So Much Work And lil improvement

i've been reading for about 5 months and it seems like i go blank at times or i just can't get more into card i have 2 different decks univeral waite and the robin wood tarot deck but i want to be able to dig deeper and tell people a story instead of just sayin what is on the cards HOW??? for example if i got the page of cups the lovers and the tower i want to be able to say more then just a message about a relationship going for the bad unsuspectangly. Where can i find the details how can i find them.

Welcome on board, UniversalLove I hope you enjoy yourself among us! (please also take the time to introduce yourself in the New Members' Forum, allowing people to welcome you properly )

The first thing I'd like to say is: patience

The cards will gradually reveal themselves to you, and the more you exercise, the more levels you will discover.

From the title of your thread, I get a feeling that you experience reading rather as work than as a pleasure? (hit me if I'm wrong ) - start playing. Do not take it too seriously, play little games, pull one card and study the details of the picture and relate them to the situation at hand. Do the details bring in new lights? Take it easy, do not put yourself under stress of "performance".

Personally, i am not the bookish kind, but in the Tarot Books & Media Forum, you mind find a great resource of tarot books that can help you on your journey.

Yes, Tarot is a journey, one that never ends I have been reading it for 15 years and still learn something new every day

enjoy!

Love
Simone

Oh my, welcome to Aeclectic, UniversalLove. Have you ever come to the right place! We are all here trying to figure the same thing out, and sharing our ideas about this all the time. You know, there are so many amazing different things that go into pulling a narrative out of just a few cards.

I am sure everyone here will have different advice to offer, from all sorts of different angles, and they are all wonderful, but I followed the advice of my friend Umbrae on this site, and learned to do things like meditate on a card, to get very quiet inside, and to look, wait, and listen to the ideas that come up and to "give them voice".


coincidences between the cards
One of the things I like to do is notice the "coincidences between the cards, and see how the images on the cards relate to eachother. Are the repeated elements? (some random examples -- always a cat? always the moon? always some kind of water?) How are these repeated elements different? (examples: the cat on each card is bigger than the one before, the moon is becoming fuller, the water is becoming more peaceful.. you know, stuff like that.)

I did one reading once, where I saw some kind of feline on each card I pulled, (not a cat deck!) and I noticed that as the spread progressed the cat got bigger and bigger, so I deduced that the person I was reading for was allowing their inner lion/wild side to get more and more ferocious. (I was right).


faces
When you have pictures of people, as on the court cards, you can gaze into their face and get a feeling for the emotion and the thoughts on that face (it works wonderfully with the Marseille, because the faces are so expressive) - I love to look, and listen and wait, feel what the face is feeling, and just "give it voice" - as Umbrae says. -- Just articulate what you see and feel. Can you hear what the people on the card are saying?

Then -how do the people on the cards relate to eachother. Where is their gaze? Whom do they see? Lets say you have drawn the Queen of Spades and the King of Cups in a spread. Does the Queen of Swords appear to be gazing at the King of Cups, or away, or not paying any attention? Does it look like they have some kind of relationship? What kind? How do they feel about each other?


Sentences
You can also ask yourself if some of the cards can make a sentence, a word phrase, or even some kind of pun. Once I drew two cards together from the Lo Scarabeo Da Vinci deck: there was a knight ( horse) and Icarus trying to fly to the sun (wings) -- I put them together and got "winged-horse". Once I was trying to figure out why a friend was not communicating. I pulled the Hermit (=hibernation= winter), and the Five of Pentacles (or something like that) (storm/shut out) and deduced that due to a winter storm there had been a black out. (I was right).


progression
Is there some kind of development? Like for example, is there a movement towards more conflict (or peace), or a movement towards more dynamism, as the cards progress? Do the cards suggest some kind of movement inward or outward, away or towards the light (for example Sun => 8 cups => Hermit -- or the reverse).

