Hi everyone! Hoping for some advice!

I bought my first deck when I was 12. There was something so luring about them sitting there on the shelf. Like the rest of the world was black and white and they were the only thing that existed in color. I remember exactly how I felt that day and how excited I was to have discovered them. How could I miss them, it was like they were calling out to me!

Unfortunately, my enthusiasm was short lived after becoming completely overwhelmed with how much there was to learn and I was frustrated that it wasn't coming easy to me when I felt so connected to them. And so they sat, silently on my bookshelf. I felt like they had so much to tell me and I had let them down because I just couldn't understand the language.

Anyway, long story short, I am now 32 and still feel as drawn to the cards as I did back then. I just purchased a deck and am trying once again to learn how to interpret them. I feel myself getting frustrated and overwhelmed again.

Does anyone have any tips/tricks/advice on how to become more in tune with what each card means? I am specifically having trouble with combinations and relating the card to the question. Just when I think I have the interpretation down for one it pops up in a very confusing way and I am unsure how to incorporate it.

Tips...

hey, glad to hear you've picked up the cards again! I can somewhat relate to your predicament because I picked up the cards when I was younger and was forced to quit by my fundamentalist parents who thought I would become demon possessed by them(seriously).

One of the best things I can say is: rome wasn't built in a day, and neither will you learn to read the cards fully in a day. I have a pretty good grasp on the cards and I still regularly look the meanings up, don't be hard on yourself for having to look things up, that's why every deck comes with a little white book.

Another thing I can recommend is to do studies on the symbolism and story behind each card, alot of the cards are based on mythology and have a backstory behind them that will not only be interesting to know, but they will help you grasp WHY certain cards mean certain things. Tarot reading is an art and a skill, and once you learn the concept behind the cards, you will unlock the part of your mind that can interpret the cards just by looking at therm. You have to train your mind to think like the cards, its kind of like those magic eye books, at first when you dont know how to look at them it seems pointless, but once you get it, you never lose it.

Every single thing that is in a card, from the clothes the person is wearing to the color of the sky is meant to contribute to the meaning of the card, nothing is placed there by accident. I would go card by card and just describe to yourself what is happening in the card, it becomes much easier once you study the expressions of the people, and what is happening. Like the 3 of cups, 3 women holding cups dancing in a circle. It's obvious once you think about it this card means getting together with friends and having a good time, it could also mean drinking alcohol, or drunkenness. Once you describe the scene it becomes easy to extrapolate a meaning from the cards, especially the rider waite cards.

Here's a really good youtube video that goes through every card and teaches you the meanings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NDuHfxp0NQ

One of the best thing I learned from that video is that if you learn the first 13 cards of the major arcana, and you know what each minor suit means ie: swords= intellect and thoughts, you can figure out what each minor arcana means just by combining the meaning of the major arcana card that matches its number combined with the meaning of the suite.

For instance the ace of wands, we would match it up with the magician and think that the wands means action and passion, so combing the magician and the wands you would get creative potential having to do with action and life passions, so maybe starting a new project would be the meaning. I hope this helped, I know it's long.

mazzerin said:

Does anyone have any tips/tricks/advice on how to become more in tune with what each card means?

Click to expand...

Spend a lot of time looking at each image and thinking deeply about how it makes you feel and what kinds of associations it has for you.

I am specifically having trouble with combinations and relating the card to the question.

Click to expand...

That's just practice. It's hard to explain how to do it as a general rule, but obvious once you start "getting it". Keep practising.

One thing that might benefit you is to hang around the "Using Tarot Cards" subforum, reading, reading, reading. See how, when one person asks about a particular card for a particular question, different people with different perspectives answer the question. There's a lot of learning to be done on this forum.

John Ballantrae had two good pieces of advice in one of his videos that sum it up nicely: think of a tarot card first as movie poster. You look at one single card and you understand what kind of story it represents or hints at.

And if you have a number of cards, look at them like at movie stills. Try to find the story, the atmosphere, and how it connects to you.

If you want to really enter into a personal relationship with the cards, invest in Mary Greer's workbook Tarot for yourself and do the exercises. IMO there is no better way to connect with the tarot archetypes.

And then read some books, watch some videos, spend daily some time with your deck, and think about the cards. About their book meanings but also how they played out in your life. Do you have memories that come up when you look at them?

The tarot is universal but also very very personal. The Star and the Emperor are archetypes but you can find them in your life story.

Once you get a feeling for this beautiful connected-ness of your personal life and the tarot, it's much easier to learn, study, and understand the "book meanings" and the system.

