This is an impression of me reading the tarot for myself: Shuffle the deck while tuning in to the energy of the situation I’m asking about. Shuffle the deck some more, and pick a card. Study the card briefly, and look up the meaning. If the message is positive, give myself a high five and go about my day with a spring in my step. If the message is negative, repeat above steps until I get a good one.
Thing is, more often than not the cards I pull in my admittedly amateur divinations suggest confusion, difficulties, and strife. They show misunderstandings up ahead or suggest that my own motives might be less than noble. None of which I really want to hear—and one of the reasons I’ve been slower to embrace the tarot when in search of insight, clarity, and self-knowledge.
In fact, when I first began to connect with the cards in any kind of meaningful way a few years back, I put them down again almost immediately. The Pisces had bought me the Rider Waite tarot a few Christmases ago, until recently the most famous and popular deck, and both the imagery on the cards and the descriptions of their meanings were often downright scary. Take the Devil card for example—which shows the classic “horned beast” punishing a naked couple bound by chains with a scepter of fire. I remember giving a “practice” reading to my niece after our holiday feast, and the look of abject terror on her eleven-year-old face after I pulled this card for her.
Not for me, I told myself, internally accusing the makers of the Rider Waite of scaremongering and manipulation. I would stick to astrology as my preferred method of cosmic weather forecasting, which felt so much more expansive and open to interpretation (i.e., easier to put a positive spin on things—after all, even a heavy Saturn transit is really about helping you build some rock-solid karmic muscle).
Plus, if truly understanding astrology is a lifelong study, akin to learning a whole new language, then the tarot appeared to be equally dense with meaning and tradition. I was well aware that perhaps my less than expert readings were the reason I wasn’t able to glean anything but a face-value fear factor from the more “difficult” cards—but did I really have time to tackle a “minor” in tarot, when I’d already committed a large chunk of my study time to my “major,” astrology?
Talk about lack mentality! What I’ve since discovered is that, in fact, astrology and tarot can be used to complement each other (more on this later), and that it’s totally possible to dip a toe into the tarot here and there and still get plenty from it. I just had to ignore the impatient, perfectionist part of me (another trait of Sun and Mercury in competitive Aries, go figure) that was putting pressure on myself to learn the tarot overnight. Plus, I found I couldn’t walk away from the cards that easily. If astrology had always been fascinating to me, the tarot held a similar allure. And, as I began to develop The Numinous, it also seemed to be gaining popularity in real time, with all sorts of beautiful new decks appearing on the scene.
To bring it back to basics for a minute, a tarot deck is composed of seventy-eight cards, divided into the Major and the Minor Arcana. The twenty-two cards of the Major Arcana incorporate “characters” such as the Devil and the Star, but also “concepts” like the Tower and the World. The fifty-six cards of the Minor Arcana are divided into four “suits”—Cups, Swords, Pentacles, and Wands—numbered Ace through King (a bit like a pack of regular playing cards). In a reading, the cards are shuffled and those selected by the person getting the reading, laid out in what’s called a “spread.” The positions in the spread usually relate to different elements of the inquiry—for example, the past, present, and potential future outcome of a situation (this is a classic three-card spread).
TAROT IS NOT FOR FORTUNE-TELLING BY LOUISE ANDROLIA
I believe we’re most empowered and feeling our best when we’re fully in our mind, body, and spirit. To get here, we need to be really clear about what our journey actually looks like. What is the ground we’re walking on, and how connected do we feel to all the different elements of our self?
I use the tarot as a way to communicate with the most loving and truthful part of myself. When you turn a card over, if you see it as a reflection of your subconscious, then it can only be showing you something that, deep down, you already know. Using the tarot for myself, I often get a hit of, Yes, I knew that. And this in itself can be very comforting.
I see working with tarot as making a commitment to yourself. To paying attention to what’s making you uncomfortable, to listening to your intuition, and exploring what’s really happening in the present moment.
In this sense, the tarot is an incredible self-help tool—I don’t like to use it for divination and fortune-telling. It doesn’t serve anybody to be constantly trying to predict the future, since it leaves the present moment sort of flapping around, not knowing what to do with itself. Because also, the future is completely fluid and only NOW is real.
This means that the present moment is the only place we can act from, and our most empowered actions lie in our ability to take a risk and take a beautiful, brave step forward. The cards can show us what steps to take. This is often a humbling and heartbreaking process, because it often comes with a huge leap of faith and trust in our journey. Of surrender.