Is there a suggestion of a conflict and a resolution? etc. You can use your imagination, and go wild.


stream-of-consciousness
One wonderful excercise is to take one card, any card, and just look at it, letting your mind go blank, and then scribble down anything and everything that the card makes you think.

Sometimes it is more useful to do this in context with reading for an actual person (another person), because it is amazing to see, when you pull a card, and then scribble out all the things that one card makes you think, -- how it will sometimes relate very nicely to what the person is actually going through.

Just a few thoughts to get you started...


For fun and inspiring reading, read Umbrae's threads on reading, called The Process.

Hi Universal Love. Welcome to the forum.

I'm a newbie too, about two months now. I'm using the Golden Tarot (Kat Black). I tend to use faces a lot. I find that the characters on the card don't always have the same expression when I look at the cards. Sometimes characters may express one day the meaning of the card and on another day they've got an expression like something's bugging them.

I also look at other little things like animals in the picture, or the setting(indoor vs. outdoor or beautiful fields in the foreground vs. city/castle scenes in the background), the character's relationship to the setting (for expample, if the character is in the field in the foreground and the path leads up the castle behind him that what would that indicate?)

I don't try to focus on the actual card meanings until afterwards when I've done the above for all of the cards, because sometimes you can get a reading that makes a lot more sense (read: flows better) from your impressions than if you (stricktly) use the card meanings.

Also, thanks Firemaiden for your advice. I'll try to incorporate some of that myself.

firemaiden, great advice, thank you I'm off now to check out the thread you recomended.

Welcome UniversalLove

Things will get better ... I promise!

However, this is something that is common to all of us, whichever level or length of time we have been reading/learning the cards.

I bought my first deck a good nine years ago and still feel very confused by some of the readings I do (many of them, infact). I get many blanks and often I feel like gathering them all together and going and finding something else to do. Even though I don't advise giving up totally, that is not always a bad thing to do. Maybe leave a spread out for a little while and return to it later for a fresh look. Things seem a little different after a break.

A few things that have helped me, which not everyone will agree with, are as follows -

- Journal all of your responses; record layouts you have done for reflection later. Aside from it helping the messages from the cards to go in, with time, you will also see 'how far you have come'.

- Try not to switch decks too often. In the past (and still), I will chop and change from one deck to another, thinking that it is the fault of the cards. The problem with this, I have found, is that it takes me even longer to get familiar with a deck and the way that a certain deck speaks to you. All of the great advice given here already (positions cards face, details on the characters, animals and symbols) do not exist in each and every deck so it means starting from scratch all over again.

- Be playful; invent senarios between the characters. Interview them - what are they saying to you at the given time? How do they feel about the card that is next to them - it isn't a coincidence, as an example, that a certain deck's Magician holds his cup up in celebration as he faces the 'Page of Cups', who mirrors exactly the same action in his direction (Soprafino deck).
Enjoy your deck. Have fun with it and it will stand you well for a long time.

- Keep readings small to start with. I learnt that the hard way. I started out reading the Celtic Cross and found it terribly hard to interpret (I still do). Taking 'two to four' cards out and reading them in a line is a good start and also a good way to see how they react to each other in that sequence. For example, why is 'The Hanged Man' seperating the two cards on either side of him? What does the card that comes before him need to achieve or release to get to the one that follows him?

- Don't rush. You have the rest of your life to fine tune your reading of the cards, so try not to overload yourself with information in a desire to be a great reader straight away. We remember things that we enjoy doing much better than when it is a chore. Take them slowly and absorb every detail, one by one. A daily draw is good for this - maybe selecting the card in the morning, reflecting during the day and then 'summing up' in the evening. What happened in your day that related to that card? Did you notice any of it's details through your own personal life and experience - a specific animal, an expression, the clear moon? What do you think the card actually meant? What does it mean to you for that day in particular? Has this card come up more than once this week? Why do you think that might be? Does it remind you of someone you know? Who and why?
In terms of the Thoth deck, the colours are very important to me, when reading. What do the colours in your card make you feel? Do they make you feel alive, slightly down, nervous or cautious, excited or romantic?

