Tarot Tips
Are you brand-new to Tarot and not sure where to begin?
Here are some helpful tips:
• Use a spread. A spread is a layout of Tarot cards where each card has a predetermined position and meaning. For example, a three-card spread could be past-present-future, or it could be issue, advice, outcome, or any variety of position meanings. When you decide ahead of time where you will lay the cards and assign a position meaning, you are creating an intentional framework that facilitates a meaningful Tarot reading.
• Keep the spread small. Start with reading just two cards together to get the feel of how the cards interact and create meaning. Limit card spread to no more than five cards. You will get plenty of information in a few cards, and it will be easier to begin to decipher the meaning and read Tarot.
• Reading Tarot = Foundation + Intuition. Reading Tarot is part intuition, part learning the meanings of the cards. Time needs to be spent studying structure of the Tarot as a foundation, but close the books and rely on your intuition in interpreting the images and placement of the cards when actually doing a reading (tips for doing that are below).
• Intention is CRITICAL. The difference between a meaningful Tarot reading and a random Tarot reading is INTENTION. See the reading steps below for how to use intention. Read this to understand why it is so critical: Tarot Not Random
• Forget the superstitions. There are many superstitions associated with Tarot, and none of them are necessary. The deck is not magic -- YOU are. Think of it like a needle on a meter. The meter is doing the work -- the needle is just the indicator. Same with divination. YOU are the receiver. The cards are the indicator. As for “cleansing the cards, etc... Do what feels right to YOU, because YOU are the magic in the equation -- not the cards.
• Keep it SIMPLE. Use five cards max. Do not try to blend astrology, Kabbalah or other systems in with Tarot. Tarot can stand alone as a divination tool, and trying to make all the things work together makes things unnecessarily complicated.
READING TAROT STEP-BY-STEP:
Put the books away. Using a reference book during a reading may become a hard habit to break, and can undermine confidence in your own intuition.
Think of a question or an area of your life in which you want clarity.
Pause. Breathe deeply. Meditate for a few minutes while holding your cards and focusing on the question at hand.
Shuffle and draw three cards. These will represent a “snapshot” of insight into the situation you are reading about.
Take your time and look closely at the cards.
Start by looking at the three cards as if they were a comic book strip. What is the story? What are the characters doing? How do they interact with one another? Take some time and see what comes to you just by looking at them like a visual story.
Then try talking through the cards one by one: What is the name of the card and what do you see?
Everything in Tarot is metaphor, so once you start describing what you see (keeping in mind the original question), you will find that your intuition makes leaps of meaning between what you are seeing and how it relates to the question:
(You can get a printable lesson that explains this process in detail with images HERE.)
If you want to draw another card for “Advice” and a fifth card as “Possible Outcome,” you will have a simple, readable Tarot spread that will serve you well. π
(See the video lesson about this spread here: https://youtu.be/aniYwBJTSE0 )
MORE:
These short videos will give you some great tips for beginning Tarot: www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfX1HPCC89D0XGjTMbDjDRFXdYC16kSwk~~~~~~
If you’d like to learn the foundation of Tarot AND put it into practice, join us for the Tarot Masterclass 
:TarotTogether.com
