Advice for Tarot Students: Be Your Own Guinea Pig

No matter how long we have been working with tarot, or how expert we have become, we are all eternally tarot students. One lifetime will never be enough to learn everything there is to know about tarot, and about all tarot can teach us.

The real goal of most students is to learn to read the cards well, regardless of how much we might know about history, symbolism and classic interpretations. We want to be able to use the cards in ways that reveal a depth of information that is helpful, truthful and healing.

I often tell my tarot students that I can’t possibly teach them to read tarot.

What?

It’s true. I can only show students how tarot works for me. I can create an environment in which each student can discover how tarot works for them.

We each have our own relationship with the cards. However, I notice that some tarot students miss an important step in developing that relationship.

The step they miss is that they don’t read for themselves enough. We often encourage students to study a card a day, which is a great practice.  We teach students to do three-card spreads to answer questions. We also need to encourage students to perform comprehensive spreads for themselves. This is something that should happen regularly; not when there is a question or a problem, but when there is a desire to study.

There is a silly old tarot adage that suggests we shouldn’t read for ourselves. I call shenanigans on that! I think we shouldn’t be trusted to read for others if we can’t competently read for ourselves.

Of course, it is wise and good to get an impartial reading from another reader from time to time. Yet, if we don’t read for ourselves regularly, we will never figure out how the cards speak to us.

A comprehensive spread is a spread that doesn’t require a question, and that covers many departments of life. Examples of comprehensive spreads include the Celtic Cross, the Astrology Wheel and the Seven Sisters.

Being able to ask a specific question and pull a few cards to get an answer is great, but that is only a fraction of what we can do with tarot. Practicing comprehensive spreads for ourselves and others will teach us to use tarot on a much deeper and more effective level.

Another problem is that many students do not go deep enough into their self-readings. This mistake takes many forms. It happens when students only turn to the cards when they have specific questions, and only read the cards as far as it takes to get an answer to those questions.

Tarot will usually answer our questions, and more. The cards will suggest questions we need to ask ourselves. The cards will give us information we need but didn’t know we needed. To stop digging into the cards we’ve pulled as soon as we get the answer we seek is like eating the chocolaty Oreo cookies and throwing away the inside creamy goodness.

Tarot students need friends to act as guinea pigs to try out new spreads and new techniques. Finding those willing subjects, reading for them and getting feedback is an important part of tarot study. Online tarot study groups have made finding those guinea pigs a relatively easy task.

Yet, if we are not our own guinea pigs first and foremost, we miss a huge opportunity to learn. Worse, we lose the opportunity to avail ourselves of the greater wisdom that tarot can make available. That is a disservice to us, and, ultimately, to the people for whom we will read in the future.

The remedy for this is simple. Make reading comprehensive spreads part of your tarot study routine. See how the cards speak to you, and how what you have seen in the cards plays out over time. Develop a relationship with your cards by using them to speak to you about your life.

When you do a reading for yourself, find the details in the cards, and in the combinations of the cards, that give you stacks of information to consider, rather than a single answer to a single question.

Try new techniques on yourself, and don’t be afraid to experiment. The more playful and experimental you are, the more you will learn and the deeper your tarot practice will become.

Tarot Card Nicknames

Flávio Britto Calil  2006, released to public domain.

One of my tarot students recently told me that one of the things she likes about my teaching style is that I have funny nicknames for some of the cards. She suggested I write a post about them, so, here it is.

In our close relationships, we often develop pet names and nicknames for our loved ones. In the workplace, we sometimes develop secret snide nicknames for certain people. We keep them to ourselves, usually, but we have them.

A nickname is a sign of knowing someone well, or at least of being aware of a particular strong trait they possess.

So it is with tarot cards. As we get to know each card personally, we may develop a nickname for it. This can be a way to help remember something about the card. It can be a way of describing the card to others.

Much like key words, it is important that you not let a nickname define or limit a card for you. You might call your diminutive friend “Tiny,” but Tiny might also be a fast runner, or a great singer. His nickname doesn’t reflect those things, but you know they are there.

