Three Ways Tarot Helps Us

We so often think of tarot as a tool of simple fortune-telling. We want to ask questions like “Will I get the job?” or “Will he call me?”

 Sometimes when we use the cards to peer into the future, we find the process helpful. Other time, fortune-telling with tarot can be confounding and disappointing.

When we try to use the cards to predict who will win a sports match, or an election, we are often confused by the answers we get. I really do believe that the cards always speak truth. Yet, the future is not always predictable because the future is not always set. The actions of people can change the trajectory.

Very often future predictions about events in our immediate sphere of influence can help to inspire us, or caution us, or prepare us. Predictions about sports outcomes, and even political outcomes, should be relegated to entertainment. These sorts of predictions should not be the proof of the value or efficacy of cartomancy.

There are many tools of divination, and many card decks that are used for cartomancy. Tarot is, and has always been, my preferred tool. That is partially because tarot offers help even beyond divination and fortune-telling.

I see at least three ways that tarot can be helpful to us in life. The first is simply in the contemplation of each card. The study of tarot carries the same benefit as the study of any spiritual text. Each card can offer life wisdom that we can take to our heart and use at any time, much like the Bible verses I memorized as a child in Sunday school.

Divination is generally what we think about when we think about working with tarot, and it is one of the ways that tarot helps us. When we divine with tarot, we have the ability to move past predictive fortune-telling and into areas of person growth, self-understanding and strategic planning. The depth of information we can receive in tarot divination is only limited by the questions we ask, the techniques we use, and the understanding we develop. The deeper we dive into tarot as a whole, the more transformative our divination experiences can be.

The third way tarot helps us is in magic and manifestation. Over the years I have come to see the use of tarot to create our future as even more important than the use of tarot to try to see the future. Each card carries an energy. With these cards we can consciously embrace the energies we want in our lives, and consciously remove those we don’t.

These three utilizations of tarot, contemplation, divination, and manifestation, are all more effective when we take time and energy to study, learn, and deeply embrace and understand the cards. When we do this we allow tarot to be a wonderful gift, and a wonderful guide, in the journey of life.``

Checking in with the Divine: Our Natural Divinatory Process

Today I spoke at a ladies’ luncheon. It was just a short half-hour presentation.

It’s a challenge to speak to a diverse group of people who are not necessarily bought in to tarot. It’s also one of my favorite types of audiences.

My primary focus was not me, nor tarot, but rather about divination in general, and that we all do it.

Divination is the practice of seeking knowledge of the unknown, through signs, symbols and intuition. I like the word because it has, at its root, the word “divine”.

Although the actually etymology of the word is about seeking information rather than actual divinity, I personally like to think about the process of divination as the process of connecting with the divine.

I really resonate with the idea that we are spiritual beings having a human experience. This suggests that we all yearn to connect with something greater than ourselves, whether we see that as communing with our higher self, our ancestors, angels, deities, or a single Higher Power.

Often, when we think of tarot, and other tools of divination, we think only of future prediction. Many people, and many professions, predict the future. Doctors predict our future health, meteorologists predict the weather, financial forecasters predict economic trends, political pundits predict electoral outcomes.

Predictions can be very helpful. They can help us prepare for something, or perhaps avoid or mitigate something.

However, prediction is perhaps not the most important reason to divine.

When we seek answers through spiritual means, we can discover insight about ourselves, about our motivations, about our own skills and abilities, and about our path to healing.

The ancient Greeks inscribed the words “Know Thyself” outside the temple of Delphi. To me, the process of divination is the process of working to know oneself.

One would think that we inherently know ourselves. We have to deal with ourselves every day.

Sadly, we all seem to spend so much time trying to be who we think we should be, or trying to please others by being who they want us to be, that we are often confused about who we actually are. Guilt and shame can play a role in our inability to look in the internal mirror. Sometimes, we fear owning our skills and talents because we don’t feel that we are good enough, or talented enough.

Through divination, we connect with our intuition, with our Higher Self, and our Higher Power. In that place of awareness, we can see our potential, our true desires, and the place where we need to heal.

Many people have a tarot deck, rune set or oracle cards gathering dust on a shelf. With or without these tools, almost all of us have participated in divination.

Do you remember “he loves me, he loves me not”, or bouncing seeds on your hands until only a few are left, to predict the number of children you would have?

As a professional tarot reader, those simple childhood games of divination make me smile now. It’s fun to prognosticate, and imagine what the future might bring.

Sometimes predictions aren’t fun at all. Sometimes we get an inkling that something undesirable is going to happen. Some people avoid tarot readings because they “don’t want to hear anything bad”.

When we receive an ill omen, a predictive dream or some other heads-up form the Universe, that information can ultimately be a comfort, and here’s why.

