And have since discovered that the house has major infrastructural issues that have led to endless annoyances. To visitors, my place looks great, inwardly, I debate whether or not my landlord is a secret slumlord. A simple example, but in reading for myself and others, the tarot cards have hinted towards new or severed relationships, new jobs, and even travel. Whether or not you want to call these synchronicities, divination, or coincidentences is up to your own spiritual beliefs.
But what is true, is that a tarot reading can and will often point to events that will eventually happen. Undoubtedly this is valuable information to anyone interested in knowing their future. The very act of showing up to the cards themselves changes possible outcomes. What did it mean for me to know in advance that my house might have issues? What if I had heeded the cards from a more negative viewpoint and opted to find another place?
And of course, what remains in all of these outcomes was the choice that was still mine to make. Divination, I believe, can be likened to a spiritual weather report. This is less sexy because it puts the onus back on us to be adults and do our own work. I imagine that when most people look to know of love or money in their future, they are looking for answers. They are looking for safety. But the real power of a reading is to help you envision outcomes for yourself and then take choices based on those outcomes.
The question is not so much what is my future? But rather what do I do with my future? What is the future for?
One might argue that even being obsessed with predicting the future is a form of existential privilege, for one, it takes for granted the idea you have a future to begin with.
There are people in this world, namely people of color and those with other marginalized identities, who benefit not from knowing the future, but rather having a decisive role in shaping it. Traditionally, they were used for playing card games and still are in many parts of the world. Sometime around the 18th century, they gained popularity as a divination tool. The most common decks used for tarot today are 78 cards, consisting of 22 "Major Arcana" cards the ones you probably most closely associate with tarot, like "The Fool" and 56 "Minor Arcana" cards that are divided into four suits: Wands, cups, pentacles, and swords.
The imagery most famously associated with tarot cards comes from the classic Rider-Waite deck , which was illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith in the early 20th century. The Major Arcana cards tell the story of The Fool the first card of the deck, and the only unnumbered card. Each subsequent Major Arcana card represents a meeting or challenge for The Fool.
When used for tarot readings, these represent more significant revelations. The Minor Arcana cards are quite similar to your standard deck of cards, but with different suits and imagery.
Instead of the five of spades, for example, you may encounter the five of wands. These cards represent minor revelations in tarot readings. There are lots of different ways to use tarot cards for readings or journaling. You can try different shuffling styles or changing up the number of cards pulled and interpreted. If you're just starting out, I recommend keeping it simple and start with pulling one card to reflect on. Here's my process:. Think of a "query" or something you want to reflect on.
This can be about a relationship, your career, your health, a current challenge, or just what the day has in store for you. Pull one card and keep it in the orientation it was pulled cards can either be upside down or right-side up. Reflect and journal on the meaning of the card in relation to your query or anything else that comes to mind.
There are lots of ways to interpret the meaning of a card. You can simply look at the imagery and come up with your own meaning, or you can use a book or website to help you interpret traditional meanings. The tarot deck I bought came with a small booklet for interpreting cards that I've found useful.
For me, the cards really act as prompts for journaling. I often get into the habit of only journaling when something is going massively wrong. The cards help me inventory other, less pressing aspects of my life and how they're impacting my overall well-being. For example, I recently pulled a card pertaining to money when it wasn't at the forefront of my mind, but the more I reflected on it, the more I realized I felt some low-level stress about bills after a recent vacation.
Others roll their eyes dismissively. Do I sit in a neon sign storefront all day, surrounded by black cats and crystal balls? Do I give predictions about wedding dates or lucky days, or advise on lottery numbers? For all the magic and mystique that gets associated with tarot card reading, some might be surprised at how mundane my work really is. Divination is an ancient art. For thousands of years, people have been looking for signs.
We find meaning and messages in tea leaves and tarot cards. We find prophecy in dreams and gut feelings. We read everything, from the sky to the palms of our hands, looking for answers big and small. And these days, living through a global pandemic has had many of us asking even more questions about our purpose, and our future. The world's most popular tarot deck is the Rider-Waite-Smith from This is how artist Pamela Colman Smith illustrated the two of swords card. This deck went on to inspire countless others since, and continues to be a major influence on many of the tarot cards we see on the market today.
Tarot is a collection of ideas, an organic invention that has been shaped by various influencers over several centuries. There is no ownership over it and no singular perspective on what it is for. It shows up in psychotherapy practices, life coaching and yoga studios. Some people see tarot as a tool to develop your intuition, others see tarot as a visual language. Tarot is not therapy, but it can feel therapeutic for many.
To divine is a verb, after all, and means to discover a truth through intuition or insight. When I was a kid, my mom used to have psychics come over to read at her parties. Was it entertaining? But for my mother, it was more than entertainment: She held onto so many details from those readings, repeating predictions for years afterwards.
It provided something else for her: a sense of a grand design behind her life, and the permission to trust that life is going in a good direction. The world of divination is much more than popular depictions of cheesy fortune tellers who make generic promises of fame, fortune and secret admirers. I owe so much of my spiritual development to astrologers, tarot readers, mediums and magicians. And having grown up in this world, I know how easy it is to dismiss divination as fraudulent or deluded.
She had an intuitive talent for the deck of increasingly battered cards, but I did my best to return the favor using the slim booklet that came with it. Her bedroom walls were decorated with quotes and art prints and postcards — the things creative, book-loving teens collected like magpies — and the room glowed like warm, pink amniotic fluid against the night.
We shuffled like Vegas card sharks, cutting the cards and spreading them before us so we could choose without knowing what was on them beforehand. The slap of the well-worn cards on the bedspread felt satisfying as we laid them out one by one in a card layout called the Celtic Cross , in which each card represents different aspects of the person whose cards are being read and their life. Although different readers use different layouts or techniques, every tarot is a narrative of which you are the hero and the card in the middle , and the surrounding cards represent issues or people affecting you and the story of your life.
The minor arcana looks sort of like a deck of playing cards — it has four suits, as well as kings, queens and jacks — though there are 56 cards in tarot and just 52 in a standard deck, while the major arcana are the 22 cards we normally associate with the tarot in pop culture — Death, the Devil, etc.
Even beyond that, each card is packed with information — some systems rely on numerology i. At its most basic, tarot tells stories about the cycles of our lives.
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