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How do you practice tarot reading when you have zero environmental stimulus?


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I'm still new to tarot. I'm not accurate enough to read for other people, but I want to practice, practice, and practice. I feel stuck because of the pandemic. I spend most of my days at home alone, without any outside stimulus. I barely see any friends, and my family is far away too. There's nothing going on in my life I haven't done multiple readings on. I feel silly asking the same questions all the time, and I wouldn't want to focus on the loss of my job and all the stress it has on me either.

 

What kind of readings would you do if you were in my situation?

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All sorts of possibilities!  :smiley:

One option is to read on current events (ideally some good ones as well as the normal news...). Another (which I have mixed feelings about) is to read for fictional characters. You can also set yourself puzzles and games: what will the weather be like in two weeks? Record your answers and see if you can do better than the long-term forecast!

 

However... the cards aren't just for divination, and contain enormous wisdom within the deck itself, and its structure. Many people draw a card for the day to meditate on, or to look for its influence through the day. It's a good way to get to know the cards more deeply...

 

And finally... sometimes less is more. Time allowing the meanings of the cards to settle, and thinking about them (rather than actually doing more readings), can give you a richer perspective. Hopefully something here attracts you, anyway!

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cookie_reader

@Wanderer Thank you for the tips! I do the daily card drawings, but it doesn't feel enough. I don't want to overdo it, but I think I can take on a little more. I'll try each of these tips. Never thought to predict the weather with the cards, but I'll give that one a go as well 🙂 It'll be interesting to see how I can relate the imagery of the cards to various weather conditions apart from the obvious cloudy/windy/sunny backgrounds.

 

How do you meditate with a tarot card? I've ever done guided meditations, but I'm interested.

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20 minutes ago, cookie_reader said:

@Wanderer Thank you for the tips! I do the daily card drawings, but it doesn't feel enough. I don't want to overdo it, but I think I can take on a little more. I'll try each of these tips. Never thought to predict the weather with the cards, but I'll give that one a go as well 🙂 It'll be interesting to see how I can relate the imagery of the cards to various weather conditions apart from the obvious cloudy/windy/sunny backgrounds.

 

How do you meditate with a tarot card? I've ever done guided meditations, but I'm interested.

Hi Cookie reader! Glad to hear you've got some things to try there... hope they work! 

 

For the meditating, there are again many different approaches. One of the most interesting is to transform the image into an imagined story, where you calm your mind and try to become the figure in the card (if there's no figure, then become an unseen observer). Create the card in your mind, and allow your unconscious to fill out the rest of the story. What are the people thinking and feeling? What events led to the scene you are in? Is the next move inevitable, or are there options for where events go from here... and how do one's actions work to change the narrative? Trying to live the card in this way can lead to all sorts of insights into the range of meanings that it encompasses. Those keywords that you've memorised might be facets of the situation, or they may be branches of possibility leading away from it... in short, who knows what you'll discover?

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Hi @cookie_reader! How about asking questions that will be relevant to when the pandemic is over?
Like, what should I focus on to prepare myself for the end of lockdown? Or, where should my first post lockdown holiday be? 

Even the more mundane everyday questions can be fun... What should I have for dinner tonight? Should I go to bed early, or watch one more episode? Why do the neighbours keep fighting? Will they ever mow their lawn? 🤣 Sometimes keeping it light and silly can be very entertaining. 

Otherwise, you could bite the bullet, and ask a few friends to give you some questions. Then really take your time studying their readings, give yourself a week if you have to! Pull out the LWB and slowly gain confidence by doing very simple spreads.

Meditating with the cards is a great suggestion also. So many ways to do that one, there really is no end to the methods. 

Hoping you can get out of lockdown soon. 

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And yet another idea is to examine your dreams with tarot. You could write the dream down and pull cards for things and people that come up in the dream.

Say, you dream of sitting in a red van with your cousin. You can pull a card for the red van. What does it stand for. And another for the cousin. What does he or she represent. A third for the destination, a fourth for the overall meaning, etc. 

I have found it sometimes works really well since both dreams and tarot use symbols and metaphors, and you often need to use your intuition to find the message behind the symbolism .

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You can read for television shows, what will happen next week in your favorite soap? Or solve an murder in a detective, and see if your cards saw who the killer was.

