in many kingdoms, a queen was expected to give her king a son, an heir to the throne.

Even though the traditional hierarchy in the tarot’s court cards has the queen sitting below the king, we can look to the queens of the cards as no less powerful.

Kings, of course, are at the top in the royal courts. They are the rulers, the ultimate authority. This was as high as you could go, and it was often seen as the pinnacle of power. Are you determined to be at the top of your career, the one in charge, or do you work your way up and create your own succession? In modern times, the kings in tarot remind us that we can be the rulers of our own worlds if we so choose.

Divining the court cards

There are so many ways a court card can be interpreted. Like the rest of the Minor Arcana, the court cards can be aspects of yourself, as I mentioned earlier, or they can represent events and situations, thoughts and decisions, emotions and conversations, or other people.

Don’t get stuck thinking the court cards need to be just one thing. Readings become muddled when we get stuck on seeing any cards in the tarot as singular possibilities. Forced interpretations are more likely to miss the mark than flexible ones. These cards exist in a place beyond the images that are depicted and the roles they imply.

Pages

Remember that pages were sent to apprentice with knights at a very young age, so when a page appears in a reading, that tells you right away that this card is speaking about a new, youthful type of energy. Pages are often connected to new beginnings, which makes them similar to the aces in the Minor Arcana. You can see them as parallel energies.

As apprentices, the pages had a lot of learning and growing up to do. So when you see a page, regardless of the suit it’s in, immediately you know that a new path or lesson is opening up for you. The pages encourage you to adopt a “beginner’s mind.”

If in a reading you feel the page is connected to a person, there can be something youthful about them. That doesn’t necessarily have to reflect a biological age. People can be young at heart. People also start new chapters at all ages. Our levels of maturity can be more reflective of a state of mind than a birthday.

Can the pages represent children or even pregnancy? Absolutely. I have seen it for myself many times. But again, this is just one way the pages can show up in a reading. If I feel a page is representing the possibility of a growing family, I don’t hesitate to ask clients if they are planning to have kids or if they want to. Having a baby isn’t always literal: it can come in the form of a creative project, a pet, or a business, too.

We also have to be sensitive to the fact that not everyone can have a child, and there can be many reasons for that. Again, it’s all a reminder not to get cornered into singular card definitions.

Where are the lessons and activities of the pages taking place? Their suits and elements are the kingdoms they serve in, so those energies can help you decode what these initiations look like. The Page of Wands is apprenticing in the kingdom of fire, where creativity, inspiration, independence, individuality, and adventure reign. What kinds of new beginnings or lessons do you think this page encourages? They could be artistic, entrepreneurial, daring, or passionate.

The Page of Cups is apprenticing in the kingdom of water, where love, openness, joy, fulfillment, and ease reign. What kinds of new beginnings or lessons do you think this page encourages? They could be about learning to “go with the flow,” taking a chance on a new relationship, or building friendships. They could also be about making more time and space in your life for yourself.

The Page of Swords is apprenticing in the kingdom of air, where knowledge, learning, identity, ideas, writing and communication, and decision-making reign. This page is usually seen with a sword, learning what it means to wield one’s power through thoughts, words, and decisive action. What kinds of new beginnings do you think this page encourages? Signing up for a new workshop, asserting yourself, and learning how to go for what you want can be part of it. Conversation and connection will be important, too. Got something to say? This page shows it’s time to do it.

The Page of Pentacles is apprenticing in the kingdom of earth, where work, health, security, stability, and opportunity reign. What kinds of new beginnings do you think this page encourages? They could be about investing in yourself through your health or through your work or finances. They could be about learning to stand on your own two feet, especially if you’ve been feeling precarious. Learning about budgeting, slowing down, or looking at the opportunity that’s right in front of you can all be lessons this page encourages.

Knights

Confidence is a big part of the energy of the knights. Remember that the pages grow into knights, so when the knights come up, you are seeing the end result of the page’s lessons. Progress has been made, and power has been gained. The knights might be saying, “You’re no longer an apprentice here.”

Potential exists for you to progress, but there is also more work involved, because you now need to maintain your place. With any progress comes new responsibility, as there is always something at stake.

But because the knights have to be so brave and bold, these cards don’t let much stand in their way. A knight can be a sign that boundaries or barriers are starting to lift. You can also see it as a time when you are able to rise to the occasion, accept any challenges, and allow yourself to use your strengths and talents as required.

If you feel a knight represents a person in your reading, then this can be someone who is clear about certain directions in their life – what those directions are will be dictated by the kingdom the knight works in.

The Knight of Wands is in the kingdom of fire. This knight is confident in choosing freedom, self-expression, and courage. This is the knight that expands beyond any comfort zone and that knows the only way to move forward is to break beyond familiar territory. This is the most impulsive of the knights, as it likes to move fast. It is not about second-guessing its actions, and it is willing to take any consequences as they come.

The Knight of Cups is confident in choosing comfort, love, and ease. It is a lover, not a fighter. Where the Knight of Wands fights to move beyond the familiar, the Knight of Cups is perfectly content to cozy up to it. This knight is romantic and poetic, gentle and sensitive. It would much rather take its time than rush toward change—unless that change is promising love, romance, desire, or emotional security.

The Knight of Swords is another fast-moving knight, confident in the kingdom of intelligence. This knight is clear in its convictions, ideas, and beliefs. It will stand up for what it feels is important, and once its mind is made up, it will move in that direction with no hesitation. This knight trusts that it will be able to problem-solve any obstacle it encounters.

The Knight of Pentacles is confident in its work. It is the slowest-moving of the knights, but don’t think of it as lazy. This knight is methodical, practical, and singular in its focus. While other knights might run head first into a new plan, the Knight of Pentacles encourages patience in order to see progress. Its kingdom rules manifestation, so this knight sows its seeds carefully in order to help them grow.

Queens

When it comes to divining the queens, thinking of these cards as being high up in the ranks of the Minor Arcana can help. Each queen has power over her elemental kingdom, but her power isn’t always about absolute rule. She may straddle various roles as a guide or adviser, leader or liaison, too, or at least has the potential to step into greater responsibility. Power is not just about status or recognition but owning the responsibility that comes with it.

When you see a queen, its energy might be a reminder for you not to shy away from expressing your own needs, abilities, and boundaries. It can also be about stepping into your throne, your seat of power, maybe even taking on a role in which you are helping, encouraging, or nurturing others—a place where people look up to you.

A lot of guidance comes with the queens, and I find they can show up as advice cards more than any of the other court cards. If you feel a queen represents a person, it might be someone who has strong opinions and wise advice or who is at least confident in where they stand even if you don’t always agree with what the person has to say. Queens usually know themselves well. They can be overbearing at times, though, and their shadow sides can reveal self-centred motivations.

The Queen of Wands reigns in the kingdom of fire, which illuminates. She is all about stepping into your creative potential. At her level, there are no limitations on self-expression. This is a queen who truly shines; she would not be happy hiding in the shadow of her king but would want to be seen as an equal partner in power. She is a big personality who is unapologetic about who she is. She pushes you to develop determination, creativity, and confidence in order to get the attention you deserve.

The Queen of Cups rules in the kingdom of water. This queen is connected to the underworld and intuition. Can you ever really know what this queen is thinking? With all that access to the watery depths, she can be mysterious. She isn’t afraid to go deep; she reminds me of the High Priestess in her lessons and advice, as she will prompt you to listen to your intuition. But because she rules water, which is always up and down, she can be an unpredictable force. Her moods will change like the tides.

What you see is what you get with the Queen of Swords. She is strong, smart, and assertive, but she’s grown into those qualities through her past experiences. This is a card that teaches us to learn from our mistakes, no matter how painful they have been. The Queen of Swords can be a great mentor, as she values honesty and integrity, but she can be very direct in her words. Little room for sentimentality exists in her court. If you want a gentle hand, look more to the Queen of Pentacles.

The Queen of Pentacles would suggest that the way to a good life begins with taking care of all areas of your life. Ruling the element of earth, she prioritizes life’s pleasures without losing sight of her responsibilities to work. She is often seen cradling a coin in her lap: this is the card of someone comfortable with success and able to generate it for herself. Her advice is grounded and takes into account each person’s own needs. This queen reminds us that every life is unique, not a one-size-fits-all experience, and so we must know our own needs in order to best provide for ourselves.

Kings

Think about what it might mean to see a king in a reading. Since this role often comes as a birthright, it can speak to something of importance. Perhaps you are starting to realize your calling, or you are on your path.

Seeing a king in a reading might also indicate that it’s time to rise to the occasion and take on more responsibility in some way. Kings are leaders. Think about the example you are setting or the influence you might want to have over others in work, relationships, creative endeavours, and so on.

If you feel a king represents a person, it might be an authority figure, such as a boss or parent, but it can also be someone who is very ambitious, driven, and in control.

If the kings are about reaching a pinnacle, the King of Wands sees you blazing your own trail. This king needs to be first in all that he does. He’s competitive and likes to stay ahead of the game—or create his own altogether. Highly independent and visionary, he lives life by his own rules and isn’t afraid to trust in his own potential. When he appears, themes of inspiration, entrepreneurial spirit, ambition, and drive will be coming to the forefront for you. It may be time to claim your throne in a creative, visionary, or bold capacity.

If Cups rule emotions, then the King of Cups is strongly connected to his emotional world. In a lot of ways, he reminds me of a therapist or one of those friends who always knows the right thing to say when you’re in a crisis. Like his queen, this king is also very intuitive and sensitive. He often prompts you to put up strong boundaries in terms of how much people are taking from you emotionally and energetically. Part of his destiny is connected to helping others. When you see this king, it may be time to claim your throne in a healing capacity. Don’t feel this means you have to quit your job and become a therapist; it may simply mean that you have a special way of listening and that skill will take you far in life. We can all work to heal ourselves and each other just by being present and attentive.

The King of Swords shows that you are clear in what you need to focus on. While others get lost in the details, this king’s success comes in knowing how to see the bigger picture. Diplomatic and open-minded, he would want to see everything from all sides before making a decision, making him an excellent writer, journalist, politician, inventor, or manager. He could give people the benefit of the doubt and would be open to hearing their side of the story in a conflict. When you see this king, it may be time to claim your throne in a strategic, innovative, or political capacity.

As a natural leader, the King of Pentacles knows how to get to the top and stay there. This is, after all, the king of money. When he appears in a reading, he could be indicating that you’re on a path to success. In fact, if he’s coming up in a present position, you might have already made it to where you want to be—at least for now. He is the culmination of all the hard work we see throughout the suit of Pentacles, and his presence is the big payoff. When you see this king, it may be time to claim your throne through your definition of success.

“How will I know when a court card is a person, event, or something else altogether?”

There is no one rule to determine this. When you are reading tarot, you have to be comfortable making your own interpretations. Give yourself a lot of time and space to practise, and give yourself permission to be wrong within those practice readings. It can help to keep a tarot journal to jot down any first impressions, questions, or hunches. Review them later to see how it all played out.

Another thing you can do is think about what you want the court cards to represent before you start a reading. Decide this before any cards have even been shuffled. For example, if you’re doing a relationship reading, you might decide that any court cards that appear will represent people.

But if you’re doing a more self-reflective spread, one that is all about you, you might want to decide that the courts will only represent aspects of yourself or energies to invite in or aspire to.

Once you are more comfortable with them, you may no longer feel the need to set these boundaries.

Formulating Questions

Whether you believe that tarot holds some kind of answer or simply guides us to find that answer within ourselves is up to you.

But either way, those ideas imply that every reading begins with a question.

Even if you come to the cards without a specific question in mind, usually you want to know something.

The question drives the reading

Questions are one of the most important aspects of a tarot reading. A question is an intention that you bring to the cards.

Even if you’re not always sure exactly what you need to ask the cards or how to phrase the question, I always recommend at least knowing what you hope to get out of the reading. Why? Because the question, or intention, will help you know what you are looking for when you read the cards. Think back to the relevance of the elements, numbers, and images of the cards. What difference does it make if you see nothing but Wands if you’re not clear on what those cards apply to in your life? What if you see a string of cards that look very challenging for you, and suddenly it inspires doubt for your day ahead as you wonder what might possibly go wrong?

When you begin a reading with a question, you will know exactly how the cards apply to your life and what to do with their information.

Otherwise, a pile of tarot cards on a table can mean everything and nothing all at once.

Choose your question before any cards are pulled. The question should always come first, the cards second.

The question provides the context

In my experience, tarot readings are more likely to fall flat when you don’t know what you are trying to gain clarity on. If you are reading for yourself, as many of us do, having a question can be especially important, because it is so easy to lose your focus when reading on your own. A question will keep you from straying from the meaning of the reading.

If you are reading for others, ask them what they want to know before the reading begins. Make sure you understand what they hope to get out of the reading. Never assume you know why someone is seeking out a reading. People’s questions give me context for their cards. Questions are also parameters within which to work. For example, if clients ask about their marriage, then whatever cards come up will only be addressing that relationship.

Think of a question as an anchor. Without an anchor, it’s easy for your thoughts to wander or to spiral into many possible meanings and messages, especially if you draw cards that make you nervous or that aren’t what you expected to see.

Why does this matter? Because in a reading, you will see cards that you might typically associate with career or learning or any number of activities or experiences. But it is a tarot reader’s job to keep a reading relevant to the question. A card that you think would be great for career is not going to hold the same meaning when it comes up around love. You will have to push yourself to find the relevance of each card to the question at hand and use the question as a boundary to work within.

“Do questions have to be said out loud?”

Many people come for tarot readings assuming that the reader will know what they want from a reading. When I ask clients, “Is there a specific question you’d like to focus on?” a common response is “I do, yes. Do I have to tell you what it is?”

Of course you have to tell me, and there are two reasons for that. One, I have no idea what someone else is thinking, and turning a tarot reading into a guessing game wastes a lot of time and energy. If I don’t know what I’m looking for in the cards, then how I do know what is relevant or meaningful to the person I’m reading for?

I also don’t recommend that clients expect a tarot reader to know what they need in the moment. If tarot is to be an empowering experience, then people receiving the reading should be encouraged to take charge of their question. They should be encouraged to take ownership for their reasons for using tarot. The same goes if you are reading for yourself. Be purposeful with your actions. If you don’t know what you need from tarot, then maybe it’s not the right time for a reading.

Stating a question out loud, at least when the reading is for someone else, also sets the tone for the experience. Stating a question is intentional. To put words around a concern, goal, or reality is to give your voice to it. It sends out a message that says, “This is where I am at right now, this is why I am here, and this is what I am ready to know.”

Thinking up questions

First, start with what you want to know. Simple as that!

What is most pressing?

What do you find yourself worrying about or wondering about throughout the day?

What has been on your mind lately?

What motivates you?

What frightens you?

What inspires you?

What would you like to see happen for yourself over the next year?

You can also think of tarot as a tool that can help you understand the themes and energies of the time you are living through:

Where are your opportunities right now?

Where are your challenges?

What can you make possible?

What do you need to stop doing?

What kind of plan can best be supported right now?

What is changing in your life?

What kind of energy is around you at this time?

Tarot can also be helpful for building greater self-awareness:

How are you growing this year?

What is it time for you to express?

How are you holding yourself back?

How are others holding you back?

What is it time to stop doing?

What is it time to celebrate within yourself?

What is it time to accept about yourself?

It can also help to consider what you want to accomplish through the reading:

How do you want to feel afterward?

What are you looking for: clarity, peace, ease, change, inspiration, or something else altogether?

What will be most helpful for you? Do you want your reading to be action oriented with tips and next steps to take? Or do you want it to be meditative and reflective, leaving you with new questions to consider?

What are the choices you are facing right now, and how can tarot help you see the options within those choices?

These are just some ideas to get you started. Explore and experiment with the questions you bring to the cards. Pay attention to the questions that work well for your readings and the ones that don’t. Set your own boundaries as you practise, and test your own limits.

“How specific does a question need to be?”

It all depends on the question. Here are some examples of general, broader questions:

“What is coming up for me this year?”

“What about the health of my family?”

“Where is my career going?”

How specific a question gets really depends on what a person wants to know. All the above questions can be made more specific. Just remember that the more specific the question, the more focused your reading must be. Stick to the question each time:

“What is the most important thing I can achieve this year?”

“How will my husband’s health issues affect my family?”

“What might I expect if I stay with my company for another year?”

Don’t forget what we discussed in terms of tarot’s limitations, however. You may not get far if you are asking for the names or initials of a future lover or for significant dates to pay attention to in the future.

Communication is key

Remember that tarot is all about dialogue—even if you are reading for yourself.

Whatever the question, I recommend using clear, assertive language. In other words, know what you want to know, and then say so.

Communication is especially key when you are reading for others, because wires can easily get crossed. Terms like family, love, relationships, and so on can mean many different things to many different people, and it’s important that we understand each other in a reading.

I remember a time I read for someone wanting to take a year off to focus on a creative project.

“Is it the right time to do it?” the person wanted to know. “How will it go if I follow through on this with decision?”

I started the reading thinking of all the things a creative project usually requires: inspiration, motivation, clarity of mind, confidence. I also looked at the cards for messages around financial stability, fear, distraction, creative blocks, and other possible detours that might come up throughout the year.

About twenty minutes into the reading, my client stopped me. “Actually, my project isn’t really about creating anything,” the person said. “What I’m really asking is whether I should quit my job and spend a year travelling.”

“Oh,” I said. “Well, that’s a very different question then, isn’t it?” To me, the term creative project does not mean travelling.

Where did the communication glitch happen? The client’s hope was that this extended trip would provide ample inspiration for a piece of writing to be undertaken once the trip was completed: “I don’t want to work while I’m travelling, though. Just soak up whatever ideas come my way.”

We had different ideas of what this reading was supposed to cover.

Early into my tarot career, I was reading at a New Year’s event when a woman sat down in front of me and said, “I want to know if my family conflict will be resolved.”

I pulled a few cards, looked at them, and said, “It will be resolved, but you will have to stand your ground very, very firmly.”

As I continued the reading, I noticed that the woman seemed to be getting frustrated.

I checked in with her: “Is everything okay?”

“I need to know if I’m going to get custody of my child,” she said. “I’m going through a divorce right now.”

This is another example of someone who had a very specific question for the cards but didn’t open up with it at first.

When I’d heard the term family conflict, I had made certain assumptions about what that meant. For me, a family conflict might mean a fight about money or property or an argument with a parent or sibling.

My mistake was in not asking what she meant by conflict or what resolution might look like for her. The lesson to take from this? Don’t be afraid to clarify a question to make sure you know exactly where the other person is coming from. Again, it will help you know what you’re looking for in the cards and will prevent readings from getting off track.

Don’t assume you know where a question is coming from

When you are reading tarot for someone else, it doesn’t hurt to ask why a question is coming up. I once had a woman come to see me for a reading at a shop I was working at. Many of the readings I did there were walk-ins, with customers deciding to get a reading on the spur of the moment.

As we sat down, I asked what she wanted to explore in her reading. “Well, what about my kids? Will they meet anyone new this year?”

“Okay,” I said, “we can look at that. But tell me: Are they both looking for relationships?”

“Oh no,” the woman said. “They’re both married. And quite happily, too.”

I was confused. “Okay…so they’re not looking to meet anyone new, then?”

“Well, they’re both with lovely people. I don’t think they would be looking. I hope they aren’t.”

“Okay,” I said. “So why would we want to see if they will meet someone new?”

“Well, I don’t know,” she said. “I wasn’t sure what kind of question I should ask, so I just said the first thing that popped into my head.”

When we read tarot for others, it’s important to stay in control of the reading, and a lot of that control comes down to understanding the other person. A communication glitch can really throw things off. In this case, the question posed wasn’t relevant, or even accurate, to the present moment.

Even if you are reading for yourself, you might find that sometimes the first question that pops into your head isn’t exactly what you want to know, either.

No matter who you are reading for, take your time with the process. Think about what will be most relevant and helpful to the moment at hand.

“What about yes-or-no questions?”

The common recommendation is that tarot is best suited for open-ended questions.

Open-ended questions sound like these: “What do I need to be aware of in this situation right now?” or “What can I expect if I take this job?”

Yes-or-no questions are more like “Is this situation good for me?” or “Should I take this job?”

Asking yes-or-no questions will depend a lot on the basis of your beliefs with tarot and what you want to use it for. If you assume there is only one possible outcome to something—“Will I ever fall in love, yes or no?”—then you might be comfortable working with yes-or-no questions.

But yes-or-no questions might not always be the best course of action in a tarot reading, as they can be quite limiting in their answers. And defeating, especially if they leave someone feeling hopeless or disenchanted.

When we are formulating questions for tarot, it’s important to think about how long life can be and to catch ourselves when we speak in absolutes, like “Will I ever…”

Asking if you will ever fall in love or ever be happy or ever have this or that doesn’t take into account how much can change within a lifetime. Chances are there will be times—hopefully many times—in your life when you will experience love, happiness, and more. To assume that it will only be an either/or situation—yes or no, this or that—is to neglect the fact that life holds many different experiences for all of us. Yet these kinds of yes-or-no questions can come up often, particularly when people feel let down, disillusioned, or impatient. Or when they don’t realize they can change their reality.

