A little over two years ago, I began to study the tarot more seriously. I’d gotten my first deck a few years before in a spark of divine synchronicity. I’d been thinking about purchasing a tarot deck and learning more about it. I hadn’t told anyone about it though. It was more of a fleeting thought. Then, for my birthday a week or so later, I received my first deck from my parents. They said they read about it and it made them think of me—it was a feeling that wouldn’t go away. Clearly, the universe was telling me that studying the tarot was a good idea and was making sure I started on the right foot.
That first deck of mine was the female-POC centric Motherpeace tarot and it remains my favorite deck because it decenters patriarchy and whiteness with rounded cards that explore the Divine Feminine. It’s the one I keep for my personal, private use. A few years later, my older sister got me the Steampunk tarot. It’s the one I use when I need to feel limitless in my imagination and innovation, like any Steampunk heroine worth her salt. And this past winter, my younger sister gifted me a Spanish tarot deck, a lovely acknowledgment of my esoteric studies and our mestisaje roots—oh, and my perpetual desire to get better at my Spanish which sometimes falls by the wayside. I love all these tarot decks, each one speaking to me when and as I need their specific magic.
The deck I use for my writing and public bruja life, however, is the classic Rider-Waite tarot. I bought the Radiant edition from my local herb store because the bright colors appealed to my senses and my love of bold, loud things. I chose this deck specifically for my #TarotTuesdays project in which I would write a 78-word story based on #synchronicity and one of the cards in the 78-card tarot deck and post it on social media each week-ish. I chose this deck for the project because it is one of the oldest and most iconic of decks, and, historically, the foundation for many other decks.
Each week, I would think about whatever it was I was going through. I’d let my feelings wash over me, allow situations to flit in and out of my mind as they would while I shuffled the deck. When it felt right, I’d pull a card. I’d spend the next few days researching and learning about the card and pairing that knowledge with the personal experiences I was going through along with a heavy dollop of free-association. It was a beautiful journey that allowed me to explore the tarot and my relationship to the mystic world. I’m far from being an expert but, after writing stories inspired by those cards for the past two or so years, I think I have a solid foundation for deepening my knowledge of the tarot.
Here are the major things I learned from my Tarot Tuesdays project:
The more you deepen your bond to the cards, the more clarity you have in your readings. The tarot is its own energetic entity, which means you have to get to know it before you can ask it questions. Think of this as relationship building. Spend time with the cards—just shuffling, pursuing them, holding them in your hands. Even letting them sit in a stack on your writing desk is a good way to establish a bond. I know—this might sound a little too woo-woo for some, but you’re reading a witchy blog about tarot, so…talking about relationship building with your tarot deck shouldn’t be entirely unexpected. The big thing is that if you take the time to get to know your deck, the more you’ll get a sense of how you personally read the cards and what wisdom they have to offer you. If you don’t take your time with them, they won’t speak to you or the message will be muddled. Which leads me to my next lesson learned:
Each deck has its own energy. Think about how I just described my tarot collection earlier in this post. Each deck has its own kind of magic and its own wisdom to offer. It’s important to know that going in so that you can choose the right deck for the kind of reading you’re looking for. If you aren’t sure what that is, choose the deck that calls to you on an instinctive level—that’s the medicine you need. You also need to have a healthy respect for these divination energies. Don’t be flip when handling your deck or treat tarot reading as a party trick. That’s a good way to piss off the cards and make them stop speaking to you. As with all things mystic or supernatural, it’s a good idea to go in with a healthy respect for the unknown and the unseen. Dabbling or toying with those energies is never a good idea.
All cards are designed to help you and offer hope—even the ”bad” cards. The fives are notoriously bad cards, signaling chaos, reversals, and upending the status quo. Similarly, any card in reverse traditionally has more negative connotations—except for the fives reversed, because they are contrary in nature. Here’s the thing, though, reversals, disruptions, and chaos are all part of life and, when embraced and explored, offer hope and healing. Sometimes you need to upend the status quo! Or maybe you’re feeling stuck and these cards point out what it is that is keeping you from moving forward. They aren’t punishments or judgments (and if you feel that way when you get one of these cards, it’s likely you’re still working through toxic puritanical or religious norms…or maybe that’s just me). They’re more like insights and revelations. It’s important to remember that when you go about your tarot reading so that you don’t get stuck in the old superstitious readings of yore which can be a little more doom and gloom with these not-really-so-bad cards. Which reminds me…
Sometimes the scariest looking cards have the most hopeful wisdom to offer. We’ve all see the scary movie that shows the damsel in distress pulling the Death card or the Devil card right before things get full-on gothic. Or you have cards like the Ten of Swords, in which a figure is literally impaled by ten swords through the back and lies dead on the ground. It’s hard to think positively about such a brutal image, but, in fact, it’s asking you to face the thing you are most afraid of—the figure turned its back on their problems and tried to run, rather than face what the need to face. These scarier cards are like a good gothic tale. They want you to face the thing in the shadows, confront it so that you can move forward. They just use scary imagery to shake you out of complacency so you can hear their message. I’ve actually come to see them as incredible hopeful cards!
Everyone has a unique way of reading the cards. While there are some constants in most tarot readings, like the symbolism behind the major and minor acrana, it’s up to the diviner to interpret the nuances of it. You will develop your own personal way of reading the cards as you get to know the tarot more and nourish your bond with it. Around the first-year mark of my #TarotTuesdays project, I realized I was developing my own voice and my own take on the cards. I would get information from sources like Biddy Tarot, Wildly Tarot, and Modern Tarot and then let their wisdom sit with me. Naturally, my own take involved a dash of hope, a sprinkle of joy, a heaping serving of brujeria, and more than a little everyday magic.
Like I said earlier, I’m still not a tarot expert by any measure, but I think I’ve got a solid foundation to continue my tarot journey. I’d like to learn more about the individual symbolism of each card, the differences between the major and minor arcana, and maybe get to a point where I don’t have to consult my sources when I do a reading. But that, too, is part of the joy of depending your relationship to the tarot…the more time you spend with it, the more you learn, and the more wisdom it reveals to you. It just wants to know you are willing to put in the time.
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