 

But you can also start your Tarot Journal. Explore the card meanings, and write your own LWB. 

 

Listen to podcasts or watch YouTube video's. There is so much to study.

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I struggle with this as well, but, only doing readings for myself, this is a problem I've always run into. In the past I've just burnt out on tarot and gone off them for a long while, but I'm doing much better lately.

 

I'm doing a few things to keep readings going and varied.

1. I going through all of the spreads in The Holistic Tarot. There are lots of spread sources out there; I recently saw posted on here the Royal Road so I did that too. 

2. I am doing readings about other people.

3. I came up with a list of general questions like "How am I doing" type things, along with a list of topics like "health". Then I went through and decided which questions apply to which topics so ultimately I have a big list of specific future reading questions to do when they feel right.

4. I have a journal like Ix Chel mentioned, a page for each card with meanings I'm filling in from readings.

5. I'm trying to get a better sense of which decks I communicate with better so I have a chart I'm filling out as I do readings.

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I don't know about other people, but I'm doing a longterm exchange with Aldor44, another user on this forum.  It has been great as s/he has challenged me in ways I didn't expect, and has helped me grow as a Tarot reader.  Most of all though, it's giving me an opportunity to do readings with someone, as opportunities to do so with my friends are few and far in between.  Maybe see if you can set up an exchange with someone here.  I know you're nervous about reading for other people, but my partner has been patient and has given me pointers that have helped me step out of my comfort zone and I'm a lot less nervous about doing readings for people now.  I've come to learn that Tarot is more than just learning card definitions and some spreads.  It's a journey, and one where you will have to keep stepping forward if you want to make any headway.  You can be up front about being new and not wanting to do overly complex spreads.  

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cookie_reader

@Wanderer I love that meditation idea, I'll start to implement it in my everyday meditation routine. I think it'll be awesome to gain me a deeper understanding of each card. thanks for the tip!

 

@Grace That's the problem, I've been focusing so much on "what'll happen to me after the lockdown" that I feel like I'm overdoing it? Like, I have this sense of not wanting to piss my guides off by asking the same thing over and over again 😄 I just recently lost my job due to the lockdown, so it's hard to focus on anything else, but I'd like to try. I just don't have anything else to focus on these days...

None of my friends are into spiritual practices and a lot of them condemn divination and the use of tarot, so I'm in a pickle "coming out" to them 🙂 


@stephanelli Perfect, I'll do this when the new moon cycle starts 🙂 

 

@Hemera This is the perfect excuse for getting back to dream journaling. I stopped a couple of years ago and noticed I don't dream as vividly as i used to.

 

@Ix Chel I do a lot of journaling, that's my main exercise for understanding what each card stands for, but it's getting monotone. I'd like to spice up my tarot learning a little. Reading for tv shows and series sounds like fun! I could even try it with books.

 

@LogicalHue I'm scared of burning out too. I haven't read the Holistic Tarot, but I'll look into it for new spreads. I'm journaling too, I have a separate journal for all of my decks, but I find it gets a bit too monotone after a while. Do you mind telling me about the chart you have on your relationship with the different decks? I love charts and tracking my progress in literally everything, and would love to learn more about your method 😄 

 

@AlbaTross I've been eyeing that section of the forum too, but to be honest it looks too intimidating. I know 'practice makes perfect', but I feel like my knowledge isn't enough to read for others yet. I can't even read accurately for myself yet...

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PXL_20201014_192545029.thumb.jpg.7e2a4b19c3f79ecc10d0fd69926e3553.jpg

 

That's my page, its fairly early on. I think its probably pretty self-explanatory but I just wrote up way too much about it anyway and then erased it all because I felt ridiculous. But that is to say, I'm happy to clarify anything if you have questions.

 

You may know this, but I didn't before buying it. The Holistic Tarot is a 691 page book - before the many appendixes. It's got a lot more than spreads. I have only dipped my toe into it and personally will probably never fully read it. I'm in the pretty basic spreads at this point, and I don't love those, but it gave me a system rather than just "do spreads". I find an existing list to work through helpful.

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@Hemera Thanks! And yes. After each reading I fill in one of the boxes with what type of reading (from the set of 4 colors) and how clear I thought it was (from the main set of colors).

