Editor’s Note: This article continues our weekly series on the Tarot. You can find some of the earlier ones by clicking the “tarot” category link above (that should be working). We’re happy to respond to questions and will take direction from readers who comment, so please let us know what you think. You can visit Sarah’s website at this link. –efc
By Sarah Taylor
Over the past few weeks in our nascent tarot series, we have started by situating tarot in a wider system of thought where the personal touches the collective — one that is woven through much of the writing here on Planet Waves; and we have laid some groundwork for approaching a reading as clearly and effectively as possible. (The articles are listed at the end of this one.) Today, we are going to explore the idea of reading a tarot card: looking at it in order to gather meaning.
If, according to Dr. Roger Sperry, we are one of those who tend to approach things from a more “left-brain” perspective, we might balk at the thought of reading something that is visual rather than verbal. But if we come from the understanding that everything is symbolic (the subject of the first article), then I believe that we all have it in us to pick out the narrative of a picture. Some of us will simply take a little longer to get the knack than others who are well-versed in thinking visually.
If you consider yourself one who tends towards words rather than images, take heart. First, no-one is exclusively one way or the other; all of us rely on both mechanisms to move through life. Second, I don’t buy for a minute the belief many of us have that tarot is the exclusive domain of right-brain woo woo.
A good reading demands a combination of left-brain and right-brain thinking; of verbal and visual; analytical and intuitive. We apply both of these processes when addressing our cards. One cannot function effectively without the other. More than that: when they are combined, the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts. Reading tarot cards is a form of synthesis, where two different approaches — knowledge and intuition — are combined to create something that transcends both.
So here we go …
Step 1 — Knowledge.
This is important: know your cards. Know the difference between major and minor arcana; court and pip cards (pips being Aces through to tens); swords, cups, wands and coins. Know what each classically represents. For example, what does the seven of coins mean? What are the differences between wands and swords? What is the prevailing quality of fours as compared to tens? What is the evolutionary journey described by the major arcana, from zero (The Fool) to 22 (The World)?
Knowledge such as this forms the bricks and mortar of our readings — their solid foundations. In doing this, we draw from centuries of tradition and practice, and we begin to learn the language of tarot. Why is this important? I remember being stunned to find out that Picasso could draw and paint classically because I had only ever seen his later works. We, perhaps like Picasso, use the routes trodden by the masters first, so that we know where we are when we venture outside boundaries, and we know how to break with tradition constructively.
Buy a book or two that come recommended by established, reputable readers. Attend a course. Do your homework and source out the best tools. And then start to work with your cards so that their traditional meanings become second nature. Then you are ready to apply the second step.
Step 2 — Intuition.
As I wrote earlier, intuition does not feel like a natural state for many of us. Though I believe that we are by nature intuitive, we often place so many obstacles in its way that we either feel out of sync with it, or cut off from it. It is there. We just need to see it.
One of the first things that we can do to recover intuition is to be aware of our thoughts about it. Again, look for doubt, look for awe, and check your ego at the door. Observe yourself. Is there a pull that has an emotional charge to it? If there is, then that is a good indication that you have interference. Mentally take a step back. Check in again. Your intuition tends to be quieter than the other thoughts and feelings that will come up. Find the voice behind the voices, the one that carries with it a subtle certainty that rises above emotions. Look for your emotions as a reaction to finding that voice. Detach from those too.
This process, like many things, is simple, but it isn’t easy. Practise, practise, practise, be willing to make mistakes and be forgiving of yourself. Watch yourself as you start to identify your intuition more quickly and more clearly.
Step 3 — Combining knowledge and intuition to read a card.
Put these two steps together and we have the makings of a sound reading. But, as with nearly everything to do with tarot, we need to combine the ingredients carefully, always keeping the requirements of the reading uppermost. This isn’t baking: there are no set quantities, no definitive ways of treatment. There are norms, methods and traditions — yet all of them are fluid. Some cards will be straightforward in terms of their traditional, learned meanings. Others will demand a more intuitive approach to their interpretation. It is up to us, as readers, to apply our knowledge and our intuition to discern which method is best for each card.
