Lesson 4 -- Doing a reading

Please start small. Newbie readers confuse themselves starting out with spreads like the Celtic Cross (see right) which contain ten or twelve cards and that will just mess with your head. The Celtic Cross is very pretty, but it isn't always practical--not for a beginner anyway. In my experience, the fewer cards you draw per question the better. Now, not all tarot readers agree with this and many of them can use very complicated spreads to great effect. Yea for them and for you if you turn out to be one of those readers! I am not one of these readers.

My favorite spread is the Post-It Spread which uses the fewest cards per question or per aspect of a question. I will explain this further in a bit.

To start reading, you will need a tarot question. Let me use a question I hear too often. "When will I meet my soul mate?"

I am not one of those tarot readers who can predict time with the tarot. It's not my gift. It can be done, you can experiment with it for yourself to see if the tarot will help you in that department. When I was working with timing in a tarot reading, I preferred to ascribe Cups to days, Wands to weeks, Coins/Pentacles to months, Swords to a year and Majors to unknown/undecided block of time. For time, it's best to ask "when" and draw one card for the answer trusting that the ONE card will tell you "when." But since experimenting with predicting time frames has not gone well for me, I don't attempt to do them anymore and perhaps you should consult another resource on the matter.

Instead of allowing my Questioner to ask "when" she'll meet her soul mate, I ask the tarot what she can do to make herself more attractive to the kind of partner she is seeking.

Let's say I've drawn the Three of Cups in answer to the question. This card would lead me to tell the Questioner to stop worrying so much and to, instead, start celebrating the love that is already in her life. The card suggests to me that the very fact that her happiness has become dependent on finding a partner is what is making her unhappy and this unhappiness, in turn, makes her less attractive to a potential mate. After all, what's more attractive? A happy person or a desperate one?

At this point I will also ask the tarot what is blocking her from finding a soul mate. This can be a very revealing question.

So my Questioner is not going to be very happy with me at this point, she just wants to know her future. She doesn't want to WORK at it. But I much prefer to do a reading that empowers the questioner by taking their future out of the hands of fate and helping them to see that they are the ones who manifest their destiny.

Lesson 4a -- The Post-It Spread

Questioners a.k.a. Querents rarely have very clear questions for the tarot. An example of this is the woman who came to me recently worried about her son because he had suddenly become very religious and fearful of God and what would happen to his and her soul. She couldn't figure out where it was coming from and wanted to know what the tarot had to say. How do I ask the tarot THAT? That's where the Post-Its come in. Using one Post-It note for each question, I wrote the following on several sheets.

What does he fear?
Who might be influencing his thinking on this subject right now?
What does Mom need to consider about this situation right now?
Oracle.

I spread the Post-Its out on the table and considered them as I shuffled, trusting the Universe to spit out the right cards for the right Post-Its. I drew four cards, one for each Post-It. For me, "Oracle" is sort of a wild card, giving Source the option of sending me a message it knows I'll get.

Once I drew all the cards and considered them, I had the option of drawing more cards for each original card that I drew. These extra cards are often called Clarification Cards. If I don't understand what Source is trying to tell me on a particular question or aspect, then I draw a clarification card on top of that card. If that doesn't help, I know that I'm probably asking the wrong question.

Ultimately I ended up drawing about eleven cards on this issue because the cards that came up opened doors to more questions that helped us narrow down the issue and gave Mom some ideas on how to help her son. Having the Post-Its helped me keep track of what we were asking and what the cards represented.

Post-Its let you create a spread on the fly without having to remember what position represents what. You can lay them out very artistically, if you like. They help you narrow down the question like you'd narrow down a Google search.

Spreads are very personal and there is no right way to do a spread. Some look very fancy, others are quite plain. The Celtic Cross is very popular because it's so aesthetically pleasing and has a long history. I only use it when I'm working with someone who seems to need a big, pretty, fancy spread. Otherwise I prefer the more practical (for me) Post-It spread. Sometimes I rely on a simple three card spread, often ascribing the different meanings to the different positions:

Examples of what meanings I might use are:

1. Past, 2. Present, 3. Future. or
1. The heart of the matter, 2. what is desired, 3. what is suggested (by Source). or
1. What I want, 2. What I need, 3. What Source suggests I consider.

Sometimes no matter what spread you use, Source will have its own ideas about things. Pay attention, if the cards aren't making any sense it could be because the question that was asked is not the question Source cares to answer or it could be that you are asking the wrong question. When seemingly inappropriate cards come up, pay attention to them and see what message or story they may be trying to impart. Do they make you want to ask the Querent questions unrelated to the issue they are asking about? Then do! It's often the case that the Querent doesn't know or doesn't want you to know what they're really searching for. Be mindful of this and listen to your intuition as you view the cards you draw. If all else fails, ask the tarot what the Questioner is really concerned about or, ask the tarot what the Questioner should be asking.