I am currently holed up, at the tail-end of Africa, with a bad cold — and my intention to write an article on The Devil and The Star has been stymied until I’m back on my feet again. Which is why I’m so grateful to my colleague, Emma Sunerton-Burl, for stepping into the breach as a guest writer this week. Emma is a tarot reader, teacher, and counsellor. You can visit her website here. — Sarah
Often when we read tarot for ourselves, we have a position in the spread which is the focal point of our reading. It might be the outcome card, it might be the ‘card to focus on’, it might be the ‘key’. It is the card that we are most drawn to and seek answers from.
Sometimes in readings this card we are drawn to is the very one that we understand the least — or in a particular reading it seems not to provide the direct answers we usually gain or expect. This is a good time to build your tarot knowledge, both in a traditional way and in a very personal way.
These perhaps confusing yet central cards hold a key for us. There are a number of different ways to approach this:
— the academic study
— the meditation
— the journey
— the holding the card with you through life
I want to focus on the last of these here, but before I do I will briefly talk about the others to give you an idea of what I am not meaning with the last one.
The first is to use the books you have, the online resources you have access to and to read all anyone has ever seen in the card — and go with those statements and concepts you have a intuitive reaction to. You are starting to gain a deeper understanding of the card and how it relates to you specifically in your situation; and you are adding to your remembered bank of card meanings.
In this section I would also include studying the things that have been associated with the card by the deck creator, so, with the Thoth for example, you may also be going to references about the astrological associations of the Thoth card you are dealing with; the Kabbalistic position of the card; the meanings of the sephiroth or path connected to the card.