I’ve come to see that my misconceptions about tarot as a tool (an often scary one) for fortune-telling are shared by many. And based on the above depiction of a tarot “reading,” it’s easy to see why—for example, the Devil card appearing in the “future” position in a reading is enough to scare the bejesus out of anybody. Until, that is, you learn to interpret the tarot the Now Age way.
My dear friend Louise Androlia, an artist and mentor and one of the first people I shared my vision for The Numinous with, has been working with the tarot for almost twenty years, on both a personal and a professional level. And the first thing she will tell anybody is that, rather than a way to “predict” future events: “A reading is a perfect reflection of your subconscious.” And as such, each and every card contains a valuable learning to help us navigate whatever stage we’re at in our personal evolution. Yes, even the Death card—which corresponds with the energy of Scorpio, the sign embodying the cycle of death and rebirth (Lou’s Sun sign, and one of her favorite cards). The Devil, meanwhile, points to addictive behavior patterns that may somehow be enslaving us—pointing, therefore, to an opportunity to recognize these and escape the “hell” of addictions.
Scary since: “Change and the unknown are two of the things humans are most afraid of, and as such learning how to change our habits is one of our most important lessons,” Lou told me when I asked her more about it. “The Death card, meanwhile, is just a reminder that change is our natural state, since everything in nature goes through cycles of death and rebirth. There’s something so comforting in that for me.”
And so when Death shows up in a reading, it’s not a sign you’d better watch your step since there’s a body bag out there with your name on it. Rather, it can be read as an invitation to acknowledge where in your life an ending is occurring, to allow a new relationship/project/mind-set to come into being.
Lindsay Mack, another reader whose work I’ve come to know and love and who currently writes the monthly Tarotscopes on The Numinous, reads this card as a death of the ego—what she describes as “the sacred fertilizer that’s needed to help bring forth the new.” See how this changes the energy around the card from scary to exciting?
And then there is the multitude of new decks blossoming like spring blooms all over my Instagram feed—what Lindsay describes as “evolved” decks: “meaning they’re more feminine and holographic. A deck like the Rider Waite was created by men and based on Christian imagery. Motherpeace, the Medicine Woman Tarot, and the Starchild Tarot are great examples of more feminine and holistic decks.” Lindsay even thinks the Wild Unknown deck, featuring the inviting yet mythical black-and-white artwork of Portland-based artist and yoga instructor Kim Krans, can be held solely responsible for what she sees as the tarot currently having a moment. “People are really drawn to Kim’s style, which is so visually accessible and modern,” she explained to me.
I also feel like tarot is gaining in popularity because it’s kind of like Google for your soul. We have access to sooooo many answers in the Now Age, since regular ol’ Google means we can get instant access to all the information that’s ever been plugged into the Internet about every subject in the world, ever. But since very little of the information has been shared with our specific needs, questions, or journey in mind, things can very quickly become misleading—resulting in yet more confusion. The tarot, on the other hand, is a tool for tapping back into our own inner knowing.
Another deck I love is called the Thoth deck, named for the Egyptian god of writing, magic, and science and designed in the late 1930s by the famous occultist Aleister Crowley. And here’s the thing: in the past, that reference would have just reinforced my fear of the tarot. “The Occult” sounds dark and scary, right? But the word occult actually just means “hidden.” And what is the tarot if not a tool for excavating the hidden truths—truths our higher Self wants us to become aware of—of a given situation?
As for my personal practice? I’m still more inclined to celebrate and carry the message of the “positive” cards with me, but I’m learning not to shy away from the harsher-seeming messages too—just like my numinous journey overall is helping me accept and embrace every messy aspect of being human. So read on for twenty empowering Now Age lessons about the tarot that have helped me get to this place and incorporate the cards as a valuable component of my numinous toolkit.
Tarot is a tool for tapping back into our own inner knowing.
1. The different kinds of cards—an overview.
If the Major Arcana are like the A-list players in a movie, playing the “parts,” or higher forces, moving the action forward, then the Court Cards (King, Queen, Knight/Prince, and Page/Princess) of the Minor Arcana often represent our psychological state, as well as the actual people involved in a situation.
Meanwhile, the suits each correspond to an element and go something like this:
WANDS—Fire energy/passion/doing
SWORDS—Air energy/ideas/thinking
CUPS—Water energy/emotions/feeling
DISCS—Earth energy/work/making
As a rule, the Ace of each suit speaks to the energy of new beginnings, while the higher the number (2–10), the more extremely the element will be exerting itself in the reading.
