Brigit Esselmont's Blog, page 23

How to Read the Tarot Court Cards Like an Expert

Court Cards in the Tarot are often the most complex and confusing cards to interpret. Why? Because there are so many different ways to interpret them – as people, as personalities, as situations, and more.

In this post, I show you the different ways to read the Court Cards and share some tips on how to know which method to use when.

Court Cards As Specific People

Most often, Court Cards represent a person. That person can be either yourself or someone else. By understanding the personality and attributes of the card, you can pinpoint whether it is yourself or someone else represented by that card.

Court Cards primarily reflect personality traits and characteristics. They provide clues as to how a person thinks, feels and acts, and what truly motivates them.

The Court Cards have often been linked to the Myers-Briggs Personality Trait Indicator (MBTI). Myer-Briggs is based around the theories and ideas of Carl Jung and is now a very well-respected method of gaining a deeper understanding about personality types and motivational factors.

According to the MBTI tests, there are 16 different Personality Types. Interestingly, this corresponds to the 16 Court Cards in the Tarot.

If you have worked with MBTI before, you may like to draw your own conclusions about which MBTI profile fits with each of the Court Cards and note it in your Tarot Journal. At this stage, there is no single universal system of correspondences between the 16 court cards and the 16 MBTI types.

In more traditional Tarot books, Court Cards are also given physical attributes such as hair and eye colour, gender and age (e.g. male, brown hair, blue eyes, attractive, mature, etc.). However, in my experience, I find that this is very limiting and often inaccurate. Many times, Queens come up for men, Kings come up for women, Pages come up for older people and so forth.

Connecting With the Court Card Personalities

It’s a great idea to develop your own connection with each of the Court Cards and decide which attributes they represent for you. Here are two fun and engaging techniques you can use to learn and connect with the Court Card personalities:

Technique #1: Put a face to a name

Lay out all of the Tarot court cards in front of you. Now pick one up and think of someone you know who is just like that card. It might be a friend, family member, colleague, acquaintance, or even a celebrity. Write down a few sentences about that person and how their personality relates to the card.

Work through each Court card until you have 16 real people that you can relate to whenever you see the court cards come up in a reading.

Technique #2: Go speed-dating with the cards

Again, separate your court cards from the rest of the cards. Randomly choose two and put them side-by-side. Now imagine you’re at a speed dating event and these two court cards meet. What would they say to each other? Would there be some chemistry? Write down the conversation, exactly as you imagine it.

Now draw another two cards and create a new conversation. Rinse and repeat.

Soon, you’ll have a sense of not only the personalities of each card but also how the court cards relate with one another.

Court Cards As a Part of Yourself

Sometimes, the Court Card may indicate a part of yourself, rather than your complete personality. It shows a side of yourself that is being expressed or is seeking expression. It may be part of you that you draw upon regularly, or that you need to nurture and develop.

For example, the appearance of the Page of Swords in a career reading may indicate that you need to adopt a more curious mindset to be successful. Or, if you have already been asking questions, its appearance confirms that you’re doing everything you need.

Court Cards As a Situation or Event

However, there are times when it just doesn’t make sense for the Court Card to represent a person or part of their personality. Thus, sometimes Court Cards can represent a situation or an event that takes on a personality of its own. For example, the appearance of the Page of Cups often indicates an invitation or an offer that brings a lot of joy and excitement. Or the King of Wands suggests a situation where you are maturing your goals and visions in life.

Court Cards As a Level of Maturity

In addition to Court Cards representing people, personalities or situations, they also represent different levels of maturity.

From a personal perspective, maturity can allude to the age of the person in question, but it is usually more insightful to look at maturity as a mindset. For example, the Page, who is often viewed as a young, immature person, doesn’t have to be under the age of 21, but may indicate someone who is young at heart, naive, or unfamiliar with a particular situation.

Maturity level can also point to the various stages of a journey. The Page represents the start of a journey, while the King represents the conclusion of a journey, complete with life lessons and a deep understanding.

How to Know What Interpretation to Use and When

With so many different ways to interpret the Court Cards, no wonder many Tarot students struggle with these cards. So, how do you know which method to use and when?

Here are a few tips:

Before you start your reading, determine whether or not you want the Court Cards to symbolise people, personality traits or situations.
Use your intuition. Listen out for your inner voice to guide you in the right direction.
List out possible interpretations for the Court Card as a person, personality and situation. Select the interpretation that makes the most sense in the reading.

