How did YOU learn Tarot?

[Eeviee]

I'm just wondering how the ATers out there learnt their way around a Tarot deck. ;]

Was there a certain book? A certain course? A certain deck?

What made Tarot *click* for YOU?

Did you journal? Was there meditation involved? Daily Draws?

Now, I know a lot of you will state you are still learning; many here state they never stop learning! -That is fine. =] But, at what point (and how) did you realize you were really making progress on your Tarot journey?

For many of you, I'm sure it was a combination of methods/things, etc. I'd love to hear them!

...just curious!

 

[Rosie_0801]

I'm very much the beginner, but this sure helped: http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/learn/meanings/

 

[hunter]

Lots of one card draws with a regular RWS, and "The Only Tarot Book You'll Ever Need".

I also played a lot of solitaire with my deck.

I colored in some coloring book pages, I found online.

Then I started buying LOTS and LOTS of decks and reading the books that came with them all. I don't think that helped me learn better than if I'd stuck with the RWS, just differently.

I think the trick is to do SOMETHING, not what you do. If you are investing TIME, then you will be rewarded.

 

[ThunderWolf]

I started out with The Mythic Tarot. I just used the accompanying book to learn how to lay out a Celtic Cross and used it to tell me the meanings of the cards. Then I practiced...and practiced...and practiced. I drove my friends crazy asking them to let me read for them!

Along the way I bought and used other decks and accompanying books. Sometimes that changed how I attributed a meaning to certain positions in the CC. Eventually a friend of mine presented me with an alternate way of interpreting the positions that I still (at least in some modified form) use today.

Eventually I came across Ellen Cannon Reed's The Witches Tarot, and at the time that was the deck for me!

While using that deck (and still using the book for meanings) I started taking an informal free class at a bookstore in Columbus. One of the managers presented the classes, and it was there that I learned to read the symbolism shown on the cards rather than using the book.

Up until then it had been a long series of practicing. Eventually my friends got tired of being read all the time and I got tired of begging them. LOL By that time I had enough experience to feel fairly confident reading for myself, so most of my practice has come from that as well. I also fortunately had a friend a couple hours away who I would spend the weekend with quite frequently. She had friends who liked getting readings and encouraged them to get readings from me and me to read for them. So I did end up with lots of practice reading for strangers and casual acquaintances. I was really lucky to have that opportunity!

Learning to read without the book renewed an interest in what I had been doing all along, and I ended up practicing even more and more.

I also read in a book that you could easily find lined notebooks with 78 pages. It was suggested to go card by card through the deck making notes on what you see in each card, using one page per card.

This really helped me get a grip on reading the cards without a book, and that combined with more practice got me to this point.

 

[swedishfish612]

I didn't really learn until I found a deck I totally clicked with. For me, it was the Deviant Moon, but I think you could learn from any deck that really intrigues you.

I got a spiral notebook and went through the deck card by card, starting with the minors. I'd journal about what I saw in the card and what I thought it meant. Then I'd read the LWB that came with the deck, and then I'd refer to Tarot Plain and Simple to get a more complete picture of what the card was all about.

But actually, I quickly found that I liked Thirteen's descriptions of meanings (free here on Aeclectic, in the learn section) better than my reference book.

 

[Disa]

Well, I tried the "Learn Tarot" thing first. I also made a HUGE notebook with dividers to try to write out what all the meanings meant to me. Never finished it. I also tried daily draws. None of these things really worked for me. It felt too much like getting bombarded with info and not connecting with the cards.

I took many online Tarot classes/discussions via chats in spirituality forums. I also ran a chat for a while where we had weekly discussions.

I found what worked best for me is to just sit down with the deck, ask a question, and use spreads. I asked whatever was on my mind, looked up each individual card in the book, journaled the reading and made it all come together. Then I'd wait. When I noticed something pertaining to the spread had happened I'd go back and look at the spread and make comments in the margins about what transpired. The hardest part was coming up with questions all the time. I read for friends and family online,at their homes, I read for my cats, my daughter. I just kept practicing. I still wasn't too sure it clicked until I got the Druidcraft deck. Then something definitely clicked.