Let’s take a card: the eight of wands. (Search for eight of wands under Google images and you will find several good examples.)
First, let’s apply our knowledge. What do we know about the eight of wands? How does its conventional meaning apply to the subject of our reading? The eight of wands is traditionally about swiftness, and unimpeded movement. If we take the Rider-Waite tarot deck, as I am here, we can see that illustrated in the cards: eight staffs in flight, all heading towards a shared destination.
Now let’s sink deeper into the image to get at those aspects of it that lie beyond the assigned meaning. How does the card feel? Perhaps the eight of wands embodies vitality and optimism; perhaps it denotes simple forward motion; perhaps it feels like a full-bodied assault. Are there elements of the card that stand out in the context of the specific question that we’re reading about?
If we’re reading with more than one card, we can look at the other cards. When we know our cards, we know which combinations pull together more than others; which ones repel; and which ones seem indifferent. (I’ll be exploring relationships between cards in later articles.)
Now, let’s look even deeper. Are there any prevailing colours in the spread we’re using? What feelings do they give us? What can we intuit from that? What cards are next to each other? What directions are any figures or salient objects facing? Where are they facing in relationship to other figures or objects? Is one figure turned away from another, and what do we feel they represent? (I am aware at this point that I have stepped away from the example card of the eight of wands, and that’s no accident. When intuition takes over, a card vibrates in terms of the reading context. It is relevant purely for that particular position, and in that particular moment so that examples out of context can only take us so far.)
Next, let’s step away from the reading and look with our inner eye. What impressions do we have? Does anything stand out? Do we feel a pull towards any particular card or cards?
And then our final step back, where we detach as much as we can. What remains? What is our overarching impression? Have we told the story waiting to be told? Does the reading feel complete? If not, what do we feel is missing? What shouldn’t be there?
Look, think, feel, detach. Breathe out… and come to your answers.
This article seems at times to be a barrage of questions. I believe that this is sometimes the best way to communicate with intuition. We use what we know to establish and find answers to what we don’t know. And we do this through enquiry. We ask, we disengage, we wait. And somehow, through the synthesis that I referred to earlier, the answers come through. It is then up to us to hold and communicate them in a spirit of humble acceptance. The cards have spoken, and we have listened — with our heads and with our hearts.
Previous articles:
– Intro to Tarot: Synchronicity and card positions
– Intro to Tarot: Gearing up for a reading
– Intro to Tarot: Humanity’s relationship to symbols
I visited eBay.co.uk yesterday and – what do you know? – there is one Voyager deck up for auction, currently at a pretty reasonable price. I’m keeping my eye on it.
hypnotic and sam: I hope you manage to work something out!
— S
Hi Hypnotic,
That’s a great idea and also a very sweet offer. The thing is that I don’t have any deck at all right now and I’m doubtful that any decks are available here, besides a rather crappy reprint of the Rider-Waite one Chinese friend of mine has. I just use Tracey’s online programs. But I will think about this a little bit, because it would be fun to do, maybe my mother in the States (who introduced me to tarot in the first place) could get involved as a sort of middlewoman….
Sam, if you want to do a swap, I can send you a Voyager deck and you can send me a deck of your choice. Im in California.
Sarah: I hear you…
” I remember making some form of agreement with myself to start growing, and suddenly everything rushed in. It was almost overwhelming”
I really love the Voyager deck. Funny, I ordered it on amazon and by mistake selected quantity of 2 and then I received the first one and it was missing a card (a double of another), so I requested a replacement. At one point I had THREE decks of these cards!! I would send one to you Sam, but I already returned them back in April.
I did get them on amazon for about $20. The book that comes with the deck is very good. I also found his book used on amazon. Its a great diving board. but I dont really use that much, because I like to go organic. I just look at the images and start writing…
the Voyager deck is something a bit different for me than the rider waite, the only other deck I have. They feel very positive, encouraging, loving. Everytime I have used them, so far, they basically tell me the same thing! Its cool, cause I know its what I need to hear.
The contemporary images and the montage effect really busts open my brain. Let me say, they feel very forward looking and Aquarian to me — and I need/like that.