This is a very rudimentary overview, and every reader I’ve met will agree you can do a whole two-hour class on the intricate meanings of just one card. But one step at a time. As Lou puts it, “Even just learning about the elements will give you an entire self-help practice.”
2. It’s all good.
The first thing to remember—as lovely Lindsay puts it—is that “nothing in life is happening to you, since everything is happening for you.” For you to be empowered in your personal evolution, that is. This simple shift in perspective has been enough to reframe my relationship with the “scarier” aspects of the tarot. Plus it’s kind of an amazing life lesson in general, so please keep this front of mind.
3. There’s no such thing as a “bad” card.
When I first starting reading about the meaning of the different cards, I was shocked how many, like at least half, seemed to depict the shadow side of life: disappointments, frustrations, and unscrupulous individuals. But let’s get really real—life ain’t no bed of roses, and actually isn’t the point of developing all this spiritual awareness to help us deal better with the inevitable thorns? In Lou’s experience, the more “challenging” cards simply reflect the things showing up in our reality that we’d rather not deal with. Like the Five of Cups, for example—which speaks to feelings of sadness and loss. I love her message (spoken like a true Scorpio) that “part of our self-discovery is to look at our shadows and sit in our discomfort—as this is what deepens our levels of compassion towards ourselves and others.”
4. Tarot is not a tool for prediction.
As I’ve explained, like a lot of people I came to the tarot with the idea that it is mainly used for “fortune-telling,” and that this is where a lot of my initial fear came from. If my fate were somehow written irreversibly in the cards, what if I got a “bad” one? Rather, like with astrology, I’ve come to understand the tarot as a system of symbols that can be used to tap the Universal consciousness and access information from our highest Self. The cards and the messages imprinted on them are the “bridge” between our guides, God, the Universe, and so on, and our human understanding, and it is the reader’s job (whether it’s me or somebody else reading for me) to simply act as an interpreter for the information being delivered.
5. The tarot is YOU.
What a brilliant metaphor for helping to understand your deck! After all, you know better than anyone what a weirdo you are, right? Or rather, how many seemingly different weirdos you can embody in any given day, relationship, situation—veering from one emotion to the next, from crazy to rational thoughts and back, from lovable to needy and manipulative. (Please tell me this isn’t just me.) Anyway, how about imagining each of the seventy-eight cards as a different facet of your/our intricate human state? Like how the Fool is the naive part of us that will just say yes to anything and dive in with little regard for the consequences, or how the Two of Swords represents the way we can endlessly argue a point—with ourselves! According to Lou, “The more I look at the tarot, the more I understand myself, because I’m really just learning about the human psyche and our experience.”
6. Pick a word, any word.
As you get to know your deck, Lindsay also suggests choosing one word that best represents the energy of each card for you. In the Thoth deck, the creators of the deck have gone ahead and done this for you—for example, the Six of Discs is also “Success” (representing material gain and power), while the Three of Swords is “Sorrow” (melancholy and unhappiness). You can also attribute actual characters to the court cards. When I asked another reader friend, the New Age Hipster, to write about the Queen cards for The Numinous, she attributed the Queen of Pentacles to Beyoncé, and the Queen of Cups to Bridget Jones. So you can see how choosing a character for each card can make it even easier to connect with its individual nature.
7. There’s no right or wrong way to read the tarot.
Since the messages delivered by the tarot are all in the interpretation, it makes sense that each of us will see something different in the cards. Beyond the basics—such as the different suits representing the different elements/areas of life—how we deliver and therefore interpret the information in a reading will depend entirely on our own life experience and unique worldview. In other words, what our higher Self chooses to show us is the message.
8. Because the tarot is also a mirror.
While the best readers I know wouldn’t necessarily call themselves “psychic,” they are gifted intuitives—since being tapped in to your inner Voice / higher Self is a prerequisite for delivering an authentic reading (see above). In this sense, the tarot, and the reader delivering the information, can also be understood as a mirror—reflecting out what’s going on within the person getting the reading. Lou sees the role of the reader as an interpreter, as well as a teacher. As she puts it, “The cards are showing you something you already know, but perhaps aren’t aware of because of all your anxieties layered on top. A reading is really an opportunity for my client to be reminded to look at their life through their own loving lens, which they may have forgotten is always available to them. In a session I also encourage them to be part of the reading. I am not there to ‘tell’ them things. The days of disempowered fortune-telling are well and truly over, and it’s time to trust the power we have within.”
