How to learn the tarot

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How to learn the tarot

People have been finding meaning in tarot cards for centuries, and though there is a lot of ritual to the practice, there is no evidence that tarot cards actually … tell your future.

But for many who love to consult them, that’s beside the point. Tarot is less about predicting the future than it is about reflecting on your life. Also? “Having fun is more serious to the practice than you can imagine,” said Ariana Lenarsky, 34, a writer, musician and tarot reader.

Getting into tarot can be overwhelming at first. Here’s an easy guide.ImageCredit…Jesse Untracht-Oakner for The New York Times

STEP 1

There are a few key differences between a regular deck of cards and a tarot deck. Generally, tarot decks contain more cards, and each card features an illustration associated with its meaning. The decks have been reimagined many times with different styles and themes.

The most important thing is that your tarot deck resonates with you: Buy a deck you’ll want to use and practice with. (Or, ask someone to buy a nice deck for you, if you feel superstitious about buying your own.)

“My recommendation is always to think about a deck like you’re choosing a roommate,” said Jessica Dore, 34, a social worker and tarot card reader who is known for her daily readings on Twitter and now teaches tarot card reading.

The reader behind a popular YouTube channel called Tarot by Bronx recommends visiting a local bookstore or metaphysical shop so you can see and hold a deck before buying it.

If that’s not possible, you can always browse tarot decks online at retailers like Little Red Tarot, Rite of Ritual and Llewellyn. If you’re a beginner, it’s worth considering a deck that comes with a guidebook.

Here are some suggested decks:

The Rider Waite tarot deck, originally published in 1909, is one of the most popular. It can make for a great beginner deck because it’s easy to find information on how to interpret the cards. The Modern Witch tarot deck is a contemporary twist on the Rider Waite deck. The Akamara tarot deck showcases African spiritual practices. The Tarot Illuminati deck features cards with vibrant colors and detailed artwork.

STEP 2

A tarot deck has 78 cards and is divided into two sections: major arcana (major mysteries) and minor arcana (meaning minor mysteries).

There are 22 major arcana cards, and they tend to deal with big life events and overarching themes, for example, relationships, career and love.

There are 56 minor arcana cards. These tend to deal with smaller issues and day-to-day tribulations, like fleeting emotions and situations. Minor arcana cards are divided into four suits: cups, wands, swords and pentacles. Each suit has numbered cards from 1 through 10, as well as four court cards (page, knight, king and queen).ImageCredit…Jesse Untracht-Oakner for The New York Times

STEP 3

The aim of a tarot reading is to explore a question about the self. You pick cards to help you reflect on possible answers, interpreting the meaning of each in relation to what you asked. Keep in mind that tarot cards are tools for introspection, and for that reason it’s best to keep questions open-ended.

“Any questions that are clear and concise that deal with who, what, where and how are great,” said Tatianna Morales, 33, who taught herself to read tarot cards as a child and now conducts a variety of services as Tatianna Tarot. “The whys are not so important, because things can change.”

Though you can use tarot to work through the big things happening in your life, like career obstacles and relationship struggles, it can also address day-to-day questions.

Here are some examples from the experts, of questions you can ask of yourself or to help answer for other people:

  • What do I need to be aware of right now?
  • Where should I be focusing my energy or attention?
  • What do I need to appreciate about myself today?
  • Should I have pizza … again?
  • Why is my mother like that?
  • What’s my biggest challenge for the day?
  • What do I need to know about my love life?
  • What should I be doing career-wise?

ImageCredit…Jesse Untracht-Oakner for The New York Times

STEP 4

Do whatever feels right to set the mood. Some people like to use specific table cloths while they read, while others use candles or crystals.

Many tarot card readers also cleanse their area before they start. You can do this with sprays like lavender, as well as by burning incense.

Here is a guide to incense.

STEP 5

Start by shuffling your deck while thinking about your question. Shuffle however feels most comfortable, and stop when you feel you’ve thought about your question enough and are ready for an answer.

After shuffling, place the deck facedown and cut it into multiple smaller decks. They don’t have to be of equal size — just whatever feels right. Then, restack all of the decks back together at random. Your cards are now ready to pull: You’ll flip individual cards up from the deck and place them faceup on the table.ImageCredit…Jesse Untracht-Oakner for The New York Times

STEP 6

There are different ways to pull tarot cards. You pull them intuitively or into “spreads” — specific arrangement where each card is assigned a meaning.

Bronx and Ms. Morales said they pull cards intuitively, flipping over cards until they feel they’ve answered their question.

For beginners, spreads or specific forms of reading can be easier to grasp. The simplest of these is a one-card spread, where a single card is pulled.

