boxxleman said:
Hi, I've been doing Tarot for about 2-3 months now and I've been feeling the positive and negative energy when selecting cards. But I have a few questions about this energy:
1.) When picking a card, are you supposed to feel for positive energy or negative energy and then select the card, or neither?
My card shuffling/selection ritual is as follows:
- shuffle cards 7 times while thinking of the question
- close eyes while cutting the deck into three piles with left hand (I'm right-handed) from right to left
- with eyes closed, hold left hand over each pile to feel which one wants to be selected (when I used reversals, I would reverse the direction of the pile I selected)
- starting with the pile I selected, recombine the 3 stacks into a deck from right to left
I do that process a total of 3 times and then I deal the cards from the top of the deck. I've never given any thought to whether I'm feeling for positive or negative energy. As for whether you should feel for the positive or the negative energy since you
can feel the difference, I would say to let the question guide you. If it's a positive situation you're asking about, feel for positive energy. If it's a negative situation, then feel for the negative energy.
boxxleman said:
2.) Goes along with question #1. When I choose a card while doing a reading, I usually try and feel the cards until one stands out. How do I 100% know this is the correct card to pick? Sometimes I feel I've picked the wrong card because it doesn't make sense according to the question I've asked.
I believe it's really a matter of consistency. As long as you are consistent in how you choose your cards, the tarot will show the "right" card(s), whether it's a shuffling/selection ritual you use every time or something based on the day of the week (on Monday shuffle twice and pick out the cards, on Thursday shuffle 10 times and deal from the top of the deck) or something based on the number of cards in the spread or the type of spread.
If you always do it one way and for the hell of it you switch things up, I can see how you might get cards that don't make sense. So if you always pick from a fan and then out of the blue decide you're going to deal the cards from the top, bottom or middle of the deck, the cards you need to see won't necessarily be the cards you picked. Since you're relatively new to tarot, you should experiment with different ways of shuffling/selecting cards until you find the one that feels right for you (and you may have already found it).
In my ritual, sometimes I either don't get any strong vibe from any of the stacks or I'll get vibes from two stacks. (Usually I get nothing from two of the three stacks.) In the former, I'll feel for a vibe from all three stacks and in the latter, I'll feel from those two stacks.
As for the card not fitting the question, there are a number of potential reasons for that:
- the tarot is answering a different question than the one you asked
- the question you asked may be too general or poorly worded
- you've asked the same question umpteen times and haven't paid attention to what the tarot has said so far so it's giving you nonsensical cards as a way of saying "I've already answered this and I'm not answering it again."
- the tarot may be challenging you to step outside your comfort zone to see how a seemingly nonsensical card actually does apply to the question (and you may only be able to do this in retrospect)
boxxleman said:
3.) Sometimes no cards stand out at all when trying to pick a card. What do I do then, just grab a random card?
If you get no vibes from any of the cards, you could see it as the tarot's way of saying, "I'm not answering that question" or "I have nothing to say about that question." I think that would especially be true if that happens for the first card you pull to answer a question. If that happens for a specific position in a spread, it might be the tarot's way of telling you that you need to rephrase or redefine what the position is trying to ask or tell.
It's also possible that the source of this blocked energy isn't with the cards, but with you as a reader. If it's a question that you're too emotionally invested in, the tarot may be sending you energy to pick a card that your sub/un-conscious doesn't want to deal with, so it's blocking your ability to sense that card.
For me, and YMMV, if I were picking the cards and felt nothing from any of the cards after two or three passes with my hand, I would take that as a sign that, for whatever reason, now is not the time to consult the tarot about that question.
Hope something I've said above helps,
Rodney
