Trouble Explaining

MusicalPisces

Have you ever looked at the cards, knew exactly what they were trying to say, looked up at the person you're reading for....and there are no words. You can't think of how to explain it. You get it, but that doesn't help the poor person sitting in front of you. Has this ever happened to anyone else? And if so, what do you do?? lol I've found myself in this situation a couple of times and I'm sure it's bound to happen again.
 

nisaba

MusicalPisces said:
Have you ever looked at the cards, knew exactly what they were trying to say, looked up at the person you're reading for....and there are no words. You can't think of how to explain it. You get it, but that doesn't help the poor person sitting in front of you. Has this ever happened to anyone else? And if so, what do you do?? lol I've found myself in this situation a couple of times and I'm sure it's bound to happen again.
Click to expand...

I think Tarot is a language. My mother, a migrant, speaks flawless, unaccented English and even dreams in English (unless she dreams of her childhood homeland), but she simply can't do numbers in English, and always mutters in German when she calculates.

Tarot is a language of its own - when I'm reading, I'm lightning-rapid for myself, and always a bit slower for other people - because I'm translating pure Tarot-ideas into English as I go.

What's happening to you is what used to happen to me some time ago - just problems of translation. It's okay. Tell the client you are having difficulties in translating the pure essensce of hte message, and try again. It gets easier with time. (My mother just doesn't use numbners all that often, or she would have found it get easier too).
 

MusicalPisces

Oh wow, I really like that description. You're right, it is a language. That's a good way to describe it...trying to translate. Thank you nisaba! :D
 

ann823

Yes!! I have the same problem. I think in pictures anyway but it seems to take more effort to translate what I want to say about what I see in the cards. I haven't been at this(tarot) too long so I hope it gets easier eventually.
 

WalesWoman

MusicalPisces said:
Have you ever looked at the cards, knew exactly what they were trying to say, looked up at the person you're reading for....and there are no words. You can't think of how to explain it. You get it, but that doesn't help the poor person sitting in front of you. Has this ever happened to anyone else? And if so, what do you do?? lol I've found myself in this situation a couple of times and I'm sure it's bound to happen again.
Click to expand...

all the time, I am horrible at face to face readings because I can feel what it means but there aren't words of it.
 

Abrac

Do you read a lot of book about tarot? Sometimes people scoff at books as opposed to intuition, but reading a wide variety of books and authors adds substantially to a person's well of words from which to draw. :)
 

Grizabella

I've seen this question asked many, many times, so it's not unusual. It happened to me, too.

The brain has two sides. The right side deals in images and the left side deals with facts like numbers, words, etc. So when you're looking at the images on Tarot cards, you're essentially reading in images not words, and to consciously translate that over to the other side of the brain where it becomes words is something you have to learn to do. For some reason, as long as that process stays in your brain and is translated in the left side, it happens more quickly than when you then have to accomplish a third step which is to put it into the spoken word. It's step 1--you "read" the images with the right side of your brain and then step 2--you transfer the images to the left side and give them words and then step 3--you take those words from the left side of your brain and speak them aloud in coherent sentences. It isn't something we're used to doing so it takes conscious effort till we get the hang of it.
 

ann823

Abrac said:
Do you read a lot of book about tarot? Sometimes people scoff at books as opposed to intuition, but reading a wide variety of books and authors adds substantially to a person's well of words from which to draw. :)
Click to expand...

Yes, I find looking in books helps, AFTER I have a firm idea as to the meaning of the reading. Then I know when I've found it in a book. I'm not sure reading just from the pictures is actually "intuition", I think it's just reading a visual symbol instead of a verbal symbol.

Grizabella that's interesting, I still have some trouble translating the picture in my right brain to words in my left. Once I have the words I can usually get them out. I had a terrible time with this when I went from my undergraduate major which was studio art to education and it took me quite a while and endless frustration to be able to do it and it always seems to fall short of what I really mean to say.
 

Stormdancer

Grizabella said:
I've seen this question asked many, many times, so it's not unusual. It happened to me, too.

The brain has two sides. The right side deals in images and the left side deals with facts like numbers, words, etc. So when you're looking at the images on Tarot cards, you're essentially reading in images not words, and to consciously translate that over to the other side of the brain where it becomes words is something you have to learn to do. For some reason, as long as that process stays in your brain and is translated in the left side, it happens more quickly than when you then have to accomplish a third step which is to put it into the spoken word. It's step 1--you "read" the images with the right side of your brain and then step 2--you transfer the images to the left side and give them words and then step 3--you take those words from the left side of your brain and speak them aloud in coherent sentences. It isn't something we're used to doing so it takes conscious effort till we get the hang of it.
Click to expand...
I LOVE this explanation!!! It makes SO much sense to me, and I find it comforting to understand why.
 

Barleywine

Grizabella said:
It's step 1--you "read" the images with the right side of your brain and then step 2--you transfer the images to the left side and give them words and then step 3--you take those words from the left side of your brain and speak them aloud in coherent sentences. It isn't something we're used to doing so it takes conscious effort till we get the hang of it.
Click to expand...

Hmmm. It doesn't seem much different from what we're taught to do from the earliest days of our formal education. We're given a book with pictures of a scampering black-and-white spaniel and some arcane black marks at the bottom of the page that we gradually resolve into words, and we're asked to read it aloud to the class. It becomes "See Spot run. Run, Spot, run." I realize that for many people words eventually become paramount and pictures are just "attachments," but in the beginning it seems to be the other way around. Perhaps we just forget how to do it fluently.
 
Is there a difference between Tarot and tarot cards Has anyone ordered directly from Lo Scarabeo?