If you don't 'do' reversals, how do you approach analysis of the cards?

[Raggydoll]

If someone's talking to me, they don't say "I mean this next phrase in a negative way," or "Pay extra attention to my next word," but I usually understand them (if I've had my tea).  In the same way, reading tarot without reversals, I just keep the question in mind and, as posters above said, look at context.

 

This is very much how I do it too. I used to read reversals when I first started out with tarot, but these days I tend not to use them (although if I feel called to do so, I will on certain occasions still use reversals)

[Padma]

I don't use reversals - I go more by feel; I can "feel" if a card is saying it means itself in a negative way, much the same way a negative kind of card can be telling you it is trying to express its positive side. And, of course, context. Context means everything.

 

Cards, I find, have a very extensive vocabulary and are quite capable of making themselves clearly understood!

 

 

[Jewel]

I don't do reversals, and I concur with what others have said here. I take a card in its entire spectrum of meanings, from positive to negative, and see how they fit in their placement in a spread and with the cards surrounding them. For me, each reading is a small narrative, and it's the reader's job to interpret the cards to create that narrative. Placement and surrounding cards ought to do that regardless of which direction the card is facing.

I'm with the saint here. Context is all.

Same here.  I use to use reversals but I frankly find this method just as effective in my readings.

[Starlight]

Doesn't it mean more work for you to work out whether the card is positive or negative or to figure out a narrative? Or do you just accept that the card's meaning is probably a combination of both negative and positive aspects? I'm new to tarot and I presently don't read reversals but that's more because I have a semi-heart attack whenever I see them (like when I see 'the tower' upright). Now i'm wondering whether it'd make my life a tad more easier to do so.

 

Personally, it's about how the card feels to me when I focus on it. Some cards - even when the positive interpretation comes to mind first - feel more blocked or unmoving or heavy, and then I need to fit the cards meaning to that energy I'm feeling.