I also asked the Biddy Tarot Community how they interpreted the Court Cards in a reading. Here are a few different approaches:

“Sometimes I see them as the emotions they represent or the level of understanding of a situation. More often I see the Page and the Knight more as possible events, like a homecoming, moving, or a message.”

“Personally, the Court Cards represent people, without fail! I have given myself goose bumps from the accuracy!”

“I usually try to match it to a person. If I can’t find a person who matches I try to take on the attributes of the card.”

“The querent’s question or which spread I am using, clues me in to whether it is a person, trait, or an energy. Overall, I trust my intuition.”

I hope this has given you some inspiration and new tools to getting to know the Court Cards and feeling confident with them in your readings. As you’ve seen, journaling your insights is a powerful way to connect more deeply with the Tarot cards and your intuition. If you’re not quite sure where to start, the 2019 Biddy Tarot Planner might be the answer.  It’s a wonderful, guided journal designed to help you envision your goals, align with your highest intentions, and bring your dreams to life, using intuition and Tarot as your guide.  

Join the Waitlist now to get your free Planner Printable and manifest an amazing month ahead.

The post How to Read the Tarot Court Cards Like an Expert appeared first on Biddy Tarot.

BTP77: The Easiest Way to Interpret the Court Cards

 

Court Cards Made Easy

One of the biggest trip-ups in Tarot readings is knowing how to deal with the court cards. Is the court card a person? Who is it? Is it you or someone else? If it’s not a person, what else can it be?

I cannot tell you how many people I talk to who are learning Tarot who say, “Brigit, I’ve got no idea with these court cards. Help me interpret them!”

Today, I want to share with you one of the easiest ways you can interpret the court cards in your Tarot readings. It’s really important to keep it simple, and I’m going to walk you through it, plus a few other tidbits along the way to help make it nice and comfy for you when you see a court card in your next Tarot reading.

In this episode, we’ll cover:

Keeping it simple with the court cards
Asking better questions to get more clear answers
Understanding the energy of reversed court cards
Getting to know  your court cards on a deeper and more personal level

Additional Resources:

Free Workbook: 5 Simple Steps to Read with Confidence
Blog Post: The Easiest Way to Interpret the Court Cards

Podcast Transcript

You’re listening to the Biddy Tarot Podcast, and this is Episode 77: The Easiest way to Interpret the Court Cards.

Welcome to the Biddy Tarot Podcast, where you’ll learn how to connect more deeply with your intuition and live an empowered and enlightened life with the Tarot cards as your guide. Listen as Brigit and her guests share their very best tips and strategies to help you read Tarot with confidence. And now here’s your host, Brigit Esselmont.

The Easiest Way to Interpret the Court Cards

Hello, and welcome to the Biddy Tarot Podcast. As always, it’s my absolute pleasure to be talking Tarot with you today. Do you know one of the biggest trip-ups in Tarot readings is knowing how to deal with the court cards? When you get it in a reading, and you think, “Holy moly! Is this court card a person? And if it’s a person, is it me or is it someone else? If it’s someone else, who do I know who it is? And if it’s not a person, what else can it be?” I cannot tell you how many people I talk to who are learning Tarot just say to me, “Brigit, I’ve got no idea with these court cards. Help me interpret them!”

I want to share with you today one of the easiest ways that you can interpret the court cards in your Tarot readings. It’s really about keeping it simple – trust me. It’s really important to keep it simple. I’m going to walk you through one of the easiest ways to interpret the court cards, plus a few other little titbits along the way to help make it nice and comfy for you when you see a court card in your next Tarot reading.

If we are going to keep things super, super simple (and I strongly suggest that you do if you’re at the beginning of learning how to read Tarot), then court cards are an aspect of your personality. Let me repeat:

Court cards are an aspect of your personality.

We know that there are 16 court cards in the Tarot deck, and what I believe is that each and every one of us has a little bit (or a lot) of each of the 16 court cards within us. What happens is at different times of our lives in different situations with different people in different interactions, we’re going to be expressing different parts of our personality.

For example, maybe when you’re with your kids and they’re being fun and enjoyable, then maybe your Queen of Cups is coming out. Maybe then when your kids start complaining and won’t go to bed until 10 o’clock at night time, maybe your Queen of Swords reversed starts to come out. Maybe when you’re with your hubby, Queen of Wands. Or even if you’re with a long-time friend, someone that you’ve known for many, many years since your childhood, maybe you get a bit more playful and your Knight of Wands comes out. Who knows?

