This is a series of blog posts about my life in tarot and my experiences as a tarot reader. The characters in the series are based on people I actually read for — sometimes I’ve combined traits and readings from more than one client into one character for the purpose of storytelling (just in case you’re a regular of mine and see a bit of yourself in here). I love all my clients and respect their privacy, so key names and details have been changed. I’d love to hear your feedback about this series and whether you’d like to hear more! Previous installments of the series can be found here.

I do have standards. Who I will read for, who I won’t. What I will read about, what I won’t. I’ve never read for men who were romantically interested in me. I don’t read for children or teenagers – only adults who are capable of taking personal responsibility for their choices and actions. I don’t read about medical conditions. I don’t like to read about legal matters, and to cover my bases now, I have to explain in plain English, that my readings are for entertainment only (imagine me spitting those words out). In the state of Ohio, I became an ordained minister of the Church of Universal Life (online) in order to provide “spiritual counseling”. I still have my certificate, that I printed out from the webpage (it even has the URL at the top), in a binder – just in case I’m ever hassled. In some states and counties, fortune telling, as they put it in the books, is completely illegal.

I read for myself all the time. This is probably the greatest benefit of reading cards – how you can use them for yourself. I don’t read compulsively on every decision I’m faced with. Instead I typically draw one to three cards a day, make some notes in my journal, and let myself be surprised by how Universe finds a way to place those cards in my path. Certain cards resonate with me so deeply. The Empress is the third card in the Major Arcana. She represents a feminine receptive energy, sensuality, sexuality, motherhood. She’s typically depicted as voluptuous or pregnant or surrounded by animals. Over the years I’ve connected with her raw sexual energy, her fertility and now, her store of womanly wisdom. I’m constantly amazed by the new lessons that the Empress teaches me. She’s a good friend of mine. I’ve even made photo-copies of that card from my favorite decks to tape to my bathroom mirror. She reminds me of the things I want to be and I’m grateful for her influence in my life.

I even read for other tarot readers. Thanks to the internet I’ve gotten to know many tarot readers all over the world and even form close friendships with a few. I read cards for them – partially out of professional courtesy, but also because I have a lot of guts. It can be intimidating to read for someone who is reading the cards in a completely different fashion as you’re throwing them on the table. And that’s part of the charm of tarot. Everyone has their own reading voice and style. Some readers claim to channel spirits. Some say they are psychic – in the very day-time television sense of the word. Others, like me, say that we’re just readers. That we’re energy consultants – and we open dialogues with the self that you might have otherwise shied away from.

Jan is another tarot reader. She works full-time in a dreadful retail position and does tarot consulting in her precious free time. She is one of my regular querents – often asking me for spiritual advice. She senses this great void in her life and longs for something to fill it up. Over the years I’ve been reading for her, we’ve worked on big questions she’s had – meaning of life kind of stuff. Her readings are typically intense, but incredibly satisfying for me – only because her attitude toward the cards is so open and she just loves to talk her way through one of my readings. It’s more fun when the sitter is engaged in the reading, asking questions and pointing out things in the cards I might have missed on my own. There’s no happier feeling for me than sitting over a spread of cards with a cup of coffee and a good friend with a soft, open heart.

Remember the girl from the beginning? The grad school question? There were five cards on the table, and I was pointing to each, in-between each and trying my best to figure out the cardinal directions from where I was sitting, as I explained to her what she might encounter if she chose one certain grad program over another. After I would finish up each one, she would smile and nod, her eyes bright and focused on the table. She didn’t say much while I was reading, just asking a few questions about the particulars of the cards. When I finished the reading, I let it sink in a few minutes while she continued her careful examination of the spread.

“Well, was it good?”

“Yes!” she smiled widely, “It was so good. It was so fun. It was… different than what I was expecting.”

Yes. The Universe usually is.

This is a series of blog posts about my life in tarot and my experiences as a tarot reader. The characters in the series are based on people I actually read for — sometimes I’ve combined traits and readings from more than one client into one character for the purpose of storytelling (just in case you’re a regular of mine and see a bit of yourself in here). I love all my clients and respect their privacy, so key names and details have been changed. I’d love to hear your feedback about this series and whether you’d like to hear more! Previous installments of the series can be found here.