That's my subjective and non-intellectual approach which has kept my love for the tarot alive since I was 18. More than 30 years ago

this really is a good learning tool

a really good you tube video that goes through every card and teaches you the meanings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NDuHfxp0NQ

All of the above is good advice... but to alleviate your overwhelmed feeling, I'd suggest not beating yourself up over it. You are not on a schedule here, so just take your time; "familiarity" will settle in, and you'll find interpretations coming to you in a more natural way. I grew up in a tarot household and was kinda urged to get with it on the learning - so I, by rote, memorized all of the Eden Gray style meanings at a very young age - and now, almost a lifetime later, pretty much regret force-feeding myself the whole convoluted mess....lol. Relax, practice at your own pace, you'll be fine - this is not a test .
Michael

I got a lot out of the Beyond Worlds Tarot Tribe podcasts. They have an entire series of shows based on the majors, then they started the minors with separate shows for masculine and feminine suits. They also have urls with pictures of cards from a variety of different decks. This is all done with a panel of experienced readers who have different perspectives and great senses of humor. I like listening to educational programs while I do something else, so this provided a vast amount of passive learning and a great deal of fun and enthusiasm about tarot.
If you don't like audio programs, there are a lot of great books out there, and of course, Talking Tarot and other topics on the Forum. All the advice on looking at the cards and observing them closely is obviously also good, but I think I benefited tremendously from keeping it light and fun. Eventually, I found I could read simple spreads without having consciously worked on it.
I just did not like doing spreads and looking up the cards over and over. It felt forced. I did a lot of mental going over the different cards, meanings, and associations just as mental games, and found I was able to fill in a lot of the blanks myself. I still read through various sources for various shades of meaning, but when I read, I like to try to pull the answers from myself.

mazzerin said:

I bought my first deck when I was 12. There was something so luring about them sitting there on the shelf. Like the rest of the world was black and white and they were the only thing that existed in color. I remember exactly how I felt that day and how excited I was to have discovered them. How could I miss them, it was like they were calling out to me!

Unfortunately, my enthusiasm was short lived after becoming completely overwhelmed with how much there was to learn and I was frustrated that it wasn't coming easy to me when I felt so connected to them. And so they sat, silently on my bookshelf. I felt like they had so much to tell me and I had let them down because I just couldn't understand the language.

Anyway, long story short, I am now 32 and still feel as drawn to the cards as I did back then. I just purchased a deck and am trying once again to learn how to interpret them. I feel myself getting frustrated and overwhelmed again.

Does anyone have any tips/tricks/advice on how to become more in tune with what each card means? I am specifically having trouble with combinations and relating the card to the question. Just when I think I have the interpretation down for one it pops up in a very confusing way and I am unsure how to incorporate it.

Click to expand...

I am thinking you may be too much "in your head" and trying to memorize instead of going with the flow and just seeing what the cards say to you. The reason the cards that you think you have down then pop up in a different way is because they want you to see them in a different light than what you have memorized. The cards are not static and they speak differently to each person. You feel a connection to them that is not related to what you are trying to learn about them. They want a personal connection with you, an intuitive, give and take connection that has nothing to do with learning the meanings.

Have fun with it! I see in your post the words "overwhelmed," "frustrated," "having trouble." Play with the cards. It is not a life and death situation to know what a particular author (even though, and maybe especially though, they be deemed an expert) thought the card meant. Laugh a little and lighten up, and your cards will take on a life that you didn't know they could express.

Ask your deck what it wants you to know, and pull one card, and then have a mental conversation with that card.

Ask your deck what it wants you to ask. Pull one card, and read it as both the question and the answer.

Just go for it. There are no rules and nothing to lose.

Apollonia said:

I am thinking you may be too much "in your head" and trying to memorize instead of going with the flow and just seeing what the cards say to you. The reason the cards that you think you have down then pop up in a different way is because they want you to see them in a different light than what you have memorized. The cards are not static and they speak differently to each person. You feel a connection to them that is not related to what you are trying to learn about them. They want a personal connection with you, an intuitive, give and take connection that has nothing to do with learning the meanings.

Have fun with it! I see in your post the words "overwhelmed," "frustrated," "having trouble." Play with the cards. It is not a life and death situation to know what a particular author (even though, and maybe especially though, they be deemed an expert) thought the card meant. Laugh a little and lighten up, and your cards will take on a life that you didn't know they could express.

Ask your deck what it wants you to know, and pull one card, and then have a mental conversation with that card.

Ask your deck what it wants you to ask. Pull one card, and read it as both the question and the answer.

Just go for it. There are no rules and nothing to lose.

Click to expand...

Beautifully put!! Everything Apollonia said

Thank you so much for the information and encouragement. Im glad your parents saved you from near demonic possession ha ha! That made me giggle! I will definitely check out that video.

Im starting to wonder if my deck choice wasn't the best. I chose the legacy of the divine specifically because I felt that they gave me the strongest impressions just looking at the imagery. But Im not very impressed with the books explanations and find myself googling for a better explanation and a lot of times finding a completely different one.

Thanks again, I appreciate your help!