If we see the court cards as personality, we see that we can express a court card in different times and different scenarios.

It’s not so much about “You are a Page of Wands.” It’s more that you are expressing your Page of Wands personality in a particular situation. I hope that makes sense.

Now, the other thing I think people get quite hung up on with the court cards is “Is it an actual person, and is it myself, or is it somebody else? If it’s somebody else, then who on earth is it?” This is where things can start to get really complicated, really quickly.

To keep it simple, set the intention that every time you do a Tarot reading, a court card will represent you.

For example, say you’re asking “What do I need to do to find my next job?” and you get the Page of Wands. Now, in your old way of reading cards, you might think, “Page of Wands? Is this me, or is it someone else? Is this someone who is going to get the job? Is it the person that’s going to interview me? Is it my future boss? What is this card?”

Now, in your new Tarot reading self, where you’re keeping things simple, you know because you’ve set the intention that whatever court card shows up, it’s going to be about you, so you know that that Page of Wands is a part of your personality that you need to express in order to find the next job. Nice and simple, right?

A court card will represent you, unless the position of the court card appears specifically states it’s someone else.

Of course, if you were doing, say, a Celtic cross and you’ve got a court card in the external influences position, it’s not going to be about you. It’s going to be about somebody else. Let’s say it was the Queen of Swords. You might think about “Who in my life right now is expressing themselves as the Queen of Swords?” It’s not necessarily “Who is the Queen of Swords?” because I think then you can risk getting caught up with “female in her 40’s or 50’s,” things like that.

It’s more about “Who is expressing themselves as the Queen of Swords?” because they may not be the Queen of Swords. They may just be interacting with you in that particular way in that particular moment, but when they interact with someone else or time passes, you start to find that she might be more like a Queen of Cups or Page of Pentacles. It can always change.

Coming back to the point – “Is it me, or is it someone else?” Set the intention that it is you (or the person who is asking the question).

Now, as you become more confident and more experienced with your Tarot readings, then you don’t have to stick to this rule.

I find when I’m doing a Tarot reading, most of the time when I see a court card, I relate it to myself or whomever I’m reading for, but every now and then my intuition might kick in and say, “I’m not sure it’s me. I think it might be someone else or something else.” I can be more flexible, but that’s because I’m feeling really comfortable and confident with the court cards.

You’re going to feel like that soon – trust me. If you don’t feel like that now, it’s coming. It really is. But for now, to help you get really confident, just stick to that nice keep-it-simple rule, and treat a court card as a representation of you and the personality that you’re expressing.

Now, you’re probably starting to realise that it’s important to make sure that it’s clear if it’s somebody else or you. I was talking before about the Celtic cross with a court card in the external influences being somebody else; it’s not you.

Ask good questions

You need to ask good questions and use good spreads to help you really determine when a court card is yourself or somebody else.

For example, if you ask “Should I move in with my boyfriend or someone else?” and then you get a court card, you might be a little bit stumped because you don’t know if it’s you, if it’s your boyfriend, or if it’s somebody else, because the question that you’ve asked is kind of a little bit all over the shop. “Should I move in with my boyfriend or someone else?’

Instead, what you need to do is plan ahead a little bit. Think about “If I ask that question and I got a court card, what would I do? Freak out? OK, I’m not going to do that.” What you might do instead is break down that question into more specific questions, or include them as positions in the spread, so it’s clear about who the card relates to.

For that example, you might ask the question “What might I experience if I move in with my boyfriend?” That’s one card. “What might I experience if I move in with myself or on my own?” There’s another card. “What might I experience if I move in with someone else?” And another card.

Now, also notice that I have shifted the question from “Should I move in with…” to “What might I experience if…” The idea around that is that you can get an idea of “If I do choose that path, this is what might happen,” versus “Should I do it or shouldn’t I do it?” Ultimately, you have the choice about whether you do it or you don’t do it.

Let’s say you asked “What might I experience if I move in with my boyfriend?” and you get the Page of Wands. Well, that Page of Wands will relate back to you, but it’s more like “What aspect of your personality will be expressed or shown if you move in with your boyfriend?” You see how that works, right? So then you’re not so much worrying about if the card if somebody else, but it’s more about you and how you’re relating in that situation.

The neat thing is if you’re focusing in on yourself and how you’re responding and behaving and acting, that’s the bit that you can do something about.