Pulling a single card at a time can be less overwhelming than a full spread, and it can give you the opportunity to get to know the cards better. Ms. Dore recommends pulling one card in the morning and one in the evening, creating opportunities to check in with yourself.

Three-card spreads are easy and adaptable. You’ll pull three cards, placing them on the table from left to right. Assign each position a meaning: For example, the first card you pull can represent the past, the middle card can represent the present, and the last can look at the future. You could also look at mind, body and spirit; your current situation, your obstacle and advice; or any other meanings you want to assign.

A Celtic cross is a 10-card spread that approaches an issue from multiple angles. The first card you pull looks at the heart of the issue, while the rest work to explain it and give you insight on the best way forward. Here is a guide. However, given the number of cards, it can be a little overwhelming if you’re not familiar with what they all mean yet.ImageCredit…Jesse Untracht-Oakner for The New York Times

STEP 7

First up, the minor arcana. Cups, associated with water, is the suit that deals primarily with emotions, openness and imagination. Wands, associated with fire and passion, represent energy, movement and creative force. Swords, associated with air, represent your mind; how you think, communicate and solve problems. Pentacles, associated with earth, explore the physical world and how we interact with it, representing topics like money, the home and careers.

Next, the court cards. Just like in a regular deck of cards, each suit has face or court cards — usually called king, queen, page and knight.

“You can think about them as individual entities that stand alone, or you can think about them as a sequence or a progression,” Ms. Dore said. The page and the knight can represent youth or inexperience, while the queen and king can convey adulthood and mastery.

Major arcana cards, like the Star or the Lovers, refer to bigger events in your life. Though these cards can be intimidating at first, just make sure to take your time with them and read up on all the different ways they can be interpreted. They’re always more nuanced than they seem at a glance: For example, while pulling the Death card may feel like a bad omen, it could be interpreted more innocently — that something in your life could end.

Keep a tarot journal.

“Go with your own instincts, try to shut your brain off and write as much as you can about what you’re picking up for that card in that moment, and compile a list of definitions over time,” Ms. Morales said. “That list will become your own encyclopedia.”

Each person’s entrée into the world of tarot cards and readings is different. Mine came at age 13, at a Bat Mitzvah for a girl in my class that featured a tarot reader as part of the cocktail hour. When she pulled the Death card—lucky number 13 in the major arcana of cards—in my spread, I near fainted and squarely decided tarot was not for me. That opinion changed when I was introduced to the work of Rachel Howe, a Brooklyn-based artist, Reiki healer, and tarot reader—you might know her from her Instagram handle, @smallspells. It was Howe’s mystical, black-and-white drawings that first caught my eye, and her recently released illustrated tarot deck and guidebook has inspired this writer to get into tarot yet again.

To those who think the practice of reading tarot is an occult art reserved for spook sessions, let me say: You’re wrong. As Howe describes it, the practice is more about the discussion between the reader and the person whose cards are being read. Think about it like an in-depth conversation that’s merely facilitated by the cards and their implied meanings: “Tarot, a tool, and the real healing work is going to be done by the person,” says Howe. “A lot of people describe tarot as a mirror, so it’s not like I’m pulling some secret out of you.”

Still, trying to enter into the vast world of tarot readings, of which there are centuries of literature about, is daunting. “There’s a lot of rules about tarot, which I think have been used in the past to have it be this secret esoteric thing and to keep people away, which was necessary as a protective measure. I don’t think that’s as necessary now. I think anyone can read tarot,” Howe says of the practice’s sometimes-exclusive practices and rules. “I’ve heard people say you’re not supposed to buy your own deck, you’re supposed to have someone gift it to you. My feeling is, I bought my deck and I can read. What if no one buys you a deck? Then you never get to learn how to read! Anything that feels like it’s a sort of boundary between people who know and people who don’t know, I don’t think applies anymore.”

So in the spirit of inclusivity, I asked Howe to share some of her tips for new members of the tarot club. Those who still want to find out more—and happen to live in the New York area—can attend one of Howe’s workshops in Williamsburg.

Get to Know the Cards
After you’ve purchased a deck, the first thing to do is to familiarize yourself with the cards. “I think establishing a relationship with the cards is important. It can be so intimidating because it’s a deck of 78 cards and they’re all different. It’s a lot of information that I think a lot of people feel they have to memorize,” Howe admits. Her tip? “If you are starting out, just working by yourself, a lot of people do a daily card pull where they pull one card from the deck and just think about the meaning of the card. If you do it in the morning, you can keep it in mind as you go through your day. That’s a nice way to get to know the cards on a deeper level.”

