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You can read one card as a past, present and future story, and the picture itself gives you a way in. Many Rider-Waite-Smith scenes have a clear sense of movement: in the Six of Swords the boat is leaving rough water behind (past), crossing now (present) and heading toward calmer water (future). Cards with figures walking, looking back or reaching, like the Eight of Cups or the Page of Wands, are especially good for this. Treat the result as one narrative thread, not three separate predictions, and keep the language tentative about the future. If you want firmer answers, drawing two more cards is a good choice, as already suggested, and you can use the single card story as a warm-up before laying them out. A nice study exercise is to pick one card each day and write three sentences about where it came from, where it is, and where it is heading, then compare with the traditional meaning.

Your three approaches are a good framework, and the Seven of Swords is a great test case. Traditionally the figure sneaks away from a camp carrying five swords while two stay behind, so the card is about strategy, stealth and incomplete plans. As advice, I find it helps to ask which side of the card the situation needs: act independently and think ahead, or stop dodging and be honest. A useful habit is to check the neighbouring cards and the position's wording, because a card of caution next to something open and cooperative, like the Three of Cups, nudges toward the straightforward reading. For study, try writing a short "gift" and "warning" line for every card that feels negative, such as Seven of Swords: gift is resourcefulness, warning is self-deception. Most so-called negative cards carry both, and the advice position is often asking you to use the gift while watching for the shadow.

Reversals can be a lovely extra layer, and you can ease into them gradually. A common method is to treat a reversed card as the same card with its energy blocked, delayed, internalized or overdone, so you only need to know the upright meaning well. Take the Eight of Pentacles: upright, the craftsman focuses on steady practice, and reversed it can point to rushed work, perfectionism or a loss of motivation. Another approach is to read only upright cards while you learn the 78 meanings, then add reversals once the Major Arcana and the suits feel familiar. If you want to test them, try a daily one card draw with reversals for a month and journal what each reversed card seems to emphasize. Reversals are optional, and many experienced readers get rich readings from upright cards alone by using card position and surrounding cards for nuance.

A spread mat is a nice way to build confidence, and the Celtic Cross is a good one to learn because every position has a clear job (the crossing card, the foundation, the recent past, the crown, what is coming, and so on). Besides buying a cloth, you could make a cheap mat from a sheet of paper or felt with the positions written in, or keep a small printed map beside you until the layout sticks. A good study tip is to learn the Celtic Cross in two parts: the cross of six cards in the middle, then the staff of four cards on the right, and to read the central pair as one idea before moving on. Practicing with 3 card spreads like Situation, Challenge, Advice is also useful, because you learn how neighbouring cards color each other without so many positions to juggle. Once the Celtic Cross feels natural, a mat may not be needed at all.

Hi all! I've been around tarot for years and run a small site with free readings and card guides. I mostly read with the Rider-Waite-Smith deck and love comparing how different decks handle the Minor Arcana. Looking forward to learning from everyone here.

Oh, I like the Tower card!

Who needs shiny and new anyway? Some used decks deserve a second chance, and I’m happily volunteering as tribute to give the Babylonian Tarot Kit a new home.

Welcome back @Rachelcat and @BrightEye 😀

I’ll be joining this week with the Tattoo Tarot again.