In 1909 Sir Alfred Edward Waite released a deck he designed, commissioned by an artist named Pamela Coleman Smith. He designed the cards in the metaphysical tradition of the Golden Dawn Society (an esoteric club that was en vogue with the upper-middle classes of England and America) and Pixie illustrated them. The Rider publishing house printed the cards and the resulting deck, the Rider-Waite Tarot (now the Rider-Waite-Smith or Pamela Coleman Smith deck), has become the most popular and arguably the most accessible system of divination that the western world has known.

The first known use of tarrochi cards (a popular card game in Italy and France) for divination dates roughly back to 16th century France. The cards included twenty-two themed cards that became what is known as the Major Arcana and fifty-six pip cards that roughly correspond to a standard pack of playing cards (included was an extra court card for each suite – the page). Historically, the pips were plain – numbered with the suite – like playing card pips. That’s why Waite’s contribution to tarot was so revolutionary – he envisioned fully illustrated scenic pips that conveyed the card meaning using symbols that were relevant to the tradition of the Golden Dawn Society. Today there are thousands upon thousands of tarot decks that build on that tradition and apply wholly different symbols to mean more or less the same thing. The point being, if you can read a RWS deck, you can read 90% of the tarot packs you’ll find at any given metashop. Like vampires? There’s a tarot for you. Like fairies? The Renaissance? Romantic period? The novels of Jane Austen? Hello Kitty? There’s a tarot pack for you.

The Major cards are numbered zero through twenty-one. The Fool is zero. The World is twenty-one. The cards in-between represent sweeping themes and archetypes that make up human existence. The Minor Arcana cards in the suits of Cups, Wands, Pentacles and Swords (hearts, clubs, diamonds and spades, respectively), Ace through King, represent situations, events, actions and people that one might encounter in daily life.

Danielle sat on the floor in my living room, hand clutching a tissue, bent over a chest I used as a coffee-table. I was opposite her, pulling cards and passing them over the steady stream of curling incense smoke before they found their place on the woven scarf I used as a spread cloth. The cards weren’t good and her eyes were spilling over with tears. Turbulent court cards, Kings and Knights. She was in a troubled marriage. She had two small children at home and while she worked hard as a Realtor, she had little success in the downtrodden rural economy. She wanted desperately to leave her husband – had even considered an affair at one point, but feared his temper and the repercussions for her children. It wouldn’t matter, I told her, turning over the Page of Cups and then Eight of Swords. The Eight is illustrated with a bound and blindfolded woman, surrounded by eight swords. The cold wind whips her hair across her pallid face and the landscape is harsh and barren. He would be arrested, in jail soon enough. She exhaled loudly and burst into awkward laughter. I pursed my lips while she described his violent outbursts. He’d never hit her, she insisted. He’d never hurt the kids, but still… something fierce was building up inside him.

She called me the next morning to let me know that he’d been picked up by the cops overnight during a bar fight. She had packed her children up and moved them back in with her parents. She thanked me over and over again for the reading – for the insight it provided her and promised that she would be calling again, that she would tell all her friends about the amazing wonderful psychic she had met. I haven’t heard from her since.

I am not psychic. Not in the way it’s portrayed on television. A friend of mine once accused me of defrauding people – letting them believe I was seeing into their minds. It’s not like that though and I never represent myself in that way. My card says my name – followed by the words “Tarot Consultant.”

Anyone can read cards. Some of the best readings I’ve ever gotten were from people who had never seen a tarot pack before. I would put the cards in front of them and ask them to shuffle. Ask them to pull. Close your eyes. Tell me what you see in the cards. Tell me how it relates to me. Say the first thing that pops into your mind. Make it up if you have to.

I think that part of what I do is just opening a dialogue. The images in the cards immediately bring to mind specific situations that nearly everyone has gone through. Seeing those trigger memories that we connect with our current situations. Sometimes just being reminded of lessons we’ve learned in the past is enough to help us solve the problems ahead of us. It’s also helpful, when we’ve exhausted all rational means of problem-solving, to look at something from a completely irrational angle. Try something crazy to break out of the rut we’ve found ourselves in. Get a tarot reading. How irrational is that? Once we begin to see our small problems as part of a larger human experience, they feel more manageable. That’s all I do. I facilitate the irrational.