Just a few ideas. I hope you enjoy your deck (the Universal Waite is a very attractive pack) and I also hope you enjoy your time here. AT is a breakthrough for many people because there are so many different ways of discussing the cards here, with people in similar positions to you - partisipating in the Reading Exchange, playing with others in the Fun and Games threads, discussing a specific cards history and details more fully. For example, there is a study group here for people using the Rider Waite Smith and Universal deck, which holds a great deal of valuable information about the symbols, tradition and other's interpretations.

Wish you all the best.
LB

Welcome Universal Love! You've definitely come to the right place. Ask as many questions as you like, delve into the cards, let them talk to you.

There is no easy answer, but everyone here has given you excellent advice. In truth, there is no "knowing" and as the years go by, the more questions you will have. Everyone is a student in Taort. You may learn everything that there is to know about symbolism, and then you can go on to numerology, astrology, Kabbalah, oh, so many fields. And that doesn't even include the most important thing, usuing your intuition to guide your way through the cards. Really feeling them.

Be patient, as others have said. Tarot is a lifelong journey that always gets longer and longer and ever more fascinating. Work on it, play with the cards, meditate on them, and before you know it, another six months will go by, and then you'll get to the poit, as some people on the forum have done, that you will be reading for forty years, and still consider yourself a student.

Welcome!

Hi, UniversalLove, and welcome! I've been reading for about 15 years, and I well remember being in the same type of situation you are in. The tip about looking for coincidences is one I use in every reading I do. For example, in the Gilded deck, Justice, the Two of Swords, and the Eight of Swords all show a woman wearing a blindfold. Occasionally I have gotten all three in a single reading, and I ask the querent what he or she is refusing to see, or what is being hidden from them.

When I used to feel really stuck with a card, I would do a couple of things, in addition to all the excellent advice you've already received. First, I would describe the card, usually in writing, exactly as I saw it. This would often lead me to ask such questions as, "Well, why is it dawn? Why are the trees windswept? Why is the horse just standing still?" Verbalizing the card's visual content seems to bring out aspects of the card that I did not immediately notice when just looking at it.

If the card showed people, I would often place myself in the position depicted, and mimic the facial expression. Then I would ask myself how I felt in this position--wary, defensive, expansive, excited, etc.

Last, and this is one I still do--when I get a new deck, I pull out the Court cards. I take out each Queen, for example, and ask such questions as, "How does she rule her people?" "What does she like to do in her spare time?" How does she treat her servants?" "Her subjects--do they love her, fear her, hate her?" Then I pull out a second Queen and place it next to the first, and I ask, "Do these two women get along? What does the Queen of Swords say behind the Queen of Pentacles' back?" etc. It's a good way to feel more connected to the sometimes-problematic Courts, and each deck will yield different insights.

And of course, never hesitate to throw a clarification card--although if you want it to clarify instead of increasing the confusion, only one (spoken from experience, since my 11 card Celtic Cross used to turn into about 20!)

Blessings,
Coatl

Hello and welcome UniversalLove!

A lot of wisdom is already said! Maybe it also helps if you buy a deck, just to play with. Not for spreads, of course you can do this as well, but what I mean is that you already have the decks you like for spreads. I would suggest for example that you get a playful deck like the Fey to tell little stories with. The images follow in a way the RWCS deck but are at the same time totally different in atmosphere and setting. It is fun just to watch the images and try to make little "bedtime" stories, adventure stories and other tales with them. Then you could also try this with the decks you already own. I think the Fey are exceptionally well suited for this kind of games, but you might find other decks on this forum which may appeal to you for this purpose. Find yourself a deck for games and fun, and include your other decks into these games. It helped me a lot in seeing my cards in a fresh way! :d

Goodluck and blessings

Edited: I did not mean of course that other decks are not nice to play with. Tarot is about fun anyway! Just to say that a totally different deck can create a new way of looking at other decks. And I also did not mean of course that the Fey are not made for very good spreads!