intuition, perception, and practice
What is Tarot?
Tarot is a form of cartomancy divination where you're using cards to find the story of the current energy associated with a specific query or question. It's important to know that whether you're reading for the past, present, or future, you're reading that situation in relation to the current energy.
You don't have to be special to read tarot. You don't have to study a lot or spend years practicing to be a great reader. A great majority of you actually already have a lifetime(s) of experience. Don't limit yourself. All you need to be a great reader from Day One is intuition, and we all have one. Every human being should be able to and can divine for themselves. It's the perfect tool for self-development and self-reflection.
Developing Your Intuition
The intuition is a function of the third eye which is in the middle of the head. You can find this spot by focusing your attention at the middle of the eyes and traveling backward until you reach the space between the ears. This is where your pineal gland is found. Ideally, we would all spend most of our time living life from this space but we're conditioned to focus more on the brain, oftentimes leaving that area dormant. I recommend actively visiting this space daily during meditation to get used to re-strengthening the connection. This is the best way to pull yourself back into your body regularly. Most of us spend most of our time outside of our bodies. You want to be inside of your body while practicing any form of divination.
If you have a baby around, they're a great tester of this skill. Hold a baby like normal and you'll often find that their gaze is above your head or off to the side. Once you become aware of this, focus on making your way into your middle of head space. The baby will look right at you when you've got it right! This is because babies are used to looking at spirits in the other realm, not bodies. When they first get here they continue that until adults begin to tell them "Look at me when you're talking to me" or "Look people in the eyes".
The first, main, and really only step to building your intuition is to trust it. Trust it all the time, even in the smallest of events. If your intuition tells you to drive the long way, or that someone who's seemingly nice has bad intentions, trust it. This is how you build trust and begin to open your third eye more.
Third eye care is an important step in keeping the third eye clear. You can care for this area of the body and spirit by practicing Intuitive eating, working to decalcify the pineal gland by switching to natural hygiene products (especially toothpaste), and incorporating daily practices like meditation and yoga that lead to enhanced one-ness with your body. The body is an extension of the Spirit and is more reliable than the mind so it's important to care for the body throughout the spiritual journey.
Meditation is by far one of my most-recommended techniques to all of my clients and students and generally the one I get the most pushback on. You can meditate! I have one of the shortest attention spans I've seen and I can do it so you can too. There's no shame in starting at just five minutes a day or using guided meditations before you graduate to sitting fully in silence. Stick with it and eventually your mind will wander less and less. This is your third eye workout. You wouldn't expect to be able to run a mile straight after not working out for years, the same principle goes for spiritual exercises.
Perception
The best way to read any situation is from a neutral space. This means that you're removing your personal opinions and pre-conceived notions about the situation prior to reading. In the beginning, especially when reading for yourself or friends and family, this can be more difficult. For this reason, I recommend reading for people you don't know well if possible, while managing their expectations by being open and honest about your experience level.
If you can't remove your opinion before a reading you shouldn't do the reading at that time. Open-ended questions, which we'll cover below, aid this process. Remember, the purpose of tarot is to hear the story that sheds light on the information that you or the querent aren't seeing. The human experience involves free will and tarot won't tell you what someone should do, it'll only give the circumstances if a particular path is followed or more information for that person to make an educated decision. Tarot is the story, not the answer.
Practice, don't Memorize
Throughout this course I will repeat that I recommend you to 1. not take many notes and 2. not read tarot books. The reason for this is that when you read a tarot book written by someone else you're internalizing their interpretations of the cards. This isn't the worst thing that could happen but just like we're all here with our own unique purpose, we're also here with our own insight, intuition, and spiritual insight to provide. Using the tarot based on memorization limits your intuitive interpretation ability and disregards your unique experiences. It also removes the reliance on your body and environment. We talked about why connecting to the body during spiritual pursuits is important above. In regards to taking notes, this is better because they are coming from your own insight in the moment of taking the notes but can still be limiting as most people use notes as a crutch to avoid having to be present in their tarot practice. Keep this in mind as you go through the course. It was designed to allow free, present learning and I believe students get the best results when they pursue it this way.
