EXPERIMENTS WITH TAROT: reading without spreads

[mahimaisme]

well, this section needs no introduction:

from intuitive layouts to elemental dignities to storytelling: how do you read your cards without a designated spread?

 

[Yora]

I have some ideas:

1, Tarot Chairdance!

Need:

Table.
Music.
Cards.
Musicplayerthingy.

You stand with your back to a friend/querent, he/she picks a theme (the song&what the reading will be about!) start shuffling! Everytime it feels right to the querent he/she must stop the music. It will continue until the music has ended. Then read them! It might be a good idea to note where the music stopped each time. (What lines they sang.) Or to note down the time and then when you read them one by one play it back. (Experiment!) I have to get myself a labbunny soon.

2, Classmate Photo.

Want to know what a classmate of yours was feeling/thinking at the time of the photo? (Be honourable and don't go to deep! ) Get that picture, focus on the person& shuffle. Then place one or how many cards you feel like pulling on the photo! Or next to it. You can also try it out on yourself first! I am going to try it out on myself. Some more ideas:

Tarot Police scanner. (What's going on in the neighbourhood, or what has happened? You can use a citymap and lay cards on it. Again use honourably&wisely!! You could get too much information, i am not going to try this one. If a place or area really spooks you out, or has a very special mysterious feel to it, you could check out why.)

And this one i really like: If you have a drawing or painting that you are really attracted to or want to try this out on, place cards intuitivly on parts of it and see what the cards have to say to you about that particulair bit!

Yora.

 

[mahimaisme]

intuitive "spread"

yora!

i love the town scanner thingi... i'm going to do it today...right now (if i can only find a map of the city here!!! ) i think the potential in this is HUGE!! also, its something i can also use my pendulum with, which rocks because its been gathering dust for a little while!! also, this is something that you can easily see accuracy with....the local newspaper in the next few days should have all you need if you see anything specific happening in any area!
very good, yora!!

ooooh and the classmate photo....that is FANTASTIC!!! i'm going to do with my bf photo from when we first met!!!

too good

yora! you're a genius- you push all the right buttons!!

lol.

ok....here are some of my ideas...some of these, i do quite often because unless someone comes to be with a very very specific question, i don't use a predetermined spread.

one of my favourites, is to ask the deck- how should i lay out the cards so they'll speak to me the clearest?
shuffle, pick up the first card that feels right. look at that card, pick one element out of the card and lay out the cards in that format .. then, if the layout prompts a question, i ask it and layout another card/cards.

for example,
if i get the high priestess from the world spirit, its crescent moon is what i always feel drawn to. so then, i layout with cards in the shape of a crescent. then, i wonder... so who/what is the high priestess who embodies this moon? and i ask that question, and place another card under it, at the centre of the crescent.
*******1*************************7**********
**********2******************6**************
*************3**********5*******************
******************4*************************
******************8*************************
******************9*************************

this gives me my reading: its the key issues on the crescent and the base that's supporting it/that is behind it are cards 8&9. if the querent is a lady/person who reminds me of some traits of the high priestess, i'll see if the base could be describing him/her.

this method, i feel gives me a lot of fun and accuracy in readings. it also allows me to open up my intuition and let it take over!



well...there's more. this was my current favourite i started doing this sometime back when i decided i preffered intuitively laid out spreads for myself rather than using set spreads. and since then, i'm in love with this

m.

 

[Yora]

Aah!! Brilliance! Curious how that one will work out for me! I'll try that out soons!!!

 

[mahimaisme]

yora!

well!
interestingly, i did a "sex" reading(lol) for a friend of mine today...i got the 10 on pents in world spirit. now if you've seen the card, you'll know, he's pantless.
so!
i laid it out in the shape of his bare legs..
well... "interesting" reading!
but this one aside, this method really gives me good, free readings. lemme know what you got!
i'm still looking for a map: now i'm hell bent on doing the town reading!!

 

[Yora]

Hahhahah!! Well that is interesting indeed!! Going to try this out today or tonight. Just nothing sexual this time, since it might be too much for me to handle!

Yora.

 

[Alta]

Once I was wondering about (or worried about perhaps) the interactions within a group of five people. Plus a sixth more peripheral one. I wanted to see how their 'destinies' (I don't mean exactly that, but they affected each other, and over time).

I didn't exactly have a pattern. I started with the person about whom I had the biggest worries. I drew three cards for him and they reflected the situation at the time and it was likely to devlop.

Then I gradually shifted to the other people, adding fewer or greater cards as they impacted the situation. The cards played around each other, but were very specific to the personalities.

I think you could do this for any group of people who have a close interaction, of any type.

 

[mahimaisme]

marion!
this waqs insightful! thank you...and the spread looks even more brilliant in the photo!! thank you for sharing this!!
yora!
i couldn't find a map!!! and i'm soooo dying to do that spread today!!!! will go out a BUY a map
oh and yesterday was my anniversary with my guy and so, before bed, i just wanted to do us a reading.....so formal "anniversary" type spread, no evaluation...i just said tell me about us and our 3 years together...
and then i started to pull strings of 3 cards from the deck.
pull 3. read as a sentence/story/phrase. pull another 3 and over lap the first three. and so it went on.
in 3s, it gave us snap shots of some events we could identify instantly, some were emotional snapshots, still others described us in one phase in a perfect sentence. it was very insightful, lots of fun and fulfilling without being formal
m.

 

[SilverCloudedWolf]

When I first started reading the tarot I did nothing but use spreads (I never knew you couldn't) but I always had trouble with one or two cards in a reading not making sense with respect to their position in the spread. I persevered with reading, assuming it was as problem with me, but it never got any better.

Then one day, when I first joined AT, I was looking through the spreads forum and someone had mentioned that they never used spreads so I tried reading without one and it worked! I just asked questions and pulled cards in response and read them as individual points or a story depending on if I could see a story/theme or not. I've only once used a spread since (and even that worked) and my readings have got a whole lot clearer. Thinking back on it, it's probably a life lesson.

I'd like to start using the elemental dignities, I have had a play with it but nothing too serious yet.

Silver

 

[Sulis]

Moving this to Using Tarot Cards