And then there’s the part where I’m just really good at reading people’s intentions. It’s not hard, when you’ve spent enough time talking to someone, to guess how their current actions are going to influence future decisions. Perhaps that is the talent I actually possess. I don’t like to call it cold reading – because that makes it sound like something deceitful. I don’t look for personal queues and predict that a tall, dark stranger whose first name begins with T will come into your life the second week of February. Maybe I’m just not that good. Instead, I see a Knight of Swords and I suggest that the energy is ripe for an intense encounter with someone who will impress you with sharp opinions, quick wit and high energy. Does it happen? I don’t know. It has happened for me though – when I know what to look for, I see it. I guess that’s part of the trick too, right? But what does it say about our human minds – that we’re susceptible to this kind of suggestion? Maybe we were meant to be suggested to, that’s all I’m saying.

This is a series of blog posts about my life in tarot and my experiences as a tarot reader. The characters in the series are based on people I actually read for — sometimes I’ve combined traits and readings from more than one client into one character for the purpose of storytelling (just in case you’re a regular of mine and see a bit of yourself in here). I love all my clients and respect their privacy, so key names and details have been changed. I’d love to hear your feedback about this series and whether you’d like to hear more!

She was chewing on her lip, which was distracting. “I don’t even know what to ask,”” she said, her thick Southern accent rolling in her blushed cheeks.  “I’m so nervous! Can you tell?”

“Just a little,” I winked. “You don’t have to be nervous though. I’ll be gentle.”

“It’s not you I’m worried about.” She pointed to the small brown pouch next to my beer, “It’s those.”

I shrugged, “Just paper. Ink. Pretty pictures.”

“Not exactly!” She laughed, then drummed her fingers together. “What kinds of things can they tell me?”

I pulled the deck from the bag and waved it around while I spoke, “They can tell you anything. Big things. Small things. Universal truths. Potty jokes.

“It’s like this, you can ask anything you want – or nothing at all. Most people ask for nothing in particular, but actually want to know something specific. I guess they assume the Universe is as invested in their personal desires as they are. It’s kind of annoying.”

“I see.”

I went on, “Ninety-nine percent of the people I read for want to know about love. It’s something base inside us. No one wants to be alone. If you want to know about your love life, I’m happy to tell you. But don’t try to trick me. The Universe doesn’t like that.” I picked up my cards and started to shuffle, hand over hand at first. Fan and then bridge. “And neither do I.”

She watched me shuffle for a moment, lost in the sound of the rifling cards, “No, I thought about it. I want to know where I should go to grad school.”

“That’s a good question,” I agreed. I gathered the cards in my left hand and took a deep breath.

I don’t remember how I felt — probably a thrill of danger, of mystery — when I found my first tarot pack at a garage sale when I was thirteen. I hid them under my bed from my mother. She found them of course. She urged me not to touch them anymore – that they were tools of the devil and that it would only bring me bad luck. I remember her trying to rationally explain her irrational fears – broaching the subject matter-of-factly, holding the cards out in her hand at arms length. And yet, she never made me get rid of them, never demanded I throw them out or burn them. She simply dropped them on my bed and backed out of my room. I’m not sure she ever looked under my bed again.

So I kept them. At first it was out of the wonder of disobedience. I have always been fascinated by metaphysical things – ouija boards, crystals, psychic readings. I loved watching the television psychic shows, partly because the possibility of people possessing those kinds of talents excited me, but also because I wanted to see them trip up. The history of American spiritualism is fascinating and full of bizarre fraudulence and I was and am smart enough to realize this. I always secretly hoped I’d get hit in the head one day though and wake up with some kind of gift to see into the dark corners of someone else’s life.

That never happened. Instead I read a book on how to read the cards, learned the symbols and what they meant. Did a few readings for myself, for my friends. It was surprising, very much so, how they worked. It surprised me. It made me feel awake and connected to the Universe. And when I was in my mid-twenties, the barrage of sitters I had forced me to put a dollar value on what I was doing. I went “pro” – if you want to call it that. But I still don’t hear people’s thoughts. I still don’t see into the dark corners of anyone’s life – unless they let me. And usually, when I’m shuffling and pulling cards, talking, pointing, explaining and yes, even guessing, they do.