Do your cards show up for YOU?

[Guest libra]

As I've been poking about in the help section for readings, it's kinda been tumbling around in my head - how much of a reading is the deck giving the specific cards that will have pertinence to the person pulling them specifically, and how much is it about the cards have a universal message that anyone can pick up on based on the card title and spread position alone?

 

I've always felt resistence towards giving a "second opinion" on another reader's reading because of the way that I read. The traditional meanings are very much secondary to me, and I don't use reversals because I use other triggers - how a card fits within the spread position, how it interacts with the surrounding cards, any impressions that the card leaves me with in the moment, etc. - to tell me what message the card is trying to bring. So sometimes a positive card that is pulled upright becomes a challenge, for instance. Another reader might look at my spread and get the opposite message, and yet, I haven't found that I have issues with the accuracy of what I'm reading.

 

All of this is to say that I really feel that the cards that I pull are very much tailored to the fact that I, in particular, am reading them. Someone else reading the same situation would get very different cards to get the same message.  I've had clients sometimes ask if I'd give my take on another reader's spread and that's always been a hard no for me.

 

Of course, the help area is totally different than that, since it's the reader themselves seeking additional views and considering all points, but only assigning weight to what resonates.

[Guest]

You're definitely correct. We all assign different meanings to different things, more so now than we used to. There was a time when horses, swords, and kings really meant almost the same thing to everybody.  Nowadays not so much. So the correspondences and associations we create as we practice using the tarot become the language our intuition uses to speak with us.

 

If someone else shuffles a deck,  it is most likely speaking a different language.

 

Sent from my Moto Z (2) using Tapatalk

 

 

[Jewel]

Libra, I also agree with you.  I do not use reversals with decks that were not designed to use them.  Other times I do use them.  But like you I use spread composition, numerology, elemental correspondences, spread positions, and relationships between cards based on the imagery to assign meanings.  The cards do not work in a vacuum where there is just one meaning for it, and through the use of other systems the use of reversals varies for me.  Like you I sometimes find positive cards in positions where it is clear their meaning is not necessarily positive.  If I were to do the same spread, based on how I read I probably would get different cards than someone else.  You could always give a qualified opinion where you educate the querent explaining what you did above but I see your dilemma.  I only give feedback to a reader if it is requested have not been approached by a querent to interpret someone elses reading but I would find myself in the same place you are if they did.

[2dogs]

I think I'd do a lot better with Tarot if the cards really had universal messages, all the meanings that other people find in thèm often confuse me and I'm much happier reading meaningless non-Tarot cards and seeing what ideas come to me.