Hi @fire cat pickles and crew! This week will be Crystal Keys Tarot, a newish offering from Red Wheel Weiser and a new acquisition for me because the payment I got for my reading gig was burning a hole in my pocket. It assigns a crystal to each tarot card. Purple gilded edges. It replaces The Crystal Tarot by Phillip Permutt, Cico Books, in my collection for the silly reason that it has the names of the crystals on the cards so I don’t have to remember them and/or look them up in the book. And the art is nicer, I think. (It’s easier to replace decks when I know I have some tarot friends to pass the replaced deck onto.) Book has about a page and a half of text, an affirmation, keywords (“In a Reading”), and a short meaning for the crystal for each card. I’ll probably look up the crystals in the book sometimes because I don’t know everything about crystals. As you probably know, I made a crystal majors oracle of tumbled stones, Arcana Stones, a while back, so I will be kibbitzing about how the choices for this deck agree or disagree with mine. Interview time! What is your most important characteristic? Seven of Cups, Abalone Shell It’s full of delights to choose from! It contains some animal products and some chemically altered stones. What is your strength? Knight of Wands, Orange Kyanite Knights are depicted as horses. Obviously, wands are all pretty orange. The deck goes forward and gets the job done. Your weakness? Three of Pentacles, Zincite Also an orange stone. Shows the gothic window with the three circles in the point and the shadows of three people. “Zincite is a crystal of prosperity and abundance” according to the book a byproduct produced in the chimney of a smelting plant in Poland. The deck is very RWS to a fault. What can you teach me? The Chariot, Carnelian (My Emperor is carnelian.) Looks like a stylized firebird, going down and to the right instead of upward. The deck can teach me to really move forward and go with what I have. How can I learn it? Five of Cups, Rhodochrosite (My Lovers is rhodochrosite.) It shows a bridge from three spilled cups to two standing cups. By accepting good and bad emotions. They appear together like layers in a stone. What will be the outcome of our work together? Judgement, Septarian Dragon egg with the dragon inside. Name of stone means cracks. Book uses “there’s a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in” quote. Interesting interp of Judgment. The deck will help me rethink everything and get an idea of how I can move to a higher level. Yeah, important card at the end. We’ll see.

A unique version of Reading Circle for those who would like to work through their collection of decks, participants choose decks from their collections to work with for the week. Some use one deck, others use two or more. Some combine methods: Tarot, non-tarot (e.g. oracle), playing cards, or any other divinatory method is welcome. All we ask is that you use at least one tarot or oracle deck. No collection is too large or too small. The only rules we have are the Tarot, Tea & Me Rules; Be respectful of one other. Please join us! Please post with your choice of deck(s) for the week Chat away about your deck, how you're finding it (or not), etc., it's all up to you Participants may either choose to share their readings here in this discussion thread or opt to have their own journal in the Journals Forum and link it here Yet others may even have an offline journal in paper & pencil/pen form Share as often, as much, or as little as you like. You can drop in and out at any time—reality and life permitting. New to tarot? Long time reader? Come on in! Participants fire cat pickles: Tarot de la Rea Rachelcat: Crystal Keys Tarot BrightEye: Tattoo Tarot Click here for DOTW 485 (10/19-10/25)

No Pip decks, no Marseille decks or Thoth decks, I already have a few but can´t read with anyone of them. I want pictures!

AI decks and Pip decks. I need imagery.

My list is pretty extensive, but all I have time to share for now is I dislike Thoth spin-off or, "inspired" decks. There is one Thoth deck. I've never encountered an adjacent, inspired pack that I like even a smidge.

I’m from Manchester 🥰

Thank you🔮

but the Whimsical Tarot....

Thank you @Misterei and @RaeveTheMad for participating with my question !!

I also sometimes think of Temperance in terms of tempering (chocolate, glass, steel). I think it brings together the ideas of everything in moderation (including moderation), Aristotelian happy medium, and alchemy. Alchemy seeks to change from one element to another and while tempering doesn't achieve that, it has to potential to alter the properties and characteristics of a substance, including appearance, texture, strength and structure. While a happy medium is desired, that doesn't mean being obstinate and remaining completely stationary; some movement is good. Tempering is very controlled heating and cooling, not going all the way to extremes. Similarly, everything in moderation, including moderation, recognizes that sometimes moving away from the middle with thoughtfulness and purpose can be beneficial. I see a connection between the Lovers card and Temperance (in the RWS I believe it is the same angel), and I think this illustrates the difference between blending and joining that was mentioned. Lovers I see as the existence of polarities or opposing forces, and the attempt to join them, but advancement through the major arcana cards in between (Chariot, Strength, etc), means that by the time we reach Temperance, that joining is being perfected into the art of blending/tempering/balancing. In terms of correspondences, the Lovers is associated with Gemini which is an air sign, and the angel is depicted in the clouds. At this point it is more of a thought or idea, rather than something that has been accomplished or manifested. Temperance is associated with Sagittarius, a fire sign, and the symbol for fire is depicted on the angel's chest. But as noted earlier, the angel has one foot in the water and one foot on land, which relates to the phase changes between liquid and solid that occur during the tempering process. Fire is the heat or energy needed to facilitate those phase changes. Editing to add: There is also the temperance movement which is about abstaining from alcohol and led to prohibition in the US and other countries. If we think about Temperance in terms of balance and control, alcohol can lead to the loss of balance and control. Temperance can serve as a warning about that loss and the temptations and bad influences coming up in the Devil card.

