I DON'T REMEMBER FOR SURE, BUT I THINK IT WAS YOU WHO SPOKE ONCE ABOUT A WOMAN WHO WAS SO UNSURE OF HERSELF THAT SHE COULDN'T EVEN TELL YOU WHAT SHE SAW IN A TAROT CARD WITHOUT WORRYING SHE WAS WRONG. WELL THAT'S ME, AND AS AN ASPIRING DIVINER, that is hella inconvenient. Do you have any tips on this? Frankly, I feel worthless as a tarot reader because I can't draw any insight without using the book. and i think it's why even when i lay the cards and feel it's right it makes no sense.
No, it sounds familiar but that wasn’t my story.
So, tell me, do you have trouble stepping outside of your comfort zone in other areas of your life as well? Because I doubt it’s that you *can’t* draw insight without the book, more like you’re just afraid to. You have to allow yourself to make mistakes in order to grow. The training wheels need to come off eventually. And if you fall, you just get back up. Luckily for you, tarot won’t give you scraped elbows and knees.
Do you have a tarot journal? If you don’t, I highly suggest one. Do some small readings for yourself. DON’T USE THE BOOK. Write them down. No one is going to see these readings but you, there’s no one looking over your shoulder waiting for you to fuck up. You’ve got the information you need inside your head already.
Spend some time with each card individually and journal about them. Just look at the card and start by describing what you see physically. This is most helpful if you have a deck that has some decent imagery. So if your deck has pips, or it’s really minimalist, this may not work. Let’s start with an easy one, and I’m going to use the Rider tarot in this example
So what do you see? It looks like a beautiful day, no clouds. There’s a couple who seem to be happy and joyful. Probably their children are nearby playing happily. They have a house in the distance, surrounded by green grass and trees with a river leading to it. There’s a HUGE rainbow in the sky, the cups seem to be shining brightly. Next, write down what it makes you think of or how you feel. So when I look at this card, I see the perfect happy family. It makes me smile. They seem not to be worried about anything, they have a home they love, healthy children, what more could you want out of life? Their home doesn’t look too big or too small, so I assume they’re not made of money, but they are comfortable and stable and content. If this happens to remind you of a family you know, or if it’s what you would consider an ideal family life, write that down too. Make personal associations with the cards!
What does this card mean? The keywords are “happy home, shared love, blessings, peace, family” (from the Galaxy Tarot app, since my phone is always handy). The image should give you the basic foundation, and then when it comes up in a reading, you can fill in the blanks yourself.
Do this for every single card! And don’t rush yourself, do 1-3 a day and take your time with it. And don’t worry about right or wrong because your feelings *can’t* be wrong. Do small readings for yourself with this method. Try not to go back and compare yourself to the book. Usually I do suggest comparison, but in your case it’s probably not helpful. Realize that every tarot book is going to be slightly different anyway, so the narrative you tell yourself *shouldn’t* match up to anything perfectly. Finding your own associations, describing them in your own voice is incredibly important to strengthening your intuition.
