Help.

greenandroses

I have no idea if i am putting this in the right thread. if i am not, sorry. Im sure you all get the same questions when someone has decided that they want to learn tarot so if this have been asked a million times, sorry again lol. I have 2 tarot decks the morgan greer tarot deck and the smith waite tarot deck centennial edition. I have had these for about 2 years actually and they have just been sitting in my closet. See, everytime i pull them out and decide "ok i am ready to go on this journey" i get so discouraged and overwhelmed. Sadly it is because I just expect to understand the cards quickly. But anyways my question is how did you begin to learn tarot? What did you do to not get overwhelmed so quickly with the cards?
 

RavenOfSummer

I think it really depends on what works for you, since everyone has a different learning style. For me, I'm someone who needs to delve into the history and background of anything I learn, and the same went for tarot. In other word I wanted to understand not just traditional MEANINGS of the cards, but where did that meaning and symbology come from. I wanted to delve into the whole rich tradition. So for me, a great place to start (and I HIGHLY recommend this for anyone who has a similar learning style to me) was Robert Place's book on the history of tarot. He discusses how the deck was developed, and the origins of the mystical symbolology used. It really is a fascinating reading, and helped me to feel like I had a foundation to build on.

Once I had read this, I started practicing with the cards every day. At first I would frequently refer to the book that came with the deck. Sometimes I still do. I also joined the forums here, and started reading lots of people's posts and interpretations. You'll start to see what resonates with you.

Once I felt I had built a foundation, I also began to go out on a limb and interpret the cards intuitively when I felt called to do so. Personally I feel it's important to understand the symbolism of the cards before staring to interpret intuitively, but not everyone feels that way so it depends what works for you. I'm one of those, "know the rules, then you can break them" kind of people.

Also, some people bring their knowledge of astrology, numerology etc into reading the cards. I personally don't have that kind of background, but if you do there are resources for learning to bring those correspondences into your readings.

I hope this is helpful! Being a member of the forums here is a great start :)
 

gregory

I didn't read for years. But I did look at the cards. Made stories with them. Saw stories in them. Compared decks (OK I did have quite the few to compare !) You don't have to read with them till you feel the need to - not the "gottagetonwiththis" thing; the "Hey I wonder if" thing. I find the idea of "ok i am ready to go on this journey" utterly depressing. I imagine somewhere within yourself you do too and that would be why it doesn't take. Play first. Children learn first through play and so do tarotistas, in my not even slightly humble opinion !

One book that would probably REALLY be good for you is the Tarot Playbook.

http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/books/playbook/

It sounds frivolous - but it very much isn't. It's fun - and it also gets you there.

Don't rush. But don't keep them in the closet. Leave them somewhere you might chance to pull out a card in passing and say something to yourself like "what an odd looking flower." "Man he looks angry". From such small observations comes knowledge of your cards.
 

Barleywine

I jumped in at the deep end back in 1972 with the Thoth deck and the Book of Thoth, and wrestled with the elaborate Opening of the Key spread before discovering Eden Gray and the Celtic Cross (which came as a relief). I didn't even use a shorter spread until I joined AT in 2011, since the CC served as my "Swiss-Army-Knife" spread for all purposes. Before connecting with tarot, I was an astrologer for a few years, so the correspondences were like a natural language for me. I never warmed up to Waite's Pictorial Key to the Tarot and didn't own an RWS deck until 2011. The internal structure of the system makes it an ideal story-telling medium, which is how I've always used it for reading purposes.
 

page of ghosts

I'm also more of the studious bookish type who loves to read books on tarot - if a deck has a companion book I'm always interested in getting it. I'm far from as knowledgable in tarot as I'd like to be and I have ways to go in my actual practice, but I feel like I'm getting there. Joining this forum has been a big help for me so your definetely in the right place to get it going.

I have almost 20 decks so I joined the Deck of the week-thread here so I'm getting to know my decks better and being very consistent in picking a card for the day and see how it plays out. Other people are more comfortable with the intuitive approach, just looking at the pictures and get a feel for what the card is trying to communicate, not caring much for books. So those 2, studious and intuitive, might be the 2 most common approaches to learning tarot. And I didn't figure it out at once either, it took some time being mostly confused with my underdeveloped intuition before I realised maybe I was one for reading books. My intuition is coming along with my studies I feel, so one doesn't rule out the other and you can always switch it up if something realy doesn't work for you.

I very much recommend finding a decent beginner book so you can read a little and doing a daily card, so you get into a routine (ETA: IF you want a routine that is!). Some people like to do more than one so that's an option for sure - personally I'm fine with doing 1 card but I'm thinking about doing 2 or 3 in time. I don't do a lot of big spreads like the Celtic Cross yet, so if you don't feel up for it right now you can leave it and come back later if that's something you're interested in. Back to the daily card, now that I'm a little more adept I look at the card and try to get some impressions, if early in the day the card might hold some ideas for how I spend the day, if later in the evening I try to relate it to something that happened. Some cards I know better than others, so if I'm really confused I reference a book to see if it has any ideas I can connect to.

