Backing Into a Delicate Reading

I still offer free classes and meetups after almost thirty years of being a full-time tarot professional. Informal tarot gatherings offer me the invaluable opportunity to learn how to describe, quantify, and teach the techniques I have developed innately over years of full-time tarot reading.

When I gather with other tarot professionals at conferences like StaarCon I discover that many of my peers have developed some of the same techniques. They may have similar or different ways of naming them and explaining them.

Tarot reading techniques are incredibly personal. No two readers will have the same style, though many of us share similarities in our ethics and approaches.

One way that readers differ from each other in is their ethical comfort and technique in handling delicate questions. Something came up during our recent Cards and Conversation Tarot Meetup at Panera Bread in Palm City. The way we handled it as a group helped me understand a technique that I have used unconsciously for years. The meetup brought this technique into focus for me, so now I can succinctly share it.

What is a delicate question for a tarot reader? Very often, questions related to health, especially in dire or extreme circumstances, can be one area of concern for readers.

Some readers simply refuse to answer any questions related to health. Some readers refuse any third-party questions. That is, questions about people who are not present and did not consent to be part of the reading.

Other readers try to work with every requested topic but may choose to rephrase the question. For instance, “What will be the outcome of my mother’s upcoming surgery?” might be rephrased to “What do I need to know about my mother’s upcoming surgery?” or “How can I best support my mother during her surgery?”

There are also readers who believe that the question should be posed of the cards exactly as the querent asked it, without any rephrasing.

I try to answer most questions client ask me. I will often rephrase, but I will not always make an obvious point of rephrasing.

At the meetup, we were doing readings for each other. One person would ask a question, and then anyone in the group who wanted to ring in would pull one card and give their answer.

The question that came up was regarding a family member in a precarious health situation. I used this as a teachable moment. I asked for a show of hands. If you received this question in a one-on-one setting, how many of you would politely refuse to answer? How many of you would offer prayer or tarot magic instead of prediction? How many of you would do the reading on the question as it was asked? How many of you would rephrase the question?

I tried to conduct this discussion in a way that was supportive of the person asking the question, and supportive of everyone’s thoughts about how they each might approach this delicate question.

Not one person in the group of fourteen people wanted to answer the question as it was asked.

We worked together on rephrasing the question. Then, those who felt called pulled single cards in answer to the rephrased question.

As the process unfolded, I noticed something significant. The cards that appeared in answer to the rephrased question were helpful when interpreted within the context of the new question, just as one might expect.

Yet, each of those same cards also had specific references within them to the original question. Each of the cards pulled to answer the rephrased question, if interpreted in answer to the original question, offered very specific information relevant to the original question. Nicely, these interpretations offered hope, solace, and the possibility of a positive outcome.

What happened here?

We know that we need to interpret cards in the context of the question asked, or the spread position in which they fall. But we also know that the cards we pull can offer additional information. In a positioned spread, cards can pop out of their position to offer extraneous and addition information, advice, and predictions. When answering a specific question, the card can be interpreted to answer the question, and then re-interpreted to offer more insight.

In this case the insight clearly offered the best possible answer to the original delicate question.

In describing what I was seeing and feeling, I realized that this is a technique I have been unconsciously using for years.

Here’s what to do if you want to try this technique the next time someone asks you a delicate question.

Rephrase the question and read for the rephrased question. If the cards that appear seem to speak to the original question, decide if the information they are offering is helpful to the querent. You may relay this information directly, or simply use this new information to adjust your tone, and help them set their expectations.

In the moment at the meetup, I referred to this technique as “backing into the reading”. Rather than answering a potentially upsetting question directly, we set up a circumstance where we could offer helpful information without being predictive. When the cards themselves came up making a prediction, we were able to decide whether to share that prediction, or how to let what we saw in those cards influence what we said to the questioner.

Now that I understand that I have been doing this with delicate questions for years, I am happy to be able to quantify this helpful technique and share it.

Do you ever back into a delicate reading? Is this something you might consider trying?

How Tarot Teaches Us about Itself

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.