Formatting Questions
The most important thing to know about formatting questions is that yes/no questions aren't the best. Again, we're looking for tarot to tell us a story so we want to ask questions that encourage that process. Questions that begin with what, why, and how will give you the space needed for the tarot to expand sufficiently.
If you're looking to find an answer to a timing question I don't generally recommend tarot as there are other divination methods like astrology that do a better job of this. However, if you insist I recommend leaving space for answers that start with "when". Yes, there are tarot techniques that can tell you that something will specifically happen between certain dates but I've found them unreliable. Instead, I get quality answers that sound like "when you release the need to please others" or "during the Summer months". Always keep in mind with timing that things are constantly moving and shifting, meaning that the answer you get today could change in a month based on the surrounding circumstance. Not to mention, time is fluid and essentially a man-made concept that doesn't truly exist, as everything begins, exists, and ends simultaneously.
Karmic Implications
Anything you do with another person produces a karmic impact. This is important to remember when you're reading for others. To avoid accruing unhelpful karma it's important to let others know that you're reading the current moment and to reassure them that free will is always present.
There are also certain topics that I would recommend you don't read on. This is a personal choice but for me this includes medical situations and court cases. As a reader you also have a responsibility not to send someone of the deep end by giving them information that doesn't have a useful purpose. This generally will include any information you pick up about a loved one dying or any scandalous activities that may occur. Let me give you an example.
Once upon a time I did a reading for someone who was curious about the future between them and someone they were romantically interested in. I could see that this person was a neighbor and that the person was married. However, I could also see that there was marriage in the future (way down the line) between the querent and this neighbor/love interest. I made a conscious decision to tell my client that the energy they felt between themselves and the neighbor was being reciprocated from the other end, but that the neighbor was already involved and committed to their current relationship. I did not tell my client that I saw them marrying the neighbor in the distant future. Why? Because I didn't want to be held responsible if my client assisted the neighbor in committing adultery, or if they completely stopped considering other options thinking that the marriage with the neighbor would happen sooner rather than later, or if there was some kind of harm between this person and the wife. I had to realize that there are an infinite number of possibilities that could have happened that would accrue negative karma between me, the client, and the married couple if I were to encourage adultery. Not to mention that I was reading the energy between the client and the neighbor, not including the energy of the wife, or including the energy of any other suitors my client was or could be dealing with. Is this a disservice to my client? No, she walked away with knowledge of how the neighbor felt about her and a view of their connection in present tense. When in doubt, stick with reading the present energy. This isn't about being a fortune teller or even predicting specific future events, because that's always changing.
Shuffling
Watch the video below for some insight into shuffling.
Daily Embodiment Practice
I strongly recommend doing a daily embodiment practice for the duration of the course and even after. This practice involves shuffling your deck and then pulling one card to embody for the day. Your question while shuffling should be "Spirit, which card am I embodying today?" Keep your card in mind throughout the day and at the end of the day or periodically throughout your day write down the ways that you embodied the card. This helps you expand your knowledge of the cards. While doing this during the course you can shuffle only the cards that we've gone over or you can shuffle the entire deck! It's up to you and how ambitious you're feeling. After the next lesson you'll technically be capable of reading every card in the deck!
Next Lesson..
In the next lesson we move on to the video portion of this course and begin piecing together the cards! 🎉 With this in mind I recommend putting away your noteboook now and allowing yourself to fully be present while watching the upcoming videos. Anything that I think is important to have written down has been made into an infographic or pdf for you to have.
I strongly recommend doing a daily embodiment practice for the duration of the course and even after. This practice involves shuffling your deck and then pulling one card to embody for the day. Your question while shuffling should be "Spirit, which card am I embodying today?" Keep your card in mind throughout the day