Getting Ready to Read Tarot: Three Things to Consider
image: an altar space on a bright blue background.
Most of tarot advice focuses on card meanings. And, like, duh! Card meanings are important!
Yet in my 23 years of reading, and 13 years of professional practice, I have not found card meanings to be the deciding factor in a safe and accurate reading.
They’re merely the barrier to entry. If you don’t know card readings with some confidence, that’s probably a good place to start.
It is, however, not a good place to end. What happens before and after a reading are of the utmost importance. It’s also incredibly different from reader to reader.
If you read for others these concerns are even more important. Readers don't talk about this kind of stuff enough! And it can have consequences.
When we don't attend to our spiritual hygiene, burning out is a best case scenario. At worst, it can impact the people we read for in negative ways.
When we don't ask clear questions, we may not be as satisfied with the answers.
I’ll be covering this in more detail in Tarot in Community’s Q3 Course: Getting Ready & Wrapping Up: A Reader's Safer Container, if you’re interested.
We’ll be thinking through our practice of opening and closing a tarot container, spiritual hygiene, and generating good questions.
If you want access to the course, which will be held in four sessions, one every other week in August and September, then I suggest you join Tarot in Community today.
You’ll also have access to all previous courses and workshops, as well as a tarot chat in a handy app, or through our Mighty Networks website.
Today, though, I’m going to speak to three of the most important consider when you’re setting up to read tarot:
Creating Space to Read Tarot
Prepping your tarot cards
Creating an Answerable Question
It seems simple, but without some planning, it’s possible to end up more confused than when you started. So let’s dig in! If you have thoughts, I’d love to hear from you in the comments.
1. Creating Space to Read Tarot
Creating space to read tarot isn't only about where you read. It's about the container you create for your client.
This includes your first client: yourself!
You might clean off your table. You might say a prayer, meditate, or have a snack. But it doesn't have to be so literal, either.
Creating a tarot container demands attention to the time we spend in practice and study. It means building a healthy relationship with tarot, whatever that may mean to you.
To me, it means creating some space every day to read tarot. For you, it could be every week, or month, or even less often. The space you make to read tarot depends only on your needs, and desires.
By understanding what we need to call down accurate predictions, we create space. By acknowledging the voice in us that doesn't believe our intuition, we create space.
By not allowing that voice to diminish our power, we create space.
2. Prepping Your Tarot Cards
When's the last time you checked in with your deck?
Have you interviewed it lately? Cleansed it? Made sure it's where you keep it and not off on adventures of its own?
If you answered "no" to any of these questions, or struggled to answer them at all, it's time to prep your deck!
Last week, I was watching House of Dragons and I noticed something. Sir Criston Cole, having dreamily come back from battle, took the time to clean his sword.
He did so with great care, holding it over a candle, and rubbing it with a salty lemon.
Aren't all tools owed the same? Don't all often employed extensions of ourselves deserve dutiful care?
Your tarot deck is no exception.
Whether you bury it in salt, leave it in the moonlight, or run it through incense, cleansing and protecting your deck is a must.
It's spiritual hygiene. The impressions (and more) that come from the place you go and the people you read can linger.
Without moving and removing those things, weird stuff can happen that I don't have time to get into.
So clean your deck. Let it know you value it. Get real close and snuggly with it.
It makes a difference in how you read.
3. Creating an Answerable Question
This ain't third grade, so you already know there's such a thing as a bad question.
There are leading questions, disrespectful questions, and even rhetorical questions. There are questions asked despite the fact that the asker knows the answer.
None of these questions generally makes for satisfying answers. So what does?
Generally, tarot doesn't answer yes or no questions very well. Tarot is a system of archetypes, none of which are inherently good or bad.
This can make such questions frustrating to answer with tarot. (I work with playing cards in those situations.)
So what's the essence of an answerable question?
There are a couple factors, all of which we'll get into during Tarot in Community’s Q3 Course: Getting Ready & Wrapping Up: A Reader's Safer Container.
But the most important one is specificity.
There's a difference between "what sort of job would I be best at?" and "which job currently hiring will help me grow into my ideal role?"
It's totally on you to know which one makes the most sense for your situation. Don't worry; you got this!
Interested in this topic and want to learn more? Sign up for Tarot in Community by clicking this link.
Got thoughts? I'd love to hear them in the comments!
Further Thoughts
image: hey, i'm cyree jarelle. I run Collective Cartomancy. I help queers, feminists, and leftists connect with their intuition using tarot and cartomancy. More on me.