Here are six of my tarot nicknames.  Don’t let my irreverence fool you. Irreverence doesn’t diminish respect.

I call Temperance the “Cosmic Bartender.”  The best cocktails involve some mixing and blending, and some careful measuring. Life is like that.

I call the Nine of Wands the “Wounded Warrior.” So often, this card appears for those who are fighting a long battle, or perhaps still fighting, even though the battle is over.

I call the Three of Cups the “Party Card.” Sometimes this is a good thing, sometimes not.

I call the Nine of Cups the “Happy Merchant.” While business is not the domain of the suit of Cups, often the image of the “wish card” is a happy entrepreneur. Life may not be perfect, but we are happy and successful.

I call the Ten of Pentacles the “Castle Card.” This card can talk about legacy and ancestry, but also about home and real estate.

I call the Ace of Swords the “Anti-Bullsh*t Device.” This card empowers us to cut through fear, uncertainty, doubt and deceit.

Feel free to borrow these nicknames for your tarot study if you like them, or add your own tarot nicknames in the comments!

Tarot by Numbers: Seven, Eight, Nine

Here are more Minor Arcana pip card numerology exercises, this time with a twist! I’ve included the Major Arcana cards, and posed some thought-provoking questions about the cards and their numbers.

These exercises are great for journaling, study, and group work. I’d love to hear your results!

To begin, sort out the Sevens, Eights, and Nines from your Minor Arcana, and the Chariot, Strength and Hermit from your Major Arcana.  Take these fifteen cards and sort them by number.

Sevens: Introspection, Valor, Self-Reliance

Are there Key Words that you would include for Seven?

What Key Words would you use for each of these four cards?

Look at the images of the Minor Arcana Sevens. Are there things these four images have in common? How do those things reflect the energy/meaning of Seven?

How does Major Arcana Seven, the Chariot, reflect the Key Words of Seven?

How does Major Arcana Seven, the Chariot, compare and contrast with the Minor Arcana Sevens?

Shuffle the five Sevens, and pull one at random to give insight into your personal challenges.

Eights: Motion, Balance and Power

Are there Key Words that you would include for Eight?

What Key Words would you use for each of these four cards?

Look at the images of the Minor Arcana Eights. Are there things these four images have in common? How do those things reflect the energy/meaning of Eight?

How does Major Arcana Eight, Strength, reflect the Key Words of Eight?

How does Major Arcana Eight, Strength, compare and contrast with the Minor Arcana Eights?

Shuffle the five Eights, and pull one at random to give insight into your personal power.

Nines: Completion, Success, Almost There

Are there Key Words that you would include for Nine?

What Key Words would you use for each of these four cards?

Look at the images of the Minor Arcana Nines. Are there things these four images have in common? How do those things reflect the energy/meaning of Nine?

How does Major Arcana Nine, the Hermit, reflect the Key Words of Nine?

How does Major Arcana Nine, the Hermit, compare and contrast with the Minor Arcana Nines?

Shuffle the five Nines, and pull one at random to give insight into your personal achievements.

What stories do you see in the sequence of Seven, Eight, Nine within the specific suits?                    

The Cards Never Shut Up

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Welcome to the Mabon Tarot Blog Hop, in celebration of the Autumnal Equinox.

Almost thirty tarot bloggers have agreed to write on the same topic at the same time. When you finish here, proceed forward to Leeza Robertson at TarotScapes, or work backward to Joanna Ash at Sun Goddess Tarot.
If you find a break in the chain, visit the Master List.

Our wrangler this turn of the Wheel is Morgan Drake Eckstein. His task for us is deceptively simple. Morgan has asked us each to share a specific experience in our development as a tarot reader when our understanding of tarot or our tarot reading skill took a giant leap forward.

Any tarotist will tell you that tarot is full of aha moments. I think that’s what keeps most of us hooked. Over twenty-one years as a professional reader my reading style has gone through a lot of changes. I’d like to think my skills are always improving.

Can I isolate one moment, one class, one reading, or one profound experience with the cards, which thrust me forward? Certainly there are many. Let me share one that came very early in my tarot journey.