Thanks again Sarah
Carrie,
Thanks for speaking up about being another both-sides-of-the-brain-work-really-well-and together person! Although many of us (here) are Equal Sides of the Brain folk, no doubt.
It’s a reason I’ve often found myself in jobs wherein I become mediator between those that speak one language (engineers for example) and those that speak another (sales people or such).
Anyway – I’m using Sarah’s Tarot lessons (and erici’s and len’s) to understand how I (bold type) “get it” – because I’ve already intuited what’s going on, I find that my need is to back up and understand it intellectually…..then put it in “drive” again and make another pass on understanding what the intuition said – after a few times, I’ve “got it” and can move on. Or vis-versa dependng on the topic.
I’m still trying to teach this “technique” for learning to my son; he still can’t understand why he understands but can’t understand!
xo
And thanks, Sarah! Another helpful lesson!
Some of us are able to integrate both the left brain practical (earth) with the right brain intuition (water). That’s what works for this Pisces with Virgo rising. :::::grin:::: This is just my way of saying there’s more than one way to feed a cat.
Hi Sarah, and thank you too!
I’m in China, so it’s also really difficult to get a hold of these things, thus I have been milking the amazon.com free previews of the book that comes with the Voyager tarot deck for all it’s worth. One of these days I’ll get someone in the States to send it to me here or I’ll get it myself the next time I go back. It’s through reading the descriptions in that book that I’ve discovered some alternate readings for certain cards that really ring true for me, and which I don’t believe I’d have discovered merely through gazing at the Rider-Waite deck. Although perhaps I’d uncover these things by actually encountering the Voyager deck. Like he has a much more nuanced 9 of Swords than anything I’d ever imagined or read before.
Sam – you bring up some great points. I agree with you about the parochialism of some descriptions; and I always feel personally that it’s a good idea to get past these. Some of them feel so wrong to me that I also outright reject them at times. Lyrical language has a way of blurring the edges between left and right brain, so it can often act as a bridge. That appeals to me moreso than the straightforward blah-blah-blah of some descriptions, which leave me cold.
… The Voyager Tarot is tricky to get in the UK, as far as I can see. There’s a deck on Amazon … for fifty quid! I’ll have to keep searching. Images online are also thin on the ground, though your link has provided me with quite a few.
Thank you!
Also want to speak to the on- or off- book method. I am a real novice at tarot, and so when I started I looked up card meanings online. If I was living in a place where such things were more readily available, I’d probably have gotten a book from the library or bought one, but I’m not so I didn’t.
Anyway, most of the descriptions on the internet are what my mother would call “really parochial.” At the same time, it’s interesting to read something and then go back again and look at the card and see what you find there, see what does and doesn’t gel with the written description. While Wanless’s cards are totally moving and gorgeous, I think his descriptions also add a crucial component, and they add depth to the experience of viewing the cards, some of which you could really drown in. I think the strength of his descriptions is that he uses a great deal of imagistic and poetic language. So it’s not the same as someone telling you “look the Knight of Cups is led by his cup over the river and that means you should just follow your emotions but wait watch out cause maybe that you’re already going with your feelings too much,” as a lot of the internet descriptions would say. Not that that’s necessarily such a bad description anyway, it’s just… parochial. Furthermore, the strength of the Rider-Waite deck in my opinion is precisely that the images are just so accessible because they have evoke such strong characters, not to mention really palpable actions and postures.
Anyway, this is all to say that currently I’m enjoying a mingled Rider-Waite-Coleman-Smith-Wanless-textual-imagistic Tarot universe.
I’ve been looking at and also more or less using the Voyager Tarot because Eric keeps using it in his audio readings, and I got curious. I don’t have the deck, but I use Tracey’s online system with the idea that I can move back and forth between that deck and the Voyager. I also have been reading James Wanless’s descriptions of the cards which are pretty fabulous, and sometimes I’d find an image of the card online. But only today did I really look through all the major arcana online, and I have to say they really are totally amazing. Before I’d thought they were a little cheesy, but I think I hadn’t gotten a proper look. This one, Strength, will just knock your socks off. Note: I am pretty sure that’s an erect pink flower penis over the brow of the lion/human…
http://www.flickr.com/photos/oneparticularwave/268991893/in/set-72157594327170594/
Jung and Tarot is one of the books focused on the whole story of the card, not the fortune telling meaning. It covers the 22 trumps.
