So you want to learn to read the Tarot

It's easy!

Yeah, no. It's not easy. There are 78 cards with different yet nuanced meanings. We have majors and minors. We have pips and aces and courts. We have right side up and, often, reversed. It's not easy, but it's definitely possible.

First, pick up a decent, in depth book of card meanings. Something basic and modern like Rachel Pollack's The New Tarot Handbook.

Most decks come with a small book of interpretations, a 'little white book' or LWB. Some decks come with a more detailed book that you an actually put on your book shelf. There will be a few spreads as well.

In the end, you should have at least two books to use and compare.

Pick a spread and start reading.

Don't get too hung up on what spread to use. If you are up for a real learning challenge start with the Celtic Cross. (I did, and I turned out just fine.) But otherwise a 5-card Horseshoe Spread or 7-Card Rainbow spread are perfectly good.

As you start to interpret each card using your books, write down your findings in a notebook. You should have some way of recording what you've learned about the cards individually as well as the spread or reading that you are doing.

Just as important as the knowledge you glean from your books is what you learn from your own intuition. What is the card saying to you at this moment, in its position in the spread? Write these down too. Date and cite your notes.

Your first few readings may not make any sense to you. Fear not!

As you read the cards, find more books, authors, and mentors, and let your intuition develop, your readings will begin to have meaning.

You will learn to read the Tarot.

PS. This is not the last word on learning the card!

How to Deal with the Good Ole Celtic Cross

NB:  This post first appeared as a guest post at  Sofia's Rose on July 15th.

This covers you. This crosses you. This is beneath you. This is behind you. This crowns you. This is before you.

 This little mantra is a handy mnemonic to learn and lay out the much-loved, and equally dreaded, Celtic Cross Spread. It makes the whole process of doing a reading mystical and mysterious for the querent, and difficult to master for the student.

 After the cross portion with its handy and rhythmic layout, comes the staff portion, which for the most part, seems to tell what the querent likely already knows; Fears, Family Opinion, Hopes, and Final Outcome.

 No wonder so many Tarot newcomers have trouble understanding and mastering this spread! But we should always remember that Tarot is ours to interpret, work out, and reinterpret. If the positions seem unintelligible to you, start moving things around a bit.

 The first thing I felt about it was that placing the “before you” card after the “crowns you” card seemed anti climatic. So I switched the order, though not the placement, of those two cards around.

 This is the original order and layout:

 1. This is You

 2. This Covers You

 3. This is Beneath You

 4. This is Behind You

 5. This Crowns You

 6. This is Before You

But this way works a little better, I think:

 1. This is You

 2. This Covers You

 3. This is Beneath You

 4. This is Behind You

 5. This is Before You

 6. This Crowns You

 Still, it doesn’t help one to learn what these positions mean. Gray has short explanations that are a little bit helpful, but she explains that the Before You card is, “…the near future…” The Crowns You card is also supposed to be something that will happen in the future and, over on the staff, the last card is a future card. Why have three cards that mean basically the same thing?

 It seemed to me that the only way to wrap my head around all this was to read, read, read the cards. I read the cards, studied the examples in the books, and bumbled around as best I could.

 At some point I found that I had acquired a modest but decent library of Tarot books with lots of different points of view on the great Celtic Cross Spread. Greer, Gray, Pollack, a few others. I began to compare and take notes. One book focused on exploring the meaning of the first two cards renaming the positions to The Situation and The Challenge. Of course! What crosses you is what challenges you!

 Someone else changed Family Opinion to External Influences, and somewhere else it came up as Resources. These worked when the question concerned something the family had no knowledge of or no stake in.

 In a basic—very basic—way, the cross seemed to show where you were and how you got yourself there, while the staff showed how to move beyond that or at least make progress.

 I began to read books and interpretations of the spread as much as I read the cards to try and master it. I used different position names and ideas until I finally came up with a Celtic Cross that flowed for me and was helpful. The one I use now is not really a fortune telling spread the way the original tried so hard to be. Rather it is one for insight and inspiration, and helpful clarity.

 I put this new and hopefully improved version of the Celtic Cross below. Ultimately, though, I use the notes as guidelines. I prefer to find the story in the cards and what I see does not always correspond much to the position names. In fact, I consider the position names to be handy for adding another layer to the reading if needed or wanted.

 CROSS

 1. Situation: This is the core of the question. It should help to clarify the situation or a specific aspect of the situation

2. Challenge: This is the challenge the querent must meet in order to change or fix the situation.

3. Roots or Unconscious Awareness: What you don’t know you know. This could indicate ingrained habits or ways and means that fuel the question.