Rather than looking at questions that can span an entire lifetime (if a person is twenty years old and lives to be ninety, is it realistic to believe they will never be happy—not even for a single day—within that entire time?), I recommend keeping the reading focused on the shorter term and switching to open-ended questions instead:

“How can I create more happiness in my life this year?”

“What is the energy around my love life for the next six months?”

“What can I do to welcome new experiences into my life at this time?”

Indecision and uncertainty are common reasons people turn to tarot for guidance.

We face so many choices and so much uncertainty. And even though we might steer people away from yes-or-no questions in tarot, sometimes it can feel like there’s no way around them when a decision must be made:

“Should I do this?”

You might pull a card on a question about a decision, perhaps around whether to proceed with a plan, and see a message that feels completely obvious. For example, the Death card might be a great big no while the easy Six of Cups might feel like a yes.

But it also depends on what you want. Do you want to leave your job? Do you want to go on that trip? Do you want to make a change?

Yes or no? The answer is always going to be left up to the individual to act upon. Tarot can’t make your decisions for you.

I have used tarot for many yes-or-no questions, but I also work with the caveat that tarot isn’t set in stone. Life is full of nuance, and many factors must be considered in any decision we are making. There may also be other paths or perspectives that we haven’t yet considered. Yes-or-no questions can give us tunnel vision, closing us off in ways we don’t even realize. So if the question feels too narrow, feel free to open it up by asking something different, like “What am I not seeing right now?”

Remember, too, that because tarot isn’t necessarily reflecting a predetermined outcome, it might be showing a possibility, or a probability, in its yes-or-no answer. It might also be showing the answer you are most leaning toward, especially if you feel you already have your mind made up but are now looking for reassurance or confirmation. Tarot has a way of reflecting our own feelings back to us.

And yet, while the answer we get in a reading may not be what we want to hear, the feeling it stirs up tells us everything we need to know. For example, I have seen a lot of people ask about leaving their jobs. When the cards tell them, “No, stay. This place is good for you,” they know right then and there how much they want to leave, because the idea of staying fills them with dread.

With tarot, you might not hear the answer you want, but you get the wisdom you need all the same.

“Are there any questions you just shouldn’t ask the tarot at all?”

It’s not for me to say what anyone should and shouldn’t ask the tarot or what a reader shouldn’t consult on. We each have to determine our own boundaries.

Sometimes, if someone seems very set on a certain outcome, I will ask, “If the cards aren’t very positive, will that change anything for you?” Because I would hate to see people give up on a beautiful dream just because they felt discouraged by a tarot reading.

And that’s why it’s important to remember that tarot is not a promise, and it is not always something to be taken 100 per cent to heart. You can choose how much of a reading to take away with you. Even if a reading shows that something might be challenging, it doesn’t mean it will be that way forever. It may just be highlighting some blind spots you hadn’t considered or a bump in the road that can be averted if you become aware of it now. And if a tarot reading is based on an interpretation of images, any interpretation is just one possible way of looking at a series of cards that may hold multiple possibilities simultaneously.

While I will read on many topics (if you read professionally, you have to be flexible and ready for anything), you will also have to decide when to decline certain questions or when to reframe them to better suit the situation.

“Is it the right time to have a baby?” a young woman once asked me. She was already pregnant, was having doubts about the timing of it, and wasn’t sure she could trust the child’s father.

“Are you having the baby anyway?” I asked. She said she was, and so the timing didn’t matter; her mind was already made up to bring this baby into the world.

“What will the child’s life be like?” she wondered aloud. “Will it have a happy childhood?”

Only this woman could decide for herself whether she wanted to have this baby or not. And only she could decide what kind of life to provide for it. Its childhood would be whatever she created as its mother.

I told her we should forget the question of whether it’s the “right time” and suggested instead that we read on how she could step into the role of motherhood, which provided a much more empowering place to work from:

“What am I committed to right now, no matter what?”

“What do I feel is right for me at this time?”

“What do I know I need to do right now?”

“What about open readings?”

Open readings are done when clients insist they don’t have a question. (Which, again, I don’t believe is true: there is always something on our minds.)

Remember, you don’t have to force a reading to happen if the timing just isn’t right. But if you are under pressure and unsure of what to read on when there is no clear intention, use a tarot spread.

Tarot spreads impose questions and intentions onto the cards. Having an additional layer of meaning built into your reading can be extremely helpful if we aren’t sure what to ask the tarot or how to guide someone we are reading for.

The key is in choosing the right spread. There are myriad tarot spreads out there, and many tarot readers make their own. Find one with a theme that best supports the moment.

Questions like “How did I get here?” or “What have I learned, and what can I do with it?” can be explored with past/present/future spreads, for example, while questions that are specific to work, love, self-care, or spirituality might be better suited to a spread that focuses directly on one of those topics.

“How long is a reading good for? How far out can the questions be?”

Remember what we discussed in previous chapters: nothing, and no one, has all the answers, and there are no guarantees in life.

What does that have to do with the questions you ask? Sometimes people are tempted to ask things like “What will the next ten years of my life be like?” or “I’m turning fifty this year. How will the decade go for me?”

I tend to use tarot to look no more than twelve months in advance. Why? Because a lot happens in just a month, let alone a year. And a whole decade? Well, that’s a lot of life to pack into one little reading.

We have to remember that the direction a reading gives us can and will change based on any decisions we make along the way. The questions we ask the tarot and the messages we get from a reading will be reflective of the moment in time that we are in.

Who we are at the time of the reading also plays a role. What matters to you today may look very different ten years from now.

Besides, who knows what tomorrow will bring? We can be constantly inspired and influenced by the people we meet, books we read, and experiences we are exposed to day after day. Your next eureka moment can happen at any time, and that hit of inspiration can change your entire trajectory.

Tarot can’t see everything, and neither can we. That’s part of the excitement of life. It’s an adventure, and the unknown offers us so much surprise and anticipation.

So give yourself room to breathe with the cards. Allow for the fact that life is a winding road, and you will make many choices about which directions you want to go. Keep your readings focused more on the shorter term so that you can make the best decisions for yourself in the here and now.

Shuffling and Selecting Tarot Cards

“Is there a special way I should shuffle the cards?”

Of all the questions I get asked about tarot, this is one of the most common.

I have no beliefs, superstitions, or rules around shuffling. Well, maybe just one rule: be gentle. I’ve had some people grab my cards and shuffle them as if we’re at a casino, bending the cards into a bridge and, in effect, damaging the deck.

The shuffling style won’t affect the reading itself. But if you want your deck to last, treat it with care.

But that’s my only law. There is no one way, no special trick, to shuffling tarot cards, and it won’t affect your ability to read them.

Know your intention before you begin

“Should I focus on my question when I shuffle?” People often ask me this when we get started on a reading.

Whether you are the one giving the tarot reading or receiving it, be clear about what the question is before you get started. Before the shuffling even begins, I’ll have talked to my clients about why they are seeking a reading.

When you know the question, you’ll know why you’re using tarot at that moment and what you’re supposed to be looking for in the cards once they’re on the table.

If you like the idea of silently focusing on your question as you shuffle, too, then go for it. Just keep in mind that rituals around shuffling cards all come down to belief systems. What do you believe is happening when you shuffle? Do you believe the cards somehow “know” how they are being held, moved, and reordered?

Personally, I think the most important thing is that the individuals reading the cards are clear on the question so that they know what to speak to once the cards are drawn.

“Should I cut the deck? And if so, how?”

Some people prefer to cut the deck rather than shuffle. Others like to do a bit of both: shuffle first and then cut.

Again, you can work this out however you like. Cut it in half, or cut it into three piles or more. Choose a pile to read from and go from there, or put all the cards back together.

I remember reading years ago that you should cut a tarot deck with your left hand, as that is the hand closest to your heart. If that idea resonates with you, go with it. If not, that’s fine. After all, how do the cards know which hand you are using? Do they understand the concept of left and right limbs?

What do I do, you’re wondering? Usually I take a few seconds to gently shuffle my cards, and then I spread them out into a fan. I don’t cut the deck at all.

Selecting the cards

Once my cards are fanned out, I choose whichever cards I feel drawn to. If I’m reading for someone else, I have them choose their own cards, as I like to engage them in the process. I ask that they keep the cards face down, however, as I will be the one to turn them all over.

“Should I close my eyes when I choose my cards?” Only if you want to. I don’t. If I’m reading for myself, I just go to whichever cards my gaze lands on.

There are other ways to choose the cards. Some tarot readers like to be the ones making the selection. One tarot reader I know will shuffle the cards for his client, cut the deck into three piles, and then have the client choose a pile. The reader will pull however many cards he needs off the top of the chosen pile, and the reading begins from there.

Some people shuffle until they feel “ready” and then just pull cards directly from the top of the deck.

Experiment, and see what works best for you. My main recommendations would be to choose a method that is simple and quick and that you can be consistent with. When we overcomplicate the little details, we can end up spending way more time building up to a reading than performing the reading itself. And the reading is really the important part, not the selection process.

Somehow, tarot always seems to give us exactly what we need to hear. So don’t worry about picking the “wrong” cards.

“Should you let other people touch your cards?”

I do, all the time. When I read for others, it’s a two-way experience. I want to involve them. I do this work for the purpose of connecting with other people.

But I understand that not all readers want their decks to be touched. I have talked to other professional tarot readers who don’t allow clients to touch their cards for fear they will be damaged. Which is completely understandable. It all comes down to how you want to handle your tarot deck and nothing more. No matter what, the quality of your readings and the skills you develop are not influenced by the methods of shuffling cards.

“But what about other people’s energy? Doesn’t it get stuck on your cards?” Again, this is a belief system. It is a personal choice as to whether you subscribe to the possibility that someone’s energy will transfer onto your tarot cards and whether that even matters. Believe whatever you want—but know what it is you believe, and know your reasons behind it.

Ask yourself, “What do I think will happen if someone touches my tarot cards? Will they change? If so, how? Will they feel different?”

I have had several people tell me over the years that they’ve let someone touch their deck, someone they didn’t like or trust or with whom they fell out later, and it changed the way they felt about that tarot deck. Now, that is a change, but it’s a change in attitude or perception, something that comes from within. It’s not a change in the tarot cards themselves.

I’ll admit that sometimes energy seems to stick to certain objects. And sometimes we want our special belongings to be imbued with only our own power and our own touch.

But if we take these ideas to extremes, they can end up blocking us from our tarot cards altogether. So I always caution against believing that objects can become jinxed or ruined with a simple touch. Besides, your ability to read tarot isn’t within the deck itself. It’s through the time, practice, and effort you put into learning. How silly would I sound if I said that all my years of reading tarot could dissolve in a matter of seconds just by the power of someone’s touch?

To me, the idea that our decks have to be protected is disempowering, because it doesn’t support the belief that the cards don’t do anything on their own. They need us—they need you—in order to speak. What matters most in tarot is what you see in the cards. Their images and messages won’t be affected by someone else’s energy, and your ability to read them won’t, either.

“What if you don’t like the cards you get?”

Do you ever want to put the cards back and start a reading over again? If you are reading tarot for yourself, it might be very tempting to do this. Especially if the cards you pull make you uncomfortable or if they stump you completely.

But can you put them back? Or, rather, should you? My answer is a solid no.

The cards you get are the cards you get. It’s like rolling the dice: once you’ve cast your lot, you need to work with it.

Just as I find that the cards you pull are the ones you are meant to have, I also find that cards will follow you in your readings.

At one time, I was mentoring a woman through private tarot classes. We ended every session with a practice reading. After a few cards were already pulled, my student realized she had left a few cards off to the side. Three cards had already been pulled in answer to the question, but they hadn’t been pulled from a full deck.

Given that, I thought it was best to start over again. She put the missing cards back into the deck, shuffled again, fanned the cards, and chose another three at random.

Guess what happened? The exact same three cards showed up that she’d pulled in the first place. It didn’t matter that she’d shuffled again, that she’d added in any missing cards, or that out of all seventy-eight choices she had in front of her, she ended up pulling the same three cards in the same order.

And you know what else happened? Those three cards answered her question perfectly.

The cards you get are the cards you get. Leave the reading however it lands, and go from there.

“Sometimes I shuffle and a card jumps out. Does that mean anything?”

Sometimes one or two cards slip away as you’re shuffling, and it’s hard not to wonder if they are meant to end up in the reading.

The day before I wrote this section, I did a reading for someone in which the Ten of Swords jumped out as I was shuffling the deck. I popped it back in, handed the deck to my client, let her shuffle, and then had her choose three cards. Guess which card ended up on the table? You got it—the Ten of Swords.

I shuffle my cards quickly, so I usually chalk up jumpers to my own clumsiness. Which, again, is why it’s important to decide what you believe in and what your rules will be when you read tarot. Whether you include jumpers in your readings or not is up to you. It all depends on how significant it feels for you and if you want to make it part of your reading style.

I don’t always see jumpers as meaningful, because they are often just a matter of human error. Especially if a bunch of cards fall out at once. I figure if a card is meant to be in a reading, it will get pulled either way—just like in the example above.

Reading the bottom card of a deck

Once the cards are selected and laid out and the rest of the deck is intact, some tarot readers like to look at the bottom card on the deck. This is called the shadow card.

Just like jumpers, choosing to read this card or give it significance is a technique, not a rule. You don’t have to read the bottom card. (I don’t, but I appreciate it as an added style.)

What does a shadow card reveal? There are various interpretations and uses of the bottom card:

It can help reveal what you’re not seeing in a situation.

It can show you what may be hidden in your subconscious at the time of the reading or something that you aren’t aware of yet with regard to the situation at hand.

It can also show what is at the root of a problem.

These are just some examples of how you might incorporate a shadow card into a reading if you choose to adopt this into your practice.

Of course, you can also just focus on the cards you pull and leave it at that. If you are really new to tarot, or if you are still getting the hang of card reading, I recommend holding off on adding extra techniques like shadow cards and jumpers until you have the basics down.

Storing your deck between uses

Storing and “cleaning” your deck are other areas where you might hear different beliefs, myths, and practices.

I remember someone telling me once that you should only ever keep your tarot deck up high so that it doesn’t pick up “low” energy that may be lingering around the floor.

I’ve also had people ask if they should keep their cards in silk or store them in the freezer to cleanse them between uses.

Given that tarot cards have been around a lot longer than refrigerators, I feel quite confident in saying that your deck never has to be subjected to sub-zero temperatures.

Keep your cards however you like: in a pouch or bag, in a box, or wrapped with an elastic band. Just as I don’t believe the cards have consciousness over how you shuffle them, I don’t believe the cards have any preference about what kind of fabric they are stored in, either.

If you want to keep your cards on a bookshelf, on top of your dresser, or on an altar, go for it. My cards tend to rotate around quite a bit. If I’m having a busy week with clients or events, they tend to stay in my purse so that they’re ready to go out the door at any time.

When it comes to clearing or cleansing your cards, again, you can choose whatever works for you. You can also choose not to do anything at all if you don’t feel it’s necessary. Once again, the idea of cleansing your cards as a way to clear their energy comes down to what you believe in. If you don’t believe your cards hold energy, then don’t worry about cleansing them.

If you do choose to cleanse your cards, you can do so by running them through incense, cedar, or sage smoke. If you keep your cards in a pouch, you can throw in a crystal, like clear quartz, selenite, or citrine, which are believed to have clearing properties.

My favourite way to clear my cards is to just put them back in order. I usually do this at the end of the week or if I’ve just read at a party and had my cards in use the whole time. Taking the time to “reset” your deck by putting the Majors and Minors back together is also a great way to reconnect with the tarot’s natural order and images.

Don’t overwhelm yourself with rules.

If you convolute your tarot readings with too many do’s and don’ts before a reading has even begun, you’ll get lost in the details. Sometimes simpler is better. The more rules you create, the more likely you’ll feel thrown off if you miss a step or worry that you did something wrong.

When it comes to shuffling and cutting a deck, there are no steps to miss. You cannot render your own reading invalid. The act of shuffling matters more as a symbolic act to begin the reading. It’s a time to centre your energy and focus on the question at hand. Shuffling is also a way to refresh and restart the deck between uses.

Card reading is card reading. The messages in tarot don’t come from the shuffle or from the cutting of a deck. They come from the cards you pull and the interpretation you build from that moment on.

Reading the Cards

So, what happens once you’re ready to perform a reading?

There are different approaches to tarot reading. I’m sharing my methods here. I use these approaches because they are what work for me. It’s how I read tarot, and it’s how I teach it.

Before we get started, I want you to remember that there is nothing specific or special you have to do to become aware. You don’t need to perform a certain ritual or activity in order to prepare to read. At first, though, you might not always feel sure of yourself once you begin. The more comfortable you get with tarot, the more you’ll see that you can read cards anywhere, anytime. With time and practice, card reading can become second nature.

“Where should I begin?”

You never know what to expect when you start turning over tarot cards in a reading. So I always advise to expect the unexpected and be ready to roll with whatever comes.

Sometimes you might not be sure which card to talk about first, especially if you see an exciting or unexpected card.

You might also feel that none of the cards seem to fit together. Or that you have drawn cards that don’t seem to suit the question.

Start there: the question. Remember that your question, or intention, will anchor your focus. If you feel unsure of how to begin a reading, ask yourself, “What is the context of this reading? What am I trying to find out right now?”

Also, breathe, pause, and reflect. You might feel pressured to start figuring it all out right away, especially if you are reading for someone else. But I like to take a moment and let the cards sink in. In that moment, I ask myself, “What am I feeling from these cards right now?” I also take time to note whether any cards catch my eye more than others or hold patterns or vast differences between each other.

These steps are especially important if you see a lot of challenging cards—ones that make you nervous or that might trigger fear or doubt. For example, if you are asking, “What do I need to focus on this month?” and you see Death, the Tower, and the Nine of Swords, these cards might feel a bit jarring at first. It can be very easy to look at these cards and assume they are saying that terrible things are coming your way, so it’s best not to do anything at all.

Right?

Not so fast. Death is a card of endings and transformation, the Tower helps us tear down what no longer serves us, and the Nine of Swords is a card of fear. The question is about what you need to focus on, not what you need to worry about, what you should expect, or what is going to happen to you.

The question is about your actions, not your reactions. This isn’t about having to prepare for catastrophe.

Instead, this reading might tell you that what you need to focus on is examining any fears or perceived limitations that are holding you back. These cards could be saying, “Embrace change by tearing down the walls that worry has built. See that there is new life on the horizon if you would just let down your guard…”

Always bring your reading back to the question, and take time to think about how the cards relate to that question. One of the biggest mistakes tarot readers make—even readers who have been at it for years—is going off topic.

Following the energy in a reading

When you take a moment to breathe and simply look at the cards rather than speaking immediately, you give yourself the chance to see what is speaking to you the loudest. This might be an entire card or a simple detail or symbol. You might notice that a certain colour dominates the reading or that all the figures in the cards have something in common with each other.

When you’re learning tarot, you might not be sure what to make of those observations or patterns. You might not even be sure if you are seeing them correctly. Don’t worry about getting it all right away—just get into the habit of looking. What you make of those patterns or symbols can be something you build on over time.

“Should I turn the cards over if I’m reading for someone else?” For me, the answer is yes. I remember one woman who came to me for a reading. She told me she read tarot, too. As she was choosing her cards, she ignored my request to keep them face down in a pile and instead looked at each of them as she pulled them. This broke my flow, as it took away my chance to get a full first impression of her spread.

Taking these few moments allows me to look at the cards as they are, and those first impressions can inform the shape and tone of the reading. This is also the time to practise synthesizing the cards—looking at a reading as a whole picture rather than interpreting the cards piece by piece. When you are starting out with tarot, that may be how your readings go: looking at one card at a time. But as you progress, and as you get more familiar with your deck, your eyes will get used to taking a bird’s-eye view.

And what am I looking for as I take this all in? I look at where the energy is going in a reading, usually indicated in the outcome, or final, card. This tells me in what direction things are headed. For example, if someone says, “I just started a new job and want to know how the first year will go,” and I see the Seven of Wands, Ten of Wands, and Ten of Cups, I can see that the energy of the reading begins in fire, and these first two cards are working hard. So this job will likely demand a lot in the beginning, but where does it all go in the end? The Ten of Cups, where things are fulfilling, joyful, and above all, easier.

The energy cools down and eases up with these cards, so I would say that the first year will feel fast and furious at first, but once a few hurdles are cleared, it will be smooth sailing and a very fulfilling place to be.

Pull these cards out of your own tarot deck to see for yourself.

Body language and movement

This is also where your choice of tarot deck will be key. Earlier I talked about choosing a deck with people so that you can study the body language of the cards.

So much has been written on the meanings of tarot cards, and much value exists in knowing those definitions.

But don’t let readings begin and end with meanings. Allow yourself to see what the cards are showing you, too. Remember that they each depict a story, energy, or theme. Look at what those stories may be.

For example, I once did a reading for a woman who asked about her relationship. She was living with a man but felt something was off. She told me they had tried having an open relationship earlier that year but had decided to go back to being exclusive again.