If you're really new and super confused I don't think it's any shame in looking a lot in the book, but also try to look at the image and see why this card can mean that. Look at poses, colours, background, sky, interactions between people and what objects are included that gives a card a certain meaning. Also, don't discredit any feelings and ideas you get from within yourself even if they don't match the book meanings, that means you're building personal relations with the cards and that's a very good thing :D

The Centennial and Morgan-Greer are two of my favourite decks that I have so I hope you like them too. There are study groups in the forum for both and the Rider Waite is a big tradition in itself so it has it's own subforum you can peruse in the tarot special-interest area. Personally I'm a big fan in comparing cards from time to time, to see how the cards are different or the same and how that influences my interpretation of a card. Some decks do tone down some of the "scarier" cards (sometimes it's good to remember that Death or Tower isn't always literal death and gloom, even if they can be hard and painful to deal with) or give them a different spin that can enhance my understanding. The Hierophant is my birth card and I honestly don't relate much to the pope-ish guy in the RWS, but the Wildwood Tarot has one of my favourite Hierophants under the name The Ancestor. I see the importance of knowing ones roots, family traditions, old knowledge and ritual in that card. Similarly, Robin Wood is one of my least favs because it focuses on the negative, awful sides of organised mainstream religion with the Hierophant on top. It does nothing for me personally, but I understand it resonnates with other people as religious trauma is a serious issue that so many struggle with. Robin Wood is an older pagan deck, and a lot of people seeking towards paganism has those experiences so I do see where it's coming from and understand its importance in that aspect.

Sorry if this went a little long and off-topic! I think it's cool that you're reaching out as tarot is so much fun and one of my big interests. There are many approaches to it and in my experience it has taken a long time to learn what little I do know so don't be discouraged if it takes some time for you too. Oh, and I should probably mention that I mostly read on myself and daily life, as well as introspective readings so that probably influences my approach since I don't plan on going pro ;)
 

Trogon

Hi greenandroses! I can certainly understand and remember that feeling of being overwhelmed as one approaches the Tarot. I will begin by saying that, for me anyway, there is no real end to "learning" the Tarot. I don't mean to discourage at all, but to let you know that in some respect, I'm still right there with you. The thing is, the more I learn about Tarot, the more that those insights lead me to learn even more things about Tarot.

There are a lot of different approaches to learning the Tarot. For me, I approached it largely from a memorizing aspect; I started with a book that had good explanations of the main symbolisms seen in each card coupled with the upright and reversed meanings of each card. I would look over a card and see what struck me initially, then read the entry in the book while examining the card. Then add in the meanings (reversing the card when reading the reversed meaning). I'm a child of the '50's and '60's and this is how we learned when I was in school - you memorized, then put it into practice.

Now, having said that, it worked for me, but there are a lot of other ways of learning. I have to say that trying to learn both the upright and reversed meanings of the cards may have taken me a bit longer. But for me, it meant that I was learning both "positive" and "negative" aspects of the cards which, I feel, gave me a pretty good knowledge base. (The book I used was "The Complete Guide to the Tarot" by Eden Gray. It is an old book but I feel a very good one to start with. I also found "78 Degrees of Wisdom" by Rachel Pollak to be an excellent one as well.)

Since then, I've learned in other ways. For example, studying the "Fools Journey" to learn the Major Arcana. And when I mentioned to an acquaintance of mine that I was struggling with the Court Cards, she suggested I look at them from the point of view of a dragon being seen in each "Kingdom" (each suit being a "Kingdom") - how will the Pages report the news to the Knights, how will the Knights react to the news, what will the Queens have to say and how will the Kings decide to handle the situation. Then too, I just recently (after 25 years of learning) had a whole story line pop into my head for the Ace through the Ten of Wands (it's posted here if you'd like to read it).

So, I personally would suggest that you give yourself a good grounding in the Rider-Waite symbolisms and the "standard" meanings of the cards. This will give you a solid foundation to build on as you start doing readings for yourself and others. So, while it may seem a daunting task at first, if you start with small steps and work through the deck it will get easier as you go along. As you learn what a symbol means in one card, you'll have an idea of what it means when you see it in another card. Also, as you go along, just learning one card is not such a big task - one card at a time is what worked for me to start with.

Another good place to start is Thirteen's Tarot Card Meanings here on Aeclectic Tarot. You'll find the Fool's story there (start with the Fool card, then the Magician and so on). It should help give you some insight into the Majors. Then work through the suits and so on. There is also Thirteen's Introduction to Tarot Card Meanings which discusses some approaches to learning.