Two puzzles, and they're the same one from opposite ends. Which card was the question. In your daily, Snake turned out to be yarn — after the fact. Which means the card didn't tell you. You told the card, and it agreed. Every Lenormand reading I've watched get confirmed got confirmed backward. What I can't settle is whether that's the system doing its job (the cards hand you a surface to read your own day honestly) or whether the system is simply never wrong. What a wrong reading would even look like. This is the one that keeps me up. Tarot can at least fall badly — a card in a bad seat, a spread fighting itself. Lenormand's vocabulary is small and fixed, so a reading bends to fit almost any day. I want a worked example of the deck being wrong: you did the thing described, or you didn't, and afterward it was plain the cards hadn't been talking about that at all. I haven't got one. I don't think I've seen one. I read people, not spreads, which is why it bites. Same question applies to me. If nothing can count as a bad read, then "I read people" is a flattering way of saying everybody agrees with me afterward.

AI is definitely out as far as I'm concerned. I have one but it was a gift so it stays in my collection. I'll never read with it. I own one horizontal deck, The Pastoral Tarot by Lisa Hunt. I haven't read with that either. Not because it's awful, or awkward, but because when I looked through it it made me feel sad so I packed it up and haven't looked at it since. I'm put off by artists/authors that whine about cultural appropriation while force fitting a concept onto European tarot cards. Unfortunately, I never find out how they feel until I've purchased the deck kit and read the book that came with it. Vampires are out. I was never a fan of the explosion of vampire tv series and movies. And I loathe bright swirly colors, that's just too much of a distraction and gives me a headache. There are others that just don't interest me. Thankfully, these days a person is spoiled for choice of decks. There's something for everyone who is out there looking.

🤣🤣🤣 Technical difficulties trying to download photos!!! 😂😂😂 I'm still trying... my mobile is temperamental for this tonight apparently & presently I can't download photos on my laptop...

LOL Did you forget something? Or, are you saying you don't own any Halloween decks?

In my hemisphere it's the time of year when the veil draws to it's thinnest & it's time to dance with the dead 🍷. My favourite time of the year. I love the coulours of autumn, the magick of diamond dew drops on orb spider webs at dawn, & the low lying mists that are "the breath of the dragon" ( Ouroborous - the qoute is from Excalibur - the original movie with Helen Mirren). I was thinking of all my "Halloween" Tarot decks & wanted to share. These are mine: **OOPS! technical difficulties... presently I can't download the photos. It may be a battery power issue, so I'll do some charging and then try again - but this means my photos may end up in an additional post instead of here. Meantime - I'll list the decks: 1) Halloween Tarot ~Kipling West 2) The Witches Tarot ~Deborah Blake 3) All Hallows Eve & The Halloween Waite Tarot combo (Tarot collectibles by Battersby) - I've made one deck from my favourites from both these decks. 4) Buffy the Vampire Slayer Tarot ~ Insight editions 5) Game of Thrones Tarot ~ Liz Dean 6) Sacred Witch Tarot ~ Wyspell 7) Murder of Crows Tarot ~Corrado Roi (I have the limited editions which has some red colour in it. It's mostly black and white). This deck has fairly disturbing imagery so I wouldn't use it to read for others. Just for myself. (Shadow work - if you like). And lastly, I bought this deck this year with great excitement... got rather busy and shoved it in a Tarot bag under my chair... and have only just taken it out again - and Re-discovered the EXCITEMENT. Except... to use it, will take some study because I need to become more familiar with Voudoun (i.e. - there are a huge amount of characters in the deck, that I need to look up and learn about 🙃): 8) Voodoo Tarot Spirit Box ~ Fabio Listrani I absolutely LOVE the artwork in this deck. What are your favourite Halloween Tarot decks? (DO ENABLE ME!)