If Spirit bothers to let you know that something is going to happen, and it happens, you have to accept that there is nothing you could have done to change the outcome, and that there is some rightness is what has happened, even if it doesn’t feel right at the moment.

As we get older, we have more time in the past than we do in the future. That’s one reason that divination for introspection, rather than prognostication, can become so important. As we get older, we come to understand that we won’t always have the time ahead of us to do what we want to do. The energy becomes “If not now, when?” Tarot can help motivate us.

Another reason future prediction is not the best, or most significant use of divination is this. Often, the future is within our hands. What we do today impacts what the future will be. Certainly, there are some things that seem destined, fated, or unavoidable. However, in many cases, the future will be what we make it.

Divination can help us get out of our own way, so we can do the things we really want to do, and create for ourselves the future that we desire.

In this way, divination is not about simply seeing what is, it is about creating what will be.

There are many ways to divine.

Some methods, like tarot and runes, involve what I call “random token divination”. Others, like tea leaf reading, involving interpreting shapes and looking for symbols.

I believe that we all do some kind of divination every day, whether we do it consciously or not.

Perhaps in prayer, meditation or yoga class, we take a moment to check in with ourselves and ask “How do I really feel about this?”, or “What do I really want?” That process is divination.

Perhaps, as we travel through our day, we see a sign in nature – an animal or a flower – and we take that as an omen, a sign of luck, or victory, or approval from a Higher Power. That is divination, too.

Sometimes we look to the sky and see a shape in the clouds that means something to us. Sometimes a song on the radio seems to have a personal message for us.

Many of us have dreams, either sleeping or waking, that offer guidance.

A concern is that psychotic people see signs in everything, and that there is a thin line between being psychic and being psychotic.

How do you know that your process of checking in with yourself, and interpreting the signs around you, is divination rather than delusion?

Basically, if the information you receive is supportive, logical, compassionate and healing, you are in communion with Higher Power. If what you receive is didactic, illogical, or suggests that you should hurt yourself or others, it’s time to see a doctor.

Whether you work with cards, interpret your dreams, or seek insight in meditation, the key to good divinatory practice is know what truth feels like.

We often have physical reactions to truth. If we can tune in to what they feel like, we will usually know what is true for us, and when others are lying.

When we divine, not with only an eye on the future, but with an eye on what is really true for us, we make a connection with our Higher Power, and we empower ourselves to create for ourselves the life that we desire.

I was basically able to present these concepts, give a quick hand-reading lesson and take a few questions, psychic gallery style – all within my half-hour time slot.

The job of a tarot reader offers something fun and different every day.  Of course, my primary job is divination, but I also have the opportunity to be creative in a lot of ways. Of course, before I began my talk, I did a one-card divination to ground me, and give me focus. The card I received was the Queen of Pentacles. How appropriate for a ladies’ luncheon!

Find Yourself with Divination

This is a cross-post from my Tarot Trends Personal Blog.

Who are you, at your core?

This is a topic I often speak about, and write about, because it comes up so often in readings.

One of the reason that divination is so helpful is that divination is a way to help us discover our true identity – our core.

Sometimes we get stuck trying to be the person other people want us to be.

Sometimes we get stuck trying to become the person we think we should be.

Sometimes our self-perception is marred by low self-esteem or over-inflated ego.

Tarot, astrology and numerology are ways for us to look into a cosmic mirror, and discover things that are true about the self.

The more we are able to understand the core self, the more at peace we will be.

There are some people who misuse tools of divination, like tarot. They use the tool only to make predictions in an effort to assuage anxiety about the future. They never use the cards, nor any psychic tool, to actually question their own behaviors and discover more about the self.

The irony is, this very practice works to dispel anxiety, because once we feel solid in who we are, it is very hard to feel anxious about anything. Anxiety is most often born of a misunderstanding of self.

The significator card in a tarot spread is helpful in discerning “Who am I at the present moment?” Significator cards that we chose to represent ourselves help us discern “Who am I at core?”

If you want to learn about yourself, learn about your birth number, your sun, moon and rising sun, and the tarot cards associated with them.

This information should paint a clear picture of your motivations, your path and your sense of self.

There are those who say that we should not read tarot, or use other tools, for ourselves. They people may think we will come from the perspective of the anxious person using tarot to relieve her fear of the future.

But when we use our tools to understand who we are, we become strong, self-aware and healed.

I will be teaching a webinar on self-reading on July 24. Join us!

Card Divination FAQ

Decks of cards have become the usual tool for random token divination in our modern world. Even oracles that are traditionally stones, sticks or coins have card-based alternatives.

With so many card decks available I hear a wide variety of questions. Here is an attempt to answer some of them.

What is divination?