Finally; start a "journal". For me, that has been a couple of things. One is a notebook where I can write what I'm learning about the cards. Do one page for each card ... maybe even the front and back of a page. Write the initial meanings you learn, then as you think of other, expanded meanings, write those down too. Writing helps you to learn. My journal pages have a few notes at the top of the page concerning prominent symbols on the card, then a section for upright meanings and then a section for reversed meanings. I expand these on a semi-regular basis when I learn a new way that it applies to real people and situations. My other journal (well several now) is notes on readings I've done, especially my self-readings - the question, deck used, date and what cards I pulled and what interpretations I came up with.

Oh, and don't forget, you can come to these forums with your questions! The people here are very helpful and I've learned a lot here.

Learning Tarot is entirely worth the journey. Just studying it can open many new ways of thinking and looking at the world. Then there is being able to use the Tarot to help yourself to look beyond the day to day existence, and being able to help others to see other ways of looking at things.

Yep. Sorry. This post got a bit longer than I intended. But I hope it helps. Try not to be discouraged, it seems like a big task, but it is very doable.
 

greenandroses

I think it really depends on what works for you, since everyone has a different learning style. For me, I'm someone who needs to delve into the history and background of anything I learn, and the same went for tarot. In other word I wanted to understand not just traditional MEANINGS of the cards, but where did that meaning and symbology come from. I wanted to delve into the whole rich tradition. So for me, a great place to start (and I HIGHLY recommend this for anyone who has a similar learning style to me) was Robert Place's book on the history of tarot. He discusses how the deck was developed, and the origins of the mystical symbolology used. It really is a fascinating reading, and helped me to feel like I had a foundation to build on.

Once I had read this, I started practicing with the cards every day. At first I would frequently refer to the book that came with the deck. Sometimes I still do. I also joined the forums here, and started reading lots of people's posts and interpretations. You'll start to see what resonates with you.

Once I felt I had built a foundation, I also began to go out on a limb and interpret the cards intuitively when I felt called to do so. Personally I feel it's important to understand the symbolism of the cards before staring to interpret intuitively, but not everyone feels that way so it depends what works for you. I'm one of those, "know the rules, then you can break them" kind of people.

Also, some people bring their knowledge of astrology, numerology etc into reading the cards. I personally don't have that kind of background, but if you do there are resources for learning to bring those correspondences into your readings.

I hope this is helpful! Being a member of the forums here is a great start :)
Thank you for the book recommendation. I believe I've heard of Robert Place very recently. I think yesterday actually. Will go look up his book. I really appreciate you taking to the time to reply to me!
 

Cocobird55

When I began, I told myself not to hurry, and let the Tarot unfold. I bought decks, studied cards, read Aeclectic and some books. Starting reading for other people here.

It's been a long time since I started, and I keep on learning. If nothing else, flip through your cards every day and try to figure out what they are telling you.

Tarot is complex, and I think is a life long learning. I also think that everyone needs to find their own path that works for them.

Don't give up -- just slow your mind down and enjoy the cards.

I like Joan Bunning's book Learning the Tarot as a good, sensible reference. It is available online, or as a book.

Enjoy!
 

greenandroses

I didn't read for years. But I did look at the cards. Made stories with them. Saw stories in them. Compared decks (OK I did have quite the few to compare !) You don't have to read with them till you feel the need to - not the "gottagetonwiththis" thing; the "Hey I wonder if" thing. I find the idea of "ok i am ready to go on this journey" utterly depressing. I imagine somewhere within yourself you do too and that would be why it doesn't take. Play first. Children learn first through play and so do tarotistas, in my not even slightly humble opinion !

One book that would probably REALLY be good for you is the Tarot Playbook.

http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/books/playbook/

It sounds frivolous - but it very much isn't. It's fun - and it also gets you there.

Don't rush. But don't keep them in the closet. Leave them somewhere you might chance to pull out a card in passing and say something to yourself like "what an odd looking flower." "Man he looks angry". From such small observations comes knowledge of your cards.
It is very depressing actually lol. What is the fun in that? But also what is fun? Haha. Capricorn here and my husband just told me yesterday how serious i am in general. Going to go look at the tarot playbook. I never thought to have fun with learning tarot. Thank you!
 

greenandroses

I am definitely not an intuitive reader right now lol so I will be getting a book to learn the meanings. Just for now anyways. Daily card pulls seem to be something I've heard more than once on this thread so I will be committing to a daily card pull. The cenntenial deck I have is the one that is in the tin! I believe this will be what I'm going to use daily since they are a small and well protected. I can throw them in my bag and go! So convenient! Oh and I Dont mind you writing a long reply. This is definitely helping me ! Thank you for the tips as well!