4. Intuition or Inner Voice: Some deep feeling or idea that the querent may have surrounding the situation. This card can move forward to #5 so that the intuition and inner voice guide the next card.

5. Potential Action (outer): A potential action the querent may take and is directly guided by the Intuition.

 6. Goals and Aspirations or Conscious Awareness: Some more options that the querent may wish to explore, and which she may already be aware of.

 STAFF

 7. You: The state of the querent at the time of the reading

 8. Environment and Resources: What the querent may or may not be able to depend on when resolving the situation. Can be an inner resource but probably something or someone from the outside environment.

9. Hopes and Fears: So often the same thing!

10. New Focus or Resolution: Where you go from here.

Just a quick note for anyone who is in Burlington, Vermont this weekend.  The neighborhood known as the Old North End is having a Ramble.  And it promises to be a lot of fun.

I will be reading Tarot cards at the ONE World Market at the North End Studio A at 294 N. Winooski Ave.  Stop by!  I will be doing $5 quick look readings (3-cards, about 5 minutes), $10 readings, about 15 minutes, and $20 for a half hour reading.

After the festivities, I will be at the Round Up, held at 274 N. Winooski.  I think I will be doing sliding scale readings there.

Last year I read at Old Spokes Home which is a really great bike shop, the pride of the Old North End, and other wonderful things.  It was a lot of fun talking to people from so many walks of life.

So wish me luck!  It will be a long day of card reading, and I can't wait.

A Cranky Rant, and Some Pagan Art

I love art, but I am picky.  Most art, I don't like. "Good art" is a slippery thing to try and define.  You might lay out exactly what that means to you, then a piece that defies it all will floor you and change your life.  Then another piece that meets all your criteria strikes you as just awful.  It really is best not to pin it down.  You like what you like!

When it comes to Pagan art, I am even pickier, more opinionated, and, well, cranky about it.  There are a couple of things that turn me off quicker than a light switch and one of them is pointy eared humans.  The moment I see long, pointy ears on someone other than Mr. Spock, I'm done.

Another thing I am sick of is the boobs!

In actuality, I don't mind boobs.  I swing both ways and before I met my husband, I was more a ladies' lady than not.  But it seems to me that images of witches and goddesses are as rife with unattainable and unrealistic body images as any issue of Harper's Bazaar.  Even while I was a member of a coven where most of us were young(ish) and female and slim(ish), none of us looked like that.

Sometimes it is appropriate, of course.  Aphrodite is a sex goddess.  It is great for Her to look like a sex kitten in images.  Demeter, not so much.

Okay, enough of my opinionated crankiness and on to what I have found that I think is really wonderful.

I will start with Thalia Took.

She makes these portraits of deities that are so simple, yet so expressive, and with an element of humor. It is as if the goddesses took a few minutes from their busy schedules to sit for their portraits.  I can almost hear the pregnant Artio (a Celtic Bear Goddess, according to Took) saying, "Okay, now's a good time."  For the most part, she shows a true understanding of the deities she portrays, and that is hard to find.

Be sure to explore Thalia Took's website and blog, Amused Grace.  Lots of interesting stuff.

But let us move on!  Let us consider Stuart Littlejohn, a brit from Devon, England who looks kind of like Aleister Crowley, and whose art has a ceremonial bent as well.

I like Littlejohn's work because it is kind of dark.  It is not just the style that is dark and wonderful, but the subject matter matches its darksomeness.  (It's a word now.)  Take this image of Sekhmet:

She is standing between two cliffs atop a mountain of bones and human skulls.  She is the Egyptian war goddess, and, according to Wikipedia, one of Her titles was "The Lady of Slaughter."  She was also associated with the desert and its creation, so naturally She would be a fearsome goddess of death and destruction.  I like that this work faces Her scarier aspects head on without sugar coating of any kind.

Here are a a couple more; Hekate and Brighde.

I mean, you do not mess with these women!

There are a few more artists that I want to explore and talk about, but since this post is running on a bit, I will save them for later in the week.  

Til next time, dear friends!

Etsy, Facebook and so on

Friends, I am now a proud (I think) Etsy seller with about eight or nine items listed in the lovely Frankly Tarot store.

 I am still working on the storefront and the "look." I am not sure about the best way to approach the listings' images. I took a bunch of photos of various cards from my small but beloved collection of Tarot decks and have posted those. On one listing--the Birthday reading one--I used a watercolor of a crazy birthday cake that I painted all by myself. And one or two have nice nature shots. I haven't received any real feedback on these images, though I sure would love some!

In my portfolio, I also have a couple of other watercolor images that are tarot-esque that I could use somehow, but I am not sure if I will or how I will go about it if I do.