The cards we pulled were the Queen of Swords, King of Cups, and Three of Cups.

The first thing that struck me about these cards was that we see two people—the queen and king—who are not looking at each other at all. Within a relationship reading, I like to see cards that are at least facing each other or moving in the same direction. When I see their energies going opposite ways, something isn’t right for me.

I was also drawn to what the King of Cups is looking at: the women in the Three of Cups.

I said I had a feeling that this woman’s partner wasn’t quite ready to give up the idea of being in an open relationship and that he might still be seeing someone else.

Later, my client wrote to me to say she’d found out her partner was in fact still going out with other people and that he had admitted he wasn’t sure he could commit to a monogamous relationship moving forward.

This technique was key in helping to answer this client’s question. If I’d stuck to the meanings of the cards, one possible outcome might have been to focus on the joy of the Three of Cups, which is typically known as a card of friendship and celebration. That interpretation would have led to a completely different reading, one that said, “Your relationship is fine. You just need to spend more time with your friends. Why don’t you and your partner host a dinner party or something?” But it would have completely ignored the issue, which was that these people had very different ideas of where they wanted the relationship to go.

“How will I know what to say? What if I get it wrong?”

That’s why it’s important to practise. Learn what the cards mean, and learn how it feels to read their actions and energies. See what works for you. Read for friends or family or for other people who will give you feedback without the pressure to get it right. Make space for yourself to learn from your mistakes.

Stay on card

Just as you need to stick to the question, you also need to stay on card. What does that mean, exactly?

Keeping our own biases, opinions, and advice out of a reading can be tricky sometimes. Especially if you feel invested in the outcome somehow (which is usually what happens when we read for ourselves) or if you find yourself forming assumptions based on the question at hand (which is usually what happens when we read for someone else).

I used to have a student who was an eternal optimist. She really wanted to see the good in every situation. In one of her homework assignments, she asked about going back to school in September. She pulled some difficult cards: Five of Cups, Three of Swords, and Ten of Swords. To me, none of these were screaming yes.

Still, she said, “I think this reading is telling me to go for it.”

How so? I wondered. I wanted her to explain how the loss in the Five of Cups, the pierced heart in the Three of Swords, and the person crushed under the weight of steel in the Ten of Swords felt like a green light. I said, “This might be a challenging transition, so be prepared for that.”

She wanted to see what she wanted to see—she was so committed to this idea of school—but it wasn’t reflective of the messages of those cards in particular. Of course, she knew she could make up her own mind on the question, tarot or no tarot.

It’s important to remember that we can always exercise free will based on what we hear in a reading. But it’s also important to still be honest about what we feel the cards are saying.

When we are hopeful for a certain answer, we might want to come to a different interpretation in a reading despite the obvious answer.

This also happens when we read for others. Don’t tell someone everything looks great and easy if that’s not what you see. Learn instead how to articulate those messages and provide perspective and compassion rather than mislead someone with false hope.

Watch your own biases

One of my biggest learning curves in tarot was moving through my own biases. Because I have a strong entrepreneurial spirit, I used to assume that everyone else must, too. I thought working for themselves was in everyone’s best interest and that deep down, it was what everyone wanted.

I would also wrongly assume that all clients wanting a reading about their job must be unhappy in it. (And note that these were practice readings I was learning from, not charging for—don’t leap into professional reading when you are still figuring tarot out.) I was going into those readings judging the situation, thinking that everyone who works a day job feels in a rut.

So I would look for cards that showed independence, change, or opportunity. I would look for cards that would allow me to give what I thought would be good news: that someone would be moving on or starting a business or mustering the courage to quit.

And if those cards didn’t appear in a reading, I would talk about it as though that was a bad thing.

How wrong I was to approach it this way. I quickly learned that people were often happy to hear that nothing was going to change. Some of them would tell me they were perfectly content where they were and that it was important to them to have a sense of trust and security in the job moving forward. Which is what the reading gave them, inadvertently, even though I didn’t know that was the point. I was going off card by believing everyone wanted the same things I did.

Tarot reading is not advice

When we hear people talk about situations they are unhappy in, it can tempting to start giving advice. But advice, like bias, can often come from a place of judgment.

Tarot reading should be treated as neutral ground. It is not your advice you are giving (unless someone specifically asks for your thoughts on the matter) but rather the messages that come from the cards. When you tell someone what you think they should do regardless of what the cards indicate, you are going off card.

When you stay on card, it means you are staying neutral by focusing your message on exactly what you see in the reading.

Reading tarot doesn’t give practitioners license to assume they know what’s best for other people. Individuals must be able to learn for themselves what it is they want and need and to decide how to create space for those things in their own lives.

Keep your interpretation on card, too

Staying on card also means keeping your intuition within bounds. Otherwise you can end up creating a story from the cards that is not there. For example, if you are doing a reading and feel a message about a new beginning, but all the cards in front of you are about stability or routine, then you have to ask yourself, “Where is that new beginning coming from?” If you’re not seeing aces, the Fool, or other cards that directly relate to new beginnings, then perhaps your feeling is off and you need to take a closer look at the cards you’re working with.

Be able to show your interpretation if you need to. There can be a lot of strength in a reading when you’re able to back it up—even if it’s just to yourself—by saying, “I know that this card means this, and this card shows that” rather than going off a feeling.

Does that mean tarot can’t be an intuitive process at all? Of course not. As we’ve already talked about, tarot reading requires creativity and leaps of faith. When I’m reading tarot, I try to stay aware of any words or phrases that keep repeating in my head, but I’m more likely to say, “I keep thinking of this—does it mean anything for you?” rather than stating it as truth. Leave it open for interpretation, and get back to the cards. If you ask the cards to guide you, then you must let them lead the way.

“What about getting into someone else’s energy?”

We can put a lot of pressure on ourselves to perform in our readings sometimes, especially when we perceive an expectation to pick up on something unspoken or unseen.

But as you’ve learned by now, tarot can be very mundane. It reflects daily life as much as spiritual life, and so readings won’t always feel like fireworks. Sometimes a reading comes out as a to-do list. Sometimes the cards tell you to just wait and relax. And yes, sometimes a reading says something completely unexpected or uncanny.

Don’t judge the experience. Pressure to perform can cause us to forget what we are really doing: reading the cards.

Don’t feel that you need to go any further than that. There’s no need to invade someone else’s space or energy. Tarot reading isn’t about getting into anyone else’s head. It’s just about sticking to what the cards are showing you.

And don’t assume that everyone is looking to be wowed by tarot, either. A lot of people don’t know what to expect from the cards and are totally open to whatever comes up. Be yourself, and be genuine in the messages you speak of during a reading.

“What about reversed cards?”

Reversed cards are those that come up upside down in a reading.

Once again, you will find there is no one rule about reversals. Some people use them; others don’t.

I have gone through times when I’ve worked with reversals and times when I haven’t. At the time of this writing, I’m not using reversals, but that can always change. Reversals are another technique we might bring into the practice of reading—and techniques, as I’ve covered already, are just tools, not rules. They can also come and go in the span of a tarot reader’s practice.

Even though I don’t use reversals presently, I have found that when I did, they added helpful details to my readings. But one thing I advise anyone still new to tarot is to focus on understanding the cards as they are. Learn a few tarot spreads that you really like, and practise reading on your friends if you feel called to do so.

Once you start to get the hang of reading the cards, decide whether you want to bring in a new technique, like reversals. The reason I advise taking it slowly is that it cuts down on the pressure to learn everything at once. It’s also important to understand that reading reversals is not mandatory at all. It’s a choice.

If you do choose to read reversals, there are different ways you can work them into your readings. Some people look at reversed cards as stalled energies. For example, if you had the Ace of Wands reversed, you would know that this card connects to new creative beginnings, so if it’s upside down, it might mean a creative block.

Another approach to reversals is to look at these cards as things that have yet to manifest themselves. The energy is lingering under the surface, like a seed that is taking root but hasn’t sprouted out of the soil just yet. It’s on the way, but perhaps it needs some attention to begin growing.

When I have read reversals, I’ve also looked at them as what is falling away. Gravity is at work when we turn something upside down. For example, I remember seeing the Ace of Pentacles reversed in a reading once. It made me think of people throwing their money away. I asked my client about her relationship to money: “Does it just slip through your fingers?”

“Yes,” she said, “and it causes me a lot of stress. I love spending money, but then I never have enough at the end of the month because I don’t pay attention to where it all goes.” We looked at the cards for guidance on how she could change this, and it all started thanks to that reversed Ace of Pentacles. Take this card out of your tarot deck and turn it upside down. What do you see in it?

I’ve also looked at reversed cards as though they might be a little confused or out of sorts. For example, if I were to see the Hanged Man upside down, it would position him as right side up. This would betray his usual position and so go against his function in the tarot as the one who turns everything on its head.

If the queens or kings in the court cards were upside down, they would be falling out of their thrones. So I might look at those reversals as representing something or someone not quite operating at true or full capacity or who is in the process of leaving or losing their place in the world. That doesn’t have to be a negative experience. It could speak to a retirement, a change in career, or a parent whose children are growing up and moving out.

All these examples could see people realizing they don’t have to be sitting at the top, overlooking everyone anymore. Suddenly, as their old responsibilities fall away, they are free.

However you approach reversals, if you choose to use them at all, be sure to be clear about what they will mean for you when they show up, and apply it consistently in your readings: How do you feel these cards are operating differently than when they are right side up? Don’t feel that you have to stick to any of the approaches I’ve suggested here if they don’t work for you. There might be another approach that resonates with you more, or you may realize that reversals speak to you in their own ways. Put your own style around it if that suits you better.

“I heard reversals are always bad”

Not at all. Reversals are not always blocks or confusion, either. I remember a reading I did for someone who pulled a number of Cups cards. They were the only suit in the reading that showed up reversed. I thought again of things falling away—the cups were all turned over, and they would have run dry. “Did you quit drinking recently?” I asked. “Because I feel like that’s a big focus in these cards.”

“I’ve been sober for three months,” he said. “It’s hard, but it’s my main priority right now.”

Likewise, the Devil reversed might show up to say that a previously oppressive influence is losing its power: “I’m getting the devil off my back.”

Or a reversed Nine of Swords might represent people who are finally overcoming their fears or their insomnia, as this image often depicts a person sitting up in bed, fretting over a too-busy mind.

Once again, I encourage you to take these cards out to see for yourself.

“If you don’t read reversals, what do you do when they show up?”

I just turn them upright and get going with the reading.

I always take care to make sure my cards are all in order and upright before I do a reading. But cards commonly get dropped during the shuffling process. And sometimes, when people are choosing their cards, they make messy piles, and the cards naturally get turned around. I don’t see reversals as significant when I know that half the deck got turned upside down before a reading began.

I also stopped reading reversals because I feel that the cards will tell you what you need to know as they already appear. If there is a challenge or block in an area of your life, you will get cards that speak to that. They don’t have to be upside down to be relevant. Tarot shows enough of the tough stuff to trust that we’ll get what we need to know from a reading.

I also found that if I use tarot spreads that include positions that speak to challenges or obstacles, then whatever cards show up in those positions will tell me everything I need. I feel I don’t have to complicate the messages even further by adding in a potential layer of meaning with a reversal on top of it.

But that’s my approach to tarot, and what works for me doesn’t necessarily work for everyone. If you feel inclined, I encourage you to try reversals and see how they feel for you. Decide for yourself if and when you want to use them.

“What does it mean if I keep pulling the same cards?”

Once you start using tarot for a while, you might find that there are times in your life when you pull the same cards again and again.

When my father was dying of cancer in 2013, I would pull a tarot card for myself every morning before heading out the door for the day. In the months leading up to my dad’s passing, I was pulling the Emperor card three to four times a week. The other cards were the Four of Swords and the Tower. To me, these are cards I directly connect to paternal energies, rest, and upheaval, respectively.

When I read for others, I’ve seen cards follow us throughout a single session. I always have my clients start a reading with their most pressing question. Once we’ve read on it, I’ll put my tarot deck back together, and we’ll do another shuffle for a new question or topic. Even with the deck thoroughly shuffled and with new cards chosen at random, cards will repeat themselves in a subsequent reading on a completely different question. It’s as though the message is saying, “This energy is touching many aspects of your life. Don’t ignore it.”

I’ve also had clients come back to see me after several months have passed, and they will pull some of the same cards as the last time.

Of all the seventy-eight cards in tarot, why does that happen? First, it’s a reminder that the chapters of our lives don’t have definitive end dates. We might be ready to move on from certain themes, but repeating cards remind us that we are still working through certain situations, patterns, or thoughts.

Repeat cards can also be telling us that there are lessons we are still learning. For example, if the Three of Cups keeps showing up in your readings, the tarot might be asking you to examine your connection to friends and community. Maybe you have withdrawn from your social circle to focus on work or school, and this card is urging you to repair that distance. Or maybe you are craving new social connections but haven’t done anything yet to meet new people. Whatever the circumstances, this card could be speaking to a lesson you are learning within the realm of friendship. Once the lesson is learned or the work is done, you might notice that the cards you pull begin to change.

Repeating cards might also come up to represent you or someone in your life. For example, I’ve had many clients who immediately identify with certain court cards or those in the Major Arcana:

“I always get the Queen of Swords because I tell it like it is. She always shows up for me.”

“I am the Hermit. I need a lot of time on my own.”

This is a good reminder that sometimes repeating cards are not necessarily telling you to do anything. They are not always advice or lessons but rather affirmations of alignment: symbols that let us know we are walking our paths and that we are fully embodying the personalities and characteristics that make us comfortable in our skin.

Embracing the Art of Interpretation

When you’re first learning how to read tarot, allow yourself time to learn the basics.

At first, tarot can feel like a lot of memory work. You might wonder at times where the intuitive element comes into the process, especially if you’re trying to remember all the card meanings and their elements and how to put it all into the context of a question.

You might also wonder where the spiritual component comes in, especially when you pull some cards that feel unsettling instead of reassuring.

Eventually, though, with time and consistent effort, you will get to a point where readings start to flow. You will notice that you’re not reaching into the recesses of your mind to recall card meanings. You will begin to recognize patterns around which cards show up more often than others and under what pretext.

And once those structures of knowledge and practice are in place, you will have a choice to make: Will you push yourself further to do more and learn more, or not? The mindset tarot asks us to adopt—even though we might not always realize it—is to think for ourselves. If you can’t make up your own mind, if you can’t give yourself permission to come to your own conclusions, then how will you ever take your readings, and your life, to the next level?

In tarot reading, learning the card meanings and a few spreads is only one part of the process. Eventually you will have to make an interpretation that can’t be found in a guidebook. You will have a reading that just doesn’t seem to fit into what you’ve learned, and it will be your turn to put your own thoughts and language around the cards. That’s the art of interpretation, and it’s something you can’t find in any book.

You need to learn it on your own.

Do you have to get it perfect every time? Perfection is an enemy in this process. Yes, it is important that your readings come from an informed place and that you know how and why you came to a certain conclusion in a reading. Practising and understanding tarot will help with that.

But striving for perfection can be just as damaging. It’s common for new tarot readers, or readers who are just starting out, to get hyperfocused on reading like a pro. If you are new to tarot, why compare your skills to someone who has years of experience on you? It’s not a realistic approach, and the added pressure can get in the way of developing your own confidence in the process.

This is why practice is so crucial: it is your opportunity to fall forward into new understandings rather than fall flat under the pressure to perform.

And just as embracing the future is a creative process, so is tarot reading.

As you practise and continue to learn, pay attention to what seems to be working for you as a tarot reader:

How do the cards want to work with you?

When do you feel most confident with them?

What types of questions do you like to explore with your deck?

Tarot is also not always logical

Another thing that takes some getting used to is understanding how tarot communicates with us.

Remember when we talked about tarot as a language? If you are looking for a set of pictures to speak to you clearly, rationally, and logically every time, you might be held back by your own expectations.

Tarot might not always make sense—at least not at first. So be ready for that.

I’ve had cards come up that seemed to tell me to do the total opposite of what I knew was right for me. When this happens, it can be a reminder that at the end of the day, readings are just more information for us to work with. They are not agendas or dictations, just directions. We can choose to follow them or not.

Just as we might not always be meant to know every single thing that is going to unfold for us, we also might not always be able to tap into the universe’s energies on our terms. Sometimes a tarot reading can feel confusing, convoluted, or even disappointing. The messages can feel opaque, vague, or irrelevant.

“Why is tarot inconsistent, and why does it not always give us what we want, when we want it?”

Some readings seem to be crystal clear. Others only give us the slightest glimpse of an answer.

Remember that tarot might give us one angle or one aspect to something at a time: a fraction of perspective rather than a whole picture.

Tarot might also be giving us information on things that our rational minds may not be able to decode—yet. We often expect everything to be neatly laid out for us, but sometimes I think tarot wants us to work for its messages. Experiencing a lack of clarity in a reading can be part of the message we are meant to take from it. (Of course, this may also just reflect your skill level in a reading. If you’re still in the early stages of learning tarot, it’s totally normal to feel perplexed by the cards.)

Sometimes life asks us to connect the dots: we might get one idea today that leads to another tomorrow, which eventually leads to a bigger realization later. Events, actions, thoughts, and feelings can all have a domino effect in our lives. We just don’t know what those dominoes are going to knock into next.

Those who actively engage in creativity, whether through writing, crafting, inventing, dancing, or any other art form, probably understand that when you are making something, you sometimes have to be open to an idea or concept and play around with it before you really know whether it works or not. And sometimes it’s in the experimentation that you find the idea, answer, or angle that you’re looking for.

Reading tarot can feel similar. The cards might feel like a stab in the dark sometimes, but it’s a reminder that in life, there is no going around, just through. You might have to accept that there is no shortcut on your path. You might have to accept that you will just have to put one foot in front of the other, trusting it is all leading somewhere.

That same process of embracing the unknown is present in reading tarot. We might not know exactly what the cards are saying, but we need to be willing to weave together an answer from them all the same.

Part Three: To Live Tarot

Reading Tarot for Yourself

How experienced someone is with tarot doesn’t seem to matter: one struggle many readers encounter is that they find it hard to read for themselves.

But ironically, reading for ourselves is how so many of us learn about what the cards mean and how to connect with them. Not only that—reading tarot for yourself can be a beautiful, solitary ritual, a way to set time aside that is just for you and your intentions.

If reading tarot for yourself is such a great learning opportunity, then why is it so hard? Because objectivity isn’t always easy to maintain when you’re alone.

“Is it easier to read tarot for other people than it is for yourself?”

A student in one of my workshops asked me this one day.

At first I replied, “Yes, actually. It does feel easier to read for someone else.”

But later that night, I started to rethink my answer.

I think tarot can be hard to read, period. Even after you’ve been using it for a while, you will find at times that a certain card combination or question feels trickier or less obvious in its messages. There is always something to puzzle together with tarot, but the complexity of that puzzle will vary with each reading, no matter who you’re reading for.

Part of the trick is learning to enjoy the challenge.

At times, though, you may feel you have an advantage when reading for someone else, because you’re not necessarily hoping for a specific outcome. You can have compassion for the person in front of you, but your heart is not as wrapped up in the question as the client’s is. So it’s much easier to simply look at the cards as they are and pick out a message without tangling it all up in the emotions of the situation.

It’s a lot harder to do that for ourselves. You are invested in the outcome of your own readings—even if you’re just pulling a single card in the morning. You might be hoping for a fun card, like the Sun or the Nine of Cups, to show you what the day holds. But if instead you pull the Five of Wands or the Nine of Swords, it can suddenly put you on guard.

When you read for yourself, it’s important to take a moment to become aware of what you want to see and then accept that this might not be what’s revealed. Taking some time before a reading to jot down your thoughts, feelings, and questions can help maintain objectivity. Writing down those feelings can be a way to put them aside for the second, imagining that your notebook will hold them for you for the time it takes to read on the situation.

Writing your reading down can also give you a moment to reflect on the possibility of seeing something you don’t want to see in the cards. You can also journal additional questions, like “What would be the worst-case scenario for me right now?” I find that for the most part, we can all find a way forward, even in disappointment. Think of your reading as giving you greater awareness about what you might have to do differently or what might not come to you as easily as you’d like. But don’t treat it as a life sentence.

Remember, too, that when we think about our own lives, all kinds of doubts and fears will come up for us. We also tend to focus on the worst-case scenarios for ourselves more than we do for other people. Maybe it’s survival instinct, as fear keeps us motivated to move toward what feels good and safe. Worrying, too, can be a form of control. Anticipating the outcome—no matter how bleak—helps us feel like we are somehow ahead of the game. When a reading reveals cards that aren’t as supportive or that aren’t what we want to see, it’s natural that doubts get stirred up.

“How do you deal with those difficult messages?”

One approach is to think about those challenging cards as warning signs rather than dead ends or all-out predictions.

For example, a reading that says your day ahead might be challenging can actually be helpful. Whatever your plans are for the day, you might start thinking about how you can react to possible situations that could come up. Maybe it means that when you get to work, you’ll be better able to handle things when you find yourself dealing with an irate customer or an irritated colleague.

