I like to look at them as growth cards – illustrating the area in our lives where growth is available to us. We can choose to actively engage with our card – create a relationship with it – get to know it and how it impacts you.
It’s also become much more clear to me that the average person on the street still looks at the tarot primarily as a tool of divination. The tarot is so much more than that….
Analysis is what most of us think of as the meat of the reading when we are interpreting what the cards mean. Card A in position 3 means _______. A lot of readers get stuck at the analysis phase because (in my opinion) most materials teaching beginners to read the tarot is too focused on key words.
Don’t get me wrong. Analysis is critical to a reading. Synthesis, though, is where the magic happens.
New readers tend to stick to spreads found in books or online. Even when a spread doesn’t exactly fit the situation, lots of new readers will use it – then find themselves frustrated that they didn’t get the information they looked to the tarot for in the first place.
Next time you’re feeling frustrated or invisible, or just need to remember how darn awesome you are, pull out this spread. You got this!
…the deck that I work with the most is called The Crow Tarot by M. J. Cullinane and I choose this deck almost always because I swear it talks to me…I don’t necessarily find it the most aesthetically pleasing deck…
Overcoming these challenges can be the difference in readings that resonate and invite us to look deeper, and readings that leave us feeling like we weren’t heard.
The people already using the Tarot for personal development are looking for insight into their own blocks and challenges – and ways to work through them. I work with these people, using the tarot to help tap into their subconscious inner knowing to bring issues and revelations to the surface.
Again – do what works for you. If you enjoy prayer, pray. If meditation helps you calm and center, spend a few minutes meditating. As my favorite yogi, Adriene Mischler, likes to say, ‘arrive.’
So, what does all this have to do with yes and no questions in the tarot? Yes and no questions are not only very difficult to answer accurately with the tarot, but the responses also we get from the typical one card, yes or no reading is incomplete. There is no logic behind the answer – no lesson to be learned.