If you ask the question “What’s my boyfriend going to be like to live with?” that’s a way to get a very specific answer. If you get the Knight of Wands, then you realise he’s going to be a little bit frisky. Things might be a bit exciting at home. Ultimately, you can make a choice about that as well. You can say “Do I want to be living with a Knight of Wands personality?” Yes, or no? Maybe not. Maybe you’re in a Queen of Pentacles moment, and you think “No, I just want stability, and I don’t need lots of excitement and spontaneity and friskiness. You can still make decisions that way.

Think ahead about “What question can I ask that’s going to make it really clear if it’s myself or somebody else if I get a court card?” This takes practice. Just try it on for size. Try some different questioning techniques, and see what happens.

We’ve talked about what court cards mean (personality), and we’ve talked about whether it’s you or somebody else, and ultimately it’s you, unless you’re asking a question where it’s clearly someone else. We’ve also talked about asking good questions so that you’re clear on who the card does relate to.

Now, what about reversed court cards?

You might be someone who says, “Reversed cards? No, thank you. Why are we even talking about it?” But there are many of you who do use reversed cards in your readings, and you might be wondering, “What does a reversed court card mean?”

For me, the way that I see reversals is it’s an internalisation of energy. It’s energy that’s expressed inwardly and not outwardly. The upright card is more about expressed energy outward.

In terms of a reversed court card, it might mean that there’s a private aspect of yourself. There’s part of your personality that you are keeping to yourself. You may not be expressing it outwardly.

Maybe you’re asking about work, and you had the Queen of Pentacles and the reversed Page of Cups. You might present yourself as the boss lady with the Queen of Pentacles, but underneath it all you’ve got this Page of Cups that’s wanting to be expressed, and that’s that more creative piece, or maybe even more emotional piece. But with it being in the reversed position, you don’t necessarily want it to be expressed in that environment. It can be a private part of your personality.

Now, the reversals can also be a sign that you’re learning how to express this part of yourself. It’s not fully developed just yet, and it’s something that’s emerging within you, but you’re not quite ready to put it out there. Maybe it’s the Knight of Pentacles reversed, and the Knight of Pentacles is often about routine and staying to a structure and so on, but with the reversal of it you might be with your training wheels on how to do routine, and you might be resisting routine, even. The upright energy of the Knight of Pentacles isn’t being fully expressed in your life at that point, but is something kind of whirring around in the background.

Here’s another example. You might ask, “What can I do to find a new job?” and you turn up the Queen of Cups reversed. There are a couple of ways of looking at this card. You might say the Queen of Cups is about emotions and feelings and communicating those feelings, but in the reversal it might be about keeping emotions to yourself in finding a new job. It could even be about self-care, using the energy of the Queen of Cups to serve yourself, instead of serving others. Or there might even be something around emotional alignment on an internal level.

As you’re looking for a new job, you might want to be checking in for your emotional alignment. Does this really fit your values and how you want to feel in a job? Again, it’s that private process that’s going on. You may not be talking about it in your interviews saying, “Oh, this job makes me feel so wonderful!” It might be something that you’re actually thinking about in private in your own quiet time.

The last piece I want to talk about here is how to get to know your court cards.

I am such an advocate for going beyond the book meanings and tapping into the real essence of the Tarot cards, and there’s no better way of doing that than making this personal and intuitive connection with the Tarot cards.

When it comes to your court cards, make them personal.

One way of doing this is to take out all of the court cards from your deck, and think of at least one person that you know that represents that card. You might take the Page of Pentacles and you think, “Who do I know that’s like the Page of Pentacles?” Write that down. You might also write down why you think this person is like the Page of Pentacles. Then do that for all 16 court cards, and you’ll start to get a really nice personal connection with those court cards.

Now, another exercise that you can do is for each court card ask yourself, “When am I this particular court card?” For example, “When am I the Page of Wands?” Maybe it’s when I’m following a new path, or I’m expressing a new part of myself spiritually. You might even want to relate a specific time or life experience to that card. You might think about to “When was I the Page of Wands? I remember the Page of Wands was when I was first learning Tarot, and I was learning about my own spirituality and my own spiritual path. I was excited to open up and grow on that path.” Maybe that’s the time I remember of when I was the Page of Wands. Then you might think, “When was I the Page of Pentacles? The start of my career, my first real corporate job, walking into that office in my suit and my little briefcase, and starting this new career and being all excited about it.”

