August 9th, 2024 § Comments Off on Deck Personality Spread § permalink
If you’ve just gotten yourself a new Tarot deck, and want to learn a little about it, try out this quick five-card Deck Personality Spread …
What does this deck [but use its name] especially like to talk about?
How does it like to communicate?
What emotional tone can I expect from it?
How does it inspire?
How can I get the best practical advice from it?
If you noticed that these five questions seem to roughly reflect the Major Arcana, and the four suits of the Minor, you were right, that’s exactly what they’re meant to do.
I used to do this spread all the time when I’d get a new deck, but forgot about it until recently when I was playing with my first new set of cards in a while.
Of course you can read your cards whether you check in with their personality or not, but it’s a fun spread to try as you get to know a new deck.
It starts a conversation, giving you a chance to learn the deck’s language before diving into questions that might matter to you more.
September 17th, 2017 § Comments Off on Political Questions § permalink
Tarot doesn’t have to be just a tool for personal self-development and/or readings about what’s going on in your own life. It’s also a great tool for gaining insight into all sorts of non-personal issues, including questions about politics and events on the world stage.
I’ve been pulling cards about politicians and political questions/circumstances for many years now, and I always find them fascinating reads. If you aren’t already doing that yourself, but are interested in trying it out, I’ve listed a few possible questions you might ask your deck below …
•What is the nature of ______________ (name of politician or political player) with regards to ______________ (circumstance or political question)?
•Why are ______________ (name of politician or political player) acting as they are regarding ______________ (circumstance or political question)?
•What are the pros and cons, or different view points regarding ______________ (circumstance or political question)? ← pull two or more cards representing various perspectives
•How does ______________ (circumstance, political question, or political player) impact our democracy?
•How is ______________ (circumstance or political question) likely to play out if things keep moving as they are now?
•What are the biggest issues facing the ______________ (world, country, city or neighbourhood) right now? And what type of action is necessary to help correct what might be going wrong, or support what might be going well? ← pull two or more cards
And on a more personal level …
•How might I act towards achieving political change or support in ______________ (circumstance or political question)?
•How do my personal feelings/situations impact my response to ______________ (circumstance or political question)?
•What can I do to try to understand and connect with other people’s feelings/situations surrounding ______________ (circumstance or political question)?
This list is, of course, just a sample of what you might ask; the options are virtually unlimited. Come up with your own questions and see where your cards take you.
And if you have more than one deck, try testing out the same question with various sets of cards. I find it’s especially interesting comparing the different voices, and it gives me an opportunity to get to know decks I don’t use as often.
There are a lot of different ways to incorporate timing into your Tarot readings. Some are more complicated than others, but all of them can work.
You can designate cards in a spread to represent time periods, like last week, this week, and next week.
You can assign seasons to the suits, perhaps winter for the Swords, spring for the Cups, summer for the Wands, and Pentacles for autumn.
If you use the Golden Dawn system, you might follow their astrological assignments to determine when something happened or will happen in the future.
To learn more about that system, take a look at Douglas Gibbs’ excellent tutorial on the subject at Tarot Eon.
Timing might also be determined by the numbers on the cards themselves. Maybe the Major cards could represent months, while the Minors represent weeks.
In that case the Hermit could signify 9 months down the road or in the past, while the 7 of Pentacles would suggest 7 weeks.
Combined with the seasonal suit system, the 7 of Pentacles would then be pointing to the 7th week of winter.
Another way to determine timing in Tarot is to use the spread demonstrated by Lunar Wisdom in the video below.
It’s basically a yes/no spread that she uses to look over periods of one week at a time. I really like it.
In preparation for the upcoming Solstice, you might want to try the Winter Solstice Reflection spread demonstrated below by Angelo Nasios and created by Bonnie Cehovet.
Here in the Northern Hemisphere, this year’s Solstice is on December 22nd and marks the shortest day of the year.
Though winter will just be getting under way, the days will slowly but surely be getting longer, and before you know it spring will be back!
Within the darkness, a new light is being born.
If you don’t celebrate Solstice, you can use this spread just as easily as a New Year’s reflection, or really any time you’re in the process of starting fresh.
Take a look at the video, or visit Tarot Elements to see Bonnie’s post from last year. She has this spread there, as well as a more involved 19 card spread.
Or if you just want a quick Solstice Snapshot – pull three cards and ask:
•What do I want to take with me from last year?
•What do I want to let go of?
•What new light is being born in the upcoming new year?
A Tarot reading can be a wonderful tool for deep psychological insight, finding direction, or hashing out the details of a particular situation you’re confronted with.
And most often, that’s what people are looking for when they come for a reading.
Having said that, it’s also true that a lot of people just want a simple answer – yes or no.
Typically, I discourage the yes/no type question, partly because it seems to take away from the idea of individual choice. It’s like the querant expects fate to decide, while they wait around for the decision to be made.
But I also don’t like such questions because the Tarot is capable of so much more with its rich visual imagery and archetypal triggers. Each card has a myriad of possibilities in it. To confine it to yes or no seems to miss the point.
Instead of definitives, the cards are perhaps better for questions like how did I get here, what’s it like, and where do I want to go next.
If there’s a choice to be made, I’d much rather draw a few cards representing the energies around particular options than to force the deck to declare if something’s going to happen or not.
But even so, sometimes a yes or no is still all you want, and the Tarot is happy to oblige.
A quick web search will bring up all sorts of spreads to try, but I’ve posted a couple of videos below demonstrating two techniques I like. The first involves reversals, while the second seeks out the Aces.
Both are straightforward, yet allow for additional exploration of the issue once yes or no has been answered.
GS Warren put together the first video. The second is a demonstration by Jennifer Jordan of The Broom Closet.
