Tanist
Should I start by using just two cars for reading as I learn what they mean? And can where can I post the cards I get so I can find what the combinations mean ?
New to Tarot Question
rwcarter
Moderator Note
Welcome to Aeclectic, Tanist!
Please take a moment to read both the UTC Posting Rules and the Your Readings Posting Rules to understand what's expected when posting in either forum.
ALL complete readings, whether they're one card or the whole deck, get discussed in Your Readings. Up to half of the cards from a reading may be listed and/or discussed in UTC. So you may discuss 1 card from a 2 card reading, 1 or 2 cards from a 3 or 4 card reading, etc.
How many cards you pull as you're learning is up to you. There is no hard and fast rule about that. Do what feels right to you and gets you the results you need.
As this is a more general tarot-related discussion, this thread will be moved from Using Tarot Cards over to the Talking Tarot forum.
rwcarter, co-Moderator of Using Tarot Cards
Welcome to Aeclectic, Tanist!
Please take a moment to read both the UTC Posting Rules and the Your Readings Posting Rules to understand what's expected when posting in either forum.
ALL complete readings, whether they're one card or the whole deck, get discussed in Your Readings. Up to half of the cards from a reading may be listed and/or discussed in UTC. So you may discuss 1 card from a 2 card reading, 1 or 2 cards from a 3 or 4 card reading, etc.
How many cards you pull as you're learning is up to you. There is no hard and fast rule about that. Do what feels right to you and gets you the results you need.
As this is a more general tarot-related discussion, this thread will be moved from Using Tarot Cards over to the Talking Tarot forum.
rwcarter, co-Moderator of Using Tarot Cards
Achlys
You should start with what you feel comfortable with.
If you start with two card readings, that's fine. I know a lot of readers usually start with one card readings to get a better handle on each individual card before reading them in combinations, but again that's up to you.
You can post up to half of the cards from a particular reading in this subforum, but you must include your own interpretation. If you want to include all the cards from a reading or if you are doing one card readings, those must be posted in the Your Readings subforum.
If you start with two card readings, that's fine. I know a lot of readers usually start with one card readings to get a better handle on each individual card before reading them in combinations, but again that's up to you.
You can post up to half of the cards from a particular reading in this subforum, but you must include your own interpretation. If you want to include all the cards from a reading or if you are doing one card readings, those must be posted in the Your Readings subforum.
SunChariot
Welcome to the totally fascinating world of learning Tarot. And of course to AT!
There is no such thing as what you should or should not do in Tarot. There is just no universal way that it is best to learn and that works best for anyone and everyone learning to read.
As long as you WANT to learn and keep reading books....about Tarot and talking to other readers (AT is an excellent place for that, can't begin to tell you how much I have learnt hear over the years!) you WILL learn.
Trial and error will likely be a great teacher for you as well. Look for what you can learn and change when things don't work as expected. And there will be times like that. More in the beginning. They have a lot to teach you if you pay attention.
In the end, my answer is that it's irrelevant. You can start there with card combinations, if you want. You can start somewhere else if you choose and that calls to you more. And you will still end up in the same place in the end. As long as you keep learning, you will learn all that you need in the end, no matter what order things follow.
One thing I can say about Tarot, imo, is that it has a lot to do with our intuition. Intuition is a necessary tool in Tarot. Sometimes, when you can see 2 or more possible meanings to a card and they are conflicting...you have to choose. You can't do it logically. You'll need to "feel" which is the right one. Luckily Tarot is a tool that the very act of reading the cards helps improve your intution. (I had NONE at the start that I knew of. I depend on it regularly now).
So what i was trying to get to is that intuition can be a great tool in learning Tarot as well as in reading the cards. Follow what your feelings tell you. If YOU feel that is the place to start for you, then go for it. If something else calls to you more as they place to start, then start there. Just follow what feels right to you at the time. You'll get it all in the end.
What individual cards or combinations of cards "mean" is another question altogether. Meaning is somewhat fluid and that is where intuition comes in. Meaning isn't cut and dried. The same cards can mean very different things in different readings. The meaning depends on a lot of things, to start with: the question, surrounding cards, the position the card(s) may have come up in in a spread.........and many others.