Can Tarot Tell You More Than Your Higher Self Already Knows?

Recently I heard a well-respected tarot professional say that tarot can’t tell her anything she doesn’t already know.

That struck me. I’ve been spending some time thinking about whether this is true for me. Tarot is such an intensely personal thing; we each experience tarot in our own way.

I know for a fact that tarot does indeed tell us things we already know. This can be wonderfully affirming and confidence-building. Tarot can help us feel seen. Tarot can help us understand ourselves.

This is true whether we are reading for ourselves or receiving a reading. Very often clients say to me, “You just told me everything I already knew, but now I know I am seeing things correctly.”

Tarot also has a way of bringing to the conscious mind things that are buried within the subconscious. This is where things get tricky. When tarot reveals something that we truly did not know, the question is this. Did we truly not know it, or was that knowledge there, in the subconscious, all along?

To some extent, this question is academic, and meaningless to the tarot divination process. Yet, in another way, this question feels important. While I cannot speak for any other tarotist, I truly would like to be clear for myself when I consider this question.

Can tarot tell me things of which I truly had no prior knowledge?

Because most of us who use tarot identify as psychic, intuitive, or both, this question may be impossible to definitively answer. Even when discussing a future prediction that has proven true, the question remains. Did I intuitively know this would happen, and tarot simply confirmed it? Or did tarot give me knowledge I would not have otherwise had?

It is without a doubt in my experience reading for myself and others that tarot gives new perspectives and new ways of thinking about things. “I’ve never thought of it that way before” is something I hear from clients quite often. Tarot helps us reframe things in ways that are helpful and healing.

Tarot can also give us insight into things that are happening behind the scenes. Sometimes, for example, when planning business strategy, it is good to know the potential plans of the boss before the boss wants to tell us. Whether or not our intuition might have known these things, our intuition would likely not have supplied the information with the same clarity we can get from tarot.

My experience is that it feels that tarot tells me, and my clients, things that we did not know prior to checking the cards. Sometimes it does feel that a hidden part of our psyche knew these things all along. Sometimes it really feels that we are accessing new information.

I have very often used tarot to make predictions for people who found my prognostications utterly ridiculous and unlikely, until those things indeed came to pass.

This question of what is intuitively known and unknown in the subconscious is a conversation that could be had long into the evening with tarot friends and several bottles of wine, and still yield no definitive consensus.

I am going to say that my experience with tarot is different than that of the professional who feels tarot cannot tell her what she does not already know. For me, tarot absolutely gives me information that I did not know before. In fact, for me, this is part of the magic of tarot divination.

Four Things I Learned at the Masters of the Tarot Conference at Omega Institute

I was a presenter at The Masters of the Tarot Conference at Omega Institute this summer. It was opening weekend at Omega, after a year-and-a-half pandemic closure.

Mary K. Greer and Rachel Pollack have led this annual conference for many years. For me, it had been a goal to attend, and a dream to present, for just as long.

One of the perks of presenting at a conference is the ability to attend the classes of your fellow presenters. I could write volumes about everything I experienced and learned over that three-day weekend. For this post I thought it would be fun to share just a single tidbit from each presentation; some inspiration that I will take forward in my own life and tarot practice.

Friday night we gathered for an interactive session with Mary K. Greer. This was an icebreaker which quickly taught deep tarot skills. One thing I learned from this session is the power inherent in simply describing a tarot image.

I am not typically an image-based reader. Some decks read better for me than others, but I do not overthink the art. I often joke that I could easily read with seventy-eight pieces of notebook paper. When Mary had us describing images rather than reading cards as I normally would, I was immediately out of my tarot comfort zone.

As it turned out, I spent much of the weekend pushing the boundaries of my comfort zone. This is why our gatherings and conferences, both in person and online, are so valuable. We never know everything there is to know about tarot, or about ourselves. We must always keep pushing and challenging ourselves to grow.

What I learned about describing a tarot image is this. There is a magic that happens in the connection we make with the image, the words we choose to describe the image, and the spiritual forces that are always available when tarot is present. Of course, I knew this, because I have seen new tarot students look at a card and find wisdom within it time and again. Yet, being forced to verbally describe the image without benefit of classic interpretations and symbolism was surprisingly personal, powerful and insightful.

