Five Ways We Use Intuition in a Tarot Reading

Five Ways We Use Intuition in a Tarot Reading

The best tarot readings, whether for self or for others, involve knowledge of the cards and intuition. Intuition is an important part of card interpretation. Intuition informs other aspects of the tarot-reading process as well.

It’s important to differentiate the intuitive and psychic process from our desires and fears. Sometimes we might mistake common wisdom and internalized beliefs for spiritual messages. When we do this, we have circumvented the sacred process of divination.

Meditative exercises that involve a focus on the breath, and on grounding, centering, and clearing are typically the best way to stay connected in the intuitive process.

When the entire reading process, from the first shuffle to the final insight, is guided by intuition, we are likely to have a legitimate and helpful divination experience. The ways intuition can guide a reading are infinite. Here are five ways intuition makes its way into the tarot-reading process.

How We Shuffle, Cut and Pull

How many times we shuffle and cut, and how we pull the cards, can all be guided intuitively. If we engage intuition from the very first moments of our interaction with the cards, we infuse the cards with our energy and intention, and we easily choose the cards we most need to see.

The Questions We Ask

Even when reading for others, we, as readers, should use our intuition to help our clients choose the questions that will be most helpful. We must also use intuition to break down a single question into multiple parts, and to rephrase questions in order to gain the most insight from the cards.

The Spreads and Techniques we Employ

There are so many different techniques for tarot reading. A good reader will be competent at many techniques and spreads. Intuition, as well as experience, helps us decide which spreads and techniques will yield the best results.

Which Classic Interpretations Fit Best

Each tarot card has multiple classic interpretations. Yet, in a reading, some of those interpretations will fit, other won’t. Intuition is an important part of choosing the most appropriate interpretation for the reading.

How the Tarot Images Reflect the Situation

A picture is worth a thousand words. Sometimes the tarot images will spark an entire story and will give a great deal of information that goes much deeper than any classic interpretation could. It is intuition that allows this process to unfold.

Answers to Your Questions about Tarot: Intuition

If you have a question about tarot, please email me!

Today’s question come from Eric. It’s a deceptively simple one. Eric’s question is this:

“When reading tarot, should you always trust your intuition?”

The quick, short answer is obvious. Of course you should always trust your intuition.

But that begs a different, deeper question.

How can you be sure the voice you are calling your intuition really is?

Many people, from professional psychics to police officers to those who practice conscious living, make a habit of listening to their internal guidance. People call it by different names, but they all agree they have something that guides them, and never steers them wrong.

I think that is what we mean when we speak of intuition. It may be a hunch or a gut level feeling, it may be a sense of being guided by a spiritual entity. Intuition may simply be a strong sense of knowing.

The key is in learning to hear and recognize your intuition, and to distinguish it from all the other voices in your mind. Fear, desire, insecurity, judgment, opinion and logic are all voices that compete with the voice of intuition.

If you want to be able to trust your intuition in tarot reading, or in life in general, the first thing you need to do is identify the voices that commonly come up for you when you are trying to tune in to your intuition.

At the same time, you need to work on finding a personal sense of calm detachment. This is a spiritual state of grace that is hard for westerners to achieve since we tend to be overly concerned with “good” and “bad’ rather than simple “is.”

These steps will help you focus in on your intuition and hear your guidance.

As a tarot reader, I believe you will be the best reader possible if you never allow your ability to rely on intuition keep you from studying the cards. The better knowledge you have of the cards. The better your intuition will work.

Use your intuition to help you to put the story together. Use your intuition to decide which of the many possible card meanings are most appropriate. Use your intuition to know which questions to ask of the cards. Pay attention to random thoughts and memories that come into your mind while you are reading; they may pertain to the issue at hand.

I have seen many people be flat-out wrong when they said they were trusting their intuition. I would argue it’s because, most of the time, intuition works without us really realizing it. While we go about our merry way, our intuition is busy keeping us out of trouble, and doing it so well we don’t even notice it.

When we do psychic work, or try to live in a more conscious way, we try to notice our intuition. We ask it questions. Often we try to do this with no real thought, or no real training.

There are many ways to train yourself to be more intuitive, or to understand your intuition better, but it all starts with simple steps. Identify the other voices that compete with intuition, release your attachments and listen well.

Once you can do that, then, yes, you should always trust your intuition.

Thanks for a great question, Eric!

Christiana Answers a Question about Intuition

Video of Christiana Answers a Question about Intuition

Tarot in My Life: Always Trust Your Cape

"Spread your arms and hold your breath, and always trust your cape."

Sometimes in life we embark on a journey that involves a leap of faith. We jump into the unknown future we desire with no idea where we will land. We just know somehow we will grow our wings on the way down and we will be ok. I believe the learning is in the journey. It's been almost five years since Chris and I bought our boat, and like The Fool we stepped off into the unknown. It's been an awesome journey. It has had moments that take your breath away and moments that scare the breath right out of you. But we've made it safely to each destination - whether figuratively as in getting through a difficult decision; or realistically as in making it to the next safe, calm bay. Intuition was our cape, we trusted it, and we didn't let anyone talk us out of our dream. We didn't know we couldn't do it, but we knew we had to try.

