Is This the One? The Truth about Relationships, Tarot and Predictions

Is This the One?

The Truth about Relationships, Tarot and Predictions

It’s more than a stereotype. It’s a reality. Tarot readers from beginner to pro find themselves reading about love relationships; their own, their friends and their clients. This goes beyond tarot to include all methods of divination and psychic work. We employ many tools and techniques to help people understand each other, foresee when the right person might arrive, when a relationship isn’t worth trying to save, and when a person is actually ‘the one.’

I’ll speak from the perspective of tarot here, since that is the tool I prefer. However, what I am going to say applies to all attempts to predict the outcome of a new love relationship.

Also, truths about relationships apply whether the relationship is comprised of cisgender or transgender folks, or whether the relationship is same sex or opposite sex, or a couple or a polyamorous pod.

It is absolutely true that tarot, in the hands of a good reader, is an amazing tool to give us insight into our relationships. A good ‘couples reading’, while not therapy, can increase understanding and communication, and can offer new ways to grow as a partnership.

A tarot reading can help us navigate dating by taking unlikely fits off the table early, and by potentially predicting the timing of more interesting possibilities. A tarot reading can help us figure out what we want in a relationship and assess our readiness for love. A tarot reading can help us understand our feelings and give us an opportunity to figure out strategy in handling difficult situations. A tarot reading can help us heal from heartbreak, learn from our mistakes and look forward to the next adventure in love.

In all these ways, tarot has rightly earned its reputation as the panacea of the heartbroken and hopeful. In my book, Tarot Tour Guide, there is a whole section dedicated to using tarot to read for romantic relationships. However, after twenty-five years of fulltime professional reading, I have come to the conclusion that there is one question we just cannot answer with tarot, nor with any other psychic or predictive tool or method.

That question is, when asked at the beginning of a relationship, ‘Is this the one?’ That question can be phrased a lot of different ways, such as, ‘Will this definitely work out in the long run?’

When we speak of ‘the one,’ we are speaking of the one we want to marry, or the one we have been waiting for, or the one with whom we can share life in the long run. A complication to this is the number of people who absolutely believe that there is one particular person for whom they are destined, and whom they are destined for. This belief may cause someone to ask, ‘Is this my soulmate?’

While a spiritual connection or past life connection may appear in the cards, there would be no way to ascertain if there is a good long-term future with someone, even if that person appears to be a soul connection.

A great relationship, even in the beginning, does feel like destiny. It is possible there is spiritual intervention, or a sense of spiritual rightness, that makes a great relationship opportunity happen. It is also possible that we meet the same souls from lifetime to lifetime, causing us to feel a sense of connection, karma or destiny with a particular person, whether that turns out for good or for bad. Yet, the idea that in all of the seven billion people in the world there is only one that you can love, live with and make a life with doesn’t make mathematical sense.

The idea that our partnerships are ordained by a higher power and all we have to do is find the right one and the rest will be simple abdicates our personal power and responsibility in a way that feels unhealthy and unrealistic. There are times in life that we absolutely must trust a force great than our own. Our choices in relationships are very often times for us to be proactive rather than surrendered.

When people have a clear connection, attraction and desire to be together, and neither of those people are obviously seriously emotionally unhealthy or personality disordered, there is always a chance that they can build a life-long relationship.

Tarot can help people with strategies on how to do that in the healthiest, easiest way, and can point out the possible pitfalls along the way.

In the beginning, any relationship may feel like destiny, or seem spiritually ordained. Yet, love at first sight is only a good story when told many years later. That new relationship energy is powerful and causes us to feel things that may not stand the test of time.

Relationships develop over time. How they develop depend on the choices the individuals make every day. The possibilities are astronomical, and therefore, unpredictable.

I have seen love make crazy people sane. I have seen love develop in the most unlikely times and places, and between the most unlikely people. I have seen very well-matched couples lose their connection unexpectedly as priorities shift and communication breaks down.

If you and your tarot cards are faced with a question about the advisability of a relationship, or the long-term prognosis of a new relationship, you can get helpful information without trying to predict the unpredictable. More importantly, you can refrain from giving information that might cause a person to stay in an unhealthy relationship longer than they should, or that might cause someone to walk away from something with actual potential. Instead, you can give helpful information about navigating the emotions, personalities, and possibilities at hand.

The best method I have found for this is to either create a custom spread, or to ask a series of questions and pull a card or two in answer to each question.

Whether using a spread or a dialogue method, the type of questions would be the same.

When reading about the future of an exciting new relationship, here are some examples of the questions that will yield the most helpful information.

Who is this person?

(It’s good to pull a few cards for this question. Look for personality traits, issues and concerns in the cards you pull).

How does this person feel about the relationship?

What does this person hope for from this relationship?

(I know some people have an ethical issue about divining other people’s feelings. My take is that we are constantly speculating about what other people are thinking and feeling. Speculating with tarot at least gives us a basis that can keep us grounded and healthy in our thinking.)

What is the potential for compatibility between these people?

What personality flaws/quirks does this person have that could make a relationship difficult?
(With this sort of question, it is good to do a card or cards for each person in the relationship.)

What is the worst-case scenario that could arise from this relationship?

What is the best-case scenario that could arise from this relationship?

What can be done to mitigate likely problems in the relationship?

What can be done to foster the best aspects of this relationship?

