Reading Tarot Cards for Beginners

I’ve been known to dabble in the what I think of the mystical-I love horoscopes and the Chinese Zodiac, I have good luck talismans that have been given to me by family and friends, and I love books like Signs by Laura Lynn Jackson. So when Dinah gave me a deck of Tarot cards from Christmas, I was very excited to explore them. I put on my best hair scarf and dangly earrings and then offered to read cards for my family members one night over the holidays. After that, I put the cards away and forgot about them until quarantine freed up some time, and I decided it would be fun to really learn more about the cards. 

The deck that Dinah gave me is gorgeous and comes with a book that explains the meaning of each card. I also got the book The Language of Tarot by Jeannie Read, which explains how to read cards and the meaning of the cards. I really enjoyed Read’s approach to the cards (she applies a science background and is less woo-woo than some of the other books I read). Here’s some of what I learned:

You can pulls cards in several different ways. I started simple: pulling a single card in the morning to get a glimpse of what was in store for me that day or something that would be important to keep in mind as I went about the day. You can also ask the cards a question and pull a single card to see what it reveals about that question. 

When you want to pull cards for yourself or someone else, you need to infuse the cards with your energy or question. I like to hold the deck in my hand and think about the question or the person that I’m pulling for. Then I shuffle the deck a few times and fan out the cards and pick one, while still keeping the question and person in mind. Read recommends that when you pick a card, you place it on the table face down and then flip it over the exact same way every time (it’s important in Tarot if the card is right-side up or upside down, because that can give the cards opposite meaning. For example, if a card signifying a journey is up, that means it’s coming in the future or is generally positive, but if it’s upside down, that can can have a negative connotation that it was cut short or didn’t go well.)

According to Caitlin Keegan’s book, The Illuminated Tarot which came with my deck, the cards are divided into Major and Minor Arcana, with Major cards representing major life events and minor cards representing the more minor every day events. The Court Cards (king, queen, etc) can represent specific people or types (ie: Queens often represent Mothers, and whether that’s your mother or your own motherly energy depends on the question). There are also the four suits, and they each have their own meaning: clubs/wands, diamonds/coins. hearts/cups, and spades/swords.

 I wanted to see if there was only one way to “correctly” read each card, so I read several different books about tarot cards. I found that the authors tended to have fundamental things in common that they got from a card, for example, the Jack of Diamonds is often about education or learning, but then each writer also had slightly different interpretations of the details of the meaning card. It seems that it’s totally valid to apply your own knowledge and perspective to your reading of the card in different situations. 

To take it up a level, you can ask a question or do a reading where you pull three cards: one for the past, one for the present, and one for the future. You can also pull seven cards: one for each day of the week, and as you get more advanced you can pull many cards in different arrangements. The shape that Read does involves many cards and allows you to get a full picture of a subject’s life, which seems very cool, and I hope that one day, I’m good enough to attempt it. Right now, I have to look up the meaning of every card which makes the process slow, especially because I like to look them up in more than one book to see if there’s a consensus on the meaning.

You can pull cards for yourself or for someone else, but it’s very important to think about the person that you’re pulling for while you shuffle the cards and transfer your energy to them. Sometimes, if Chad was sitting with me in the morning, I would offer to pull a card for him, and I was amazed at how I always pulled cards with a more feminine energy for myself and with a more masculine energy for him. 

Also, this may seem silly, but I always want the cards to have a very positive energy so I have a crystal and another good luck talisman that I keep near me when I’m doing a reading with the cards. I read in this article, which contains a lot of good info about reading tarot cards, that the author does something similar.  From my research, you want to make sure that you’re pulling cards when you’re in a calm and positive state of mind, not when you’ve had a few glasses or wine or when you’re angry. You also want to minimize the amount of people in the room because that can be confusing for the energy of the cards.

GOOP has several informative articles about Tarot cards if you want to read more about the practice. I’ve found that pulling a card in the morning is a fun way to focus my day and to bring attention to something in my life. While there are some universal ways on interpreting the cards, each person is also going to find their own meaning in their cards based on their life experience, and that can be very illuminating!