If The Fool could give us any advice he would sing us the song, "Trust Your Cape" by Guy Clark:

Listen to the song here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4q-Q6LSfuI

Eight years old with a flour sack cape tied all around his neck
He climbed up on the garage, he's figurin what the heck
Screwed his courage up so tight, that the whole thing come unwound
He got a runnin start and bless his heart, he headed for the ground
 
Well he's one of those who knows that life is just a leap of faith
Spread your arms and hold your breath and always trust your cape
 
Now he's all grown up with a flour sack cape tied all around his dreams
And he's full of piss and vinegar, and he's bustin' at the seams
So he licked his finger and checked the wind, it's gonna be do or die
He wasn't scared of nothin', boys, he was pretty sure he could fly
 
Well he's one of those who knows that life is just a leap of faith
Spread your arms and hold your breath and always trust your cape
 
Now he's old and gray with a flour sack cape tied all around his head
And he's still jumpin off the garage and will be 'til he's dead
All these years the people said, "He's acting like a kid"
He did not know he could not fly, so he did
 
Well he's one of those who knows that life is just a leap of faith
Spread your arms and hold your breath and always trust your cape
 

Yeah, he's one of those who knows that life is just a leap of faith
Spread your arms and hold your breath and always trust your cape
Spread your arms and hold your breath and always trust your cape
 
Songwriters
Clark, Guy / Janosky, Jim / Clark, Susanna Wallis

 *Linda and her fiance' Chris, have been traveling and living in the Caribbean on their sailboat, Troubadour. Read about their journey at http://sailingtroubadour.blogspot.com/

*Image of "The Fool" from Shadowscapes Tarot

Intuition and Interpretation: Eleven Rules for Putting it all Together

Intuition and Interpretation: Eleven Rules for Putting it all Together

There can be a bit of friction between readers who believe that learning and using traditional card interpretations is an important aspect of tarot reading and those who tell us to throw the books away and just give the information that comes to mind when you look at the pictures.

Here’s my take.

If you have no concept of tarot traditions and have done no tarot study, you may be a very good psychic who uses tarot images, but you are not, by definition, a tarot reader.

If all you do is give rote memorized interpretations of cards and positions you may be a tarot reader, but not a very good one.

If you want to be a great tarot reader, you must be able to use both intuition and interpretation in your readings. Here are eleven rules to help you do that.

1. Actually study. Read many books, take many classes, memorize as many possible key words and interpretations as you can. Know you cards cold.
2.  Remember that anxiety is the enemy of intuition. If you are nervous about the reading, your ability to be intuitive will be severely curtailed. That’s one reason knowing your cards is important – the more you know the less nervous you will be.
3. Let your intuition guide you to the most likely accurate interpretation. Multiple choice tests are easier than fill-in-the-blank tests. If you know a card could mean five different things it is easy to use your intuition tell you which meaning is most appropriate.
4. Pay attention to everything you feel. During a tarot reading the reader is open to all types of psychic communication. What do you see? What do you feel? What do you remember? What comes into your mind? If you see it, say it, as long as what you see is helpful and for the highest good.
5. Use good energy practices before, during and after a reading. May sure your ground and center yourself, connect yourself to Source and connect to your client. After the reading, make sure you clear yourself and disconnect from the client.
6. You are a straw. During a reading, you are simply a conduit for the information. If you connect to the infinite and abundant Source you need give nothing of yourself in a reading. You also need not take on anything of your clients’. This way, you will have all the energy you need and never feel drained after a reading.
7. If you are unsure what to say in a reading, go back to your book-learning basics. Tell the client what the cards could possibly mean, even if that means giving a list of possibilities. Let the client tell you which meanings fit best. This practice will open up space for more information to flow.
8. Believe in the process. The Universe will guide the right client to the right reader with the right cards at the right time. What happens in the sacred space of the reading is what needs to happen.
9. Be in control of the reading. It is your job to structure the reading, figure out which questions need to be asked and answered and what tone to set. Gently, firmly and with compassion make sure that you give the client the best reading possible by keeping the reading focused, on topic and on target.
10. Know that a card can mean more than one thing at the same time. A card may give a specific piece of information, but may also blend with other cards to give some additional information. Even a single card might have more than one interpretation that is accurate at a given time. Sometimes you don’t have to choose which interpretation is correct because it’s all correct.
11. Look at the pictures. Sometimes the pictures tell you something different or more than the interpretation does. Sometimes your intuition will focus you on a particular aspect of the card. Pay attention to what you see and how it makes you think and feel, even if what you see is not strictly a traditional interpretation of the card.

Cards have many possible traditional meanings. Cards also have the ability to communicate above and beyond their traditional meanings. Allow the cards to tell you what you need to know by being open to all possibilities in a reading.

A great tarot reader uses many skills. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that one skill is more important than another. Intelligence and humor, compassion and honesty, spirituality and practicality, interpretation and intuition all come together to make you the best reader you can be.