I also recommend Gerd Zeigler’s books — Tarot: Mirror of the Soul and Tarot: Mirror of your Relationships. He is a German gestalt therapist, I believe, which is a helpful perspective. And Rachel Pollack is an excellent author; I trust her point of view. Her deck, the Haindl Tarot, is one of my favorites ever.
Ideally it’s best to go off-book. The cards contain what you need. To add the left-brain function function of literature is to suppress the right-brain functions of imagery and imagination and intuition that make the tarot what it is.
You’re welcome, Len. Great to hear that you might have found the key. Once you experience what it feels like, it’s much easier to slip into that mode the next time you try … (much like walking and chewing gum). 🙂
Carrie – whatever works for you, though it’s useful to remember that you have that repository inside you too. The more you internalise and intuit, the fewer the steps of separation between you and the cards.
hypnotic – I have this book, and I’ve dipped into it when I’ve needed to; but I think I’ll give it a closer look now. Thank you. (I now have Boz Scaggs playing in my head. Great memories!)
“Funny how fast we go from The Fool to the Magician.” – Eric
Eric, I’ve been thinking about this, and it makes some strong sense to me from a personal perspective. If we see The Fool not as we are at birth, but as we are when we choose to take that first step on the path to individuation, The Magician can follow very swiftly. I remember making some form of agreement with myself to start growing, and suddenly everything rushed in. It was almost overwhelming. I felt like I had been given tools that were, well, magical; but that, in retrospect, was really just the beginning. Then there followed – and still does – a period of integration, which definitely spelt the end of the honeymoon period of The Magician. But that’s just my experience of it …
I slipped this one out the back door of the library (shh!!) :
Jung and Tarot : an archetypal Journey / Sallie Nichols
I only got up to the Pope. Its really good. I read it in bed before I go to sleep and then put it under my pillow for osmosis. Its not too academic or anything to memorize, just a nice journey through the Trumps using the Marseilles, mostly. But she has a lot of cool illustrations.
(Boz Scaggs and CCR seem to be in agreement (playing in the background on my KHits radio station 🙂 )
xL
Carrie
It’s not necessary to memorize the meanings of the cards. The visual images in the cards prompt your memory. The symbols are all in the cards — that is why they exist…the card is itself, and the deck itself, a kind of dictionary…a set of references.
ef
I found that trying to memorize the subtle differences between 78 cards was more than my brain could handle so I got a book called “Dictionary of the Tarot.” This book gives the various meanings assigned to each card by several well-known purveyors of tarot (including Aleister Crowley). I read each of the definitions listed and, looking at the card and “feeling” it and how it fits into the tarot deck scheme of things, I wrote on the front of the card (wherever I could write it) the keywords from the definitions that I felt fit that card for me. Now, when I read the cards, I look at the keywords and, taking into account the position of the card and the “story” the whole layout is speaking to me, I read off the keywords that I feel work. I have been very successful this way and the people I read for never question why the words are written on the front of the card because for the most part, most of them have never seen tarot cards before.
That’s my method and I am sticking to it :::laughing:::
yes that is the basic concept of the image — that he has the tools he needs; the journey has begun. Funny how fast we go from The Fool to the Magician.
It’s a little like the Sabian symbols — they begin with A Woman Risen from the Sea in the first; and in the second, there’s a comedian on stage making jokes about human nature.
Sarah,
Thank you for such a wonderful series of blogs. This particular installment might be the key that turns the the tarot brain-lock for me. Of course, getting all the parts of my brain working together will have to wait until i master the art of walking while chewing gum (almost there!).
It really is. I make a point to rest after a client because it draws on all your faculties. It’s also a good idea to “reboot” between readings – clear the mental palate.
It’s also a great accompanying image. The magician as one who draws many different elements together in an act of conscious creation.
Tarot is great for getting all the parts of your brain working together.