"How did you learn how to do that?"

Is it just me, or do I get a lot of people asking me, "How did you learn [to read Tarot]?"

They're not as interested in how I stumbled onto Tarot, but about actually learning to read cards.

I'm curious as to what your responses are (or would be).

So, "How did you learn to do that?"

LOL I get this response a lot too. I just tell them that I used my LWB until one day giving a reading for my mom I was telling her so much when she asked me, "Oh really? Where do you see that? What card?" It was then that I realized I didn't need a book to read cards, just myself!

I tell them I am still learning. You never truly 'know' how to read them, you just do.

I usually say it is a skill we are all born with but few develop and most have suppressed. Like art we can all do it even without training to a slight degree but few are naturals and most do much better with training..

Actually after thinking about it.... it is more like music, we all can appreciate it, but owning a guitar or piano does not mean you can play it. Still I would say the above just to encourage one to open their minds.

I think the first layer (textbook meanings) can be learned just like any rote... like touch-typing. You don't (at least, I didn't) memorize where the keys are, you just learn them and then know them. Most decks would have the images as clues to each card's meaning, but even if they don't then as you set out more spreads with the deck, or do daily draws... then, eventually, every card will have come up often enough until their meaning's become familiar. In short, practice.

The other, more intuitive level of reading... well you can have a piano, even play it competently, but composing is something else. Being able to read and write notes (like knowing the textbook meanings of tarot cards) can make a good foundation for composing, but it's a gift to have one's inner music clear enough to be expressed -- or being able to pick out of the haze of intuition precisely what events, people, or concrete ideas that the cards are referring to.
This, I think is more revealed with practice, and maybe influenced by hearing other's styles, but... not learned.

I can't say i 'learned to do it', i am an eternal student, but what's interesting in my case is that i didn't really have too many books and learned mostly by practice. I couldn't find any Tarot books in my language, didn't have the possibility to get books in English back than so i had RWS lwb that didn't help much, Sali Nicols's 'Jung and Tarot' which is deep and good, but imo too phylosophycal to be aplicable to actual readings (ant it's based on TdM and i had RWS deck) and J. Chevalier 'Dictionary of Symbols'. Basically i would find a symbol - for example the lizard at King of Wands's feet, read all the possible symbology interpretations and than see what makes sense to me and could be applicable. I was doing few spiritual practices at the time and i would take a card per week, frame it and than journal all the experiences and insights that could be possibly related. I read a lot for friends, friends of friends, friends of friends of friends - a lot of people i've never seen before and new nothing about them. Than i stumbled upon Joan Bunning's book and it was helpful at the time and than, finally, some year+ ago i merited to discover AT and realized i that don't really know how 'to do it', that i probably never will, but that i immencely enjoy trying

moderndayruth said:

... finally, some year+ ago i merited to discover AT and realized i that don't really know how 'to do it', that i probably never will, but that i immencely enjoy trying

Click to expand...

What a lovely way to put it, mdr, your freshness makes me smile

XOX

Keavy

Well, yesterday a good friend of mine (he is office-alone, so quite bored) was on the phone and asked me "what are you doing?" So I told him "Im studying right now". "What?" he asked me. "Tarot" I replyed. So he continued "Where, on the internet??", "Yes", I told him, rolling eyes. A second or 2 of silence. He was processing the information. "AND ARE YOU LEARNING BY YOURSELF???!!!!"

So, Lilangel, no matter how many years have passed and how much your friends/family know you, that will be the perpetual question we will be facing... with humor and nice things to reply, I hope.

Weird, now that I think about it, I can't recall one person asking me that question. Many other types of questions, never "how did you learn".

Yes, I've gotten this question, and my reply is that, well, it is like learning to do anything else- you read up on it a bit, but then you learn to do it by doing it. I learned to knit by knitting a lot. I learned to sing by singing a lot. And I learned to read tarot by reading a lot.

Books will give you a general idea, but you have to jump in and put it into practice if you really want to learn.

It depends on my mood. When I am serious, I'll tell the stark truth and say it was blood, sweat, tears, mistakes and a lot of practice reading for myself and others that did it.

But when I'm in a jokey mood, I just say that I woke up one day "Just Knowing" - then I put on a mysterious and fey look, and mutter something about my great-grandmother

You'd be surprised how many people take that answer seriously. I suppose it comforts their romantic idea of tarot readers. The truth isn't half as interesting, after all - it sounds too much like hard work! (and it is)