Maybe a difficult reading will help you choose to practise a little more patience throughout the day or think of how you want to deal with any disagreements if they arise.

You can also ask yourself, “How will I rise to the occasion if I am presented with a challenge?” Decide not to be thrown by whatever comes your way. Determine the course of your day by managing your reactions.

The same can be applied to a reading about a plan or project you want to start. I have consulted the cards on many projects I’ve started, but the cards don’t always give me a green light right away. What do I see instead? Sometimes I see cards that remind me how much work I will be taking on at first. Other times I see cards that ask me to be completely certain I’m ready to commit to just one idea, as other possible paths may be in the works.

And those answers are completely grounded. Sometimes tarot gives us a reality check. It’s tempting to want to ask if a plan will become an overnight success or if a project will bring a major payoff. But we also have to remember that many steps must be taken between starting something and completing it. That goes for any undertaking, from beginning a relationship to moving house to embarking on a healing journey. Tarot may simply show you what the first steps might feel like. Think of it as saying, “This is what you will have to move through before you can know where it will all lead.”

Another mistake we can make in solo readings is forgetting that the cards are not always as complex as they seem.

For example, what if you were pulling a card for yourself in the morning to ask, “What can I expect from today?”

Say you pull the Five of Cups. Now, we might think right away that the day ahead will be difficult in some way—perhaps it will bring bad news, as this card tends to be connected to themes of grief, loss, sadness, and regret.

What if the Five of Cups is asking you to look at those cups on the ground? Maybe you need to be careful not to spill your coffee on the way to work. Or take care with handling your favourite mug in case it breaks.

What if the Tower showed up on a day there was a fire drill at your office building?

What if the Ten of Swords wasn’t about you at all but rather about a friend you were meeting with later? Maybe your friend is having a tough time, feeling burdened with the weight the world.

These are just some examples, of course—the cards may show up in less obvious ways. But the point is that this exercise can help you make new connections to the images themselves and remember that tarot’s images can be much more literal than we might expect.

If you are using tarot for day-to-day guidance, then the cards will often reflect everyday moments. It will not always be about major growth or pivotal change.

Keep a journal

Write down your own impressions and interpretations of your readings, and revisit them to see what actually transpired. Make note of any connections you make to the cards later on. They will really strengthen your understanding of the tarot.

Don’t feel that your experiences with the cards have to fit every meaning you read about each card. There are only seventy-eight tarot cards in a deck, but life may bring an infinite number of possibilities. Always trust what life is showing you first.

Working with tarot won’t always feel the way you want it to

You might be reaching for that magic moment every time you turn to the cards, but don’t be discouraged if you don’t always feel as connected to tarot.

Try to trust that even if reading for yourself feels confusing or frustrating, the act of simply showing up to your cards is something. It will all help you move forward in some way, personally and practically. Sometimes the message from a card sinks into your subconscious and sits there for a few days before it really takes hold—and you might not even be aware that it’s happening.

Think of it, too, as practice. Every time you read your cards, you will learn a little bit more about them. Consider, for example, that if you feel stumped in a self-reading by a card you don’t feel fits the question, you are being given an opportunity to learn a new way of perceiving that card.

Sometimes you just have to trust the process and have faith that tarot is showing you something. It just might not always speak to you in the ways you expect.

Don’t rush the process

When we read tarot for ourselves, it’s not unusual to develop a tendency to treat tarot cards like they’re a Magic 8-Ball that you can just shake up and get an answer from.

It’s so easy to reach for your cards when you’re trying to make a quick decision or you’re in a hurry for some reason and need to know the answer on something.

It’s also tempting to reach for the cards when you’re feeling unsettled or upset.

When I’m reading for other people, I often advise them to be clear in their intentions and questions when they enter a reading—and to be clear about what they want to know in a session. Because if they are not clear, then I don’t know what I’m looking for in the cards or what to communicate to them.

The same goes when we read for ourselves. If you pull a card without knowing why you are pulling it, you won’t know what to make of its message. But it’s easy to ignore that when we read tarot for ourselves. We think, Oh, I’ll just pull a quick card…

Except that tarot doesn’t work like that. You can’t just shake it up and expect all your problems to be solved or all your decisions made in a flash.

Rushing to pull a quick card also doesn’t help you build a strong connection to your tarot deck or your intuition. Nor does it help to ask the same question over and over again.

So in reading for yourself, do it when you can honour the process as much as you would if you were reading for a friend. Do it when you have the time to reflect on the cards. Do it when you have a moment to take a breath, get focused, and clear your head. Especially if you are reading on an emotionally charged topic.

And don’t let tarot become a crutch for life’s every move. Remember that tarot isn’t here to determine your life for you. If you need to do something, do it, no matter what the cards have to say.

Avoid reaching for that book of meanings

If you’re just starting out, you might be relying on a book of meanings to help you interpret the cards. And that can be okay when you’re still learning.

As I’ve said before, meanings matter and are an important part of building an understanding with tarot. But at some point, you also have to just let yourself read the cards.

Even confident tarot readers get tempted to reach for a book or hop online and start looking up interpretations of their cards when reading alone. Especially when the answers we want aren’t appearing. So many of us are guilty of spiralling into information rabbit holes in search of alternative meanings in the hope that we can find another angle to a card that will support our goals.

But this can take you out of the moment and block a clearer interpretation from coming through. And deep down, you probably already know the truth about the situation, anyway.

Define your rules for reading for yourself

Another way to read for yourself is to outline your own process for self-readings.

When I read for others, I have certain guidelines I follow: People have to tell me their question, and it has to be a question that’s within my scope of work—no queries about lucky numbers or lost objects, thank you very much. I shuffle the cards; they shuffle the cards. They choose the cards. I turn them over and then take a quiet moment to study the spread in its entirety, looking for themes, patterns, and energy flow in the reading.

When I read for myself, I try to follow the same process I do for my clients.

So ask yourself, “What are my rules as a tarot reader?”

If you’re really new to the cards, you might not know yet, and that’s okay. Trust that you can come back to this idea whenever it feels right.

To begin determining your own process for self-readings, you might want to consider questions like these:

What are your weaknesses when reading for yourself? For example, do you tend to reach for that book of meanings even if you don’t really need it anymore?

What kind of reader do you want to be for others? Can this translate into the same level of service you give to yourself? How can you treat yourself like a friend?

If it helps, here are my suggested rules for self-readings:

1. Be willing to face the truth when you are reading for yourself. Are you ready to step into whatever answer is revealed? Are you ready to be the one to sit with this information yourself?

2. Challenge yourself to talk it out. Just as you would push yourself to read the cards for someone else, do the same when you are reading solo. Talk it out, or journal your observations: What are the actions, emotions, and energies you’re seeing in your cards?

3. Create boundaries around meanings. When will you allow yourself to look up a meaning if you need to?

4. Stay aware of the outcomes you are most invested in. Know that questioning yourself and facing doubt is going to be part of this reading process. It helps to be honest with yourself about how much emotion you are placing in the answer and what you might need to do to step back a bit. Think about what you might say to a friend who is as invested in seeing a certain outcome.

5. Have a plan B. Be aware of what might make you feel nervous, anxious, or upset with a reading, and have a plan in place to deal with that. Remember that tarot helps us become more aware of things to avoid or things to fix or focus on. If you see a challenging card, don’t take it all as bad news. It might be just what you need.

Remember that even though tarot can be frustrating and overwhelming sometimes, it’s important to see that reading for yourself is an act of self-care.

Respect yourself and the process. Be gentle as you read your own messages, looking inward to find the answers you hold.

Treat tarot as a relationship

Just as a good friend can guide and advise us, so too does tarot. When you read for yourself, you can develop a deeper understanding of who you are and what you can become if you allow yourself to ask questions that promote growth and change, no matter how uncomfortable the truth may sometimes be.

Tarot also helps us understand that everything is a relationship. We are all in relationships with time, work, money, the environment, food, housing, and so on. Yes, many people come to tarot with questions about their personal relationships—love lives, friendships, and familial ties—but you can ask tarot for advice on how to change or strengthen any relationship you have in life:

“How can I understand money?”

“What does my intuition need from me?”

“How can I find a job that will love me back?”

“How does my home want to be enjoyed?”

“What does my soul have to say today?”

If you choose to enter into a relationship with tarot, you have to ask yourself, “How will I stay committed on the days tarot doesn’t excite me?”

Because if we learn anything from long-term bonds, it’s that there will be ups and downs no matter what the nature of the relationship is. Tarot is no exception.

Whatever your relationship is with tarot today, expect it to change, and know that there will be ebbs and flows. Early on, you might feel totally infatuated with tarot. A few weeks or months in, the shininess might wear off.

If you commit to tarot for the long haul, you will find that it reveals more and more to you all the time. I have heard so many tarot readers say that even after working with the same deck for years, they still uncover details in the artwork they never noticed before.

Stay open to what comes, and stay open to the idea that at some point, tarot will become whatever it needs to be for you. What you believe tarot is today may not be the same thing you believe a year from now.

Remember one of tarot’s ongoing lessons: everything ends so that something new can begin.

Time and Tarot

“When do you see this happening?”

Isn’t that a big part of why we seek answers? To find out when something will happen? So often, people ask me questions like these:

“Will I ever get to where I want to be?”

“When will my life really get started?”

“When will I meet the person I’m going to marry?”

“When should I quit my job?”

“When will I be promoted?”

“When will I have a baby?”

We want to know when things will happen so that we can understand exactly what to expect and how long we have to wait.

Having a sense of timing in our lives can also be reassuring. I have noticed that a lot of people who wonder when something will happen are really asking if something will happen. They just want to know that somewhere down the line, their wish will come true.

Having a sense of timing gives us something to look forward to. And like worrying, it can also provide a sense of control. Imagine if we knew every date in our lives when something was going to go wrong. What kinds of catastrophes would we avoid?

Imagine if we could find out the exact day we would fall in love. We would make sure to be at the right place at the right time so as not to miss our big chance.

And what to do until then? Ah, the relief of just being able to wait, trusting that whatever you want—the job, the lover, the new you—is right around the corner.

What if you didn’t have to work for it? If there were no need to take a leap of faith in something or to keep aiming at a goal, because you knew it was going to be handed to you anyway? What if there were no sense of hope or anticipation in life anymore because you knew how and when everything was going to unfold?

Time is a tricky thing

When we start to think about time and potentially work with it through the act of reading tarot, it’s important to meditate on what time is and what we know about it.

We know that time passes. We see it in the aging process. We see it in the sky, with the sun and moon. We see it in the change in seasons.

But is time only what we read on a clock? Is it what constitutes a calendar year? Why is it that some days fly by and others seem to grind to a halt?

Does time go on indefinitely? We assume it does, but how can we know for sure? Many unanswered questions still exist about what time actually is and what our relationship is to it.

Tarot is a non-linear tool, just like our intuition.

And so I always caution people who turn to tarot readings with the question “When do you see this happening?” expecting to get a clear response.

Because there may not be a precise answer. In my experience, I have never had an exact date or time come up in a reading. Can time be approximated? Of course. But to expect that a tarot card will tell you the date you’ll meet your future partner or the time of your next job interview is unrealistic.

Another consideration is free will. How do you know that every choice you make leading up to a predetermined, predicted time will bring you to that exact moment? What if you somehow miss the deadline?

The other thing is that time isn’t so easy to define. Science has theories on what it is, but our understanding of time still mystifies us. “We remember the past but we don’t remember the future,” physicist Sean Carroll told Wired Magazine in 2010 as he talked about his theories and research into time.[16]

“But I thought tarot wasn’t about predicting”

Even though many people use tarot for more reflective, personal purposes, many still come to the cards with expectations of highly predictive experiences: the who, what, where, and when of a reading.

And if you decide to read tarot for others, you will have to anticipate that people will have questions like this.

Determining time in tarot brings us back to questions about what we assume tarot can do—and what we assume about life itself. Asking when something will happen assumes a specific date is already earmarked in the future. It assumes that everything is already set up for us and all we have to do is wait to receive it.

“When will I get married?” is a very common question I hear as a tarot reader, even though all those I know who are married have chosen their own wedding dates. The universe, as far as I know, does not arrange marriages. Some traditions do, but that’s a different conversation altogether.

Asking “When will something happen?” also requires a belief that we are moving toward a predetermined future that requires little or no decision-making on our part. If you enact free will in your readings, you will need to decide how to reframe questions that negate individual choice.

When people ask about time in tarot, it can be better to approach the topic like this: “Is it a good time to focus on finding love?”

I have often veered clients away from asking specific questions about when something will happen. Sometimes people look at me in surprise. “But isn’t that what you do? Isn’t that what I’m here for?”

If time itself is still a mystery to the human experience, then I as a tarot reader certainly have no claim or power over it. I can’t anticipate what it’s going to do next. Still, I’ve realized that some people never question the days of the week or the hours of the day, taking for granted that time is what we see on a clock or on the calendar and nothing more.

I also know very little about physics. I’m a trained journalist who has spent much of my life at this point writing and working in a spiritual capacity through tarot and astrology. I leave the workings of time up to the people who are making it their life’s work to understand what time is, whereas I’m more interested in timing: the trust that things will unfold as they are able to…or as they need to.

Defining a sense of timing

To me, timing is rooted in the belief that we don’t always get what we want but that we can get what we need—and that sometimes what we get is even better than what we imagined. Or it ends up being completely different but so right for who we are and where we are at in our lives.

And that is part of the timing I’m talking about. When I think back to times in my life when I was aching for certain experiences—desperate for my writing career to take off, hoping for my future partner to cross my path—I also realize now, with the wisdom of age and hindsight, that I quite likely would have blown my chances if I’d gotten what I wanted back then.

Why? Because I was rushing things. I thought I had everything figured out. I didn’t know that I wasn’t ready for those things yet. With a little more time and experience, I grew, and that growth made me a better writer, a better professional, and a better partner—all things I got to put to use when the time was right.

I also believe that everything has its own energy, and with that energy comes a sense of timing, too. For example, with every book I’ve written, I’ve always had a certain deadline I wanted to work toward. But I’ve also learned not to get too attached to those deadlines. Creative projects have lives of their own. So do businesses, lovers, friends, partners, careers, pets, families, and so on. You can hope to publish a book, have a baby, own a house, or work in that corner office by a certain age or in a certain number of months, but everything in this world is operating at its own pace, too.

You might not always get what you want when you want it, if at all. Should you throw all your planning out the window, though? Not at all. Deadlines help us stay motivated and help us create the futures we are often trying to shape when we read tarot.

Asking tarot about time

The time on the clock is not the only time that influences us. Every season has its own energies, doesn’t it? You might have certain themes or feelings that come up for you every spring and summer that are very different from fall and winter.

The cycles of the moon can influence our moods, dreams, and desires. Astrologically, the planets all represent different aspects of our lives, and every celestial body has its own orbit. Some of those orbits take years to complete.

And of course, there is also the timing of the people around us. Just as projects and plans have their own energies, so do people. Your partner might have very different seasons than you do, for example. Friendships have cycles. Some last forever, and some come and go. Take into account the cause and effect from the intention and willpower of the people in your life.

Remembering that we are influenced by any number of factors at any given moment can be helpful when we are exploring timing in tarot. Looking at time as something that is layered, energetic, and fluid can also help us redefine our relationships to time. Which clock are you living on? What we see on the calendar is not always aligned with the greater forces at work.

“Do you believe we are meant to know everything?”

Even if it were possible for everything to be mapped out in advance, I don’t believe it would be up to us to know it all, anyway.

If you knew when, or if, all the important events of your life were going to happen, would you work as hard for them? Would you work on yourself? Would you bother listening, learning, or growing if you knew everything would be handed to you in a matter of time?

We can’t discount the things that happen between the greater moments of our lives. Some people might feel they wasted a few good years of their lives in relationships that didn’t last. But is that true? Was it all a waste, or did those relationships open up certain experiences, conversations, or ideas? We can all learn something from the experiences we have.

Asking when something is going to happen holds the same pitfalls as fate or destiny in that it can make us too reactive. We can end up waiting instead of working on ourselves. And when you stop working toward something, you stop growing, which might mean you won’t be ready when the time does come to get what you are hoping for. It is possible to be too immature, unprepared, or emotionally unavailable for the things we want.

Disappointments, mistakes, and detours can all be part of the process. We also have to remember that we are not working in isolation here. We all become other people’s lessons, too. There can be many reasons for being at a certain job or in certain relationships at any given time, and it’s not always about you.

When we get too caught up in the idea of time and forget to trust in timing, it’s easy to lose sight of where we’re at. You might not always know why something takes longer than you want it to. You might not always know what lesson or realization the universe is nudging you toward. You might not always see the reason something hasn’t happened yet, no matter how badly you want it.

I think about this a lot when I reflect on my early days as a writer. I started my journalism career very early on. At twenty-one, I was already writing for some big media outlets here in Toronto, and I was still only in college. I felt destined to make it.

But there were a lot of ups and downs along the way. I wanted it all to be easy, and I thought I’d already learned everything I needed to. Only with hindsight can I see how much I didn’t know yet. I cringe now to think of what would have happened had I gotten everything I wanted back then. I thought I was ready for bigger things, but I don’t believe now that I was. I think, instead, that I would have blown it completely. I still had a lot to learn about who I was and what I was really here to do, and I am so grateful now that the universe delayed certain opportunities or kept them away from me altogether.

“But what if I’ve been waiting my whole life for something to happen? What if I’ve been patient, put in the work, and still don’t have what I want?”

I can’t tell you how many times I read for people who want to know when it’s the right time to do something, only to have the cards answer, “What are you waiting for?”

In those readings, there are no obvious barriers. There might not be anything standing in your way but yourself.

And what are people waiting for? Sometimes they are looking for a sign, expecting that somehow life is going to send them a message that says, “Today is the day.”

This brings us back to the importance of questions in a reading. Instead of asking when something will happen, try exploring how:

“How can I invite love into my life?”

“What can I do differently?”

“What isn’t working for me on this path?”

“Is there anything I still have to learn before I can get to my next phase?”

Waiting can be painful, especially if we have put time and energy into a goal and nothing has come of it. Sometimes all you can do is bring it back to what’s within your control.

You can also explore the concept of patience with the cards:

“What can I focus on while I’m waiting?”

“What do I have to understand about this holding pattern I’m in?”

“Where can I find positivity in this situation?”

“What is the greater reason for this?”

There might not be a “right time”

There is a difference between trying and hesitating. Especially when we get too fixated on the idea of there being a “right time” for something.

Hesitation sits across the aisle from impulse. Impulse can be exciting, but it can also lead you into a lot of blind spots.

On the other hand, hesitation can turn into…nothing. It can keep you exactly where you are rather than where you want to be.

The truth is, there may not be a perfect time for very much in life. People can consult tarot and astrological charts and experts and coaches and all kinds of things to figure out the exact time they should launch a business or have a baby or take that dream vacation.

But you have to remember that your intention—your intuition—is part of the process, too. If you know deep down that you want more than anything to leave a job or create a new beginning or travel the world, you will have to be the one to decide to make it happen. Otherwise, you could be waiting for the “right time” for a long time.

Just as I haven’t known the universe to arrange marriages, I also haven’t known babies to be delivered by storks or people to suddenly wake up one day in a new home or a business to build itself. All the decisions we make begin with our own choices.

The universe is ready for anything that enters into it. More often than not, it’s up to us to decide what to put out into the world rather than to wait for the world to hand it over.

“What about the past? Isn’t that about time, too?”

When we start to explore time and tarot, the conversations can become less about specific dates and more about the awareness of what’s possible: the lessons we are living through, the actions we can take, the pathways to move beyond hesitation.

But Sean Carroll’s statement from earlier—that we don’t remember the future—is an interesting one to ruminate on.

When we use tarot, it can be so easy to get ahead of ourselves. We can spend a lot of our time with the cards looking at the “what if…” of our lives. We look to tarot to help us anticipate the consequences of our decisions or to look at what we need to be focusing on in the moment.

We want to know “What’s next?” and “Where am I going from here?”

But if the future is yet to be remembered, then what value might the past hold for us?

As I write this, I can imagine someone saying, “But I already know where I’ve been. I need to know where I’m going.” But the past can teach us how to be patient.

We can use tarot to understand the lessons we have already learned. If you are reading on love, for example, you could begin by asking the cards, “What has the past taught me about relationships?”

From there, you could do a subsequent reading for the present, asking, “What am I still learning about relationships today?”

If you are feeling discouraged about a process, looking to the past can also be a way to find encouragement and touch base with your bearings. A reading to look at where you’ve been, how you’ve grown, and how you’ve changed can reflect the foundation on which you continue to stand.

“What has brought me to this point?” can also be a profound question to explore.

Let your mind be open to what the past can reveal. By letting tarot help us travel back and forth through time, we can learn all kinds of things about ourselves. We can turn to the cards to understand the stories we carry within our bones—things that might have become embedded in our childhood, even.

We can use the cards to help us answer questions about what we no longer need or want. Sometimes we might find ourselves waiting for some very old dreams to come true—dreams that are so old we’ve become used to chasing them but haven’t yet realized that we don’t actually want them anymore.

