New to reading, confused

Hey everyone, I'm a newbie to reading tarot, and so far I have been learning mostly through my own interpretations of the cards, with reference to this website, and to a couple of books. I have only read for myself, but would like to read for others. Is this a good idea since I am so new, and inexperienced? I'm sorry if this is a repeated thread, but I'm very confused and would appreciate any feedback. At what point did others begin to read for others? How do I know if I am ready? Many thanks

hey kiks dont worry about it - you're ready to start when you feel you are ready

go over to the reading exchange forum and put up a thread offering a reading - you can either ask for a reading in return or just feedback

best way to learn is to ignore any nerves and jump right in - i bet you will be surprised at your accuracy as well

*edit*
actually to access that forum without paying a subscription, you need to have been a member for a week or have accumulated 25 posts i believe

Hi Kiks

"Intention" has become a kind of buzzword
but it's often the key to our best efforts...

Trust in your experience, and let it develop,
with honest sincerity you cannot go wrong.

Kiks said:

Hey everyone, I'm a newbie to reading tarot, and so far I have been learning mostly through my own interpretations of the cards, with reference to this website, and to a couple of books. I have only read for myself, but would like to read for others. Is this a good idea since I am so new, and inexperienced? I'm sorry if this is a repeated thread, but I'm very confused and would appreciate any feedback. At what point did others begin to read for others? How do I know if I am ready? Many thanks

Click to expand...

Perhaps try reading for family and or friends. Unless of course they are to scandalized by the art. When you reach a comfort level with the cards, the spreads and how they flow together and why then you'll be ready IMO. Don't be afraid to make mistakes along the way, development of the art is a skill that takes time, patience, wisdom and humility.

I think I did my first readings around 3 months after starting to study the tarot. I got a bit scared ´cause even though all went well I felt pretty pressured, like everyone expected me to be an "expert"... So maybe you should make sure to read for someone you trust and who knows you're new to tarot. Everyone needs a good start, so don't rush things.

Well for me when I learnt Tarot it was such a wonderful tool for personal growth and self-improvement....I never felt any desire to read for others at all, just to use it for that. Then after about 1 1/2 years of that, I started getting requests from people here that I care about and penpals for readings. And these were people I cared enough about to consider trying. I didn't even believe I could read for others, thought that is is so easy to read for yourself because you know your own life so much better. I told them I doubted it would work, but if they insisted I would try. They insisted, I tried. And it worked very well.

I guess you can say in answer to your question, how I knew I was ready....I didn't. I had no desire to do it, nor did I feel the least bit ready. But apparently the universe had other plans for me. And now that I know for sure that I can really help other people too, it's not something you can turn your back on. And obviously it is something the universe wants me to do or it would not have set the circumstances in motion that forced me to try.

Babs

Thank you! I feel much better now, and I think I will just let the experience come to me, by letting others that I care about come to me and ask for a reading- I now understand that it will feel right for me when the time is right! x

Kiks: Or do as I did.

So excited I could read--albeit then with regular playing cards & just a kid--I shared with best friend, who bless her heart, all ears. She not interested in reading cards but willing to listen & to watch what I did. Then on to other friends & word spread to their parents, for whom I also read.

To me, saw quickly the cards in general a means to learn concepts towards the self-knowledge. & not as the divinatory per se but the divinatory aspect a natural feature or benefit.

Accustomed to 'self-reading' sans cards & that largely still true. An odd effect is that I tend to see things in card images, either regular playing cards or Tarot cards.

I have been reading for myself for about a year, and really only about half that time with the kind of regularity that I do now. I still feel I am only beginning to grasp some of the nuance that the cards can offer, but this is not to say that I did not have some pretty vivid readings early on. And it was only about three months in that I did a reading with the inestimable L., at her request (for which I used the Rider deck rather than the Savage, though my sympathy with that deck was considerably less at the time). The result was accurate, certainly, but vague (at least for me), because I was just trying to give her a sense of what the cards, and the spread, might mean, leaving her to fill in the blanks in the silence of her own thinking. And actually, I think if I did another reading for her now, (a) I would use the Rider deck, because she finds what little she has seen of the Savage imagery distracting and (b) I would still leave most of the detailed interpretation to her. I would be interested in possibly reading with or for someone whom I do not know as well as I know the inestimable L., but probably not for a complete or near stranger. Ever. But that's just me. I have done one distance reading for each of my (adult) children, unsolicited, but again the details were left to their imaginations (and each of them probably thinks my interest in tarot is some kind of aberration).

zb