 I mean! All I really want to do is read the cards for folks--and earn a little money in the process. Such a lot of fuss. On the other hand, it is kind of fun and creative to set up the store front and figure out neat ideas for titles and such.

So, go over to my Frankly Tarot on Etsy and fave stuff, and order a reading.  My turnaround time is 24 hours right now, probably sooner.  And while you are at it, take a look at my page on Facebook.  The timeline is growing on me.  I think.

One deck ruined, another one acquired

The other week I pulled out my beloved Universal Waite deck to throw a spread or two for myself and found that it had got WET somehow!  It had been a little while--and by a 'little while' I mean way too freaking long--since I had done anything with them.  I had them wrapped up in a large piece of black cotton cloth and put inside a black wool bag that had a ribbon and everything.  The bag had been sitting in the bottom of my not-so-state-of-the-art back pack (still waterproof though) for all that time and unbeknownst to me, it got WET then dried again.  I blame condensation or leakage of a water bottle or something along those lines.  Anyway, I couldn't shuffle them anymore.

Nonetheless, I persevered, dear friends! I did what anyone would do, I am sure.  I purchased a new deck. I had been lusting after the Radiant Waite for years and years and years but since I had a much loved and perfectly serviceable Rider Waite deck, I couldn't justify bringing another THING into the house.

So now my go-to deck is the Radiant Waite and last weekend I had a chance to use it on somebody when I went to visit my Western Mass friend for the weekend.  Now, I usually don't read upside down at all.  In fact, I employ a tiny little trick or two to avoid it.  Simply, I refuse.  But I handed to the deck to my friend to shuffle so that I could drink my nice beer (we had walked four plus miles to the tavern for dinner and I had a blister or two and that beer was medicinal let me tell you) and she turned them this way and that.

She did not ask me a specific question, so I lay down three cards to get an idea of what the whole thing was going to be about.  One of the cards--the second card to be exact--was the Empress Reversed.

I interpreted it as showing that she is giving up some long-held dreams to pursue the dream she has chosen to pursue.  And specifically, that is the dream and ideal of having children one day.

We talked a little about those three cards, ate our meal, then I threw a standard 10-card Celtic Card and read that.  As I was doing this I was aware that the character of the reading was formed by the fact that she and I are close friends of several years and I know what is going on in her life.  The same cards in the same order, with a client I didn't know as well would be a very different reading indeed.

On other fronts, I am going to set up an Etsy shop for my tarot readings.  Please visit there!  I would drop a nice URL linky-link right here, but I haven't actually done the work yet.  I will make some kind of Big Announcement on this blog, as well as my Facebook page.  Like me, friend me, I'll appreciate it forever.

That is all for now, good people.  Blessed be!

Learning from the Tarot

This will be a relatively short post because I am so smart that I forgot to take any pictures of my first festival gig.  I put on a beautiful green silk skirt and rigged up a red striped canopy.  It's not as Christmasy as it sounds, I promise.

The event is called The Ramble.  I live in a, well, underprivileged part of town.  There is a lot of poverty as well as a lot of art and sub culture here.  Every year for the last eight years a kind of arts festival happens in this area with artists and businesses participating.  It is very colorful and eccentric.

I decided to set up a canopy and a table and read tarot cards at this equally colorful and eccentric bike shop called the Old Spokes Home.  I was there from, oh, ten-ish to about 3:30, and earned a little over twenty bucks.  I also had a real lot of fun and learned a whole lot of stuff--maybe 3 or 4 things:

1.  Wear sunscreen
2.  Make a bigger canopy
3.  Put some colorful flanges or flags on that bigger canopy
4. Be closer to the sidewalk somehow and be generally more colorful

So one more thing--be sure to check out my updated, clarified, and cheaper fee structure on the Frankly Tarot page, and contact me for a reading.

This is a little tidbit from last year's Ramble.  There is an Epic Bike Ride at the end of the day which I miss every year.

Je t'adore, Rob Brezsney!

Even if I can't spell your name.

Rob Brezsney is the creator of Free Will Astrology, which in my mind is still called Real Astrology as it used to be called because it has had a real effect on my life.  The Horoscope is irreverent, tongue-in-cheek, and outrageously positive.  He also pushes a philosophy known as Pronoia, which I can't really spell either.  The idea is that basically the Universe is trying to shower you--and me and all of us--with blessings.  That things are getting better, not worse.  It's a rebellious thinking and I think that this philosophy could very well save the world.