Divination is the practice of seeking wisdom and information by supernatural or spiritual means.

What is random token divination?

Random token divination is the term I’ve coined to describe any form of divination that involves the use of a group of objects (cards, stones, coins or other tokens). A small number of tokens are chosen at random to provide the reading.

How does card divination work?

Cards are drawn at random to reveal information or to provide a meditative focus. This process is called a “reading.” A reading may consist of a single card, several cards or a prescribed number of cards laid out in a particular pattern where each position has a meaning. This is called a “spread.”

 What is your theory behind random token divination?

Random is by its own nature a spiritual force. When we use the power of random in divination we are allowing the Universe to communicate with us. Random works in conjunction with our higher selves, our spirit guides and our own intuition to help us see the tokens that we most need to see.

What is an oracle?

Originally the word “oracle” referred to people who were able to give psychic advice or channel information by spiritual means. The place where these people could be found might also be called an “oracle.” Now the word “oracle” can also refer to a tool such as a card deck that is used for divination.

 What is tarot?

Tarot is a card oracle used for random token divination, amongst other things. There are many traditions of tarot, but all tarot has a similar structure. Tarot structure includes two sections, a Major Arcana of (usually) twenty-two cards and a Minor Arcana of four suits similar to a playing deck. Each suit has a court, generally of four characters.

What is Lenormand?

Lenormand is the name given to a specific type of oracle cards. Lenormand cards are named after Marie Anne Lenormand (1772-1843) who was a great card-reading psychic in France. Lenormand card decks consist of between 31-36 cards generally. They are numbered, and each has a very simple designation, such as Anchor, Fish, Key, Man and Woman.

Currently, Lenormand decks are experiencing a renaissance in interest and popularity.

Can one use a regular playing deck for divination?

Yes, there are numerous traditions of divination using playing cards.

 What about angel cards, fairy cards and medicine cards? Are these cards tarot cards?

Unless you are talking about an “Angel Tarot,” probably not. Unless a deck has the general structure of tarot, it’s not tarot.

Why are there so many different tarot decks available?

There are many tarot traditions. These traditions include Marseilles, Waite, Crowley and modern traditions, such as feminist and archetypal. There are many decks within each tradition, and some that borrow from more than one tradition.

There are many themes that lend themselves to tarot. There are dragon tarots, baseball tarots, cat tarots and Goddess tarots, for instance. Tarot is based on archetypes. There are many ways to depicts archetypes, and many associations from art and culture for each archetype.

Tarot is a personal thing. Although there are images and traditions that are considered standard, everyone who studies tarot develops their own understanding of tarot. Artists and tarot designers enjoy having an opportunity to present tarot the way they see it. Many artists enjoy the challenge of creating a seventy-eight card body of work that follows a designated structure.

Do different tarot decks mean the same thing and give the same information?

That is a matter of debate amongst tarotists. Many tarotists would say that the card means the same thing no matter how it is depicted. Others would say that the energy of the card may be slightly or wholly changed depending on the artwork.

What is the difference between a tarot deck and an oracle deck?

 All tarot decks are oracles, not all oracles are tarot. Tarot follows a specific structure. Oracles follow the structure designated by their designer. Oracles do not conform to any particular structure or tradition.

Are card oracles based on traditional non-card oracles such as runes and I Ching as effective as using the traditional tokens (stones, sticks, coins, etc)?

There is power in tradition. In the case of I Ching, the thousands-year-old tradition of tossing the yarrow sticks holds its own power that would not be present in simply pulling a card to get your hexagram.

However, symbols are symbols, and divination is divination. If you are comfortable with the cards you will certainly find divination with them effective.

Does one have to be psychic to work with divination?

Perhaps we are all psychic. Intuition helps a great deal in interpreting oracles. Oracles themselves help us develop our own psychic ability. But where or not you consider yourself “psychic” you can enjoy and benefit from divination.

What is the difference between divination and fortune-telling?

Fortune-telling suggests that we have very little power to affect our own lives or create our own destiny. Divination gives us options, ideas and power in manifesting our own goals and desires.

I read two books on tarot that said two entirely different things about the meanings of the cards. Which is correct?

Just as there are many different tarot traditions, there are many different tarot readers. Each person develops their own relationship with the cards. The interpretations in a book will reflect the traditions favored by the author as well as the author’s personal relationship with the cards.
The job of the tarot student is to use books, classes, experimentation and exploration to decide what makes sense to him or her.

Use the books to help you figure out what the cards mean to you, and to help you develop your own relationship with the cards.

These are the answers of one tarot reader. Other card diviners and oracle users may have different and equally valid answers.

What do you think about these questions and answers? Do you have a different answer? Do you have a question I didn’t answer?

Leave a comment and let me know!