When you’ve got it, when you haven’t, and knowing the difference

Editor’s Note: If you want to experiment with tarot cards and don’t have any, we provide a free tarot spread generator using the Celtic Wings spread, which is based on the traditional Celtic Cross spread. This article explains how to use the spread. You can visit Sarah’s website here. –efc

By Sarah Taylor

I know that I’ve covered this week’s topic piecemeal across several other articles, but I thought that, right now, it was worth taking another look at it: that is, how you know when a tarot reading is working for you, and how you know when it isn’t.

As Amanda Painter writes in the July 27 edition of Daily Astrology:

I have a feeling I may not be the only person around who spent far too much time yesterday twisted up in some kind of mental/emotional knot, desperately looking for a loose end to pull … In fact, that knot is making writing anything remotely ‘helpful’ or ‘balanced’ in this space very challenging at this moment that I’m writing.

From the macro of world events, to the micro of personal experience, and encompassing the idea that nothing exists in isolation — that all of our experiences are interwoven on a level that is perhaps unknown and, for the most part, unknowable to us — I don’t think I’m stepping far out of line when I write that many of us have been having our fair share of challenge.

It is usually when we meet with challenge that we seek out answers — tarot being just one of the ways that we’re able do this. From my own experience, when things are going smoothly, my tarot deck barely gets a look-in. On the other hand, when I’m faced with confusion or pain, and when there are more questions than answers, that’s when I reach for my cards.

And here is the challenge: that moment when we most need a reading is the moment when we are most vulnerable to the very things that can compromise it.

When we are so deep into our stuff that we feel unable to step back from it, it is hard to look at the cards we’ve been given with productive objectivity. Because that is really what is going to be of most value when we read for ourselves: the ability to see what is rather than what we want — or don’t want — it to be.

The more we can look at something objectively, the better equipped we are to see something new and unexpected that can lead us out of the loop we are caught in. Unconscious reaction simply leads us back into that loop, where we are most often bound to repeat it. Conscious action based on fearless inquiry can break it, and it is only by approaching the cards that we are given without our story — without forcing them to conform to a particular idea that we have about ourselves or others — that they can tell us something new about ourselves, and consequently about how to act, to think, to feel.

These are some of the things I try to bear in mind, to watch out for, and to apply when I’m reading for myself so that I remain as open to the possibility of a shift as possible. It doesn’t always work — sometimes I’m simply not able to hear what it is that the cards are telling me — but, applied consistently, the message eventually makes it through. Remember: we may be fickle and impatient, but the cards are not. When we are ready, there they will be, gently whispering to us what we failed to hear in the past.

Prepare your space

By space, I mean outer and inner space. I believe there needs to be congruence between what is going on inside and around you — that is part of the balance that supports clarity. So do whatever you intuit is sensible to prep your canvas. I clear my work area as much as feels comfortable. I offer up a prayer, so that I acknowledge the connection as an active participant. The greater the need, the confusion or the emotion that brought you here, the more important this need for clarity becomes. You wouldn’t land a plane in fog without as much assistance as possible. Apply the same principle to a reading where you feel unsure about what it is that you’re looking at.

Feel the fire

It is Wands energy that connects you to the wisdom of a reading (the other suits all play a role, but this is the initiator), and when you’re working with it, it is unmistakeable. When I read Pamela Eakins’ description of Fire energy in Tarot of The Spirit as having “a sense of eternal longing … , an intense generally-contained power,” I felt like she had nailed the feeling for me. Fire energy both energises and weakens. I can feel it originate and stretch outside the bounds of my body, and I can only contain the feeling in short bursts. But when it is there, it is both palpable and unique. You will absolutely know it when you experience it — and when you do, you know you are in touch with a profound source of knowledge and wisdom.

Watch your emotions

If an emotion comes up that is particularly insistent, stop, look at it, pay it due respect and step back as much as you can. Any feeling that comes into the domain of a reading can give it a particular hue. Have you ever seen the world through rose-tinted spectacles? Emotions in readings can behave the same way. So stop for a moment; notice what is tugging on your heart strings; do a bit of psychic snipping if you feel moved to do so. Check in again. Do it this way and you’ll know when it’s time to continue.

Of stimulants and depressants

In the same way that I avoid caffeine before a reading, I view alcohol as an absolute no-no. Don’t get me wrong: I love a glass of wine. However, I have also learned that a glass of wine loves tarot, and a match made in heaven it is not. Anything that is designed to alter your mood is indubitably going to play silly buggers with your reading. If you’re up for a bit of fantasy role play, go for it. If you’re looking for enlightenment, I’d stick to herbal tea.

The ‘click’

The tarot version of striking gold, the ‘click’ is the moment when you realise what it is that you came looking for. It is insight: recognition, when a part of you meets with something else that feels entirely at home and familiar. You come back to yourself. Another piece joins the puzzle that is you. You’ll know it because it is accompanied by a burst of laughter, tears of release, or even a wry smile. You, the cards, and the wisdom that informs them converge. Pay attention. Something significant is being related to you.

The fog

And if you don’t get it? If nothing seems to be falling into place? If you’re wondering what the hell is going on and can’t someone give me a break pleeeeeeease!? Stick with the unknown for a while. Make friends with it. Hang out together. Perhaps confusion is just what the cosmic doctor ordered. Perhaps you don’t need to know everything. Perhaps — just perhaps — there is another part of you behind the wheel that knows exactly where it and you are going. It’s a hard one to do. It is also unutterably valuable.

If you’re feeling ready, why not try a reading applying one or more of these points? I’d be very interested to hear about your experiences. And the more you work with them, the more they become second-nature, the more you’ll just know when you’ve got it.