As you said, Tarot is an ongoing learning process. After all that I still took 2 6-week courses on Tarot at a local metaphysical shop to get some actual human interaction with a teacher and other students. Then I joined the ATA mentor program. I still do attend at least one weekly online chat and try to make the monthly one, as well. I still do one volunteer reading per month at the ATA and will try to do more when I have more time. I will never learn all there is to know, but I think I'll be trying to do so for the rest of my life

 

[gregory]

I read a lot of books but didn't read the cards for years(like 35... we aren't talking a brief lurk here !!!) Someone here made me join a circle. DOING was what made it click for me.

 

[Zephyros]

I bought a book and a deck, but I didn't like the deck (US Games Oswald Wirth), so I just abandoned it completely for a few years, and then came back after finding the Morgan-Greer.

It was actually Aeclectic that really got me going and digging deeper, doing intuitive readings. I was still only a dabbler, though, until someone I despised told me never to use the Thoth, as it was too powerful. My response was to go and buy it immediately and that's when my behind the scenes study of Tarot and the occult really started taking off. I've been monogamous with that deck ever since.

Several years and many books later I still don't think I know anything, but I am closer to knowing what it is I don't know.

 

[Alta]

I had a discouraging few years (okay, 27) trying, off and on, to learn the tarot from an RWS deck and a couple of books, (Waite's Key and an Eden Grey 'cookbook'). Gave up completely several times.

Two things really got me started in earnest. First, buying Robin Wood's deck and book. I loved the deck which I thought so much better than the RWS and I practically memorized her book. I read and read-it, did her exercises and meditations and finally things started to open up for me. Then I discovered Aeclectic, had other people to discuss tarot with, and found MeeWah who practically yelled at me "You can do it!!!" Actual reading with real people online was what helped the most. Then, eventually, live readings which I discovered that I love doing.

Also helpful: the year I spent studying everything I could find and taking jmd's course on the Marseilles. And some considerable time spent with the Thoth, both cards and various books and some dabbling in the Tree of Life.

 

[RunningWild]

I'm just wondering how the ATers out there learnt their way around a Tarot deck. ;]

Was there a certain book? A certain course? A certain deck?

My personal favorite has been Rachel Pollack's Seventy-eight Degrees of Wisdom, so far.
I live in a place where people still regard the cards mostly as taboo, so there weren't any classes available and I bought workbooks but I'm not really a workbook kind of person.

As for decks, I had purchased several RWS clones, but mainly used my the Pocket Universal Waite for the symbolism.

What made Tarot *click* for YOU?

After I lost my house to foreclosure, I moved to a fairly remote location. No cable or satellite TV, no phone, no internet. I was isolated. Each day I practiced small 3-card readings and noted the cards for each. One day, in complete frustration and tired of coming up with questions, I popped a dvd movie into the player and while that was playing I asked "What is this movie about? Help me to learn to understand the cards!" and then drew a celtic cross. I kept the spread on the table as the movie played without understanding. And then I played the movie again. Suddenly there it was, I could see the plot, the main characters, and the action in the cards corresponding to the movie. I wrote it all down and still have it somewhere around here.

Did you journal? Was there meditation involved? Daily Draws?

Now, I know a lot of you will state you are still learning; many here state they never stop learning! -That is fine. =] But, at what point (and how) did you realize you were really making progress on your Tarot journey?

I journaled like crazy. One day I might go back and read some of them.

Meditation? Ick. Not for me. At least not in the conventional sense.

Daily draws...sometimes three or four of them. Tarot kept my brain muscle from atrophy during a highly stressful time.

I felt I was making progress when things that I thought I understood about the cards started to either describe situations accurately on the first draw or when things predicted began manifesting.

It's really a been an amazing journey. And I've barely begun.