You don’t need a special tarot spread to explore these questions—or any others described here so far. Simply lay down a few cards, and let their energies and images speak as they are.

“How long should I wait to see if a reading comes true?”

First, remember that a reading may not come to pass exactly as predicted, because a prediction is only ever an estimate.

Second, you need to give a reading room to breathe. Earlier, I suggested working with a one-year timeline, which may be helpful if you are doing a deeper reading or an overview into various aspects of your life.

You can’t expect everything to unfold immediately after a reading, especially if there are steps you need to take to make certain things come together.

I don’t recommend looking too far down the road. Sometimes people want to know what they’ll be doing a decade from now, and there are just too many variables to consider there.

But even if you put a timeline of one year on a reading, does that mean everything will be neatly tied up by the time that year is over? Remember that time and tarot are non-linear. Certain processes might begin within days or months of a reading, but they will have their own sense of timing and can unfold for years to come. What comes up in a reading can also be different from what you expected.

I did a couple of readings for a young woman who wanted to know about her love life. She had a lot of supportive cards around her relationships. I told her that I felt she would meet someone who would make her feel seen, heard, and appreciated. That it would be a different experience from what she was used to and that this person would help her see that she could have more than her previous relationships had given her.

Just a few months later, this young woman came back. Again, she wanted to know when she would find love and whether it would be with someone she already knew.

“Do you ask because there is someone you’re interested in now?” I asked. She said yes. She had become friends with someone after her last reading with me. She liked him and said he was exactly as I’d described. He made her feel amazing.

“Have you told him how you feel?” I asked.

“No. I want him to tell me. I think that if he liked me, he would have said something by now.”

Instead of talking to him, she wanted tarot to reveal his feelings to her. And if the cards said there was nothing between them, then she wanted to know when she would meet someone new.

The deeper the session went, the more I learned that she’d been going on other dates, meeting all kinds of new people. “You know,” I said, “I talk to a lot of people who can’t even find one date. You’ve had multiple in just a matter of months.”

“But I’m terrified that none of them are right,” she said. “What if I end up alone? You hear about that, you know: that people go their whole lives with no one and end up all by themselves.”

“Tell your friend how you feel,” I said. “If he doesn’t feel the same, accept the friendship for what it is, and keep doing what you’re doing. Come back and see me after a full year has gone by, and we’ll see what’s happening then.”

A month later, I heard back from her. The friend she’d had a crush on ended up introducing her to one of his buddies, and they had hit it off. This is a lesson in giving things time and not forcing them to fit into the agenda of a tarot reading.

Readings will give us fragments, snapshots of things that can transpire, but rarely do they give a full, detailed picture. So we have to be open to things showing up a little differently than we envision them and to showing up at different times than we expected.

I had my first tarot reading when I was seventeen. I didn’t know what to expect and had gone into it without any questions or expectations. The reader, a woman named Jan Sweeney Remington, told me that I had something like irritable bowel syndrome and that the only way to cure it would be to let go of my anger.

At the time, I didn’t have any health issues, so I wasn’t sure what she meant by that or why it would come up.

Eight years later, I started to develop symptoms similar to IBS, but by then I had totally forgotten my reading with Jan. I had gone through a lot of dietary changes in my twenties, from vegetarianism to veganism. With many foods already eliminated from my diet, including dairy, I wasn’t sure what was causing the problem.

When I was twenty-seven, I sat down and had a very honest conversation with my mother about some things that had happened to me when I was in my early teens. Things that I felt she had mishandled and things that I had later gone to therapy to deal with myself.

I had spent a lot of time replaying old arguments with my mother in my head, feeling that she had emotionally abandoned me many times over. I finally had to ask her why, if only to finally move on from it all.

A week after that talk, I realized my stomach hadn’t been upset in days. Another week went by, and still nothing.

For the first time in a long time, I felt all right. I kept expecting something to happen, but nothing did.

About a month later, I was going through an old box when I came across the cassette recording of my reading with Jan. I listened to it again and was reminded of her message about anger and IBS. Suddenly it all made sense.

It was amazing to me that so many years later, a tarot reading could still be so resonant.

So even though we can look at tarot and think about it as something that is going to be happening sooner rather than later, you never really know for sure. As I said earlier, life has its own sense of timing. All we can do is try to put some parameters around the cards for ourselves so that we know what we’re working with.

All that being said, the examples I’ve outlined above were also based on readings with no greater focus attached. “When will I find love?” is pretty open ended. When I had my reading with Jan, I didn’t even have a question.

But we can get very specific in our own sense of timing with tarot. I love to pull cards for myself whenever there is a new moon, for example, to ask, “What can I create during this lunar cycle?”

I have had clients come to me around every solstice and equinox to get into the energies of the upcoming season. In my tarot workshops, one of the practice questions we do is “What theme is coming up for me next month?”

But notice that these questions are also reflective, based in awareness and action rather than on specific outcomes like “When will I get my promotion?” Finding timing in tarot can be very enriching when you use it as a way to plan and strategize and to help you understand the timing of your own life.

Never say never

Another reason I discourage people from speaking in absolutes in tarot is that an answer might feel too final if a reading indicates that something isn’t going to happen at all.

Remember that this is the danger of assumption within our questions. “When will I find true love?” assumes there is a date and time on which it will happen.

But what if the cards say that it won’t? Or what if a reader doesn’t know how to deliver that message or interpretation with the right care and nuance?

This can set someone up on a deep path of doubt. Sure, there are tarot readers out there who believe that whatever they see in the cards is truth. But is it? How do any of us know for sure what is possible and what isn’t?

And again, tarot readings can be wrong, and so can tarot readers. I have heard a lot of stories about people with fertility issues who were told by tarot readers they would never be able to have a baby. How hurt they were to hear this. They had gone to a reader for hope and had left heartbroken. Some even gave up the thought of trying at all.

But then things changed. Some of them got pregnant naturally, although unexpectedly. Others decided to seek different treatment options and went on to have the families they’d dreamt of.

While it’s important not to give false hope, it’s also important to never say never.

Tarot, Hope, and Predicting Disasters

It’s one thing to give false hope. It’s another to rob someone of hope altogether.

Hope is a huge reason people turn to things like tarot. So it’s important to learn how to strike a balance in your readings. Don’t let clients leave a reading feeling dejected. Even if you can’t tell them what they want to hear, recognize that they have a need for support at that time. Everyone deserves to feel supported and respected, and you never know what kind of impression a tarot reading can have.

I had some very difficult things happen to me when I was growing up, and didn’t have a lot of emotional support at the time. The culture in my home was one of emotional detachment.

Being too emotional, too vulnerable, too affectionate, or too honest was too much. Everything had to be hidden, contained, and repressed. When things went wrong, I had no one at home to turn to and no healthy coping skills to rely on, because I’d never learned any.

And I did need a lot of help. I had faced some challenges much bigger than I was, and I was too young to know what to do about them. My self-esteem had been so affected by these circumstances that there were moments in my teens when I could barely speak. I could think about what I wanted to say, but I could not force the words to come.

It was as though my entire personality was trapped behind a veil I couldn’t lift.

At home, I was constantly led to believe that I would always be my own worst enemy: that I was too shy to get ahead, too sensitive to relate to, too different to be respected or accepted.

I really didn’t know what the future held for me back then. I couldn’t see myself making it in this world, because I had no confidence in who I was. I always expected things to go wrong for me. Even if things were going all right for a while, I had trouble trusting in the good because I didn’t believe it was meant to last.

When I thought about my future, I wanted to be a writer, but I didn’t believe it would happen. Instead, I assumed my adulthood would be bleak and difficult. I would imagine myself seeing everyone around me grow up and move on, succeed, and find stability, and I figured I would be left behind.

If everyone close to me was so sure I would fail, why would I think any differently?

And then I had a tarot reading—the same reading I mentioned earlier, with the woman named Jan. It was at a psychic fair. Jan was a grandmother with a gentle, kind approach. She asked if I had a question. She didn’t seem to mind when I said I didn’t know what to ask.

We started the reading.

Jan talked to me about compassion and kindness. She talked to me about strengths and potential, things that I had never discussed before because I’d always been so focused on what I felt were my faults, my weaknesses.

“You are going to surprise the hell out of your parents,” she said.

Really? I thought. I couldn’t see it yet, as I hadn’t considered that things might turn out differently than expected.

I hadn’t considered that I could be wrong about my pessimistic outlook on the future. Suddenly my perspective started to shift.

Jan’s messages were very simple, but they meant everything to me at the time because they gave me hope, allowing me to think about alternate outcomes for myself. That reading helped me believe that things could, and would, change—that I wouldn’t always feel like a disappointment (which was a major part of my mindset at the time) and that I wouldn’t always feel like I was struggling through life.

The transformation wasn’t immediate. When things at home became too painful, I put all my belongings into two black garbage bags and left. I still had three months to go before the end of my high school year.

It would be many months before I came home again.

When I finally did return, I had nothing: no money and no plan. I had very little work experience and no clear goals. I was at the very start of my adult years, and already I felt like I was rebuilding my life and my relationship with my parents.

But all along, I was developing a different sense of trust, not only in myself but in life overall. I kept Jan’s voice in the back of my mind, firmly holding on to the belief that things would get better and that I had something to offer in this world.

I often wonder how much that reading pushed me to do some of the things I’d always wanted to do. Like getting my writing published in a major newspaper or taking small steps to express myself in ways I hadn’t fully allowed for yet.

Sometimes we discount the idea of hope as wishful thinking or as a cheesy slogan we see on coffee mugs and T-shirts.

But hope is a verb. It is something we do, an action we take, a practice we can sustain.

It is also something that supports anticipation—that magical component I’ve talked about before, especially when we are trying to force or assume a destiny before our lives are fully revealed.

I find that joy, at least for me, often rises when there is something to look forward to.

A lot of the time when I read tarot, I find that people are looking for hope. Otherwise, why would we even bother engaging with tarot? Like the young woman I mentioned earlier who came to me looking for love. At the root of her question was the fear of loneliness. She needed a reading to give her hope for the future and to centre her into the present moment:

“Everything is okay. You are here, you are not alone, and you have so much more life ahead of you.”

Reaching out for guidance, confirmation, advice, or support is hope in action. Tarot shows us what else might be possible. It shows us the angles we haven’t considered or the choices we can still make. Tarot can help us see that it’s not too late to change direction and it’s not too late to experience something different from before.

We turn to tools like tarot because we are looking for hope for the future. It feels good to have something to look forward to, even if we are seeking something intangible, like ease or relief.

Why would we reach out for help if we didn’t believe the future could change?

Why would we bother to sit down and explore our options or choices if hope did not exist?

Why would we want to know what’s next if we didn’t believe in the power of tomorrow?

Reading tarot is a hopeful act, one that can plant a seed of encouragement that can help individuals grow in ways they might not even have imagined.

Tarot can be validating

Many people turn to tarot because they want to know that they are making the right decisions or that their lives are on track.

And tarot can be deeply affirming. It’s one of the reasons I talk so much about embracing tarot’s more mundane messages. Sometimes you just need to know that things are good right here, right now.

Have you ever had a tarot reading that didn’t tell you anything new? That’s okay—you might not need to go any deeper than that. It’s so satisfying to have a reading clearly reflect back your plans or decisions, knowing that your intentions are aligning. That is part of tarot’s role in supporting hope.

“What happens when tarot doesn’t give you the validation you need?”

First, you will have to be honest with yourself: Does the reading feel off because it’s showing you something you don’t want to accept yet but that you know is true? Tarot requires a willingness to look into your depths and a willingness to accept what you see in the cards—as well as what you don’t.

Second, know that trusting your intuition sometimes means having to validate yourself first. Consider that a tarot reading might not tell you what you need to hear because it’s your turn to meet your own needs.

External validation is what so many of us search for. When we make a decision, it feels good to hear someone say, “You did the right thing.” We gain confidence when the people in our lives support our goals. Likewise, we are prone to insecurity when we hear others doubting our plans or abilities.

Yet we aren’t always taught to emotionally support ourselves. And that can leave us with a gap in our sense of identity.

When the tarot holds up a blank space with a row of cards that seems to say, “I’m not going to answer that for you,” consider it an invitation for your intuition to step forward.

Just because tarot helps us look inward doesn’t mean it is part of us. Those wanting to live intuitively have to learn to trust in their own feelings, too, rather than always running to the cards every time a decision needs to be made. Helping others—or yourself—to come to their own conclusions can be a very powerful act.

“But wait—what if a reading isn’t so positive? Sometimes the cards can be, well, kind of scary”

Life can be scary, too. When things are good, the idea that anything could go sour is disheartening. It’s why some people get nervous about tarot and other types of readings, thinking, I’d rather not know.

The truth is that some dreams do come true, and some don’t. Sometimes we have the fairy-tale ending—until a new chapter in our lives begins and we realize we have to start all over again.

Yes, tarot teaches us that life moves in circles. Does it mean we’re in constant cycles of loss and despair? Not necessarily. But it helps to be realistic in understanding that things can change.

How things will change, though, isn’t always so easy to determine. So we also have to remember that just because change is on the horizon doesn’t mean it will be drastic.

Years ago, I was reading tarot for a friend.

“Just give me a bit of everything—work, my marriage. I just want to know what’s coming up for the year ahead,” she said.

This is how most of my readings start. People are usually curious about their love lives and careers, the areas in which we tend to focus a lot of our energies (and which I’ll cover in depth in the next two chapters).

When I turned over the cards that represented my friend’s marriage, I paused. Staring back at me was the Ten of Swords, depicting a man face down in a field with a row of swords protruding from his back.

Typically the Ten of Swords is associated with endings. Of course, we can look deeper at the card’s imagery and also see betrayal (as though someone has stabbed us in the back) or burden.

We can also see it as a change in identity, thought processes, or behaviours.

There are many ways to interpret every card in tarot. Which is why readers have to be careful about the definitions they default to without considering the context. In tarot, endings are often synonymous with transformation.

I could have stuck to the basic meaning of the card and told my friend that I didn’t think her marriage would last the year. But the truth was, I didn’t know that for sure. Something told me not to go there.

I chose to listen to that inner voice.

Instead of focusing the reading on a possible separation, I said, “I think there’s going to be a lot of change coming up within your marriage this year. Do you feel like your relationship is due for a transformation?”

My friend’s face lit up. “Yes,” she said. From there, the reading turned into a conversation, one that allowed us to dive deeper and pull some more cards specifically around her relationship questions.

I was still getting the hang of tarot back then, and that reading was a big moment for me. I was so relieved that I’d trusted my instinct about the Ten of Swords.

And yes, after all this time, my friend is still married. Imagine if I’d told her back then that she wouldn’t be.

You never know how people are using the energies they are working with. People grow in different ways. Some are more mature, and some are more willing to work through the tough stuff than others. You might not always know how individuals are impacted by whatever they are experiencing or how a challenging moment will affect them.

So remember that when you are reading tarot, doom and gloom are not guaranteed. We all choose how to embrace whatever comes our way. Some people welcome challenges because they recognize that something has to give. Don’t assume you know exactly how a certain tarot card will play out. Speak to the possibility and to the potential of what can be gained, learned, or altered as a result.

Think about the impact of your words

I took a workshop once with an astrologer whose work I greatly admired. But all the natal chart examples he used were really, really depressing. Especially because some of the charts were very similar to mine. And the outcomes in the charts he used were bleak.

If I were to follow his predictions word for word, everyone I love will die before I do, and I am somehow going to end up broke and in jail in the later years of my life.

I remember that for days afterward, I actually felt fearful of my future. Even though I was already working as a reader myself by then and knew better than to take every prediction at face value, I couldn’t help but let that little bit of doubt creep through: What if that teacher is right?

This is not a good way to leave someone feeling after a reading.

Ideally, readings should make us feel prepared, informed, and aware of the choices we have.

That doesn’t mean everything has to be sugar coated, but it does mean that respect, empathy, and compassion need to be part of the equation. Don’t let someone leave feeling scared, upset, or disappointed.

“But I like to tell it like it is. I think it’s better that way”

Be honest, but be helpful, too. If you are reading tarot and don’t see a certain plan working out, it’s okay to say so, but be responsible for what you are saying.

Know that it’s possible to be wrong, because once again, tarot doesn’t know everything, and tarot readers are only human. We will make mistakes.

Know, too, that responsibility comes with tarot reading. You never know what someone will do with the information you give them. While I always encourage people to think for themselves and remind them that they have to make their own decisions regardless of what a tarot reading might tell them, the truth is that I have little control over what clients actually do once they walk out my door.

While I do believe that predictions are possible (I do engage in predictive readings quite often), they work best when there’s some supportive dialogue to back them up. It is fine to say, “I don’t see this working out,” but follow it up by reading on another question, perhaps like one of these:

“What is the reason this isn’t going to work?”

“What opportunity will enter your life instead?”

“What will you be able to make space for?”

“How is the universe redirecting you to a different path?”

Use challenging readings as an opportunity to look at what can be done differently. Or to reflect on what is being hoped for at the time. Sometimes we just need to adjust our goals or expectations to better align with where we’re at right then.

A person’s actions and intentions should also be invoked. We are all shaping the future with every decision we make. If you find yourself reading on messages that are difficult to hear, remember that (a) it’s not written in stone, and (b) individuals can be mindful of their own actions moving forward. The things we do today will influence our lives tomorrow.

We also can’t just assume that every dramatic card or negative reading will bring the same outcome for every person. We are all working our way through the world differently, with our own perspectives, needs, and desires, and that all has to come into the equation. As I said earlier, some people are more than willing to rise to the occasion and overcome any obstacles in their path. Their maturity level, perspective, and willpower will all factor strongly into what they take from a reading.

Neither can we assume that the so-called scarier cards are unwelcome. I have had people breathe a sigh of relief to see the Death card show up in their readings. And I have been relieved to see it for myself. What could be more affirming than seeing Death come when you are wondering if it’s the right time to move on from a job? What can be more reassuring than having Death let you know that an uncomfortable situation is finally coming to an end?

Don’t let a bad reading become a self-fulfilling prophecy. So often, people hear something negative about a job or relationship and then start looking for issues within a situation that was otherwise fine.

Which is why it’s important not to assume the worst in a reading and to always remember that the future is yet to be created. And that can be a very powerful (and hopeful) reminder in any tarot reading.

Tarot in Love

As you can probably tell from the examples I’ve given throughout this book, relationships are huge questions in tarot.

It makes sense: relationships are such big parts of our lives.

We think a lot about who we are spending time with and whether we are surrounded by the right people.

And of course, we can’t forget that we are always in a relationship with ourselves, and tarot is a key to help us navigate that relationship. After all, it may be the most complex one we have.

Which is why I’m careful not to oversimplify relationship readings. What do I mean by that? Well, just as I don’t believe that tarot can dictate a specific time when you can expect to be walking down the aisle, for example, I don’t believe that throwing out a question like “When will I get married?” can lead to an easy answer.

One reason for this is that all relationships—even friendships—require the will and intent of at least two people. If you want to know when you will fall in love, then you have to accept that it can only happen when someone is as willing to love you as you are to love that person. There must be reciprocal admiration and a commitment on both sides.

So whenever someone asks about marriage, soulmates, love, or life partners—or any other label that categorizes relationships—I am always mindful that I can’t get into another person’s head…or heart. I can’t promise love on someone’s behalf. Those others have to give you that themselves. But I can use tarot to look at the energy around a person’s love life and to see what the potential for a connection may be.

If you read tarot, expect to be asked, “When will I get married?”

Even though you might be thinking, I would never ask that—I’m here to use tarot for myself, for guidance and reflection, follow me on this for a moment. Why? Because even if you’re not planning on reading tarot for anyone else right now, remember my rule: never say never. A day might come when you do want to branch out, and what I share here might be helpful for you when someone sits down for a reading and asks you something you might never desire to ask the tarot.

Like “When will I get married?”

I remember the first time someone asked me this. I was reading tarot at an outdoor event one summer. A woman walked by and said, “Hold on. I just have to get some cash, but I’ll be right back. I need you to tell me when I’m going to get married!” To be honest, I thought she was joking. When she returned a few minutes later, I fully expected her to sit down and tell me what she really wanted to know.

Well, I was very wrong about that. This woman was sure I would be able to give her a date for her wedding. She was in a relationship, but she said she wasn’t sure if her partner was ready to take things a step further.

But the cards didn’t seem sure this client was ready herself. As I turned the cards over, the messages were talking about anything but love.

“Focus on finishing school,” the Hierophant said.

“Build your career,” the Page of Pentacles said.

As we went deeper into the reading, there was an underlying theme of making sure she was creating something for herself first before merging her life with another person’s.

It wasn’t the answer she was looking for, but that’s a lesson we all have to be reminded of sometimes: What we want right now isn’t necessarily what we need. Sometimes other things must be taken care of first.

It’s also a good example of how tarot won’t always give you a direct answer. “Do this, this, and this first,” the cards seem to say. “Once that’s taken care of, then we can talk about your question.”

