A note on reading tarot
When it comes to tarot reading, we can wonder as a beginner where to start. How do we read the imagery of tarot? How does one learn to read the cards?
Of course you can go out and buy a book that will explain to you the meanings of the 78 cards in basic or detailed descriptions. You can also dive into tarot courses and exercises that will make the process that much easier for you.
In this blog post, I want to focus on a great skill to entertain as a tarot reader: which is the ability to read images. To look at any oracle, tarot card, or even a painting at the museum, dream imagery or synchronistic sign, and connect deeply to its message is powerful. That is how you become your own guide & mystic, holding your very own hand on this path. By developping this ability to attune yourself to a deeper perspective will help you seeing into the truth of the matter, the beauty and the mess. It will help you greatly to transform the story you tell yourself and to notice the signs on your path. Is the story you are telling your mind one of martyrdom, or one of liberating yourself every step of the way?
It is easy to get stuck in the mental and logical, straight-forward tarot descriptions. But I invite you to connect with the colors, shapes, and what is happening without judging it. Are the characters depicted happy, concerned or sad? First see with the eyes of the fool, open yourself up to hidden symbols by just taking in the message without any fancy tarot descriptions. As you open yourself up to what seems ‘’obvious’’ and as you take in the simplicity of the imagery, you will then begin to see small details that were at first hidden. You will open up to your very own interpretation style.
In my years studying visual arts, I have done a great deal of ‘‘artwork interpretation’’ which I think is key when it comes to tarot reading, or dream interpretation. It is about simply noticing what you are seeing. Describing it as it is. It can be tempting to fall into mystical and wild descriptions - but without even touching the core of what the point actually is. When you receive divinely guided messages, in the forms of signs, synchronicites, dreams or even tarot cards - you need to connect deeper to the truth - not away from it in another ‘‘spiritual’’ dimension.
Another way to connect more deeply to imagery, is by feeling it in your body. For example, going into a garden or forest, choose a plant, flower or tree that calls to you. Touch it, and begin to see it with your eyes at first. Look at its details. Is it plush, hard, spiky? What do the colors invoke in you? Meditate with the being, looking at it or holding it. Feel your way into understanding this plant being. Open yourself up to the presence of this natural creation. Sense if there is any sensation that feels different, is there a opening up, a tingle, a pressure that awakes in your body? How would you describe this feeling?
You can feel your way into your tarot cards readings too. Our intuition is not separate from our body - it is an extansion from it, that requires deep connectedness to ourselves.
By opening up to the simplicity of life, we are actually opening up our ability to fully receive and dive deep into the magic of everyday life. The mystical life is not about disconnection from matter, but rather it is about diving deeper into what you already see, sense and hear. The mystical life is about going deeper, with a new perspective, a new sensitivity, into the world that is already in front of you.
Do you read tarot? In what ways do you receive, connect and integrate the messages you receive?