9. The tarot is an invitation to evolve.
In Buddhist philosophy, the only constant is change—as illustrated beautifully by the cards of the Major Arcana. The Majors are said to represent the different stages in the evolution of consciousness, from the Fool depicting birth/inception (of, say, an idea, project, person, or relationship) to the World signifying completion, fulfillment, mastery—or even enlightenment. This process shows up throughout different spiritual traditions and is also sometimes called “the hero’s journey.” Meanwhile, the Minors depict the cycles of said evolution. Seen this way, the message in every card, Major or Minor, carries an invitation to step into and participate with the evolutionary process of being human. Not all of which was ever going to be easy, rewarding, or pretty.
10. We still get to choose.
Because of free will, the tarot is still only an invitation to evolve. In the same way astrology can be viewed as a sort of cosmic road map, with plenty of opportunity for self-directed detours, whether we choose to follow the guidance offered by the tarot is entirely up to us. Pull the Fool when you’re wondering if you should quit your job and start your own business, and the Universal energies are suggesting that the time is right to just go for it. But you totally get to keep your cubicle if for whatever reason you still don’t feel ready. A.k.a. free will!
11. Pick a pretty deck.
Along with the Wild Unknown by Kim Krans, three of my favorite decks are the Starchild Tarot by Danielle Noel, the Serpentfire deck by Devany Wolfe, and the Invisible Light Tarot by Brandy Eve Allen. Visually enchanting (to me at least), they are also infused with a sexy, upbeat energy I find attractive, inspiring, and compelling. The imagery of the Rider Waite deck never really resonated with me, and it’s no surprise really. It was designed in 1910, and although it must have seemed modern then, dumbing down the even heavier religious overtones of previous decks, times and attitudes have certainly a-changed. But again, each to their own. Lou loves the Rider Waite, finding infinite meaning in the artwork. Which leads me to . . .
12. Let your deck choose you.
Lindsay says decks are like the wands in Harry Potter—they choose who they want to work with. The Thoth deck found me through PR guru and America’s Next Top Model judge Kelly Cutrone, who I persuaded to give me a reading while on a press trip in Denver. In a past life (not literally—it was back in the 1990s), Kelly worked as a professional tarot reader on Venice Beach. To this day, she ONLY reads with the Thoth, telling me how the illustrations actually shape-shift in front of her eyes to deliver specific pieces of information.
Lou says the same thing about her favorite deck, the Cosmic Tarot: “The archetypes—the people cards—actually come to life for me. The faces morph into the faces of people I’ve known. Sometimes they even appear to turn their heads to look at me.” Cosmic indeed! And most readers will say that once you truly connect with a deck, it will in some way “come alive” in your hands.
The Starchild Tarot has actually become my go-to—first because I find the artwork to be truly enchanting, and second because every single card I pull, for myself and others, offers an immediate and (what feels like) true answer to the situation in hand. In other words, it just speaks my language.
13. Begin with a one-card pull.
Perhaps the simplest way to get familiar with the energies and symbolism of the seventy-eight different cards is to commit to a daily one-card pull. As in, ask a question, pull a card, and interpret the message. (And then don’t get too attached to it, continuing to exercise your free will!). What I have found completely fascinating about this practice are the patterns that emerge: like pulling the same card for myself day after day, but in relation to seemingly different situations. It’s also totally cool to pull a second, or even a third card if you’re not getting what feels like a clear message right away. But be aware that each card you pull will have informed the final reading. Generally speaking, a card’s meaning is strengthened when you pull another card of the same suit. Meanwhile, cards of an opposite nature are weakened: Swords are opposed to Discs; Wands oppose Cups. Likewise, Swords are friendly to Cups and Wands; Wands like Swords and Discs.
14. How you ask is everything.
As Lindsay Mack puts it: “As a human I like to think I’m pretty awesome, but I always ask for guidance from a higher power when I do a reading.” And duh—since we’re looking to access the Divine intelligence within us, why would you not dial up your guides and ask the Universe to please pay attention as you pose your question? These are busy entities, after all, and so asking nicely for them to be present for you is just kind of polite. You can keep this process simple or get as ritualistic as you like, using whatever language feels right for you. But to cut to the chase, Lindsay also suggests asking for information containing “the Truth with a capital T.”
