Connecting with Your Tarot Cards

Whether you are reading tarot for yourself or for others it is important to build a relationship and connection with your cards. They are more than divination tools and part of showing your respect to your cards is treating them as though they are your partner when you’re divining.

Speak to your cards

Even if you aren’t using them every day you can still say something to your deck about how grateful you are to be able to use them. Speak about how you want to use the deck and what having them in your practice means to you.

Read the guide book

It’s important to understand what each card means before you do a reading for accuracy. You also want to know more about the cards so that you can do more intuitive readings and discern when they are trying to tell you another message. Sometimes the meaning behind the spread is not always what the guide book meaning is so you will have to dig deeper.

Draw a card a day

When I first started reading oracle and tarot cards I used to draw one card a day to help me better understand my cards. I would ask the cards, “what should I focus on today” or “what do I need to see today” and I would think about the card I drew throughout the day. It also helped me to build my confidence in reading before I moved on to 2-4 card spreads.

Experiment with spreads

This will help you understand how your deck speaks to you. You can start with a simple 3-card spread then let your creativity take over. Make spreads based on sacred geometry, a pentagram, a circle within a circle, anything that speaks to you.

Read into the picture

Sometimes the answer is not so obvious, even with a guide book, and we have to read more into the card. Look at the details in the picture and take in the surroundings. What is the outcome of what you see? Can anything be changed? Now, see how it relates to your question and think deeply about what you’re not seeing.

Use a deck that speaks to you

Make sure you like the artwork of your deck and that the symbolism used is meaningful to you. I’ve tried reading from a deck that I didn’t feel any connection to because the symbolism was very Christian-centric and my readings felt muddled and off. Once I found a deck that I liked with symbology that resonated with me it felt as though tarot had been open to me for the first time and I was able to understand what the cards were saying.

Reading tarot is a neverending journey and you will always discover new messages and meaning from your cards. Open yourself up to what your cards have to say and feel their message flow into you.