The next session was Saturday morning. I was excited to present “How Tarot Helps Us Heal”. I will leave it to those who attended to share what they learned; I hope they learned a lot!

That afternoon was Madame Pamita’s turn to present.
Madame Pamita taught a hands-on approach to tarot magick that was as fun as it was enlightening. I learned quite a bit in this class, even though I use and teach tarot magick regularly.

One thing I learned from Madame Pamita that will be helpful as I continue to teach tarot magick is a simple way of talking about tarot magick versus divination. The problem I have encountered is this. When we do divination exercises in class it is common to say, “pick a card,” or “pick two cards to tell you…”. When we do tarot magick exercises we are not picking at random. We look at the cards and cognitively choose cards to serve us in the magickal work we are doing. It has sometimes been very hard for me to communicate this difference effectively. Sometimes, when I ask students to choose a card cognitively, rather than at random, they are confused and do not know what to do.

Madame Pamita shared simple nomenclature for which I am grateful and very excited to adopt. We choose cards either face up or face down. When we choose cards face down, we are choosing at random, and divining. When we choose cards face up, we are selecting the cards whose energy we wish to employ in magick. What could be simpler, or more brilliant?

Saturday evening was Rachel Pollack’s session. I was excited that Rachel asked all the presenters to sit on a panel and discuss issues that we face as professional tarot readers. At the end, Rachel chose a member of the audience for whom to perform a sample reading.

Rachel, like Mary, is a seemingly limitless supply of tarot knowledge. It is thrilling that Mary K. Geer was a headlining presenter at StaarCon 2021, and that Rachel Pollack will be headlining for StaarCon 2022.

One thing that Rachel said during our panel discussion has stuck with me and has caused me to shift the way I speak and think in a very specific way. Rachel was talking about the different sorts of readings we do, and the language readers use to describe their readings. Rachel took exception to readers who say they use tarot to ‘empower people’. This is something we often hear. Never had I heard it the way Rachel hears it.

Rachel said that if we ‘empower someone,’ we have really disempowered them. No one person can empower another. Personal empowerment can only come from within. If we, as readers, try to empower someone, we see ourselves as the keepers of power. That is not empowerment.

Going forward, I will consider that I might use tarot to help people discover their power, utilize their power, or know their power.

I approached our Sunday morning session with Shaheen Miro with that sad end-of-summer-camp feeling. I had no desire for the conference to end, nor to leave Omega.

Shaheen’s workshop provided the biggest challenge of the conference for me. This is because Shaheen’s presentation had us working with art and intuition.

While I am a very creative person, I am not an artist. In fact, I am the one member of my family of origin who cannot draw and paint. This was a source of shame for me as I was growing up. Worse, I was always the one who would spill the paint and make a mess.

I was tempted to shrug off Shaheen’s presentation and enjoy a few hours strolling the lovely Omega campus. It would be easy for me to say that what Shaheen was serving simply wasn’t on my diet.

Yet, over the weekend I had developed a fondness and admiration for Shaheen that would not let me take the cowardly way out.

In that workshop, I did not learn that I have a hidden talent for drawing. I did learn that nothing bad would happen if I experimented with markers and crayons. I learned that I could express my intuitive thoughts through color and shape. For me, that was huge.

We are fortunate to have a tarot and divination community which offers so many opportunities, online and in person, for fellowship and learning. Each conference has its own unique personality. The Masters of the Tarot offered a deep connection to community and tarot, as well as an opportunity for growth and healing. I am delighted to have been a part of it.

Can Any Tarot Card be Good or Bad?

If you read an older tarot book, like the Eden Gray book I started with, you will see that tarotists of a certain era considered certain cards ‘good’, and others, ‘bad’. There are still many tarotists who approach the cards this way.

It is easy to think about which would be which. The Ten of Pentacles, of course, is ‘good’. The Ten of Swords is ‘bad’. The Sun is ‘good’, the Tower is ‘bad’.

