Getting serious about the Tarot this year

Happy new year to everybody!

This year I'm going to work hard on (and with) the tarot in my life. I want to move past it being something I'm interested in or something I dabble in - I want it to be something I do and something I do well.

I've been studying every day to get some solid theory in my head before I go back to practicing and combining the theory with my intuition. I hope to see a lot of you in the reading exchange section as we help each other to further our understanding of this wonderful tool.

Is there anybody else who wants to come to the next level with me?

hey love this thread as this is exactly how I'm feeling about tarot too I'm wanting to get serious too so I'm defo on this with you!!

Aries2014 said:

hey love this thread as this is exactly how I'm feeling about tarot too I'm wanting to get serious too so I'm defo on this with you!!

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Great news! How long have you been reading/studying tarot? Which areas are you looking to improve in?

I've been focussing on listening to lectures in podcasts. The Archetypal Tarot Podcast, and the numerology series in The Season Of The Witch Podcast primarily. I love the Biddy Tarot Podcast as well, but it gives more of an overview of things rather than the more focussed kind of thing I'm doing just now.

I'm doing them so that I listen to the ATP episode on, say, The Magician and then SOTW on the number 1. I then look over my notes and see what I can match to the pip cards in each suit.

Once I get to the number 10 and the wheel of fortune I plan to do some work studying the elements one by one, and the suits which correspond to them as a whole. I'll probably continue with the ATP with the rest of the fool's journey and find a way to get some solid understanding on the court cards.

After all of that I'll focus on tarot reading practice for a while, recording things in a tarot journal whilst reading a few books which I have on my list. That seems like a good way to gain a working basic system of the deck as a whole to which I can add my own insights.

Thoughts, anybody?

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I should also note that work is going to be very slow indeed for me this month and so I'm trying to use all this time to get a step up in my tarot work. For now I'm working with RWS because it seems like a good beginner deck. I have the Gran Tarot Esoterico as well, and the real LWB to go with it, not the one which came in the box (a copy of A. E. Waite's lwb from the rws) which I will eventually translate into English and will look to incorporate more esoteric philosophy into things when I start using that deck more.

Other people's thoughts are great, but it will never replace one's own instincts.

You have such a gift with Beginners Mind, for those in this thread that identify themselves as new to Tarot, and the opportunity to forge your own interpretations before the noise of doing it "right" (or even worse, memorizing others' meanings and simply repeating them) takes over. Which it will. Probably for the rest of your reading career.

Study is great, but don't shortchange your own intuition. Take notes and journal plenty to make up your own mind about who these cards are, and what they mean, and then you can augment that understanding by learning others' ways and means.

Just my thought ( as someone who wishes she could have Beginners Mind one more time with Tarot.)

I would definitely read and actually use the cards as much as you can, read for friends, read on the forum in exchanges and monthly circles here, do fictional readings for characters on tv or celebrities. Take a daily card every day. I studied so much in my first 2 years of learning but practice is what makes you better and the really good tarot readers have got their experience mostly from actually using the cards.

You have to put the study into practice and that is what really improved my reading! If you are planning to read in some way intuitively (looking at the pictures and seeing what you get), agree with Alissa's post. Becareful learning too much about each card off by heart or learning all the meanings from one source. What you personally think the card means or what you feel about it is always the most important! I now find it hard sometimes to read a card and blank out the preconceived ideas that I learnt off by heart in the first year If you can get deeper into the card and read it for that moment in the reading (they change in each reading slightly) you get much better readings than oh 3 of cups celebration, friends, etc. Try to go beyond the generic

good luck with your study! keep going with it

Thank you both Alissa and Daniel for your replies. I have very much got a beginner's (or maybe more fittingly a fool's?) mind and while I'm excited to go to the next level I'm not going to rush into doing mechanical readings just because it's what I've read somewhere.

I go by my intuition in a lot of things as I struggle to remember specific details of anything anyway. I'm looking more for different frames of perspective from others (as above I'm my main sources of study are two groups each consisting of two people) which will help me to develop my intuitive senses as I read tarot.

Thank you again for your advice! It won't go unheeded or appreciated.

Good luck in your quest! When I started there was a choice between the Thoth and the original RWS (the Marseille decks weren't well-distributed); the Thoth was the first one I encountered and, as Robert Frost famously said, "that has made all the difference."

Good luck! I've also decided to really dig into Tarot this year. To be fair, I've been reading and playing with the cards for 3 years now, but I've only recently gotten serious about getting serious, so to speak.

May I join!

I've only started doing tarot since the beginning of the year again
But I have been dipping in and out for 3 years x

I want to take my tarot to the next level, too. Why am I so insecure about reading for others? Shouldn't I try to participate here on AT on reading circles and also try to read IRL? I really think about starting to make tarot a part of my professional life, too, i.e., giving courses or lectures. But I'm always so insecure and feel I'm not good enough, don't know enough. How stupid is that????

So yes, I want to get serious about tarot and myself this year!