People used to ask “When will I get married?” so often that I actually stopped reading on it altogether as an official policy. Not that this has always prevented the question from sneaking through. A few of my clients over time have asked for general readings about what’s to come for them in terms of career and relationship overall, but a few minutes into the reading, they’ve stopped everything and said, “I really just want to know when I’m going to get married.”

“Have you and your partner been talking marriage?” I’d ask.

“Well, I’m not seeing anyone right now. But I just really want to know when it’s going to happen.”

It won’t happen if you’re not even in a relationship to begin with. Personally, I can’t do a tarot reading on a theoretical relationship or any situation that hasn’t come into existence yet.

My golden rule on the marriage question

If you are single, then my answer is always the same: you will get married when you find someone who you really want to be with and who really wants to be with you.

Together, you’ll both decide to get married and when.

Because the first thing to remember is that marriage isn’t just about setting a wedding date. It is a life choice, and it involves mutual love, respect, and will—yours and a partner’s. You both have to be on a journey together, and there’s a process involved in two people’s deciding to take that next step.

For a single person, a better question for the cards might be “How can I foster new relationships?” or “What’s most important for me to focus on in the year to come?” Perhaps love will be the answer, but it might be something else entirely.

The toughest thing to remember when you’re asking about marriage is that you’re operating under the assumption that you will get married.

What if you don’t? Some people go through their entire lives without entering into a nuptial agreement. Does it mean you will be alone? Of course not. But what if you meet someone who doesn’t believe in marriage? What if you’re both happy to commit to each other without a ceremony or a marriage license?

Or what if you change your mind and realize marriage doesn’t mean as much to you as it once did? Besides, marriages are not made within a wedding day. These are commitments that begin long before that.

Know what you are asking

Remember earlier, when I said people sometimes ask when something will happen because they are afraid it never will?

Fear is one of the driving factors pushing people to ask about marriage in the first place. It’s not always that they want to get married so much as they want to know they won’t be alone forever—much like my young client who needed to know when she would fall in love.

These questions are about when, not if.

But just as someone else has to want to marry you, you also have to meet someone who you want to marry. Even though it makes some people uncomfortable, the reality is that a chance always exists that you won’t meet someone you like enough to commit to for the rest of your life.

Part of the work that tarot can teach us—as with many other spiritual paths—is that we have to stay open to all possibilities and unattached to specific outcomes. Does it mean we shouldn’t set intentions or be clear in our goals? Of course not. It just means developing acceptance that things may turn out differently than expected—and that that’s not always a bad thing.

Asking the tarot, or any oracle, about when you will get married may or may not be the right question, either.

If the cards show that you will be married within a year, they might not show whether you will be happy about it. How do you know you won’t be settling?

If you have a partner and get a reading that says you’ll be married in a year, does that timeline sit well with you? Sometimes people take readings so literally that they go out and try to make it all come true rather than exploring whether it feels right for them to do so.

Will this be a lasting marriage? This is another question many don’t consider. Some clients assume that once they’re married, that’s it—as though it’s something to cross off a bucket list. Among the many misguided assumptions are that marriage will fill a gap or that it will be one less thing to focus on once you’re committed to a partner.

Your first marriage may not be your last…or your best. Many people get divorced and remarried, some several times in a lifetime. Every day, we have to choose to be with our partners, and they with us. Sometimes people wake up one day and decide not to work at those choices anymore.

Which is why I won’t explore this question for anyone who is single. There are just too many unknown factors at play. Better questions to explore might be “How can I invite love into my life in the year to come?” “How can I stay open to new relationships?” “How can I love myself, with or without a partner?”

Another question I might put back to someone asking about marriage is “What are you expecting will happen when you get married?”

What is the end goal? Because there is no finality to marriage—it’s the continuation of a commitment that must already be in place before your wedding day. And all relationships take work.

So what is the expectation around being married? You will still have to respond to another person’s needs. You and your partner will still encounter insecurities about yourselves, your jobs, your overall health and stability.

And you will still argue, disagree, and make each other angry. Even the most even-tempered couples will have their moments.

“What about soulmates or ‘The One’?”

Expectations around finding a soulmate can certainly play into relationship readings, too. And many of the same considerations apply.

Just as a prediction of marriage won’t mean that all your relationship problems are solved, neither will the presence of a soulmate—if you even believe in such a thing. (And you don’t have to believe in it, you know. Can you still read on the question? Absolutely.)

But if you do follow the idea of soulmates, know that a soulmate won’t be able to read your mind or automatically know your every wish and desire. Communication and patience are going to be major factors in any relationship.

People need to be given the chance to talk, heal, and move beyond their mistakes. If you’re going into a relationship thinking that The One will be flawless and every moment will be perfect, then you’re setting yourself up for failure—along with everyone you meet. I have read tarot for many people who have such high expectations for their relationships that they have become unforgiving individuals. If a date shows any potential flaw, they see it as a sign: “My soulmate will be exactly what I’m looking for and nothing I’m not.” These people wonder why they are still single yet reject many possible relationships because they don’t give anyone a chance.

Life will still get in the way in a relationship, and you will both have to keep responding to the challenges—and the blessings—and grow accordingly.

If you feel concerned about getting married or meeting The One and it’s affecting your ability to focus on other areas of your life, you might want to ask the tarot, “Why is this so important to me?” and “How can I open myself up to other possibilities that life may offer?”

Marriage holds many surprises

Things can also happen in a marriage that you might not see coming, which is why I like to understand what’s motivating this type of question.

People get sick. They lose their jobs. They have accidents. When I was growing up, we lived next door to a young couple who had just started having kids shortly after we moved into the neighbourhood. The woman worked at a bank nearby and one day was held up at gunpoint in a robbery. It was such a traumatic experience that she never returned to work.

Then, not long after their third child was born, she was diagnosed with a debilitating illness and was eventually confined to a wheelchair. She and her partner were still only in their thirties. It was heartbreaking to witness their lives change so drastically and their plans and hopes for the future so altered by such unexpected events.

“In sickness and in health” can become a reality at any age, and even the strongest relationships can be tested in the process.

Exploring the concept of marriage before a relationship even exists to build upon isn’t necessarily going to indicate whether the fairy-tale ending you’re hoping for is actually going to come true.

Which brings me to another question: Do you want a wedding or a relationship? And what does marriage mean to you overall?

Do you want to get married because you think it means you’ve found The One, or are you subscribing to a societal ideal of gender roles, age, and love? Not everyone questions the narrative so many of us have been fed about how and when relationships should unfold and what we can expect of them once they do.

The thing to remember, too, is that we can have more than one great love in a lifetime. In one of my relationships, I felt absolutely certain marriage would be next for us— was I ever wrong. And in hindsight, I am so glad I was.

I’ve also had a relationship that started off so fast and furious that we were giving serious thought to eloping after being together only a few months. I am also highly satisfied that this did not happen. But if you’d asked me at the time, I would have told you that I had without a doubt found my soulmate.

Am I grateful for those experiences? You bet—I learned a lot. Did I love those people at the time? Completely. Would I date them again? No way. But I can still appreciate the roles they played in my life and the things I learned about myself because of those relationships. Great love doesn’t have to mean lasting love.

Don’t forget that there are a lot of unhappy unions out there. Asking “When will I get married?” doesn’t necessarily answer the question of whether you will be happy together or whether you will be right for each other.

Sometimes relationship readings end up highlighting personal work you might have to do first before you can truly enter into a healthy, lasting commitment with someone.

No one can make you “whole.” If you are looking for a marriage believing that it will fill a gap or hoping that your soulmate will come swooping in and everything that’s been wrong will magically be made right, think again.

Tarot has a way of pulling up unresolved issues and acting as a mirror to show you where your work still remains. Here are some helpful questions to explore in this case:

“What do I need to see in myself?”

“How do others see me?”

“How can I build my inner strength?”

No matter how much others may support your healing, you still have to be present and mindful in the process, too.

“Why do people assume tarot can answer these questions, anyway?”

Are there any tarot cards that promise love or marriage?

Some people might wonder about the Lovers card.

Like any reading, the interpretation of the Lovers can hinge on what the images reveal. In older tarot decks, the Lovers card traditionally featured three people, not just two. To see couples in the Lovers card is a more modern take. But why feature three people in the first place?

Perhaps it’s because in medieval Europe, wedding unions were not fairy-tale romances. Everyday people didn’t have the freedom to choose who they married. In 1344, the lord of a German manor declared that he would be the one to choose whom his unattached tenants married.[17]

Marriage in medieval times was seldom based in love but rather represented an arrangement over political or monetary considerations. It wasn’t uncommon for couples to be at the mercy of an outside influence – the third person we can still encounter in this card, depending on which deck you are using.

So to me, the Lovers card is not rooted as a card of love at all but rather in autonomy versus conformity. It asks, “Who is in charge of your life? Who is making your decisions? What do you need to break away from?”

People have dreams of getting married, buying a house, and having kids, but if we go back hundreds of years, when systems like astrology, palmistry, and tarot were first coming about, the idea of what life would be like with a partner looked very different. Marriage was a vehicle for the sale of people as property.

Many of the divinatory tools we use today to ask “When will I find love?” were born in times when marriages were arranged and families were living in multi-generational homes. Romance was impractical. A big, beautiful wedding reception at a banquet hall or a destination honeymoon was not what we would have been looking for two thousand years ago in someone’s natal chart or palm. Throughout history, love was equated with mental illness, as though it were something to be cured, not celebrated.[18]

Our concepts of marriage and the nuclear family are both very modern. We see this reflected in tarot’s artwork today. In the 1909 Rider-Waite-Smith deck, the Lovers went from three people down to two, with an angelic being blessing the union between two people who are choosing to reach out to one another.

It wasn’t until the nineteenth century that people started marrying for love.[19] Dating didn’t become popularized until the 1920s. Even though we talk about long-term commitment, everlasting love, and soulmates as though they were part of a traditional narrative, their place in human history is still quite new.

Which again brings into question the idea of soulmates. If the soulmate is such a powerful force in our lives, why are we just starting to understand it in modern times?

Although today love is a major reason people get married, it is not necessarily what keeps people together. While marriage and commitment can still differ culturally around the world, many of us have choices now in whom we partner with and how. But divorce rates are very high as well. Even though love seems to conquer all, a marriage is not necessarily an end point in one’s life.

As our ideas of marriage have changed—and will likely continue to change—what we look for in tarot readings and other types of divinatory tools changes with it.

Divination evolves with the times. We determine what to look for, not the other way around. We have to remember this when we are being sold readings, too. Tarot has become popularized as something that can promise answers on “love, money, health, and fortune” because that reflects what’s in the mainstream.

As we became freer in our ability to love, seek out our own relationships, and marry whom we chose to, our questions evolved to match that, and what we look for in cards, palms, and astrological charts has changed, too.

So, to go back to the beginning: it’s not always as simple as answering the question “When will I get married?” because tarot is not inherently wired for this question.

Don’t forget the power of hope

If someone asks, “Will I ever find love?” remember that life can be long and that anything can happen. When I get questions like this, instead of looking at the cards as representative of a person’s entire life—which could last decades from now—I look at the energy around the individual’s love life for the year to come. That way, there is a definitive time span to work with, and it can be easier to navigate discussions around what the person may or may not want to do depending on what’s showing up.

For example, if the reading shows little to no energy around love that year, then we can look at what can be done to shift that or ask the cards what the reason is. Maybe something else that needs to be focused on first.

Be wary of telling anyone outright, “No, you will never find love.” It’s a bleak prediction to give, one that can leave someone feeling completely discouraged, isolated, and lonely. Besides, love, like anything else in life, is not a linear process. You don’t just fall in love one day and cross it off your list of things to accomplish in life. It is something that must be nurtured and cared for, and it doesn’t always arrive when you want it to.

Also, ask yourself, “How do I know that?” Think about all the people in the world and all the possibilities that one person might experience in a lifetime. How do you know the person in front of you won’t ever connect with another?

Don’t forget that any kind of relationship reading is never just about one side of the equation. Those on the other side must enter the picture, too, with their own desires and intentions.

“What about reading on someone else’s relationship?”

You might hear other tarot readers talking about “third-party readings”: readings that involve a person who is not present, like a partner, friend, or parent.

Some readers won’t look at anything that involves another person unless that individual is there, too. They feel it’s invasive, like a form of spying. I find this idea quite limiting, especially since tarot readings are often private, between the reader and the querent, and so most of the time it’s only ever possible to talk to one half of any relationship.

I do engage in third-party readings, and I do so quite often. It’s more supportive and welcoming to encourage reflection rather than to find reasons to shut it down. Think about the role a therapist takes on. Could you imagine therapists telling their clients they can’t talk about their spouses because that person isn’t present and so it’s not fair to them?

People who are seeking readings may really need an outside, objective look at something. And they might feel they can’t talk about a relationship within their close circle for any number of reasons.

Especially if the reading is about an affair or the dissolution of a marriage. Sometimes people have asked me, with just weeks to go before the wedding, if they should get married. You don’t have to put yourself in a position to make a decision for others, but you can approach it in a way that helps them gain perspective.

And what I notice most often is that once people are given a non-judgmental space to talk things out, they actually hear themselves giving the answer they need, and they come to their own conclusions anyway.

It’s totally up to you whether you want to read on other people or not. You determine your own comfort zone. But if you’re asking for my advice, I think you should read for others and for their relationships, because when you’re learning, all practice is good.

It’s also important to remember that relationships impact our own stories and lives, and it’s hard to get away from that. There is a difference between spying on someone and improving or changing a relationship.

Spying may not serve much of a purpose in terms of someone’s growth or path. A question that might feel more invasive would be something like “Is my ex happy with his new girlfriend?”

Exploring a relationship’s potential can be of much more service: “My ex told me he wants to get back together. I do, too, but I’m nervous. What can I do to make it work a second time around?”

Or “I keep thinking about my ex. I’m jealous of his new girlfriend. I hate how it makes me feel. What can I do to get over him and move on with my life?”

Relationships are shared experiences, and the people you are reading for have a role within the relationship they are asking about, too. Remember, as well, that often a lot of pain and longing exists beneath love-related questions. So be gentle, non-judgmental, and open to the experience.

Tarot at Work

Along with relationships, work, in my experience, is another major reason people seek out tarot readings.

Sometimes when people hear me say this, they roll their eyes. “Why not ask about something more…spiritual? Isn’t there more to life than work? Surely tarot can help us transcend such things.”

And of course it can. But when we read tarot, we have to remember the lessons of the Pentacles and the element of earth: that sometimes life asks us to focus on the everyday.

We all need some level of stability in our lives, and for many people, stability comes in the form work and money. We know that there is more to life than just work, but we can’t ignore the reality that work becomes a major part of many people’s identities. Not only does it provide security; it also supports pride, talent, community, and more. Work can be a place where people feel they belong. It gives many a sense of purpose and a place to channel their talents, intelligence, and energy.

Work is where we can find and create security. Work gives us a chance to learn about what we like and what we don’t. It is where many of us uncover skills or strengths. Work helps inform our perspectives. It pushes us up against situations we don’t agree with and challenges us to do things we don’t always want to—or believe we’re capable of.

Work is also where many people place their ambitions. It’s where many try to reach, or at least understand, their potential.

When we come to tarot to help us understand our work, it’s often because we want to know if we are on the right path, if we will succeed, and if we will have what we need…and get what we want:

“Will my interview go well?”

“Will I get the job?”

“How can I succeed in my career?”

“What am I supposed to be doing with my life?”

“How can I make my business a success?”

“Where is my career headed this year?”

So, while I spend a lot of time reading on relationships, I spend just as much time reading on work.

Work is a relationship, too

Even though I feel work and relationship readings are equally important for people, there is a reason I talk about love before career here.

When we read tarot to answer questions on love, we learn that a relationship is not only about whom we choose as individuals but also that we must remember to take into account another person’s intentions, needs, and emotions.

Even though tarot can be very insightful and accurate much of the time, we can’t get into other people’s heads to know their every thought. And so, when we are reading on relationships, we have to be mindful that even if a reading is showing that everything in the relationship is great, it doesn’t mean the relationship can’t change. We always have to allow for the possibility that the people in a partnership might one day change their minds about the relationship, meet someone new, or for whatever reason decide they need to be on their own.

I want these ideas to become part of your foundation as we move into discussion about work-related readings, because those same rules apply here. Especially if we are talking about working for other people.

If you are asking about whether you will get the job you interviewed for, for example, there may not be much you can do about it. Because even if you dazzled your interviewers, they might still have to sell you to their boss. And that boss might have a completely different idea of the perfect candidate.

Sometimes other factors come into play, like budget or the overall direction of a department or business. Unfortunately, these things can change right in the middle of the hiring process. It might not seem fair or right, but it does happen. And you might not be able to see what’s coming in a tarot reading, especially if those decisions haven’t been made yet.

I spent eight years working in the non-profit industry and saw many plans get lobbed back and forth. One organization I worked for decided it wanted to change its name. Management started working with a consulting firm to figure out how to rebrand the charity, only to decide eight months later to keep the old name. The whole project was scrapped, and the consultants were let go. It felt like a huge waste of time—all that work, only to end up right back where we started.

I also saw rounds of interviews begin for new positions, only to have management decide it didn’t want to move ahead with hiring after all because it was no longer sure about the company’s strategy.

“But wouldn’t you figure that stuff out first?” you might ask. Well, yes, some companies would, but not all.

You never know what’s really going on behind the scenes in another person’s business.

I talked about the Lovers card in the last chapter and how it relates to questions of autonomy: Who is really in charge here? Who is making the final decision? In many businesses, especially bigger ones, decisions get influenced by many different people, and it can be hard to figure out who’s really in charge.

Employment is precarious

We don’t always have control over our jobs. In this economy, it can feel like one day your bosses need you, and the next, they are laying off your whole department.

Some of the hardest questions for me to answer as a tarot reader involve people wanting to know if their contracts are going to be renewed. The person asking me usually has no influence over that decision. Some cards in tarot don’t give a definitive answer either way. The Lovers, as mentioned earlier, is one of them, along with cards like the Two of Pentacles and Eight of Wands, where we see images of things being “up in the air.”

Sometimes people get frustrated when tarot readings can’t give them a straight yes or no. They want a clear answer, but it’s not at all a stretch to acknowledge the grey areas about these things.

At any given time, there are any number of decisions that just haven’t been made yet. And anyone who has ever worked in management or been involved in the operations of a business will know that many factors—from competing priorities, performance, favouritism, and budget—can impact hiring decisions.

What is a priority for an employee may not be a priority for the boss. So we always have to be open to the possibility that tarot might not have a specific answer when we ask something like “Will I be kept on?” “Will I get a second interview?” or “Will I be hired?” Instead, the cards might reveal that nothing is being discussed or has been decided yet. All you can do is wait.

And even if you do get a clear yes or no, remember that the slightest change in plan can alter that. It’s not a promise, only a reflection of the reality of the moment.

My partner had a tarot reading once with a well-respected, reliable reader who said he would get a job he’d been interviewing for. And she wasn’t wrong—not completely, anyway.

A week later, my partner got the news that he was their number-one choice for the job—but that he wouldn’t be hired on because they had just let go the entire department in an unexpected restructuring. The hiring manager had had no idea it was coming.

Was the reading wrong? Not exactly. Based on how things were operating at the time of the reading, my partner was a shoo-in. But something changed that no one could have anticipated, and so the opportunity changed with it.

When we ask the tarot about very immediate work situations like this, we may be seeing only what the present moment is giving us.

Because things change, and because many jobs are highly dependent on what other people want, work-related readings are not always as black and white as a yes or a no.

Remember, too, that work environments are often reliant on many different people. Some hiring processes may involve numerous individuals. The more people trying to decide whom to hire or the more bureaucratic a work environment is, the harder it can be to get a clear answer, because as a tarot reader, you won’t know the mechanics of the decision-making process.

Again, these are not hard and fast rules, and this isn’t meant to discourage you from reading on work at all. It’s just some guidance to keep in mind when you begin to play around with these questions, especially when you are looking at the odds of landing a job.

How to read effectively on work

Not every work-related question has to be about hiring. But because so many people work for someone else, it can feel like many opportunities are dependent on someone else’s decisions.

What helps is to read from an empowered place. Consider exploring questions like these:

“What is my next step in my career?”

“What can I do to increase my chances of getting hired?”

“What opportunity can I create for myself at this time?”

“What are some unseen factors that could influence my career path right now?”

“What do I have to focus on to be successful at this time?”

“What are my greatest assets?”

“How do I come across to others?”

“What does my boss really think of me?”

“What would help me feel fulfilled no matter what I am doing for work?”

Reading responsibly

There are also practicalities to consider when you do work-related readings.

It can be tempting to tell people to just quit their jobs: “This place isn’t any good for you. I would move on if I were you.”

But be mindful that people often can’t—or won’t—just quit a job. Some people find it very, very hard to leave work. They can have emotional, psychological, and financial ties to a job, so it’s not always an easy, quick decision.

Do tarot cards know, or care, that the rent is due next week? Do the cards know how much debt someone has? Do they care about the emotional attachment people have to their jobs?