Be Ready to Talk
“Tarot is really like a tool, a tool to facilitate talking about things. Because there’s this sort of added mystical energy to it or some sort of mystical connection, you can see people start to open up in a way that they might not if you were just having a conversation about something. There’s something about the special energy about it that kind of melts away the walls that people have and then the conversation can really get in there and make changes,” Howe says. As such, it’s important for tarot readers to be ready to communicate. That means both keeping an open mind and trusting one’s own intuition. “Intuiting is definitely a big part of a tarot reading; that’s what makes it so special. That’s where energy comes in, being able to sense what someone is feeling, thinking, or going through.”

If this sounds intimidating, Howe says it’s important to relax and trust your own agency. “Use language that you already have, or knowledge that you already have, so you can see it less as ‘This holds all of these secret meanings that I have to do all this work to access,’ and more like ‘I know all the meanings; it’s just a matter of making the connections and being able to articulate them.’ ” She notes that the four elements—earth, water, fire, and air—play a large role in the tarot, which is helpful because most people already have some ideas about the meanings of each element that they can draw on. “If you do that then it’s more your own perspective and you can be a little freer with the things that you’re saying.”

tarot Photo: Courtesy of Rachel Howe / @smallspells

Get to Know Some Basic Spreads—But Be Ready to Change Them
For beginner readers, Howe recommends two basic spreads, a three-card pull and the Celtic Cross. The former is where three cards are drawn from the deck to represent the past, present, and future or mind, body, and spirit of the person being read. Howe says you can even up the ante to a six-card pull, with one card representing each area.

The Celtic Cross, though slightly more complicated, is also a good starting point. “The Celtic Cross spread is a classic spread where each card has an assigned position and an assigned meaning for that position. It’s 10 cards, so it’s a lot of information and it’s a very clear spread. Personally, I use a modified version of the Celtic Cross where I use the format, but I like to be loose with the positions because I want the cards to be whatever they want to be. What I do is I start out with the Celtic Cross layout, and as we’re talking, I’ll move cards around to make [it so] the point of these cards are talking to each other. Sometimes, by the end of the reading, it looks totally different.”

Her other tip is not to keep the big picture of the layout in mind. “It’s really about the connections between the cards. Depending what cards are around a certain card, it will influence the meaning. They’re all being influenced by each other, sometimes they’re really amplified by each other,” she explains.

Find a Space With Good Vibes to Conduct Your Readings
“I think it’s important to think about the energy of the space because you’re opening up,” she explains. “If you want to be an open person, it means that you want your environment around you to be a healthy one so it’s okay for you to be open. I do readings in my apartment, which is great because I can control the environment. Burning sage, burning palo santo, lighting candles, even having an intention, like, ‘This is a space where I can be open so it’s a loving space and I don’t allow non-loving energies,’ helps.”

But it’s not just the physical space that needs to be in sorts before a reading. “Even your headspace matters,” Howe says. “I like to meditate before I give a reading so that I’m not preoccupied with any of my own issues or problems, so that I can be open to let whatever is coming to my mind be for them and not for myself.”

tarot Photo: Courtesy of Rachel Howe / @smallspells

Find a Way to Start a Reading That Feels Right for You
Traditional tarot books or readers might advocate for a lengthy or ritual process of beginning a reading. Howe says the most important element is to just do what feels right for you. “I went to a reading where the woman had me sit on the deck of cards for 15 minutes!” she laughs. “So whatever ritual makes the most sense for you that you feel like is letting you have access, you should just do that.”

She outlines her personal process for starting a reading thus: “I usually sit across from the person, but when I lay the cards out, they’re facing me. I like to talk to the person beforehand to get some context about what they’re working on. While I’m shuffling the cards and they’re talking, sometimes I start to get insights even then. I have them cut the deck, pick a pile, and then I have them lay the cards out from the pile that they’ve chosen. Then I usually give a minute just to settle, to let whatever’s going to come to the surface come up. A moment like that is when you have to shed a little self-consciousness, when you’re just sitting there not saying anything. It’s actually really important. It’s not going to matter once you start talking, they’re not going to think it’s weird anymore. You have to just figure out whatever it is that will make the reading flow the easiest.”

Whatever You Do, Don’t Panic
After hearing my story of the Death card, Howe let’s out a laugh. “I really love the Death card, it’s the one that always shows up in the movies,” she begins. “The Death card, in my experience, doesn’t actually mean death. It’s more about our fear of death and our fear of change. Change is really positive. I drew the Grim Reaper in this jungle atmosphere with all these plants and life and butterflies that symbolize change and transformation. Death is just the necessary component to transformation—you can’t become something else without the loss of something.” For this writer, maybe losing the fear of the Death card is exactly what needed to happen for me to reaccept the tarot. See, not spooky at all.

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