Certainly, any tarotist can admit that there are cards we would rather see appear in a reading, and cards that may concern us when they appear.

Yet, after many years of professional tarot reading, I have come to a number of conclusions. Perhaps some of these conclusions may be helpful to others on their tarot journey.

How We Define Good and Bad

In life in general, my conclusion is that there is no ‘good’ or ‘bad’. What is good for the lion is devastatingly bad for the gazelle. As the lyrics of one of my favorite Grateful Dead songs go, “One man gathers what another man spills”.

I also do not think we can label people good or bad. No human is inherently good, or inherently bad. Human personalities and circumstances are way too complicated for that.

So, if good and bad cannot be a metric for people, situations, or tarot cards, what is the metric that replaces that concept? For me, it is what you like and desire, and what you do not like and do not desire. That, of course, changes from person to person, and from situation to situation.

I think our definition of good and bad comes from the monotheistic philosophy of the eternal struggle between good and evil. To me, there is nothing in the natural world that would confirm that concept as spiritual reality. I think it is more likely that this concept was designed by humans to control behavior.

However, duality does exist, and is a present concept in tarot. When we take value judgments away from the duality of light and dark, and find purpose for both, we find a deeper understanding of how duality works.

Does this sort of thinking remove from us the burden of morality? Far from it. Rather, it holds us responsible to find and justify our own moral compass, and to hold ourselves accountable for our behavior within those confines.

What Do We Do with Disturbing Tarot Images?

Not all tarot decks include disturbing images, though many do. I believe those images can be helpful to our process. When we see an image that we find disturbing, it may in fact relate to something in our lives that we find disturbing. The ability to explore this may bring us peace, healing, and understanding.

Sometimes disturbing cards appear to predict, or forewarn, unpleasant things for the future. This is probably the single most frightening aspect of tarot for many people. Sometimes the cards predict misfortune.

Yet, there can be comfort in this as well.

When a disturbing card appears, it may prepare us for a hurt or disappointment. We may not know exactly how to interpret it, or what it is referring to. Yet, when the difficult thing happens, that tarot predicted it can be a comfort. Knowing a hard thing was somehow ‘written’ in advance relieves us of the anxious feeling that we could have prevented the misfortune from happening.

What About Classic Card Interpretations that are Clearly Good or Bad?

Any proficient tarot reader knows that any card can have a wide range of meanings, depending on the context of the question, and the surrounding cards. While it is true that some cards (usually those with happier images) have more auspicious classic keywords and interpretations than others, it is good to leave room for other possible interpretations.

For example, the Sun is arguably the happiest card the deck. Yet, in certain circumstances, the Sun can refer to a narcissistic personality.

The Seven of Swords is the card of the thief, typically indicating dishonesty. Yet, it can also be the card of creative solutions.

The Three of Swords is a card of sorrow. Yet, it can also indicate an opportunity to heal.

The Five of Pentacles is a card of poverty. Yet, it can also speak to finding new opportunities.

The Ten of Pentacles is a card of wealth. Yet, it can also indicate generational and ancestral trauma.

The Ten of Swords is a devastating card. Yet, it can also advise acupuncture as a method of healing.

The Star can be about hope and healing. Yet, The Star can also refer to a person who is acting like a diva.

The Four of Cups can be about apathy, boredom, or limited choices. Yet, it can also affirm the wisdom of waiting for something better to come along.

Death is a difficult card because of its title. Yet, it often appears for pregnancy or for job promotion.

Is This Method of Tarot Reading Just Sugar-Coating Reality?

If you use this kind of critical thinking in tarot reading, you are opening yourself to more opportunity for truth-finding. Sometimes that truth is going to be what you wanted to hear, sometimes it will not be.

In the Petit Lenormand system of cartomancy, cards are designated as positive, negative, and neutral. There is no such clear-cut system in tarot interpretation. I think it is good for modern tarotists to remember this. When we are open to the idea that any card can indicate something that is helpful and fortunate, or something that is hurtful or unfortunate, we have a fuller vocabulary with which to perform a more informative and helpful reading.