TAROT FOR BEGINNERS BY BARBARA MOORE

Experimenting with Your Cards

Practicing basic readings will go a long way in helping you develop your relationship with your cards. You can advance this relationship by experimenting with your cards. Experimenting is like studying but usually more fun and more hands-on. Most of the following experiments are designed to help you understand how the cards each mean something different; they are unique. Understanding the differences between the cards is an important exercise, not only because it makes us more precise and accurate readers but also because it 

helps us maintain objectivity. Objectivity is important ... and also difficult, especially when reading for ourselves or someone we care very much about, or in a situation about which we have a very strong opinion.

Experiment 1: What's the Difference?

Go through your deck and select cards that seem similar to you. For example, the four aces; the four kings (or any other court card); the Tower, the Wheel, and Death; the Ten of Wands and Ten of Swords; the Two of Wands and the Three of Wands; or the Two of Cups, Ten of Cups, and Ten of Pentacles. Consider all the ways in which the cards are the same. How are their meanings similar? More importantly, how are they different? Use a single question and interpret each of the cards you selected in turn as the answer. To learn more about the differences between seemingly similar cards, check out Kim Huggens' Tarot 101. Instead of presenting the Major Arcana in numerical order, she groups them according to similarity of theme. 

Experiment 2: Reverse Reading

Ask a question. Think of the answer that you want. Go through your cards face-up and select a card for each position to create that perfect answer. Take your time. If necessary, lay out two or three cards for each position and consider each until you make a final decision. Ask yourself why you chose the cards you did. If you hesitated between two or more cards, what convinced you to pick the card you finally did? How was that card different than the other? How would the reading be different if you picked the other card instead? If you didn't have trouble selecting between cards, go through the deck and swap out a card or two for ones that are similar, and notice how that changes the answer.

Experiment 3: What Didn't Show Up?

When you are doing a reading, take some time to think about what cards didn't show up, and ask yourself why. For example, let's say you do a reading and the Three of Swords shows up. Ask, why that card instead of the Ten of Swords or 

Death? If you are doing a reading about a relationship, wondering if marriage is in your future, what would you think about a reading that didn't include the Ten of Cups, Ten of Pentacles, Four of Wands, or Hierophant (all cards associated with marriage)? What if, instead, there were the Two of Cups, Three of Cups, and the Eight of Wands?

Experiment 4: Context Is Everything

A tarot reading is an answer to a question, whether that question is verbalized or not. An important part of the art of reading is interpreting the cards so that they form an answer that makes sense. If someone asks, "What color is that apple?" and the other person answers, "Triangle," we would think that is not a useful answer. If a querent asks, "Is there anything exciting coming up in my romantic life?" and the Queen of Cups comes up, we will not recite the core meaning of "one who develops and cares for others in the realm of emotions, art, or relationships." Instead, we shape that core into something that makes sense and is relevant to the question.