Spiritually, why is this person in your life? Why are you in this person’s life?

What is the reason for, or the source of, the strong connection we are feeling?

Generally, if we are asking if a new lover is ‘the one’ it’s because we don’t want to waste time on someone who isn’t. Perhaps we have been hurt in the past and want to avoid pain. Yet, even the best relationships can lead to heartbreak, and even the worst relationships sometimes bring us to where we need to be.

Tarot can often tell you if someone isn’t the one. The only thing that can tell you if someone is the one is the passage of time.

Group Readings: The Performance Aspect of Tarot

Group Readings:

The Performance Aspect of Tarot

Recently I found a blogpost from Ethony, headmistress of the Tarot Reader’s Academy, suggesting that tarot readers consider avoiding allowing anyone other than the querent in the room during a tarot reading.

She makes some good points in empowering readers to say no to an audience, and to say no to controlling, skeptical or overtalkative friends or family members who can make the reading more difficult, and therefore less valuable to the client.

Ethony also mentions the possibility of psychic leak. That is, moments when the reader can pick up energy from a person in the room who is not the client.

She also allows that there are times when it’s appropriate to welcome groups into the tarot room. As one who has over the years managed to master the psychic leak problem, I enjoy reading for groups.

I’d like to share some circumstances under which group readings have worked for me, and some advices on how to make them work for you.

Before I begin, though, please understand that every reader, and every reading, is unique. Let me echo Ethony here in saying that we all have the right, and responsibility, to say an emphatic no to anything that makes us less able to provide the best experience for our client.

But, if you want to try group readings, here are some of the circumstances in which they work well for me, along with some hints on how you might make them work for you.

First, you need to decide if you might be good at this sort of work. Folks who do performance-style tarot typically have a stage presence, are comfortable with public speaking, and understand and enjoy the performance aspect of tarot.

I was a theater major in college and have done a bit of community theater over the years. Here’s a picture of me playing Miep Geiss in a production of The Diary of Anne Frank way back at the beginning of my pro tarot career. The truth is, I’ve been too busy since then to take on any more roles, but the role of tarot reader is keeping me happy.

Christiana Gaudet appears as Miep Geiss in The Diary of Anne Frank.

Readings Around the Table

I’ve worked many parties of close friends or family groups who want to sit around a table together and hear each other’s readings. I even offer this sort of reading at the conference table in my office.

To make this successful, everyone needs to fit around the table, and pay attention. There can be no side conversations. Readings should be short, usually about fifteen to twenty minutes. Everyone has the opportunity to ask questions for each other, and can comment on the readings, but I keep very firm control on the conversation. I also tell people that this is not a spectator sport. If they are at the table, they are part of the experience, and need to stay present and focused.

Support Team

Much like the parties around the table, this is when a friend brings a friend, or two friends, to witness their reading. Sometimes the friends also plan to have readings, something not. However, after hearing their friends’ reading, they almost always make appointments for themselves.

I have very clear instructions for the supporting friend(s). They are to ask questions that the querent, their friend, may not think to ask. They are to listen, and if something isn’t resonating with their friend but makes sense to them, they should help the friend own their truth.

This invitation does sometimes cause a friend to try to highjack the reading. If you, as reader, keep control of the energy of your table, they won’t get very far when they do.

Couples Readings

Typically, a couples reading is for a romantically-involved couple. Yet, it can also be sisters grappling with a family issue, or bereaved family members getting closure to, and messages from, a deceased loved one.

If you are reading for more than one person having the same issue, it’s easy to read on the issue for both of them. If you are reading for a family group, the mediumship aspect is easier because more people offer more energy to assist in the focus and communication.

A reading for a romantic couple, however, can be tricky.

The times I have refused having someone sit in on a reading have been when I perceive a controlling romantic partner, and that my querent may need to hear some hard things about that partner.

The problem of the abusive or controlling spouse doesn’t crop up often in couples readings, though, because typically abusive partners won’t consider putting themselves in that situation.

Yet, relationship problems can show up in the readings of even the happiest couple. The skill here is to present those problems in a way that offers solutions, normalizes issues and treats those issues with good humor and compassion.

The goal of a couples reading is to foster understanding, not create bad feelings. If you see deeper issues in a couples reading, you are ethically bound to refer them to a good counselor.

Gallery Readings

Psychic Gallery at Soundings Lounge in Mystic, CT, 2004.

I have performed psychic galleries with tarot in nightclubs, churches and living rooms. The key here is to move quickly from reading to reading. Keep readings short and make them entertaining and accessible to everyone.

The energy of a gallery can be very conducive to amazing psychic work.

Very often, the biggest problem with readings that require a performance aspect is that the reader lacks confidence. It takes confidence to command a table, and it takes confidence to command a room.

Sometimes confidence comes with practice, and sometimes it comes with personality.

I do think that we need to sometimes stretch a bit to do our best work. There is a lot of focus on the idea that we readers shouldn’t have to do anything doesn’t make us comfortable. I scoff at this idea. If I didn’t do anything that made me uncomfortable, I would still be in my pajamas right now. Sometimes we must get out of our comfort zone in order to grow and learn to do our best work.

If the performance aspects of tarot don’t resonate for you, or really aren’t in your wheelhouse, just say no to the group readings and gallery sessions. If you are comfortable reading tarot with an audience, know that the practice is valid, helpful and very much appreciated by the clients you serve.