How to read and interpret tarot

The art of divination varies from practitioner to practitioner. I call it an art because divination, especially within the scope of tarot, requires a reader to not only interpret the cards but also to create the story within them. When we start off reading tarot we tend to try to focus on keywords and then to expand from these to develop meaning and stories, however the scopes of a few key words is limited and does not tell all that one may need. Let’s take a look at the 8 of cups. 8 of cups keywords include: letting go, abandonment, and searching for truth. Paired together these keywords suggest someone is misleading you and you must abandon them in order to get to the truth. The letting go also suggests a period of transition. The answers are pretty vague and we can see that they may leave a querent and reader desperate for a clearer message. So the question I would like to answer here is: how do you find that clearer message?

Asking the Right Question

One big problem faced by readers is that their querents do not know how to ask questions. Tarot is not about yes or no questions - although the cards do have yes or no meanings. The future is not written in stone, so if you ask a card “Hey will I get that job at company incorporated” and the tarot says yes, but then you don’t apply for the job, you ruined a potential future by not acting on the promise the job would go through. Divination is not simply telling the future but discussing potential futures which are in theory infinite. When asking if something will happen the tarot may say yes, but a simple yes or no does not include all the conditions that apply in order for that potential future to become a reality.

Let's take 8 of cups for example. In a yes or no reading the 8 of cups acts as a no card. Now let’s look back to your question about the job at company incorporated. Rather than “will I get the job at a company incorporated” there are other questions you can ask to get the full experience of your tarot reading. (1) What can I do to get the job at a company incorporated? In this context the 8 of cups may be telling the querent that they will have to give up something else to ensure that they attain this position. They may let go of time with friends, they may have to move somewhere new, they may have to be willing to take lesser pay and let go of money, or they may have to let go of some of their morals. (2) Is getting a job at a company incorporated going to ultimately serve me? In this scenario the 8 of cups may be telling you that to achieve your happiest future you need to let go of this job opportunity and take a risk that something better will come along.

Developing the Right Spread

Asking the right question is only the first step in tarot reading. Even an experienced querent who knows how to word the irquestions can be met with a tarot reader that has not developed a relationship with their spreads. There are no necessary marks of a reader that hasn’t built this relationship. Because even a developed reader can forget card meanings and need a refresher. Relationships are the ways readers have established what they will do with their deck and what they expect the deck to do in turn. For example, if more cards fall out than expected, are they all relevant? How would you address this? Do you just shuffle them back into the deck? Do you shuffle only the selected cards that have fallen? Do you read them all? Will the amount of cards that have fallen out affect how you handle it? Will the direction the cards are facing affect the decision? Let me put the situation into perspective. I am shuffling my cards and about 12 cards fall out of my hands 6 facing one way 6 facing the other. I will just shuffle the card back into the deck. However, if one card is facing a different direction then the other cards that have fallen, I will consider that the card I need to see for a reading. If I am doing a 3 card reading and 2 cards fall out I won’t use those 2, but if I am doing a 3 card reading and 3 cards fall out I will use those 3. Some readers will rely on their intuition to tell them what to do in this situation and that works heb as well. However, if you are reading and you find yourself debating how to handle the situation, you have not developed and established your relationship with the cards. More questions you may want to answer in terms of establishing what cards “count” in a reading is whether the cards need to fall out at all or if they need to fall out in a specific manner. When I do a reading a card must fall out or flip over. When I shuffle if one card refuses to go calmly back into the deck and ends up flipping over in my hand I will use it in a reading. If one card falls out I will use it in a reading. For some readers, they do not wish to wait for a card to fall out, so instead they use a certain pattern every time they read. For example shuffling in threes. On the third set three shuffles, they will just pull the top card. There is no proof that any one method is better than another. Everyone looks at the magic of the cards differently.

Once you know how you are going to pick we can actually start doing the reading, which leads me to the point of this section: developing the right spread. Tarot has existed for centuries and many different traditions have developed their own spreads. The most common spread I see is the three card past present future. This is helpful for providing a storyline for a querent and reader. Where are we coming from? What mistakes have been made? You may find as you read more and more often that this spread doesn’t fit your style. Personally, I like to do potential based readings and talk about what we can do to achieve or avoid a potential future. It is also a 3 card spread. (for access to my personal spreads https://tinyurl.com/mu3xyx9r). There are many different spreads out there so if you are using the traditional past, present, and future and don’t feel that the answers flow well with your intuition you can try another.

Looking Deeper into the Card

Once you have your shuffling method, card identification method, and spread you can finally start reading your cards. Let’s look back to the 8 of cups mentioned in the beginning of this post. We saw when looking strictly at the keywords and short descriptions of the card that the card tells the querent they are in a place where they need to let go of something in order to move on to their best future. There is a suggestion that something may be misleading them or they may be clouded by mistruths but that’s not definitive. A card like this will leave a querent with more questions and more debate as to where to move. In a spread you as the reader can use the other cards to narrow down the scope of this card, however, if you are doing a single card reading, you may be lost as to find clearer messages, but don’t worry there is more to look at than the meaning of the cards. Some ideas for where you can look to are the suit, the art on the card, and court/numerology meaning. Let's continue on with the 8 of cups as our example.

In numerology, the number 8 can signify the following: success, stability, ambition, hard work paying off, enduring, entitlement, money obsession, and materialism. When considering the number 8 within the cups we may start to get a clear picture. If you asked the cards “Should I get a job at a company incorporated?” and you told the querent need to let go of something, they may be wondering if the job is what they need to let go of. The number 8 points to money-obsession and materialism, while also pointing to ultimate success and pay off. If company incorporated is a low-paying job opportunity it may be telling them to take this for now because something better will come from it. If this is a job that they do not wish to have but are taking it for financial stability the card is advising them to hold out and accept chaos for now and stability will ultimately follow. If the card does not have a number and it is a court card the court cards also come with their own meaning outside of the suits they are attached to.

In tarot, the suit of cups is known to deal with matters of the heart and soul. It encourages daydreaming, spiritual journeys, and potential. If a company incorporated is going to force you into a box and keep you from being your creative self, it's time to let go. On the flip side, if this job is going to allow you to pursue your dreams in a creative manner, then it is something to take at all costs even if that means moving or taking a lower salary.

Finally, each card has art on it that is distinctive of what the deck’s creator feels a card is trying to say. It usually depicts a woman looking away from the front of the card out towards something else. In my particular deck, it shows the girl looking at beautiful scenery, which to me suggests all the potential in the future she is heading to.