As well there is not one set meaning for each card, Each card can in theory have enought things it could potentially say to fill a book. Each reader has slightly to greatly different meanings for each card. You see this over and over here at AT when someone asks here what a card "means" and no 2 readers ever have an identical take on it.
And that is what you want. To find your own meanings, that right true to who you are inside, represent who you are as a person and who you want to be as a reader...And to follow whats going on inside when these cards come up for you.
You can post what you think the card combinations mean, here on AT. To ask other people what they mean to them. But to me, these are just ideas of what they might mean, to jog your though process. What they really mean to you, will ultimately come from inside you. It takes some practice to get there, but the journey is an amazing one!
Also, imo, a Tarot journal can be an extremely useful tool when starting out. I know at the start I used to save all my readings I did, even the ones that made no sense at all. If I asked for example what would happen in 3 months in an area of my life...and I could not make any sense of the cards that came up...I could then go back 4 months later and reread the reading, knowing how things had already turned out. Then it was like "OH, so THAT is what those cards meant!" Then the meanings became crystal clear in hindsight.
Doing that taught me a lot about the way the cards talked to me. (they do tend to talk to each reader somewhat differently). When I could look back and see how they talked me me and it was like "Oh, so when this comes up in means that!!!" And then it was clearer the next time the same thing came up. If you know what I mean. That can be a great teacher when it comes to learning the meanings the cards send to us.
Babs
TripleMoon
Welcome! I'm only a year or so into the journey for myself, but I have to echo the previous posters about keeping a journal. It's helped me immensely! I love being able to go back and re read my thoughts, and I've included notes about the common interpretations, and my own when they deviated from what a book or website told me, and it's amazing how often I was accurate when trusting my initial gut feeling.
I found doing 3 cards spreads helped me a lotx, past-present-future, or any other combination. I added one in between present and future when I felt more comfortable, which I called the advice card, to get me from the present to that future, if that makes sense.
I also practiced doing a daily draw in the morning, and used it as a sort of guide for the day. Generally if I thought it was a positive card I was thrilled, but if I saw something that mAde me feel negatively, I'd try to think of that card throughout the day in difficult situations and use it as guidance.
Close friends made for great practice once I felt more confident, and helped me learn how to start tying the cards into one another as more of a story.
But reAlly, where you start is up to you. It's an in credible journey, one which constantly teaches you and makes you think about things differently, and I'm so glad I started!
I found doing 3 cards spreads helped me a lotx, past-present-future, or any other combination. I added one in between present and future when I felt more comfortable, which I called the advice card, to get me from the present to that future, if that makes sense.
I also practiced doing a daily draw in the morning, and used it as a sort of guide for the day. Generally if I thought it was a positive card I was thrilled, but if I saw something that mAde me feel negatively, I'd try to think of that card throughout the day in difficult situations and use it as guidance.
Close friends made for great practice once I felt more confident, and helped me learn how to start tying the cards into one another as more of a story.
But reAlly, where you start is up to you. It's an in credible journey, one which constantly teaches you and makes you think about things differently, and I'm so glad I started!
Absynthe
Do what you want, I started with Celtic Cross (10 card reading) and worked back to smaller readings. It's up to the individual. In the beginning it's all mumbo jumbo anyway until you get a handle on what the suits and individual cards are all about. It's more a matter of if you want to be researching one or several cards when you do a spread. It takes most people years before they get really comfortable with it. Just dive in.
Barleywine
Same here, when I started it was mostly limited to the slightly intimidating Celtic Cross, "astrological" or "Tree of Life" spreads and the WAY more intimidating Opening of the Key spread. Single cards were mainly used for contemplating or meditating on the card meanings, and simple line spreads (past-present-future) and "no spread" reading were nowhere in sight. If you want to start small, I would suggest three-card lines because it allows you to get into the next level - card combinations - in a reasonable way (for example, basic past-present-future analysis).