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cookie_reader

@gregory That's a good idea! I'll try and see how it is in November.

 

@LogicalHue Wow, that's such a great idea! I think I'll make something similar, it's such a useful way of tracking progress. I'm a bullet journal junky anyway 😄 

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Oooo, there are SO many things you can do with tarot that aren't predictive readings!

 

I do 'normal' readings maybe 10% of the time, if that.... mostly, I use tarot to figure stuff out; the find new approaches to things, new ways of looking at problems, a conversation with my subconscious - or just to do fun games or writing exercises!

 

Joy Vernon has a great recent blog post:

https://joyvernon.com/how-to-learn-tarot/

 

And then there are so many books I want to recommend...

 

First, the classic (for a reason):

Tarot for Your Self, by Mary K. Greer (who also has a terrific blog, but that tends to be more on the history of tarot). A fantastic book!

 

It's been around for ages, has had many reprints - you could probably pick it up used for very little money.

One of the podcasts I listen to is going through it chapter by chapter, I think they're up to chapter 4 or 5 now; I'll check for the name and come back later.

 

 

Also great is The Tarot Playbook, by Lynda Cowles; some great and fun ways to interact with a deck.

 

The Tarot Activity Book, by Andy Matzner, is wonderful as well; a whole lot of varied activities, some very playful and some diving more deeply into your own mind & heart. One of my favorite tarot books of the last two or three decades. 😻

 

Another one with a more psychological approach is Tarot at a Crossroads, by Kooch N. Daniels and Victor Daniels; not as many exercises, but a very interesting read.

 

I also really like 365 Tarot Spreads, by Sasha Graham: a spread for each day of the year, usually themed, mostly quite interesting and fun to do.

 

 

Oh, and of course 21 Ways to Read a Tarot Card, also by Mary K. Greer!

You could easily spend weeks on just one card with that one... 😉

 

 

And finally, I have just ordered Tarot & Oracle 365 Day Challenge, for Busy Souls.

It's written by Ouassima Thouahria - sounds fantastic.

I hope it will get here soon, so I can tell you more about it. 🙂

 

There are maybe half a dozen more books I would like to recommend, but those are out of print and tend to be difficult to find....

 

Anyway, even just using the 'Look Inside' section on these should keep you busy for quite some time! 😉

 

 

Edited by Hedera
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Oh, and yes, as @stephanelli mentioned, the 30 days of working with the moon series is wonderful!

 

Edited by Hedera
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Also a bullet journaler here (that may be obvious). I realized doing a reading tonight that there's no metric for accuracy and I may be making some adjustments to add that in for future readings. I think at first that was intentional, but now that I'm doing some other types of readings and spreads its feeling like its lacking. Gotta figure out the system and the colors..

Edited by LogicalHue
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I like to practice drawing 3 cards, then combining the meaning from all of them to create a new meaning, to get a concept or sentence or idea that encapsulates the meaning of those 3 cards, making them essentially 1 card. It helps me learn that a cards meaning can be and is very dependent on the surrounding cards. The only place the card actually means what the "textbook meaning" is seems to be the textbook itself. 

 

Check out John Ballantrae on YouTube, his way of explaining the tarot has gotten me out of the "beginner-stage" and actually making some progress moving into "experienced-begginer" territory. 

https://www.youtube.com/user/johnballantrae001/videos

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When there's little you feel like there is to do a spread on...that means that there's actually a ton! The mind is just being restrictive to the current situation.

If I were in your exact position I'd ask nearly any question just for practice.

But also, in the past tarot was done a lot over the phone. I'm not sure how accurate it was, but you may be able to try some readings with friends via video chat and such. I have a few friends who did tarot readings online during quarantine. Sometimes the best practice is just doing some spreads for your friends, whether in person or not. I feel like the simple act of interpretation will help further growth. 

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I put a lot of thought into trying creating various spreads with various themes. I feel that just thinking deeply about tarot related concepts is practice. Thinking about numerology. Thinking about different kinds of symbols I see around me in my physical environment, trying to connect them to symbols in the cards. The more I see the world through this lens of tarot the easier it is for me to do readings as well.

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IntuitiveAffinity

I find trying out different spreads really helps! Listening to your intuition dependent on each spread. This can help transform any reading by paying attention how many cards are important in the moment. Hope this helps!

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