But, he does not seem to like Libras very much!  I am a Libra.  I am a Libra's Libra.  Not only is the Sun in Libra on my chart, but so is Libra's ruler, Venus.  Plus a couple of other interesting things that make me an uber-Libra.  So for many years I would sigh whenever his Horoscope came out, and be unhappy with what he wrote for Libras.  I don't take it personally--or much of anything else either--but the Libra 'scopes have been getting better.

The Oaf is a Libra too, but not really.  He was born in the last two hours of the sun being in Libra that year, and he is really more Scorpio than anything.  So I read the Libra for myself and the Scorpio for him.  And this week they are GREAT!  Just listen to this:

"He got a big ego, such a huge ego," sings Beyonce in her song "Ego." "It's too big, it's too wide / It's too strong, it won't fit / It's too much, it's too tough / He talk like this 'cause he can back it up." I would love to be able to address that same message to you in the coming days, Libra. I'm serious. I'd love to admire and marvel at your big, strong ego. This is one of those rare times when the cosmic powers-that-be are giving you clearance to display your beautiful, glorious self in its full radiance. Extra bragging is most definitely allowed, especially if it's done with humor and wit. A bit of preening, mugging, and swaggering is permissible as well. 


Hot, right?  Well, heck, I'll start on this right now.


I am a really great Tarot Reader!  And a cook!  My words are lyrical and trip from my pen like the running of a wild river!  Of course the best and most wonderful clients and students come to me for I am an amazing person.

Hunh.  That felt pretty good, actually.  I think I'll go cook something.  Or read something. Or write something.  No, really, I'm gonna start on some supper for me and the Oaf.  We're gonna be hungry.

The Great Thing about The Wild Hunt and Christopher Walken

This is one of the reasons I read and love The Wild Hunt blog.  I learn the best stuff from that blog, like Christopher Walken is going to play Zeus in a movie adaptation of the book "Gods Behaving Badly" by Marie Phillips.

I don't know how this book never made it onto my radar let alone onto my bookshelf.  But y'know, I think that I will wait for the movie and read the book after.  At least, I am going to try to wait until after the movie.  It really looks like my exact cup o'tea, with lots of honey in it.

Here is a cute video of an interview with the author of the book.  She does name some actors she thinks would fit the bill for a movie version, but she doesn't mention Christopher Walken.



Here is another awesome clip.  This is from the movie The Prophecy where Christopher Walken plays the archangel Gabriel, the bad guy.  He's really great in this movie which I recommend if you can handle a bit of deep dark humor in a movie.

Interesting reading outcome

In my last post I talked a little bit about the spread I read for my New Pagan Group Meeting.  My interpretation turned out to be pretty much on, I think.

To recap, I got a bunch of aces and twos and a couplea majors.  It was very low key and passive.  I figured only one person besides myself would show up.  I had one confirmation so I knew she would come, but I didn't know if others would show up or not, and the spread indicated that only that one person would show up.

And, indeed, one person showed up.  She was very down to earth and had a lot of ideas and feelings about paganism that I have, so we had much in common.  There were also a couple of important diverging opinions and ideas.

She also had an interesting background and experiences that I had not considered about where she is from and where she was on her journey.

A very interesting exercise, indeed.  I like this spread, but I think I am going to change the spread a little to look like this:

1. Past
2. Present
3. Possible Future
4. Self
(these are all the same as the original as you can probably tell)
5. Situation
6. Challenge
7. Next Action

Seven Sisters Spread for Organizational Meeting

What a dull post title!  Oh well, it was still an exciting thing to me at least.  I have been attempting to organize a pagan group here in my hometown.  Attitudes are open and liberal here in lovely downtown Vermont, but it's difficult to find people to be paganesque with.  I have been part of various pagan or witchy groups and classes, of different longevity but for the last year plus, I have been solitary.

So I put a listing up on Witchvox and Facebook and e-mailed back and forth with a few people and finally got something set up for Thursday evening.  I had no idea how many or who would show up or anything, and I was very nervous.  So I threw a tarot spread before I left.  I used the Seven Sisters Spread, which is a good, basic spread, but if I use it again I may tweak the positions a little bit.

The issue at hand:  What to expect from Pagan Meeting.

I think I like to read ina  more overall manner than card by card, at least at the outset of a reading.

I have  3 Aces--beginning on many levels but not very much groundedness (not the Ace of Pents).  But we have the World for that.

At either end I have cards of stasis; the 2 of Swords and the Devil. Not moving forwards.  In fact, there is very little movement in these cards except for the World.

I guess I like the Ace of Swords in the Self spot.  I am spearheading this whole thing; I am the on "on fire with it."

The only thing that bothers me is all the passivity here.

More later, as they say!