I don’t think so—but a tarot reader can help keep those things in perspective. If your clients are asking where their jobs are going or what they should do with their careers moving forward, think about the answers you are giving them, and take time to understand what they want and need. Consider their own values.

Remember, too, that even if individuals do want to leave a job and the cards support that decision, they might not be able to act on that message immediately. Know that it’s okay to sit on it and to trust in one’s own timing. People know their own responsibilities better than anyone else, and they know what kind of change they can handle.

Here are some further questions you can explore in work-related readings to keep things responsible, practical, and realistic:

“What kinds of steps might you take to leave a job?”

“Are there any jobs you can apply for right now?”

“Can you put aside any savings over the next few months to prepare for a potential change?”

“How do you feel about the message itself—is it exciting, freeing, or nerve-racking?”

Success means different things to different people

Success comes up a lot in work readings. But success can look very different from one person to the next. Happiness, comfort, wealth, fame, recognition, promotions, and early retirement are just a handful of examples of what people want success to look like.

In other words, success is a very personal vision. This is where communication is key in tarot reading. You might think of success as one thing, but you could end up reading for people who have a completely different idea of what it means for them. And you need to look for their vision in the cards, not yours.

So be clear about how you define success in a reading. If you told me your idea of success is having weekends off and lots of time with your family, and I saw the Ten of Cups or Six of Cups in your reading, I would say you are on the right track to get the version of success you want.

But if you wanted money, power, and prestige, I would be looking for kings and queens or cards like the Empress and Emperor—people in their thrones of power—or strong Pentacles cards with lots of coins.

If success looks like freedom, where you can make your own schedule, for example, the Fool, Knight of Wands, or the Sun might be where you would find that.

Of course, these are just a few examples of where I spot different versions of success in the tarot, and I share them to illustrate the many ways success can manifest in our lives and how it may be reflected in the cards. I encourage you to look through your tarot deck to see how you could define success through the cards and which ones you feel speak strongest to these themes.

Remember, too, that success—however it is defined—can take time, and a lot of moving pieces can be involved in getting to where you want to be in a career. People who champion your career will come and go. Your priorities might change as you become clearer about what you want. Some doors might not open when you want them to. Your first business might fail, but it might be the stepping stone to a better venture.

Because there can be so many variables, questions might have to be more specific. Asking “Will I ever be successful?” might not give you as clear an answer as if you were to ask, “What do I need to do to succeed this year?” Besides, it leaves such an open-ended timeline. Try to stay focused on the here and now: “What kind of success can I experience in the next six months?”

The difference between work, success, and life purpose

Sometimes we confuse success in our careers with life’s purpose or path.

Your job is not necessarily the same thing as your purpose. And your purpose is not necessarily to be successful—at least, not success as defined by wealth, power, or career status.

Yes, work can shape and inform our identities, and yes, it can give us a sense of purpose. But your path is also so much bigger than what you do for money. So don’t limit your view of your reason for being on this earth to just work. Also, don’t feel that your purpose can or will only be fulfilled by a certain position in your career. You can have many different paths to walk within a lifetime, at all different ages and stages.

Your path and purpose reflect what your soul most wants to experience or express. Some people will fulfill their path through their jobs more than others. Consider that your purpose—the work of your life—can also be found within relationships, family, art, and so much more.

The universe does not necessarily care if you become CEO of a successful corporation. If you feel drawn to a leadership role, consider all the different ways that can unfold within your life. You can lead and inspire beyond a job title.

And sometimes a job is just a job. Our path is not always reflected in what we do when we punch the clock. So if you are looking for purpose from the cards in a work reading, remember that the answer may not be so obvious. We are conditioned to believe that potential comes in the form of a job, but that is a narrative that serves the economy, not one that necessarily serves the spirit.

Your path is not always what makes you money

We all have our own ideas about what kinds of work are nobler, what kinds of priorities people should set for themselves, and what kinds of things we would place our focus on if we were in others’ shoes.

But when I have done readings where people are asking about their paths in life, I have seen all kinds of messages. Some people are meant to be really good friends to those around them. Others are meant to create beautiful art, just for the sake of it. Some people want to start families and stay home to be there for their kids as they grow up.

When you are reading tarot and exploring questions about path and purpose, remember not to mix them up with your own concepts of work and money. People find fulfillment in many different ways, and there are many different choices we can all make in life.

But what happens if someone is attached to the idea of work as purpose, but a big break is not in the cards at the moment?

It can be very hard to let go of certain stories we believe we are destined to live. I worked at a bookstore for a couple of years when I was in college. One of my colleagues was determined to become a public school teacher. “I don’t want to do anything else,” she used to say. “I don’t believe I can do anything else. Being a teacher is what I’ve always dreamt of.”

So often, we convince ourselves that one job, one partner, or one path is all that is meant for us. That it is within our destiny to become something, or that our lives can only have one possible outcome and nothing more.

My colleague had already been through teachers’ college twice and had failed the final exam both times. When she was due to take it again, she was sure she would pass it this time around.

But she failed it for the third time. A couple of weeks later, she handed in her resignation. She had decided to move to the west coast. “I’m not sure what’s next, but I’ll figure it out,” she said, believing a fresh start would be best at that point.

There are so many books, motivational workshops, and self-help gurus out there that want us to believe we can do anything we want. That if we just work hard enough, our greatest dreams will come true.

Unfortunately, life doesn’t always go according to plan. I very much want to believe that anything is possible with persistence and commitment. And I think that this can be true a lot of the time. But we also have to allow for the possibility—even if it’s slight—that things might turn out differently than expected.

If there is something you feel destined to make happen, by all means, go for it. But also stay open to the possibility that more might be out there for you. That you are not limited to a single story to live out in this lifetime.

This is why I encourage people to be open in how they think and talk about work, especially in the context of tarot. Because tarot is a tool we can use to open up to other options—or to at least become present and ready to draw a new map when what we thought was our destiny turns out to be a dead end.

Consider, too, that our purpose is also tied to what we need to learn within a lifetime. When we don’t get the career we want, there might be a message for us to find within that reality. Maybe there is something you need to accept about yourself or a new interest you need to follow instead, one that maybe you wouldn’t appreciate—or even notice—without the experience of disappointment.

Trusting that there will always be another chapter, and another pathway to discover, is part of life.

“Can tarot tell me what to do with my life?”

So many tarot readers will affirm that tarot can’t tell you what to do…or can it?

Tarot might not necessarily assign you a vocation, although many of us wish it would sometimes. How easy would it be if you could just pull a card and know what to do with the rest of your life? We would never have to worry about choosing the wrong career path or wasting time and money pursuing a worthless degree.

There are all kinds of professions out there, and industries are changing all the time. New jobs are created; others fall into obscurity. But there are only seventy-eight tarot cards, which doesn’t make for a very wide scope of job prospects.

But the cards can hint at certain things you might need to focus on right now, such as skills you can develop or hidden talents you haven’t yet acknowledged. Tarot teaches us that part of the magic in being alive is figuring this stuff out for yourself. It’s in having those “aha” moments in which you finally get clear on something. Otherwise, tarot will steal your breakthroughs and epiphanies. (Remember, too, that periods of confusion or lulls are natural and may even be exactly what you need at the time. They might be holding you at bay for a greater reason.)

Get creative about what you might connect the energies of tarot to when it comes to work. How? We can look first at the suits and their elements for overarching themes. Think of these as prompts, not as rules:

What can the fire element, Wands, inspire if we are looking for insight into direction, vocation, calling, or focus? Creativity, innovation, invention, entrepreneurship, leadership, and coaching or motivational work can all be fire-like themes. And don’t rule out physical work like personal training, either. Remember that fire is all about vitality, and we often see some heavy lifting in the suit of Wands.

What can the air element, Swords, inspire if we are looking for insight into direction, vocation, calling, or focus? Air is mental agility. It loves to think, connect, talk, share ideas, and make things happen. Strategy, leadership, writing, public relations, media, communications, activism (the Swords speak their truth), project management, politics, administration, research, and teaching are all places where air can thrive. And think about the image of the Swords themselves: swords are sharp, so acupuncture, tattooing, and sewing can be ideas to explore, too.

What can the water element, Cups, inspire if we are looking for insight into direction, vocation, calling, or focus? Water is emotional and intuitive. Poetry, art or art therapy, social work, caregiving, grief counselling, bartending, event planning, hosting (think about places where people raise a glass to celebrate), customer service, or working at a spa.

What can the earth element, Pentacles, inspire if we are looking for insight into direction, vocation, calling, or focus? Earth is abundant, rich, and connected to our tangible, physical reality. Think carpentry, woodworking, construction, building, architecture, environmentalism, conservation, herbalism, massage therapy, nutrition, gardening, farming, landscaping, tree planting, crafting, jewellery work, banking, finance, and accounting.

What can the spiritual element, the Major Arcana, inspire if we are looking for insight into direction, vocation, calling, or focus? With the Majors, we can see greater themes of career transitions, shifts in ambitions, clarity or confusion about one’s true calling, power versus oppression, and convention versus rebellion. We see so much in the Majors that each card can carry its own theme. For example, the Fool might be a tour guide; the High Priestess, an intuitive healer; the Chariot, a driver; the Death card, a grief counsellor or death doula; and the Star, an astrologer.

Look through your deck, and see what kinds of work-related ideas you can come up with. Remember that there are no limitations here. Your creativity is part of the process.

Tarot on Life

I spend a lot of time focusing on the ordinary aspects of tarot, because I find that when we constantly search for those big, magical moments, we risk overlooking the messages that are right in front of us.

And it’s when we get distracted in the search for something better or when we criticize or judge the experience of a tarot reading as anything less than mind blowing that we create separation between ourselves and the universe.

I don’t see a difference between the big and the small, the magic and the ordinary. To me, everything can be seen as a spiritual act. If we can find meaning, gratitude, intention, or purpose in what we do each day, we don’t need to constantly seek spiritual fireworks. If we can maintain self-awareness and look at our lives as a series of chapters, then we can find the lessons, growth, and focus we need along the way.

Your life can be a story, but that story doesn’t stop and start with tarot cards. Or with any other spiritual or divinatory practice. Tarot can help us open up our awareness by asking questions and reflecting on the answers we get. But in a greater scheme, tarot can also remind us that life isn’t always about the big moments. Milestones, emergencies, and breakthroughs don’t happen every day. That’s why a lot of tarot cards speak of very small things: the joy in the Ace of Cups, the fresh ideas in the Page of Wands, the routine of the Eight of Pentacles.

Reading tarot requires moving through the world with the intention to trust that everything is connected. This doesn’t mean you always have to be looking for omens or over-analyzing every detail of your life under the assumption that a cosmic reason is behind it all. It is possible to take anything too far in one direction. Self-awareness taken to the extreme can become exhausting with all the overthinking that entails. Reading for signs can make you question your every move.

“What does it mean to trust in tarot?”

A tarot reading might not serve to tell you exactly what will happen to you tomorrow as much as it might get you thinking about something and that thought somehow inspires your next step.

We don’t go through life in isolation. Everything we come into contact with has the potential to shape who we are and what we become. But those influences can be small, even insignificant at first, because we don’t know their importance until much later.

I remember a friend of mine in high school recommending two novels to me. He slid a note across the table in art class one day and said, “I think you should read these. I think you’ll like them.”

That weekend, I went to a bookstore, brought those two books home, and devoured them. Then I read them again. And as the years have gone on, I’ve revisited those novels many times, and I love them just as much the older I get.

I read somewhere once that a book can change your life, and those novels did more than make an impression. They inspired me to pursue my dream to write, too.

Why am I telling you this? Because a very small moment—a simple book recommendation—led to a deep source of lifelong inspiration for me. That is an example of how our lives are connected moment to moment. It is the domino effect, one thing leading to another. Just because something starts out small—so small you might think nothing of it—doesn’t mean it’s not all building up to something more.

How does this relate to tarot? Because very often, I read for people who get messages that are very simple:

“Pay attention to the ideas you get throughout the month. Something is going to spark up in you that can become an important project.”

“Make time to have some good conversations over the next little while.”

“Sit down and do some journaling.”

“Say yes to things you normally say no to.”

To appreciate these messages and capitalize on them, it helps to be in practice about noticing the little things already. Think about times in your life that were small, but meaningful. One conversation can shift your whole perspective on life.

One book can change your identity.

One idea can put you on a new path.

One conversation can open your mind.

Think about all the moments that have shaped you throughout your life.

Sometimes a reading might tell you to journal, because that’s the pathway to the clarity you’re seeking. Maybe a reading is prompting you to look back through some old notebooks for something you recorded there years ago that will have some kind of significance for you today.

Consider, too, that there will be times when you are the one making these moments count for someone else. When you catch up with old friends and mention a great workshop you just attended, your friends might get inspired to check it out, too. And it might be just what they need—but they wouldn’t have found it without you.

It all adds up, but tarot doesn’t always tell us how it will add up or what those small moments will lead to. So we just have to trust that there might be a good reason the cards are asking us to pay attention to the little things. The tricky part, for me at least, is that I don’t always know what these things will lead to for the person I’m reading for or why they are presenting themselves in a reading. They just have to be accepted.

If you are working through similar messages, my advice is this: don’t force anything to happen immediately; just go with it. Sometimes the reason behind the message isn’t obvious until months or even years later.

Life can be long, and it ties together in many ways.

But this doesn’t mean that tarot doesn’t hold that something-special. It doesn’t mean that every reading is going to be just ordinary.

And it doesn’t mean we can’t find those magic moments outside of tarot, too.

Have you ever had a hunch? Have you ever felt so connected to someone or something in ways that felt uncanny? A lot of people experience thinking of someone and then running into that person shortly after. Or maybe you’ve called up a friend only to hear them say, “I was just about to give you a call.”

I don’t believe these things are accidents. I believe they are further examples of how we are connected to something greater than just ourselves.

When you are working with tarot and you do run into doubts about whether you are intuitive “enough” to read the cards, or if you aren’t sure there is anything to it, try to think about times in your life when you experienced synchronicities or other occurrences that made you feel like you were tapped into something.

When I was a kid, my grandmother had the most amazing cat named Bootsy. I always wanted a cat when I was growing up, but I wasn’t allowed to have one. So, whenever I went to my grandmother’s house, I would spend hours playing with her cats. Especially Bootsy.

I stayed with my grandmother a lot over the years and developed a special bond with Bootsy. One day when I was eleven, I was on my way to school when a terrible feeling came over me. I remember looking out the window of the school bus, trying not to cry. I somehow knew that Bootsy had died.

I thought about it all day. When my parents came home that night, I rushed to tell them that something had happened to Bootsy. After dinner, the phone rang. My grandmother was calling to tell us what I already knew: Bootsy was gone.

How had I known? I can’t tell you. I just felt it. The experience might have spoken to the connection I had with that cat.

As far as I can remember, that was my first truly intuitive experience. And just as my first tarot reading gave me a lot of hope several years later, that connection I’d had with Bootsy was an important anchor for me throughout my life. It taught me that information travels to us in many ways, including intuitively.

When I read tarot, I have no idea how the experience is going to go. As I said, sometimes the messages might be very ordinary and straightforward. Sometimes the cards show up with their textbook meanings, and those meanings end up being just what the person in front of me needs to hear.

But other times, the meanings of the cards go completely out the window. I have heard many tarot readers say they experience this, too. Instead of a straight-up tarot reading, spirits are channelled, guides come forward, and all kinds of messages that don’t seem at all connected to the cards come out.

This is part of tarot’s magic, part of tarot’s spiritual experience. Those things have happened to me in my readings, too, so I know they are possible. But I also know not to force them. They will happen if they’re necessary.

I remember one time I was reading tarot at a New Year’s Eve party. I was actually doing double duty: I’d been at one party earlier that evening and was doing my last reading at a second party later. It was nearing one in the morning, and I was ready to get going. The crowd was celebratory (read loud), and I was tired.

It might sound like the wrong atmosphere in which to be reading tarot, but if you do end up sticking with tarot long enough, what you’ll find is that the cards don’t care if the room is right. Once you learn how to read, tarot will speak to you under all kinds of circumstances.

My last reading that night was for a young woman who told me she was open to whatever came up in the cards. I turned three over and saw the Moon, Three of Cups, and Queen of Cups.

I inherently connect nothing particular to those three cards that would have prompted me to say what I said to her. But still, looking at those cards triggered something in me for which I couldn’t discern the source. Even though I had never met her before and knew nothing about her except her first name, I was very certain that her grandmother had passed on and was acting as her guide. I felt it so strongly that I started reading from there. I felt that certain messages had been chosen by her grandmother for the reading.

This woman told me that she felt her grandmother’s presence constantly. That she dreamt about her regularly and kept her photo on a dresser.

“So how do I handle readings like that?” you might ask.

Here’s the thing: you might never know what you will get with each tarot reading. Which is part of the fun…and part of the reason it can get so deep and so meaningful.

But there are some things you can work on that will help give you the foundation from which readings like that can take place.

First, think of your own connection to the universe, spirituality, and intuition. To me, these are all one and the same, but these beliefs are also personal to each of us. Whatever language you put around your spirituality is fine. If you aren’t sure if you are a spiritual person, or you’re not comfortable with that idea, don’t feel you even have to think of it that way.

Just stay open to the connections you experience in life. Stay open to the idea that even the most ordinary things can be omens, like a conversation, a news story, or a dream. All kinds of sources of inspiration exist that can help you create and shape your identity and your future, both within and outside of tarot.

The Most Important Skill in Tarot Reading

I can tell you that the most important—and most overlooked—skill in tarot reading is not intuition.

It is not psychic ability. Or the techniques you use. Or how many hours a week you meditate. Or your creative interpretations.

No. The most important aspect of any reading is discernment.

And discernment is something that will serve you not only on the path of tarot but on any journey, spiritual or otherwise, that you take in life. It will be the basis of your integrity, ethics, and approach, not only as a tarot reader but within your relationships overall—including your relationship with yourself.

“What is discernment?”

It is good judgment. Practising discernment will allow you to operate with truth, trust, and clarity.

Discernment is one of the reasons I think it’s so important for us to question the mythologies of tarot. Knowing the origins of a practice, understanding how it came to be, is just as important as knowing what to do with it. Because if you only concern yourself with reading tarot rather than knowing tarot, you are only looking at part of the picture.

Which is also why I stress the importance of validating your own experiences and truths and of thinking for yourself. That goes for whether you are the one doing a tarot reading or the one receiving it. Far too often I hear of tarot readers, astrologers, psychics, and others who impose their ideas and impressions on their clients—no matter how wrong those interpretations are. They speak as though they are imparting wisdom to another person, letting their own egos take over.

And that gets into dangerous territory, because the truth is that no matter how enlightened or gifted these individuals claim to be, they don’t know more about anyone else’s life than their own. And as we’ve discussed before, there must be a margin for human error. Even the best readers will get it wrong sometimes.

The most important thing to remember is that we are all the experts in our own realities. Tarot can help us get perspective and gain clarity, but it should never be used as a way for people to impose their own beliefs, judgments, or claims on anyone else.

Knowledge is power. Tarot is a vehicle for a conversation. How knowledgeable, insightful, and down-to-earth that conversation is will depend on who is giving the reading. That dialogue may only ever be between you and yourself—some people choose never to read tarot for anyone else. But no matter what, discernment should always be part of any path you are walking.

“How can I begin to practise discernment?”

By acknowledging that you don’t know everything and that you never will. I’ve said before that tarot doesn’t have all the answers, and this feels like a good place to repeat that. In a world of seven billion people, anyone who claims to be able to answer every single question should be challenged on it.

When we as readers don’t know how to question things for ourselves, how can we help others with their own decisions? Tarot is about looking at things from other angles. It is about asking why something is the way it is in our lives. It is about exploring how we came to be who we are or how we got into a certain situation.

It is also about accepting life’s uncertainties, not looking for false promises.

And if tarot readers do not know how to do this work for themselves, how effective can they be for others?

Practising discernment also means being clear in your own beliefs. This is why I spend so much time talking about limitations in tarot as much as its possibilities. In being honest about that, I am practising my sense of judgment.

I know for a fact that I can’t answer everything. My own knowledge and capabilities are limited.

Be honest with yourself and others

Views on tarot have opened up a lot over the years, and more and more, people see it as a tool for spiritual guidance or personal insight. But tarot’s reputation as something that gifts one with all-seeing, all-knowing abilities continues.

I was reading tarot at a local shop when a woman sat down for her appointment.

“How’s your day going?” I asked her.

“Great!” she said. “My mom is babysitting, so I have a day off from my five-year-old—but you probably already knew that,” she said, grinning at me expectantly.

“No, actually,” I said.

It was an awkward start. Even though I explained that I am just a regular person and that I don’t know anything about my clients before they sit down, she didn’t believe me. “Oh, I get it,” she said. “You’re building mystery.”

I explained how I read tarot—that I go by the cards and nothing more—and asked if she had a question she wanted to explore.

“What will my child’s health be like for the next ten years?” she asked, adding that she had reasons to worry.

