Getting fresh perspectives

I've been working with Tarot on a daily basis lately and I've had a hard time disconnecting my pre-conceived notions of card meanings with the image in front of me. I think this is something we all fall into at one time or another after we've been reading cards for a long time. It's easy to get attached to one or two sets of meanings without always seeing what's right there in front of us from a larger perspective.

I think that's what is so exciting about people first learning Tarot. They don't come to the table "knowing" that the 6 of Swords typically means (in Rider-Waite tradition) a journey, a callm after the storm, entering a more peaceful time after stress, etc. Before ever picking up a book they can look at each card and create their own meanings for them.

My 8 year old niece, myself, and my mother went out to a restaurant last week. My niece was bored. I happened to have the Druidcraft deck with me so I pulled it out and I had my mother and my niece brainstorm associations for the cards.

What I got out of this was so enlightening and refreshing! My niece thought it was fantastic fun and my mother, with typical pinache leftover from her English major days, had great fun analyzing the symbols, colors, and moods in the cards. (She has no Tarot background.)

I've started a whole new Tarot journal just based on the 10 cards we looked at last weekend.

I highly recommend this as an exercise. It's a wonderful way to see the cards in a new and different way.

I've had great fun and found new perspectives doing what you describe. I remember with great fondness handing the deck over to one friend after I'd read for her, saying, "Now read for me." I don't remember the reading per se, but she came up with a delightfully fresh take on the cards.

Yes, I think this is why I love to work with decks I have never seen before - guaranteed fresh perspective.

I have handed my decks over to people who have never seen the cards before and they have done amazing readings for me. They understand the pictures are metaphors, and they take it from there.

Speaking of the famous six of swords - It was one of the last times I saw my former boyfriend; we had been living together in New York for about eight years. He was from Puerto Rico - I laid the cards for him out on the bed - he had never read before, and he was a strict catholic, so I expected he would think the cards were evil, which he did; however he also really believed in the supernatural, and as scared as he was in the cards, he also believed in them in a way I still do not.

His hair seemed to stand on end as I laid the cards out. When he saw the Six of Swords, he said, "Oh, a return!"

I think it was the very next day, anyway, very soon after this reading, he received a call out of the blue, offering him a teaching job in his hometown in Puerto Rico. He didn't have much time to decide. School was to start in one week, this was sort of an emergency last minute offer. We thought it all out together, and he returned home to Puerto Rico.

Apollonia, I'll definitely do this again. It was fun, too, to get the perspective of my small niece and my more mature mother. And it was fun, too. Good to hear you've had a similar experience with a friend.

Firemaiden, that's a great story about Puerto Rico and your former boyfriend! I bet that reading left a strong impression on him, too.

Starlily,

This is one of my favorite things about the Tarot - seeing someone who is totally unfamiliar with the meanings come up with some wonderful, fresh perspectives.

If ever we need a reminder of what our intuitive minds can do, this is it.

My start with Tarot was filled long hours of study, trying to find coherence in a vast multitude of keywords. One can never walk the same path twice (as it were), but sometimes I wonder what it would have been like to start learning from a purely intuitive base.

firemaiden: thank you for sharing that story about the 6 of Swords - it fits the card perfectly.

Starlily, you are so right and that is a great story! Sometimes I forget that I become somewhat entrenched in my meanings for the cards. While striving to keep an open mind always, a new perspective is always a wonderful thing, be it from some one who does not know how to read, and from an experienced reader.