Do have your own style of reading tarot?

Do have your own style of reading tarot? I know I do and works for me. I use my inution more in readings than I focus on the read meaning it has help lot.

No matter how much I tried learn tarot cards the traditional way by learning symbols, learning card meanings and writing in my thoughts in a journel work for me that way did not make sense to me.

I just jump into the cards and read what's it's trying to tell me than I worry about card meanings. Only time now if I get stuck that I use the LWB.

unless you're the type that demands structure structure structure you should definitely follow whatever wisdom works best for you.

I probably do. I mean, I tend to work off of the classic RWS meanings, but I'll wander about in my interpretations if it fits. It all depends on the card and the position. I don't feel the need to only interpret each card by the LWB...if that's what you mean.

Yes I do.

And it has taken me ten years to find it.

I started with a Rohrig, reading with no prior knowledge, with the LWB as a back-up. I knew no better.

Then I swapped for a RWS. I bought this book, that book, read this course and that website.

I chopped and changed. I read and read.

And years later, I felt less 'clued up' than I did when I started.

I tried the Marseille. I practiced and researched numerology.

And then ...

I thought 'S*d this!'.

I stuck with my Marseille. And all that I knew about the majors.

But for the minors, I borrowed everything I had learnt from playing cards.

Now, I have my own style or reading. The 'Ace of Coins' is unity. Endings and conclusions are brought by the 'Ace of Swords'. You can tell if a court is your best friend by whether they carry the '7 of Cups' with them. Each minor card has a keyword and I mould them together in trios, letting my mind fly with them. The words change with the readings.

So, I don't care that I don't read like anyone else. All I am interested in is perfecting this method and knowing the deck like the back of my hand. I look at a card now and instantly, I have an idea about what it is all about.

It's a matter of practice makes perfect as I move forward, as the cards shape and take on extra and more defined meanings.

I have also began to use the playing card spread in the Personal Prophecy handbook by Denorah Leigh. She uses 8 sets of 3 cards. Each trio sits in a different area. There is a lot of movement and cards rarely feel stagnant when they are read together.

Tarot has never been as fun as I am finding it now.

LB

I think you're doing it the way it should be done, frankly. Good for you!

Lyric said:

I think you're doing it the way it should be done, frankly. Good for you!

Click to expand...

Me?

If so, thanks.

But .. we never used to have all of these books. It is only in recent years that there have been so many available.

And most of them trot out the same old stuff. And it is boring. I don't think it aids reading cards in the slightest. Unless you want to read the same book with the same old chapters, time and again.

I think we need to find ways of spicing it up; finding our own interpretations and combinations. How often do we talk of the cards as 'speaking' to us? But do we let them speak or do we tell them what to say, without giving them a chance to find their own voice??

Of course, I am using Leigh's system, in part, but as I work with the cards, these asignments she has given them, are changing to fit me. Nothing is set in stone and that is when the magic starts, I feel.

I've done my research on tarot, to some extent. I've tried the different systems. I've learnt about numbers, myths, colour, Kabbalah, reversals, druids, buddhas, elements and French jugglers. I've practiced learning keywords, jumping into cards, finding out about voodoo spirits and running up and down the Tree of Life.

And now, I am just going to concentrate on my cards. Just the cards. No more. And no less.

LB

My style has been evolving over the past five years or so. It is a combination of looking at the card and seeing what it says to me, referencing the common meanings in my head, and if all else fails, I look at a book. I'm currently using the Victorian Romantic, and I'm finding it very easy to read intuitively.

If that's what works for you-then use it-no apologies.

It sounds like you have a strong intuition (as do I) and it serves you well.
All those other methods, are just that, methods and tools to open the tarot student up to divine wisdom and guidance in the cards. Most people are not as tapped into thier intuition-including some people who read tarot. They can still read tarot and do a good job ;they are just reading it on a different level.

I believe it was Christine Jette in her book Professional Tarot who stated there are four different types of readers: The Intrepreter, The Teacher, The Healer and The Mystic and a fifth type : The Alchemist: who blends all approaches.

Just go with what works for you and forget about what you think you "should" be doing according to all the books,yada, yada, yada.

I will never forget this one class I took where the teacher had a dictatorship approach to teaching (she was the only tarot teacher in town so I didn't have a choice). She had her favorites in the class -and I wasn't one of them-mainly because I was much more intuitive than she was and "got it" faster than she did even though she had years and years more of tarot experience under her belt than I did. She always had to "save face" and "be the expert". She went out of her way to undercut me , by cutting off what I was saying in class even though the others were benefitting by it (and me by what they had to say), she would "forget" to put my name and workshop on the program when we had public events, and when there were opportunities to showcase our work or volunteer at fundraising events and conventions, she would email all the students except for me-I found out out about them through the others and showed up anyway-that must've frosted her!

I've since had other teachers who were not so insecure and allowed me to be who I am and where open to my insights and even learned a thing or two themselves!

I find now, that while shuffling the cards I recieve my answer without even having to read them now(though I still do).

So, throw away the books and be yourself-be grateful for your natural talent that others have to work hard for.

One of the biggest hurdles that I've had to face and still do on occaison is trusting my intuition. Not so much as a tarot reader anymore, but more on the shamanic level (where I am now) where I get information by going on shamanic journeys -sans cards.

You are who you are supposed to be and where you are supposed to be. Thats how I figure it.

Good Luck!

I often wonder where the tarot card "meanings" began anyway.

Somewhere, someone decided to use a deck of tarot cards to tell fortunes. Then someone else decided "hey, rockin' idea, I'm gonna do that myself". I don't think probably either one of them knew each other well enough for one to have told the other one "okay, let me tell you what the cards each mean", so each one of them just invented their own meanings. And so on and so on. This all happened so far back that written directions wouldn't have existed because probably people weren't all educated enough to write anything down, since education was for the upper class and men primarily, and I think women were the ones who used the cards to tell fortunes mostly, anyway, and women were thought not to need any education back then.

So then I wonder who and when it happened that somebody decided to elect themselves Supreme High Poobah who knew THE one and only correct card meanings and wrote them down, spawning our mistaken belief that there ARE "correct" meanings for each of the cards.

Get my drift?

I'm obviously illiterate when it comes to tarot history. I'm not a tarot scholar. I'm just a late-blooming tarot enthusiast who wonders things (like do bugs have muscles?) and this is one of the things I wonder-----who says these meanings are the "correct" ones? Why not just use our own meanings and follow the true tarot ancient reading tradition?

Yes, LB, I meant you and also crazelion

Yes, I do catch your drift, Lyric.

Waite was just one man. One system. I like his deck, but I also believe we should find our own systems too, rather than receiting, parot fashion, his interpretations.

What always enthralls me about playing card reading is that there are so many different ways to read them. There are as many systems as there are grandmothers to pass them down.

And I think it is great. It is like different accents. The little details that we have in speech, I would like to see in card reading. Like I have said already, I want my system to be a little bit of this and a little bit of that - a slight lilt in my accent, from something or someone I learnt from. And one day, I would like to pass this deck onto someone with a little exercise book of notes - not an already published 'how to' manual. And my notes would be brief enough that they can be interpretted how ever the finder chooses.

I am using a Marseille. Surely, with no 16th Century lwb, they are open to whatever interpretation we want to give to them .. arn't they?

LB