The question put me in a difficult position. If I read for her on this question and said that everything looked fine, and then something did end up happening to her child, I would have given her false hope. Or perhaps even given her reason to ignore a warning sign if her child displayed any symptoms of illness in the future.

When I started to explain that I couldn’t answer that for her, she thought I was being cryptic: “You’re seeing something that you don’t want to tell me, aren’t you?” We hadn’t even pulled any cards yet—she thought I was just “picking something up” again.

“If you’re concerned about something, you really should speak to your child’s doctor about it,” I said. “They would know more than me.”

Sometimes we need to be realistic about the best course of action people should take. Especially if they are looking at tarot as the final word.

Being spiritual doesn’t mean you have to believe everything you hear

This isn’t to say that I don’t believe in miracles and magic. I do. And I do believe that some people are gifted in psychic ability.

But I also think more people claim to have these abilities than actually do.

You don’t have buy in to everything you hear. Just because you’re into tarot doesn’t mean you have to believe in everything else there is. You have the ability to decide for yourself what beliefs you subscribe to and what you don’t. It is your choice to determine what open-mindedness looks like for you and where you put up your own spiritual boundaries.

Doing this can be a lifelong practice. So many of us are taught to follow the leader. To take someone’s word—whatever is said—at face value, especially if the person is positioned as an expert or guru. And so many of us want to believe, too.

But a willingness to believe doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice rational thought. Sometimes on spiritual paths, we can be resistant to questioning what we hear, as though it all has to be taken as truth.

It is okay to ask yourself, “Does this make sense? Does that sound right to me? Does that sound right for me?”

It’s not always easy to put boundaries up around spirituality, self-help, and magical practices. One rule I follow is that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Another rule I follow is that just because it works for someone else doesn’t mean it will work for me. I remember once talking to a woman at a workshop for spiritual entrepreneurs. She told me she’d been building her business for three years but was struggling to keep it going because her guides kept telling her not to charge any money for her services. She was almost $100,000 in debt as a result.

Why was she keeping herself in such a precarious state? And if her guides were giving her this advice, why would they threaten her security like that?

And how did she know for sure that this information was even guided at all? This is not to question her own spiritual practices, but it made me wonder if perhaps fear or poor judgment was at play more than divine guidance. Messages can be taken as guidance, but readings shouldn’t put you into precarious positions.

Faith versus gullibility

In spiritual capacities, people often come with such open-mindedness that they have no discernment at all. They might read an article, watch a video, or attend a seminar and buy in to it 100 per cent.

Don’t get me wrong: I don’t think we all need to be running around with cynical, skeptical mindsets. But I do think it’s important to acknowledge that many spiritual practices, tarot included, are unregulated, and so any practitioners can claim their word as truth.

Gullibility is a side effect when we lack discernment.

The same applies when we are seeking readings as clients. Where I live, a lot of media coverage and police investigation have taken place over the years about fraud in the “psychic industry,” which of course is a catch-all phrase for tarot readers, astrologers, reiki healers, palmists, and others. The problem? Some people are posing as healers and readers, but when you sit down with them, they say, “Oh no. There is a curse on you. Now, I can remove it, but it will be a lot of work. It will cost you, but it’s the only way I can help. Otherwise, look at these cards: disaster everywhere. Look at what will happen to you if you don’t let me heal you.”

And so, for the price of several hundred dollars, these people will offer to save you. Some of them make tens of thousands of dollars doing this.

It is a total scam, but people fall for it. They come for readings with trust, openness, and need.

I’ve had people contact me asking for advice after so-called psychic readers got aggressive with them as a pressure tactic to spend more money on services that sound dubious at best: removing curses, clearing chakras, and cleaning auras (none of which are things I subscribe to, for the record).

I often think about a man I read for at an event a while back.

“Can you tell me if there is a curse on me?” he asked.

“Well, before we start to look at any cards, I can tell you that I don’t believe in curses at all,” I said.

“I have been seeing another reader for years,” he said, “and she insists I have a curse. She has been trying to remove it for years, and it’s not working. And it worries me.”

Of course. It would be worrying to hear this from a spiritual person in whom you had decided to put your trust.

“Can you tell me,” he continued, “if there is a church where you all go to burn candles for people? Because my reader says that’s where she goes. That there is a place where all the tarot readers of the city go to burn candles to remove these curses. Is this place real? Because I’m starting to doubt her.”

As far I know, there is no such church, at least not where I live, and I told him so. But I wondered, How many people out there are seeing this woman and hearing the same thing?

“I’ll read the cards for you on your curse, but I have a feeling that you’re fine,” I said.

Before the end of our conversation, he decided to stop seeing this other reader.

I haven’t had any experiences like that myself, but I have had plenty of off-the-wall readings. One tarot reader told me that within six months, I would leave my partner and run away to Las Vegas to be with a much older man.

“You are going to give up your entire life for this new love. Are you aware of this yet?” she asked.

“That really doesn’t sound like something I would do,” I said.

“Give it time. It’s coming.”

Well, years later, I’m still here—with the same partner, in the same city. So much for that reading.

I’ve also had many readings that felt more like advice than insight. And that advice was almost always based on the readers’ own preferences or value systems: “You should have kids.” “You should always let the guy make the first move.” “You should focus on finding a husband.”

Should I, now? I would wonder as I listened to them talk about things I really wasn’t interested in at the time or that I just didn’t agree with.

Tarot is like anything else: it can be dangerous when it’s not used wisely.

This is another part of the path of discernment: recognizing that at the end of the day, we need to decide what we do with the information we receive. And we need to determine how sound it is in the first place.

When we as tarot readers and practitioners are moving through the world, we have to remember to keep our own beliefs in check. The stronger our discernment, the less likely we’ll be thrown by scamming psychics and kooky conspiracy theories ourselves.

“How do I know this is true?” is a question I ask myself all the time.

If you start to ask yourself this question, it might feel disconcerting at first to realize that there are very few things we can be absolutely sure of in this world.

You never really know what someone else is thinking or feeling unless they tell you for a fact that they are. Otherwise, it’s just speculation.

Stay humble in the unknown. You will not be any less of a tarot reader because of it. Instead, if you allow yourself to sit with that question each and every day, you will live much closer to the truth.

Think about what you are sharing. Think about where you are coming from with it and why you believe in it. Don’t just regurgitate someone else’s beliefs because they were handed to you that way. Make them your own. Live them, or leave them. Know what you think and why you think that way.

And empower others to come to their own conclusions, too. Encourage those around you to develop their own belief systems rather than expecting them to conform to yours.

Choose your teachers wisely

Discernment becomes your ally when you are learning about tarot, too. Because tarot has been reinvented and recorrected time and again, anyone can say anything about it. And while that’s part of the beauty of tarot, it’s also important to remember that what works for one tarot reader might not work for every tarot reader. And one person’s teachings might not resonate with all.

Anyone can create new ways of reading the cards or new methodologies. But it doesn’t mean you have to use all of them or take them as rules. By all means learn, explore, and give things a chance. For example, a lot of people use tarot and numerology together. But maybe you don’t believe that numbers hold divine powers—and that’s okay. You are allowed to decide what you believe in and what you don’t.

As you are learning tarot, discernment will also help you guard against pressures to do too much too soon, which can also sometimes come from teachers.

A lot of people come to tarot with dreams of reading professionally, but the pressure to go from neophyte to pro can be intense and can lead you to operate outside your integrity.

I have seen tarot teachers pushing their students to go pro way before they were ready simply because it would lead to better class registration. If they could say that a certain percentage of their students had gone on to become professional readers, it upped the marketing appeal of future courses—even if it meant sanctioning new readers as pros way before they knew how to handle clients.

At the same time, it’s up to new readers to practise discernment about their own skills and abilities. If you know you’re not ready, then don’t let a teacher push you into professional territory too soon. I have seen some potentially great readers get burned by putting themselves out there prematurely.

Reading tarot is a big responsibility. If you eventually want to become a professional reader or at least read seriously for friends and family, you have to be prepared for the fact that people will come to you with very serious questions and very real needs. They will be looking to your reading for hope and guidance, reassurance and healing.

And they will listen to every word you say. You might not expect them to, but they will. If you are suddenly putting yourself in a position to help people make such life-changing decisions as whether they should quit their job, move to another country, or end a marriage, you need a strong sense of discernment to begin with.

That means being able to ask yourself, “Am I ready for this?”

It also means being able to admit when you need more practice, more lessons, or more mentoring. If a teacher is pushing you to go pro before you are ready or isn’t offering you relevant feedback or support to help your learning, listen to your intuition.

This is also why I stress the importance of learning tarot from a variety of sources. If you can, take classes with more than one teacher. Everyone will have a slightly different perspective, and it’s healthy to open yourself to other ways of seeing things. Plus, it is unlikely that one teacher is going to teach every single thing there is on tarot. Teachers will also focus on what they feel is most important for you to know. What one teacher prioritizes may differ from another, so branch out when possible.

Practising discernment means understanding that reading one book on tarot or taking one class is probably not going to be the be-all and end-all of a lifelong practice like tarot. It’s just the beginning.

You are bigger than any reading

No matter what method of divination you are using, no matter what omens or patterns you notice, no matter what messages you might hear throughout your life, remember that a reading is only ever a snapshot of who and what you are. Sometimes it might just be showing a fraction of what is possible.

You can choose to rise above any challenge you need to. You can choose to take the information from a reading however it’s most helpful—or decide to leave it off to the side altogether.

You can also choose to see it simply as an alternative—just one way of looking at things. A message doesn’t have to become law, and it doesn’t have to be the final word. Only you can have the final word over your path.

Let tarot be an insightful addition to your life, not a driving force for every decision you make. Don’t put your own intuition aside for the sake of a few cards. Instead, use a reading to enhance and affirm the direction you have already chosen.

The same goes for anyone you might be reading for. Encourage others to practise discernment on their own paths so that they can determine their own courses of action in their own time.

Establishing Boundaries

Boundaries and discernment go hand in hand.

What do boundaries look like in the capacity of tarot reading? They can be different for everyone. My boundaries as a tarot reader are as follows: I expect my clients to be honest with me about the questions they wish to explore. I expect that when people show up for a reading, they are not bringing unexpected guests with them to the session, like friends or family who want to listen in on the session “out of curiosity.” I also expect that clients will respect my time by being punctual.

For me, boundaries get crossed when clients try to extend a reading longer than the scheduled time. Or when people show up at my office unexpectedly, hoping to catch me before I head home in case I can do a quick, last-minute session for them.

Determining your boundaries is really important, whether you are reading professionally or not. And remember what I said earlier: even if you are just starting out with tarot and don’t expect to read professionally, you never know. Don’t be afraid to get into the habit of knowing your boundaries sooner rather than later.

What are other examples of boundaries in tarot? If you are learning with a teacher, you might have certain boundaries within those lessons or classes. Do the lessons begin on time? Does your teacher cancel often? Do your questions get answered?

If you are getting a reading from someone else, you might not want to talk about certain things, and that’s okay. You don’t have to feel like someone is trying to violate your privacy. You also don’t have to feel like a reader is trying to tell you what you should be asking about or what you should be doing with your life. No one should leave a tarot reading feeling judged or unsafe in any way.

And if you are reading for friends or family, you might want to establish boundaries around that. Do you want to bring your tarot cards wherever you go and answer questions for your friends whenever you get together? If you do, go for it. But don’t feel obligated to read for everyone at the drop of a hat. It is okay to say no.

“What about taking on other people’s energy? How do you protect yourself from that?”

This comes down to a belief system. I don’t believe that I, personally, am absorbing anyone else’s energy, because that’s not the intention I have for myself as I move through the world. I can be sensitive and observant, but I am not a sponge or a magnet.

I also don’t go into my tarot readings expecting to take on anything energetically for people. I am not going into a session thinking that I am shouldering the weight of someone’s experiences. Clients’ lives are for them to live and feel. I am just there to guide them through a moment in time.

Yes, reading tarot can be tiring, but that’s because it’s a very creative process. Interpreting cards and dealing with different personality dynamics and expectations is part of that process, too. But I am not taking on anyone’s emotions. I am not carrying a burden for them or healing their energy.

I am just reading the cards and giving whatever may be needed right then: a sympathetic ear, a sounding board, a brainstorming session, an inspiring discussion, or something that’s just for fun.

The idea of taking on energy is also related to boundaries. Decide where you stand on it and whether you are “allowing” yourself to soak up whatever people are projecting. In my experience, if you assume yourself to be a sponge, that is what you will become.

The Truth About Reading Tarot

The truth is that no one can turn you into a tarot reader. No book, mentor, or class can make you good at this. That is your work to do. It is your responsibility to take what you learn and work with it yourself.

The process of learning tarot can be similar to learning how to write. Teachers can give you all the tools you need. They can talk about the technicality of the craft, offer examples of strong writing, and show you different styles from which to work.

But they can’t necessarily teach you how to know what to write about. No one can be with you day after day to say, “See that right there? That would make a great story.” Creativity, imagination, and observation are where true poetry begins—the technique is just what helps shape it.

We need those same elements in tarot reading. I can only give you some perspective on ways you can think about tarot and some tips to help you understand it.

Learning to let yourself observe the cards, weave those details into a greater narrative, and stretch your thinking is something that all tarot readers must practise for themselves.

You can memorize card meanings all day long. But when it comes time to string them all together into a coherent, meaningful statement, you must begin to rely on your instinct and your own vocabulary.

But I can’t be there every step of the way with you. At some point, you have to do it all yourself. You will have to determine the focus of a reading, know which spreads to use, and understand which interpretations are most relevant.

Tarot gives us answers because we decide it should. You can ask any question and lay down any number of cards, and there will always be something to talk about there. But tarot has no specific thought process, no political leanings, no preference over what is defined as wrong or right. It has no emotional attachment to any outcome and doesn’t care about what you decide to do at the end of the day.

Tarot doesn’t hold any more knowledge than we put into it. The more we choose to learn about ourselves, other people, and the world around us, the more possibilities can surface within our readings. We work with a wider net when we choose to stay informed and honest about who we are and what matters most to us. Keep reading—not just about tarot but on any subjects that interest you.

And don’t forget to go out and live your life. Learn from your mistakes. Pay attention to the themes that unfold for you over the years. Take notice of the energy of each day, and appreciate the differences you find. Spend time with other people. Be open to conversations about all kinds of things. Ask questions. Listen as much as you can.

When we read tarot, we have to be open to information and transformation. The more you fill yourself up with wisdom and perspective, the more you’ll get out of your deck of cards, because you will always find new ways of looking at them.

You will also find new ways of looking at life, which is what tarot so often asks us to do. It doesn’t serve much purpose to come to a reading with the fixed idea that you’ll get everything you want, when you want it. If you’re stubbornly hanging on to a single vision of how your life is supposed to be, then just stick with that, and leave tarot to someone else. Divination is best left to those who are open to many experiences, detours, and surprises.

Tarot reading requires a willingness to let go of your assumptions about what life means and what you thought it could be. I have shed many of my own beliefs in the years I’ve been reading cards. If I have found any knowledge in tarot throughout that process, it was in what the cards have asked me to consider time and time again: “What does the spirit want?”

It’s when you are willing to look inside yourself that you will find the power of tarot.

Acknowledgements

Thank you to everyone who has ever attended one of my talks or classes. Writing is a solitary practice, but this book was born out of community. Your questions, discussions and feedback helped to inspire so much of The Power of Tarot.

Thank you to Sylvia McCluskey for her meticulous editing of this project. I knew my book was in good hands with you.

Thank you to Suzanne Alyssa Andrew, Sean Balandowich, Jaymi Elford, and Brooke Manning for being early readers of this book. Your feedback and enthusiasm for the project really helped me to keep going.

Thank you as always to Kire Paputts, just for being there.

References and Resources

Biba, Erin. “What Is Time? One Physicist Hunts for the Ultimate Theory.” Wired Magazine. February 26, 2010, https://www.wired.com/2010/02/what-is-time/

The Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Education and Research Centre, http://www.kabbalah.info/engkab/what_is_kabbalah/what_is_kabbalah.htm#.WzpBhdVKjIU, sourced July 2, 2018.

Coontz, Stephanie. Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage. Penguin Books, 2006.

Decker, Ronald, Thierry Depaulis, and Michael Dummett. A Wicked Pack of Cards: Origins of the Occult Tarot. London: Duckworth, 1996.

Dummett, Michael. The Game of Tarot: From Ferrara to Salt Lake City. Duckworth, 1980.

Elias, Camelia. “Cards and Magic.” (online course), Copenhagen, September – December 2016

Farley, Helen. A Cultural History of Tarot: From Entertainment to Esotericism. London: I. B. Tauris & Co. Ltd., 2009.

Giles, Cynthia. The Tarot: History, Mystery and Lore, New York: Touchstone, 1994.

Mara-McKay, Nico. “Tarot Origins.” (Workshop) Toronto, May – June, 2015

Olsen, Christina. “Carte da Trionfi: The Development of Tarot in Fifteenth-Century Italy.” (PhD dissertation). University of Philadelphia, 1994.

Pollack, Rachel. Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom. Weiser Books, 2007.

Segal, Robert; Lord Raglan; and Otto Rank, “Introduction: In Quest of the Hero,” In Quest of the Hero. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990.

Wen, Benebell. Holistic Tarot: An Integrated Approach to Using Tarot for Personal Growth. North Atlantic Books, 2015.

Zdrowski, Chet. “Get Real! Saturn’s Passage Through Capricorn.” The Mountain Astrologer, No. 199 (June/July 2018).

Other Books by Liz Worth

Tarot:

Going Beyond the Little White Book: A Contemporary Guide to Tarot

Poetry:

Amphetamine Heart

No Work Finished Here: Rewriting Andy Warhol

The Truth is Told Better This Way

Fiction:

PostApoc

Music:

Treat Me Like Dirt: An Oral History of Punk in Toronto and Beyond

Endnotes

1   Chet Zdrowski, “Get Real! Saturn’s Passage Through Capricorn,” The Mountain Astrologer, No. 199 (June/July 2018): 27.

2   Michael Dummett, The Game of Tarot: From Ferrara to Salt Lake City (Duckworth, 1980).

3   Christina Olsen, “Carte da Trionfi: The Development of Tarot in Fifteenth-Century Italy,” PhD dissertation, (University of Philadelphia, 1994).

4   Nico Mara-McKay, “Tarot Origins Workshop” (Toronto, 2015).

5   Helen Farley, A Cultural History of Tarot: From Entertainment to Esotericism (2009).

6   Cynthia Giles, The Tarot: History, Mystery and Lore (Touchstone, 1994).

7   Benebell Wen, Holistic Tarot: An Integrated Approach to Using Tarot for Personal Growth (North Atlantic Books, 2015).

8   Benebell Wen, Holistic Tarot: An Integrated Approach to Using Tarot for Personal Growth (North Atlantic Books, 2015).

9   Camelia Elias, “Cards and Magic” (2016).

10   The Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Education and Research Centre, http://www.kabbalah.info/engkab/what_is_kabbalah/what_is_kabbalah.htm#.WzpBhdVKjIU (sourced July 2, 2018).

11   Helen Farley, A Cultural History of Tarot: From Entertainment to Esotericism (2009).

12   Rachel Pollack, Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom (Weiser Books, 2007).

13   Cards and Magic 2.0, taught by Camelia Elias (2016).

14   Robert Segal, Lord Raglan, and Otto Rank, “Introduction: In Quest of the Hero,” In Quest of the Hero, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990).

15   Helen Farley, A Cultural History of Tarot: From Entertainment to Esotericism, 6.

16   Erin Biba, “What Is Time? One Physicist Hunts for the Ultimate Theory,” Wired Magazine (February 26, 2010), https://www.wired.com/2010/02/what-is-time/

17   Stephanie Coontz, Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage (Penguin Books, 2006).

18   Stephanie Coontz, Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage (Penguin Books, 2006).

19   Stephanie Coontz, Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage (Penguin Books, 2006).

Table of Contents

The Power of Tarot: To Know Tarot, Read Tarot, and Live Tarot

Copyright

Author’s Note

Who Is This Book For, and Why Was It Written?

Part One: To Know Tarot

We All Get Here in Our Own Way

Examining the Basis of Your Beliefs, Part 1: Fate, Free Will, and Collective Karma

Examining the Basis of Your Beliefs, Part 2: Intuition, Psychic Ability, and Omniscience

What Is Tarot, Anyway?

What Is Tarot For?

Part Two: To Read Tarot

How to Begin

Reading the Major Arcana

Reading the Minor Arcana

Working with the Elements of the Minor Arcana

Getting to Know the Numbers in the Minor Arcana

Court Cards and the Kingdoms They Rule

Formulating Questions

Shuffling and Selecting Tarot Cards

Reading the Cards

Embracing the Art of Interpretation

Part Three: To Live Tarot

Reading Tarot for Yourself

Time and Tarot

Tarot, Hope, and Predicting Disasters

Tarot in Love

Tarot at Work

Tarot on Life

The Most Important Skill in Tarot Reading

Establishing Boundaries

The Truth About Reading Tarot

Acknowledgements

References and Resources

Other Books by Liz Worth

Endnotes