New Worlds of Body, Mind & Spirit Since 1901
Wondering if you should create your own tarot spreads is rather like asking yourself if you should cook your own meals. Isn't it easier to eat out at yummy restaurants, depend on friends, or heat up frozen dinners? No! Eating out is expensive, your friends will get annoyed with you, and frozen food is … eesh, unexciting. Cooking teaches you more about food than you could ever learn by just eating alone. Cooking reveals texture, taste, combination, timing, planning, and, most importantly, how and what you like. Cooking makes you a better eater. The same truth applies to tarot: creating spreads will make you a better reader. You could find a spread in a book that might suit your ...
Learning the meanings of tarot cards is not really very hard. The Major Arcana cards are archetypes to which most of us can easily relate. (That is, after all, the nature of archetypes.) The Minor Arcana—at least in decks with illustrated pip cards—are so simple that even children can do it. In fact, children are often better at it than adults, for what could be simpler than to look at a picture and say what is going on it? Unfortunately, many adults are afraid of getting it wrong or looking silly that they lock up and cannot say anything. But that is another topic entirely. By and large, reading the cards is not difficult, except—and this is almost universally agreed ...
Curiosity is a great cure-all because it generates energy and enthusiasm. Even if you don’t have much control over your present circumstances, you can nevertheless indulge your curiosity with simple tarot readings. The following is a "card search" technique that gives you something to look forward to. As you shuffle your deck, pose the request, "Please show me the next new thing in my life, and the next piece of news coming in." Or, more simply, "What's new, and what's news?" When you have shuffled and cut your deck in your preferred manner, place your deck face up, with the pictures showing. (I find that card search readings are easier when you place the deck face up and start ...
This article continues my series on the Court Cards. For some background information on this series, see "The Tarot Court, Part I: The Kings of Tarot." For this series, we are looking at the Court Cards as representing other people involved in the situation that the querent is asking about. People describe the Queens as representing nurturing or an internal expression of the suit. In other words, someone who can provide needed help or advice. While any Court Card can have negative qualities when reversed or ill-dignified, when upright and well-aspected, I think getting a Queen in a reading is like having a Fairy Godmother visit. More than any of the other Court Cards, the Queens actually ...