The thing that constantly amazes me about the cards is their ability to be repetitive. That the same poignant card will show up over and over again has always been an indicator of tarot’s efficacy for me. I could tell many stories about specific cards which constantly appeared for me over a period of time to guide me through a difficult journey or drive a specific unwelcome-but-necessary message home.

My discovery of tarot’s ability to make one card appear frequently in a person’s life is the quantum leap story I will add to our blog hop collection.

It started when I was first learning tarot, back in the mid-1980s in New Haven, Connecticut. I had a Rider Waite Smith in the yellow box, A Motherpeace Round Tarot, a book by Vicki Noble and a book by Eden Gray. I took four classes at the local New Age shop, The Elements of Life on State Street, now long gone. I don’t remember the name of my teacher, but obviously, she was good at what she did.

At the time I was living in student apartments in the Yale-dominated East Rock neighborhood. There were people constantly coming and going; I had four housemates and plenty of friends.

Everyone was willing to let me practice my new skill on them, even the one with a secret to hide.

One of our housemates had some really erratic behavior. We all loved her, but we were all concerned. Why was she behaving so strangely?

She was happy to let me practice tarot on her. I did, with great regularity. Each and every time, no matter the question or the deck, the Seven of Swords figured prominently. There was definitely a fox in the chicken coop.

The third time I saw the Seven of Swords come up for her, I called her on it. I knew she had been lying to all of us. She smiled the way children do with their hand in the cookie jar, but she said nothing.

At that point, I was a dog with a bone. I continued to ask questions, not of my housemate querent, but of the cards themselves. Eventually I had my answer, and she had to acknowledge its truth.

My housemate was a full-blown crack addict. That solved a few mysteries!

We often hear that “The cards never lie.” It’s also true that, until the truth comes out, the cards never shut up.

The realization that the same card would insistently present itself over and over again made it easy to more fully trust the wisdom of the cards. The power of those repetitive cards caused me to organically develop a reading style that allows for multiple appearances of the same card even in a single reading.

Over time I saw that a card which appeared insistently over a period of weeks or months would suddenly disappear when a situation resolved. That same card might reappear years later, or in a reading for another person, to denote a similar situation.

Those repetitive cards helped me develop a personal relationship with, and understanding of, each card.

Over the years, repetitive cards in self-reading have marked the significant events of my own life, from the development of my tarot business (Queen of Wands) to the death of my mother (Six of Cups), and beyond.

Repetitive cards help to build relationships with clients and students as we discover together the profound depth of a single card as it appears over a period of time.

 As a tarot professional on a journey of spiritual growth, my quantum leaps in tarot advance me both professionally and personally.

May all your tarot leaps be joyous, and may you have a blessed turn of the Wheel.

Now don’t stop here! Make your own leap to the next blog in the chain!

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Three Tarot Cards to tell you the Future is Wide Open

I love the Tom Petty song “Into the Great Wide Open.” Sometimes I see cards come up in tarot readings in ways that remind me of this song. Sometimes, for some people, the future is truly wide open.

So often, people seek tarot readings because they want a glimpse of their future.  Often, the best tarot readings tell us that the Universe is ready to help us manifest the future we desire.

There are a few cards that indicate this state of being to me. Often they come up together in the same spread. When I see these cards I know it is very important to be clear about goals, intention and actions, because you are ready to manifest your future. What you do today will determine what your tomorrow looks like.

The three cards that specifically speak to me of actively manifesting your future are the Two of Wands, the Seven of Cups and the World. It is amazing to me how often I see these three cards together.

The Two of Wands is about dreaming dreams, setting goals and making plans. In this card we have the opportunity to decide what we want our world to look like.

The Seven of Cups reminds us that we have options and choices. With this card we need to choose what we want to manifest in life.

The World is the card of attainment. It comes up to say that we have the ability to create the world we want.

Inherent in tarot is the opportunity not just to gain knowledge and perspective, but also the opportunity to build the future we desire. When you see these three cards, be ready to set your goals and create the life you want!