Your meanings or mine?

[AmethystEyes]

We all have our own personal "twist" on how we see the cards, personal meanings. When getting a reading from another tarot reader who do you think the cards are giving the message to. It would make sense that the reader, but when the sitter is seeing the cards they are picking on things as well. From experience, I know that people have given me readings and gave me their own personal thoughts but it made more sense with my connection/meaning to them. Just wondering people's thoughts on this, I find it interesting that it goes both ways.

 

[Padma]

I understand what you are saying, but I like to think the reader is getting messages or impressions I am not, and so I try to respect that...

Sometimes it seems totally off, but then, I don't try to reinterpret their cards, I just draw my own, and read those their cards speak to them, my cards speak to me. And hey, if you don't like the reads of others, maybe best to just do your own? Not implying anything, just saying you may be better off with your own readings, then...?

 

[AmethystEyes]

Oh no, I'm not implying that I don't like other people's readings. Nor that this happens all the time. But it has so it gets me thinking.

 

[SashaCY]

Amethyst I understand what you mean.
It has happened both when somebody reads to me or when I read to somebody. That is the purpose of feedback after all, right?
I mean for me for example once I was reading during a acoachong sesion and my coaches got the devil as her main archetype at the time...
I was explaining to her how I was it regarding her material and sexual needs and unfulfilled passions but she would stare at the card shocked until she said "have you seen the chains? That is how I feel... Chained!"
So yes.. My take on the card was very different from hers and it was she who needed it. It was her card.
The same way when somebody has read to me (barely happens but it has) I have experience that sensation.
It doesn't mean the other person got it wrong... Just that it works both ways as you well said.

 

[nisaba]

We all have our own personal "twist" on how we see the cards, personal meanings. When getting a reading from another tarot reader who do you think the cards are giving the message to.

To the person who owns the deck and who is doing the reading.

but when the sitter is seeing the cards they are picking on things as well.

Unless I am specifically teaching or mentoring someone, I try not to do that. THEY are the reader, I have asked for THEIR take. It would simply be rude of me to put my own interpretations on their cards, because the deck may have had decades of having different meanings to mine assigned to those images.

Respect what your reader says, or don't get a reading from them.

Or, as I said, if they are a student by all means offer suggestions that flesh out their meanings of the cards, but if they are doubtful, go their meanings, too. The deck is theirs, it is speaking to them, not to you.

I have a young Tarot-guy whom I mentor (he turns up here, occasionally, as NisabasAcolyte) and sometimes he's quite good as a reader and sometimes he is truly awful (aren't we all?).

We both own a copy of the same deck. One day when we were having a Tarot-based get-together, we both had our copies of that deck with us, and both of us still had it in its original box. There were other decks scattered around, too. At the end of the evening when we were both packing up to go home, we picked up our other decks, and these two were left on the table, neither of us were sure which copy belonged to whom.

So we took them out of their boxes. I picked up one copy. It felt normal. I picked up the other. It felt somehow wrong. I spread out a few cards. They made no sense. It was his deck because it didn't feel like my deck and its images made no sense to me even though it was the same as mine.

So accept the reader's reading. Not all readers are good readers, but all decks speak to their own owners, not their owners' clients.

 

[JylliM]

That's so interesting, Nisaba. Given this, what's your take on backup or replacement copies of a deck?

 

[Aunty Anthea]

I can FEEL my deck

I agree 100% with nisaba

If some were to place half a dozen identical decks on a table I would be able to feel which one is mine

Also, I use the Mythic Tarot

I love my Mythic Tarot

Almost everyone reads this deck differently

Mythic Tarot comes with an excellent and informative book but the guiding divination paragraph is purposely very small

The Mythic Tarot also has a workbook that is specifically designed to help us use our intuition by bringing out our own thoughts and feeling about the cards

Therefore, unlike most decks where people spend many hours trying to remember specific meaning to the deck (somewhat akin to little robots in my mind), Mythic Tarot readers read mostly by intuition and it is very doubtful that any two Mythic Tarot readers will ever interpret the cards in exactly the same way

 

[Aunty Anthea]

That's so interesting, Nisaba. Given this, what's your take on backup or replacement copies of a deck?

I do not know about Nisaba but I NEVER take my favourite Mythic Tarot deck out with me and have more than one copy and they all feel different

I read from several different decks not just the Mythic

 

[JylliM]

I do not know about Nisaba but I NEVER take my favourite Mythic Tarot deck out with me and have more than one copy and they all feel different

I read from several different decks not just the Mythic

Thanks Aunty Anthea. I'm guessing your various copies of the Mythic read similarly for you?

 

[Saskia]

Both can be right

I think it's a fluid combination of both. Sometimes the querent picks things that the reader doesn't, because the querent simply has more knowledge of the situation - and vice versa, because the reader is not emotionally invested when reading to a stranger. That's the whole point of feedback here; and the point of discussion in face-to-face readings.

I think the more inexperienced the querent is, the more they just need to trust the reader and the cards probably speak more to the reader. But then again, everyone has the ability to weed out complete crap just by using their own knowledge and intuition, so the querent is never a mere tabula rasa where the reader draws a picture, IMO. The more experienced the querent is, the more it becomes a two-way street where the meanings of the cards can be discussed to find the most apt interpretation.

I don't mind my querents re-interpreting my cards here in AT and I regularly re-interpret readings I've received simply because the cards speak to me differently. But it doesn't mean just the one is right and the other is wrong. I think both parties are part right - it's not a competition after all but an attempt to scope information on something unknown and if both parties can find nuggets of wisdom, the better!