How Tarot Teaches Us About Itself

I once spoke with a tarot reader who made a practice of ‘setting’ their tarot cards. Here’s what that means.

When they got a new deck, they would go through the cards and decide what each card would mean to them, for now and always. This is like the practice of activating a card for a specific reading, but it is for every reading they would ever do with that deck.
I commented that this seems like a very limiting practice. The conversation did not go well after that.

This happened years ago, but it has stuck with me. I understand that every reader must develop what works well for them. Yet I have a hard time understanding how limiting what a card can mean is ever helpful.

For me, part of the magic of tarot is that, over time, tarot expands the way it speaks. Over the almost thirty years I have been a professional reader my understanding of each card has grown exponentially. This has served to keep me fresh and has helped me deepen my practice.

In a relationship with another human, we expect to learn and grow together. We expect the relationship to develop. I want the same thing to be true in my relationship with tarot.

Here are three examples of some recent growth that has happened in my understanding of some specific cards. This growth happens in the natural course of giving professional readings. The new information I discover about the cards gets solidified when I talk about it on my YouTube channel, write about it here, or share it during classes and meetups.

One card that has opened up for me recently is Major Arcana 21, The World. Over the past few years, I have seen it come up more often to describe a person’s world view. I have also seen it show up to encourage a larger view. That is, to focus less on minutiae and more on the bigger picture.

How did it happen that I started seeing The World this way?

Part of tarot reading for me is entirely intuitive. I will look at a card, and a group of cards, and things will come to me. The things that come to me are usually related to the card, but not necessarily to classic keywords or to ways I have interpreted the cards in the past.

This is an essential part of my reading toolbox, and one that I would not have if I practiced setting the cards.

A card must appear in a new way a few times for it to come into my consciousness as a new interpretation in my internal tarot lexicon. I remember when I first become conscious of this process. I was reading professionally in Connecticut, just as Foxwoods Casino and the Mohegan Sun Casino were becoming some of the largest casinos in the world. The Wheel of Fortune started appearing for clients who were working at the casinos. Then, the Wheel of Fortune began appearing (often along with the Devil) for people who were developing gambling additions. Although this was not a sudden process, it did feel that suddenly, I understood in real practice that the Wheel of Fortune would talk about the casinos. Gambling is indeed a common keyword for the Wheel of Fortune. However, seeing it in practice was a true learning experience.

Numbers and elements factor strongly in how I understand, read, and teach tarot. Recently I have had revelations about the Minor Arcana Twos, and the Minor Arcana Fours.

Of course, each card stands alone in its unique meaning. Yet, when more than one of the same number appears in a reading, there can be an additional interpretation which adds nuanced information to the reading, or an overarching theme or bit of advice.

For the Twos, what has come to me recently is the message to stay in your own lane. When I see a few Twos in a reading, I often feel that the universe is saying “You do you, Boo!” This may be an admonition to worry less about what others are doing, saying, and thinking, and focus on your own goals.

The Fours have recently struck me as a message about boundaries and self-care, and boundaries as self-care. It is an interesting exercise to look at the four Minor Arcana Fours and find a self-care message within each one.

It is this expansive ability of tarot that keeps me fascinated reading after reading, month after month, year after year.

When we let it happen, tarot can teach us about itself, about ourselves, and about life.