15. No question is too small.
Don’t feel like every card you pull for yourself has to be about a major life transition or hard-core relationship inquiry. Since you’re reading this book, I’d hazard a guess that you’re pretty invested in your personal development, and so it’s likely you’re the kind of person who feels compelled to dig beneath the surface. But while you’re practicing, a few days playing in the shallow end of the pool will help build your confidence for the deeper dives. Plus tap you into one very important (for me anyway) truth about the tarot—it can be a lot of fun!
Lou is always talking about how ridiculous it is to be human sometimes, and actually when you take a step back and check out the kind of stuff we get our knickers in a twist about, it is often kind of absurd/hilarious (with hindsight at least). Sure, your higher Self is primed with all the information you need to navigate the sharper bends in your path, but she/he/they also want you to enjoy the journey. So what if all you really need to know today is what shoes to wear to a party? She/he/the tarot can help with these kinds of questions too.
16. But be expansive with it.
Instead of asking, “Kale salad or vegan sushi rolls?” (which limits you to just two options), try an open-ended question. “How will the kale salad make me feel?” opens up the playing field, inviting a more expansive worldview. Like, a Whole Foods salad bar of options. Being expansive in how you ask will lead to more questions, and therefore more cards, so also know when to stop. It’s one thing to inquire, and another to use the tarot as a tool for endless procrastination. As with the Whole Foods salad bar, know when you’ve had/asked enough.
17. Now design your own spread.
While the one-card pull is a great place to start, it can also get kind of limiting, and once things start to get a little bit more advanced, the reading becomes about how the cards interact with each other. There are many books detailing the different kinds of “spreads” (where multiple cards are placed in different positions to inform different parts of the reading), from a three-card “past, present, future” reading, to the classic “Celtic cross” (which also takes in “self,” “others,” “hopes and fears,” etc.).
But I love what Lou suggested to me recently, namely that “you get better insight when you’re really specific with a spread, designing positions and questions that really go in deep.” For example, this could look like a three-card spread with cards that ask: “Is this a great time to expand our family?” “What would I need to prepare me for motherhood?” “What kind of mother would I be?” No prizes for guessing what was on my mind when we had that particular chat.
18. The astro-tarot connection.
When I tried learning Spanish, whenever I couldn’t remember a word my brain would automatically sub in the French (which I had studied in high school)—and I find it similarly difficult to separate my understanding of astrology and the tarot. Luckily, there are all kinds of crossovers! Officially, each of the major arcane is linked to an astrological sign—as outlined in Rachel Pollack’s book Tarot Wisdom, widely recognized as something of a tarot bible. As mentioned, Death, representing transformation, is ruled by Scorpio. The Fool, the first card in the deck, is pure Aries: naively headstrong, and also the first sign of the zodiac. And then there’s how the different suits represent the four elements, which in turn are embodied by the twelve signs of the zodiac. And then there is the way the cycles in the tarot (numbers 1–7, 8–14, and 15–21 representing different evolutionary phases in the Major Arcana, for example) could be said to mirror the waxing and waning phases of the Moon.
19. Numerology is also at play . . .
. . . as are different religious symbols, figures from ancient Greek, Roman, and pagan mythology, the teachings of the Kabalistic Tree of Life, et cetera. In fact, the tradition of tarot is INCREDIBLY rich with history and infused with layers of meaning and symbolism. Way too complex to go into here, which leads me to . . .
20. If you’re serious about the tarot, then study it.
Buy a few books, or even take a proper class. As with learning any new language, there’s really no substitute for discussing each card in depth, in a group setting, for delving into the many possible meanings and getting these teachings to stick. I’ve heard Lou describe the tarot as “an infinite well of knowledge” and “like having a therapist with you always.” As I called it in the intro, the tarot is kind of “Google for the soul”—and what a brilliant investment in your emotional well-being to be able to add this ancient system to your spiritual toolkit.
MATERIAL GIRL, MYSTICAL WORLD TAROT SPREAD BY LINDSAY MACK
The perfect layout to create a balance between both worlds and divine what’s going on above and below.
CARD 1: The matter at hand
CARD 2: What’s swirling beneath the surface?
CARD 3: What am I moving on from?
CARD 4: What is ready to manifest in its place?
CARD 5: What is the deepest medicine and wisdom available to me at this moment?
CARD 6: Outcome
