Tarot has been a part of Barbara Moore's personal and professional lives for nearly twenty years. Right from the start, tarot intrigued her with its marvelous blending of mythology, psychology, art, history, mystery, and magic. She has studied under...
With something as personal as tarot reading, it is difficult to determine if sample readings will be helpful or not. Most teachers want to provide students with enough foundational information and framework so that they feel confident enough to jump in and try it themselves. This way, the students can feel free to find their own unique tarot-reading voice and develop their own style without being influenced by examples of how it is "supposed" to be done. On the other hand, when doing a tarot reading, there can be many elements to balance. Seeing how someone else does it can provide clarity and inspiration. You may choose to skip these examples entirely; that's perfectly fine. If you do read them, know that they are examples only. If a card in one of these readings is interpreted a certain way, it does not mean it always should be so or that any other way is wrong.
The following samples will include readings of various lengths and styles. For example, there will be predictive, prescriptive, interactive, and intuitive reading samples. One of the short readings will be done in each style to show how your approach affects a reading. It is an interesting experiment to try a reading for yourself in this manner, and it will not only help you try out different reading styles, it can also present different ways to look at your question or situation. In the end, you will likely develop a style that blends all four of these together in a unique way.
For this example, Sara, a twenty-nine-year-old woman, wants information about her love life. The reading will be a three-card spread with no positional meanings. The question will be phrased slightly differently for the four reading styles. The same cards will be used for each reading. Starting with a predictive reading, the question is: "What can Sara expect in the area of her love life in the next three months?"
Using the Universal Waite deck, the three cards drawn are the Two of Pentacles, Ace of Swords, and Two of Cups.
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The ace and twos indicate that Sara is at the beginning of a new phase in her romantic life. The pair of twos emphasizes that there is a decision she must make that relates to this situation. The decision is probably between the Two of Pentacles and the Two of Cups, and being earth and water, they are pretty evenly weighted in her mind. The presence of air in the form of the Ace of Swords weakens the Two of Pentacles and has little effect on the Two of Cups, but here, that small effect will have big repercussions. The Two of Pentacles means maintaining balance. Sara has been living a stable and balanced life—so stable that she has become almost hypnotized by the rhythm of her Zen-like days. The Ace of Swords promises an opportunity for a new way of thinking—in this case, a new way of thinking about romance. By embracing this, she will shake up her Two of Pentacles trance and open up to the experience indicated by the Two of Cups, a deep emotional connection or attraction.
For the prescriptive reading, the question is: "What can Sara do to bring more love and romance into her life?"
The interpretation is very similar to the predictive reading, except instead of stating it as though this is what will happen, it is stated as advice. Sara has been focusing too much on trying to balance her life and on very practical things. She should look at her life in a new way and break her old patterns. Sara should focus on her emotions by paying attention to people or activities that attract her or that she feels connected to, and then she should respond to those emotions.
