Grizabella
I thought this might be of interest to some of the newer readers who are always wondering about card meanings.
Everyone relates to the cards in their own unique, very personal way. That's why you see people saying they have such different takes on the same cards. What any given card means to any person is unique to them. That's the way the cards "speak" to us and why having lots and lots of experience using them is so important. That's also why some people make journals to record readings in----to see these patterns and recognize what the cards are saying to us.
On the other hand, there are some basic, general things to be learned that are the foundation for you to work with as you gain more experience.
Also, maybe this will help people understand why we say "the magic is in you, it's not in the cards". And why they say, "it depends on the other cards in the spread". And why they use the term "the way your cards speak to you" and why when posting a spread for the feedback of others, you'll get such a differing set of answers.
Using RWS imagery, the 9 of Swords shows someone sitting up in bed, head in hands as though in great emotional pain or fear and 9 Swords pointing down at their head. This card, based on my own life and personal experiences, brings to mind night terrors I had as a child and younger person. And of how terrified I was when I was sleeping in the attic with holes in the roof where I could see lightning flashing and where my step-father took animals to slit their throats. Pet animals sometimes. Those are like nightmares on steroids. Or DT's, which are hallucinations that happened when I was detoxing when I was getting sober. Or the flashbacks I had and still do have about a life-threatening experiences I had with a stalker. Mercifully, not everyone will have personal meanings of that nature so their information from the card would be much different than mine. That card doesn't always conjure up anything that dire when I see it in a reading, but my point is that my mind triggers different messages with the cards than the next person might. It's those intangible impressions and buried memories along with the memories we do remember that will give us information in a reading and that we learn to interpret.
Another example is the Moon card. To me, the Moon is almost sinister in some cases. But to Babs, it's very romantic. That doesn't mean either of us interpret the card "wrong", it just means that because of our own life experiences, when that card enters into a reading, our cards trigger whatever meanings are personal to us for the card. I've known a lot of mentally unstable and abnormal people in my lifetime and much of what happened to me that was outstanding in any way happened at night. Sexual abuse, a stalker slinking around, a family member having peaks of mental illness crisis during the full moon, most of my drinking experiences, working in an emergency room in a hospital, working in a state institution,----those things are all part of my "moon associations" along with beautiful memories of a full moon over the ocean, Halloween season with beautiful big harvest moons, etc. that might apply in a reading to give a happier message. My life has involved extremes of ugly and beautiful, by the way. Thank goodness not everyone has to say that. It's stressful.
As we learn to use our decks, everything we've lived and thought and known in our lifetimes is in our subconscious and will be the basis of the "language" a deck "speaks" to us with. The Universe (or Powers That Be, or whatever) uses our subconscious and the way the cards trigger impressions in our minds as the way they transmit their messages to us. That's as close as I can come to explaining how they work. Your deck or decks
gradually, with use and study, come to "speak" to you in what you might call a "spiritual language". That's a language totally unique to you and nobody else. Others might have a similar (in some ways) language that their cards speak to them through, but when you do a reading those cards in front of you are using that unique "language" to give you the message and the longer you use the cards, the more developed this language will be and the more comfortable and confident you'll be in using them.
My advice is not to doubt yourself and think everyone else has the "right" meanings and "right" answers and you might not. Just be confident that the process of learning is going on and will eventually mature till you're "fluent" when conversing with the cards.
Everyone relates to the cards in their own unique, very personal way. That's why you see people saying they have such different takes on the same cards. What any given card means to any person is unique to them. That's the way the cards "speak" to us and why having lots and lots of experience using them is so important. That's also why some people make journals to record readings in----to see these patterns and recognize what the cards are saying to us.
On the other hand, there are some basic, general things to be learned that are the foundation for you to work with as you gain more experience.
Also, maybe this will help people understand why we say "the magic is in you, it's not in the cards". And why they say, "it depends on the other cards in the spread". And why they use the term "the way your cards speak to you" and why when posting a spread for the feedback of others, you'll get such a differing set of answers.
Using RWS imagery, the 9 of Swords shows someone sitting up in bed, head in hands as though in great emotional pain or fear and 9 Swords pointing down at their head. This card, based on my own life and personal experiences, brings to mind night terrors I had as a child and younger person. And of how terrified I was when I was sleeping in the attic with holes in the roof where I could see lightning flashing and where my step-father took animals to slit their throats. Pet animals sometimes. Those are like nightmares on steroids. Or DT's, which are hallucinations that happened when I was detoxing when I was getting sober. Or the flashbacks I had and still do have about a life-threatening experiences I had with a stalker. Mercifully, not everyone will have personal meanings of that nature so their information from the card would be much different than mine. That card doesn't always conjure up anything that dire when I see it in a reading, but my point is that my mind triggers different messages with the cards than the next person might. It's those intangible impressions and buried memories along with the memories we do remember that will give us information in a reading and that we learn to interpret.
Another example is the Moon card. To me, the Moon is almost sinister in some cases. But to Babs, it's very romantic. That doesn't mean either of us interpret the card "wrong", it just means that because of our own life experiences, when that card enters into a reading, our cards trigger whatever meanings are personal to us for the card. I've known a lot of mentally unstable and abnormal people in my lifetime and much of what happened to me that was outstanding in any way happened at night. Sexual abuse, a stalker slinking around, a family member having peaks of mental illness crisis during the full moon, most of my drinking experiences, working in an emergency room in a hospital, working in a state institution,----those things are all part of my "moon associations" along with beautiful memories of a full moon over the ocean, Halloween season with beautiful big harvest moons, etc. that might apply in a reading to give a happier message. My life has involved extremes of ugly and beautiful, by the way. Thank goodness not everyone has to say that. It's stressful.
As we learn to use our decks, everything we've lived and thought and known in our lifetimes is in our subconscious and will be the basis of the "language" a deck "speaks" to us with. The Universe (or Powers That Be, or whatever) uses our subconscious and the way the cards trigger impressions in our minds as the way they transmit their messages to us. That's as close as I can come to explaining how they work. Your deck or decks
gradually, with use and study, come to "speak" to you in what you might call a "spiritual language". That's a language totally unique to you and nobody else. Others might have a similar (in some ways) language that their cards speak to them through, but when you do a reading those cards in front of you are using that unique "language" to give you the message and the longer you use the cards, the more developed this language will be and the more comfortable and confident you'll be in using them.
My advice is not to doubt yourself and think everyone else has the "right" meanings and "right" answers and you might not. Just be confident that the process of learning is going on and will eventually mature till you're "fluent" when conversing with the cards.
