I didn't read reversals for a long time, I found that the card and the position and the context coloured the cards for me anyway. I like to see a card the way it was painted by the artist, i.e., upright.
But John Ballantrae said something that made me think again. In Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, there are exercises where you reverse an art work to look at it "objectively" and it's much easier to draw it that way. You have to look differently, and you discover things you didn't see before. And that made sense.
https://agilewarrior.wordpress.com/...rawing-an-exercise-to-reduce-mental-conflict/
Then I remembered that proof readers often read the text upside down. In that "alienated" position, they work harder to identify each letter and thus discover mistakes more easily.
So I started to take notice of reversed cards. I still turn them upside down but I take the reversal as little highlight telling me to widen the scope of meanings for this card.
In which way? I found the most useful idea for reversals is Benebell Wen's acronym WIND. I use it a bit differently from she does, but it's easy to remember. This is the original explanation:
Mnemonic for remembering card reversals: WIND.
W Weakened energy of card meaning due to being overpowered by other forces.
I Inverted meaning of card, i.e., the opposite of what the card would mean upright.
N Negative influence on Seeker (most notably in court cards; think N for nobility).
D Delay before outcome will materialize. Not all factors have fully matured yet.
Wen, Benebell (2015-01-20). Holistic Tarot: An Integrative Approach to Using Tarot for Personal Growth (Kindle Locations 6016-6022). North Atlantic Books. Kindle Edition.
The "inverted" meaning for me is influenced by something I read here on AT, was it Grizabella, Nisaba or another fount of wisdom? Reversed cards can mean that the energy is inverted - instead of feeling bad, you make someone feel bad; instead of feeling disappointed or surprised, you disappoint or surprise somebody.
So the card's energy is either weakened or its flow is inverted, its effect is negative or delayed.
But these aspects of the cards co-exist in each and every card. I still feel that card position and interaction with other cards are more important than whether the card was reversed or not. And I see the flow from card to card better when they're all right side up. So I'll always turn the reversed cards around sooner or later in the reading. The potential meanings of reversed cards are always present anyway.