Miss Meadowsweet

Let’s talk about TAROT!

Tarot is scary to a lot of folks, and I totally get it. Our society has portrayed tarot in movies, pop culture, and religious institutions as being creepy or demonic. When you see tarot in a movie, it’s a pretty standard storyline: a weird gypsy lady that freaks out the blond-haired Anglo-Saxon female by pulling out the Death card. The girl has a harrowing near-death experience but defies the odds and lives to tell the gypsy lady to go to hell. And, scene.

But here’s the real skinny: tarot is what you make it.

I started using tarot a couple of years ago after a friend and I decided to get tarot readings on Halloween. It was fun and relaxing, but I was also struck by how much the reader understood about my work situation at that time. She both validated my feelings (which I hadn’t yet articulated at that time), and also gave me hope for things to get better. She also illuminated some things about the situation that turned out to be shockingly accurate Fast forward to December, my friend and I decided to take the plunge into tarot by buying each other decks for Christmas. The deck she picked for me was beautiful and so perfectly suited to my personality!

After some reading on how to use tarot, I quickly started playing with the cards and learning their meanings. With 72 cards, that task seemed overwhelming! How was I ever to learn all the nuanced symbolism and make sense of it all? Much like learning anything else, tarot is just a lot of practice and repetition. It didn’t take long, but I began to pick up on patterns. The common symbols began to make sense, and I didn’t have to research them each time. As I used the cards (mostly because it was fun and a new challenge), I began to notice that I felt calmer and more settled after each tarot session. Shuffling the cards, laying them out in a spread, and journaling my interpretations of their meaning was helping me to process my problems in a new way. I was meditating but in a totally different way! I realized that I had created a new ritual for myself that served several needs:

1. I was taking my problems and getting them out of my own head and onto paper by writing. Any mental health professional will agree that journaling is often a healthy and productive way of processing our feelings/thoughts so we can let go of them. The tarot cards acted as a vehicle to direct my thoughts, and often as a lens to shift my perspective. The cards don’t tell me what to think or believe, but instead are like a friend asking the right questions about my thoughts/beliefs.
2. Tarot forces you to focus and listen inwardly. Like meditation, to have a productive tarot session you have to clear your mind and let go of extemporaneous thought. Using the cards gave me a way to direct my attention on the task at hand, and disregard all the other nonsense.
3. As someone that gets into their own head way too much, it’s nice to have something that gently reminds you to let your intuition take the wheel. Using tarot has helped me to be more intuitive in my daily life, listen to my gut feelings more frequently, and be better at saying “no” to the things that don’t serve me, and “yes” to the things I really want.

To clear up any misconceptions now, I’d like to take a moment to talk about what I DON’T use tarot to do:

• I don’t use it to predict the future, and I don’t know how one would begin to do that.
• I don’t use it to make huge, life-altering decisions.
• I don’t use it to influence others (again, I don’t know how, nor would want to).

Using tarot for me is about mindfulness and self-care. Period. Did tarot force me to quit my last job? Absolutely not. What tarot did do for me was to take my thoughts and feelings about my last job and process them in a way that gave clarity and choices for action. Just like a friend who says, “hey, I know you’re miserable. Here’s what I’m hearing you say about the situation and the choices you have. Whatever you decide, I’m here for you.”

At this point in time, I have several decks. Each one I use for different purposes:

• Osho Zen Tarot — My very first deck and the one I’ve used most often. This one is like that friend that is tactful but honest. It’s a fun deck with illustrations and card names that are great for a beginner. Recently, I discovered one of the cards has gone missing and I’m likely to buy this deck again if the missing card doesn’t show up soon.
• Dreams of Gaia Tarot — Sometimes I realize I need a little kick in the rear. This is the deck for that. The imagery is absolutely stunning, but the guidebook that goes along with it dives much deeper than all other decks I own. This deck is like the friend who tells you like it is – whether you want to hear it or not. I typically use this deck for spreads that are more serious, or for truly difficult questions I have.
• Soul’s Journey Lesson Cards — This is known as an oracle deck, and is my most recent purchase. I have been using it to supplement oracle spreads to help me understand the lesson I must learn from a given situation.
• Messenger Oracle — This deck is what I use in the mornings while I drink my tea. This deck is whimsical and fun, and a perfect complement to my morning tea. When I use this deck to meditate before I start my day, I find I am calmer and more focused walking into the office.

Just an FYI: I only buy decks that speak to me. I do have one other deck that I bought and regret buying because I didn’t really connect with the deck. I just got it because it was pretty. I know a deck speaks to me if I can’t stop picking it up off the shelf at the store. It’s an intuitive thing. The great thing about tarot is that you don’t have to have a ton of decks to get started. Just one is fine. Like people, each tarot deck has its own quirks and personality that you need to get familiar with. That takes time and patience. While there are two decks (one oracle, one tarot) I’ve been eyeing for a while, I don’t feel the need to collect a bunch of decks for this very reason.

Do you use tarot? How do you use the cards and what works for you? Leave me a comment below or ask a question!

Love,