I've seen cardless reading, oracle card reading, playing card reading, palm reading, and on and on positioned as Thee Way. It should come as no surprise that I disagree.

Strength is about the parts of ourselves we may never fully understand, but for which we are still responsible. It rules our instincts, our highest wisdom, and the actions we must take to harmonize them.

Unsolicited life advice proliferates where the Seven of Cups reigns.

What good does it do to run the world, and immiserate the vast majority of it?

This is the Three of Swords. People expect it to hurt. The truth of the Three of Swords is that it ends something that's hurting.

Knowing card meanings aren’t 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.

As a rejecter of Pollyanna bullshit around tarot, rosy views of The Sun card are a major sticking point for me. Because The Sun may make us optimistic, it may get us pregnant, it may greet us on vacation, it may even make some shit better--but that’s not why it’s here.

In fact, The Sun barely cares about any of that.

The acolyte cards are strong medicine. They all concern fate in some way, if only as an idea, and limit our personal power to dispense their wisdom.

The acolytes are special because they clearly illustrate the role of power and control. This early sequence of acolyte cards deals with naturalized power and control.

If we don't have an end goal in mind as to why we are learning tarot, it becomes yet another spiritual commodity.