Then I might fast forward and ask, “When was I the Queen of Wands?” It was only a few hours ago I was on a webinar with 50 of our community members live, and I was talking about feedback, and throughout that whole webinar I couldn’t help but just be radiating as I was talking about how to deal with client feedback. That’s an example right there.

Think about it: When am I this court card, or when was I the court card? You’ll start to create that beautiful personal connection with the courts.

Quick recap:

Keep it simple with court cards. Treat the court cards as an aspect of your personality and as you (versus other people), unless it’s in a specific position related to other people.
Ask good questions so that it’s nice and clear when you do receive a court card what that means and who it’s related to.
With the reversed court cards, see them as private energy or not fully expressed energy.
Finally, get to know your court cards on a deeper and more personal level.

Master The Tarot Card Meanings

Now, of course if you are really digging getting into knowing the court cards, then make sure you check out my online training program “Master the Tarot Card Meanings.” In this program, I show you exactly how to build a personal and intuitive connection with the Tarot using simple yet powerful techniques for interpreting the Tarot cards. I’ll show you all of the must-know systems that sit behind the Tarot cards, and I also give you an amazing amount of different exercises that you can do to really embody the cards’ energy and bring the Tarot to life so that when you go ahead and you do readings for yourself and for others, it’s as if the stories just lift up out of those cards, and you go way beyond just what you can read in a book.

By the end of the “Master the Tarot Card Meanings” program, you’re going to know how to build a deep and personal connection with the Tarot cards, plus you’ll know how to intuitively and confidently interpret the Tarot cards without ever having to memorise meanings or rely on your books. Ultimately, this program is designed to help you become more confident and intuitive as a Tarot reader, and use the Tarot to transform people’s lives and make a real difference.

It’s a really special program, and you can check it out at BiddyTarot.com/MTCM. Now, if the program is closed, make sure you jump on the wait list so that you’re the first to know when the program is open again.

Awesome. I have really enjoyed talking with you about how to interpret the court cards easily and effortlessly, and now I hope that in your readings you’ll find it a lot more enjoyable when you see a court card appear. I hope you have a great week ahead, and I can’t wait to chat with you again very, very soon. Bye for now!

The post BTP77: The Easiest Way to Interpret the Court Cards appeared first on Biddy Tarot.

How to Do a Yes/No Tarot Card Reading

How to Do a Yes/No Tarot Card Reading

Love it or hate it, you’re going to be asked a Yes or No question at some point in your Tarot card reading career.  And even if you’re not a Tarot pro, you’re probably tempted to ask personal Yes/No questions every now and then. So, let’s sharpen our skills with five sure-fire ways to give a Yes/No Tarot card reading.

But first, let’s answer a common question: should we do a Yes/No Tarot card reading in the first place? 

The Fickle Nature of the Yes/No Tarot Card Reading 

There’s much debate around whether Yes/No readings mix well with Tarot, as some well-respected Tarot enthusiasts question their accuracy. 

Here’s my take: the future is not set in stone, and you are its creator. 

Sure, we can get an accurate Yes or No at one point in time…but as time marches forward, we assert our free will, make different decisions, and that Yes or No can easily flip-flop. 

Yes/No questions can also limit the richness of the message. The beauty of Tarot is that it uncovers what lies beneath a situation, the surrounding energies and influences, and the best actions you can take to either stay the course or shift direction. A Yes/No answer left unexplored can be quite limiting. 

By now you can guess my preference. I prefer not to do Yes/No Tarot readings.  Instead, I use the cards to get to the heart of the matter and examine options and actions to take. 

Still, I’ve been asked many times for a Tarot card reading that will give a clear Yes or No answer. And I’ve developed sure-fire ways to give a Yes/No reading while honouring the deep insight of Tarot.  Here are my Golden Nuggets: 

Upright vs. Reversed Tarot Cards

When in doubt, keep it basic. If the Tarot card is upright, you’ve got a Yes. If it’s reversed, it’s a No. 

To use this technique, make sure your deck has a balanced mix of upright and reversed cards. Always cut the deck, turn the cards 180 degrees from top to bottom, and then reshuffle. Repeat a few times to get an equal number of upright and reversed cards. 

It’s a really simple technique, but it gives you a really simple answer, and doesn’t allow for a more in-depth reading.

Give ‘em a Yes, No or Maybe 

Go through your Tarot deck card by card. Place the cards you feel are more likely to mean Yes in one pile.  In another pile, you’ll have your No cards.  In a third pile you’ll have your Maybe cards. 

For example, you might flip over the Sun, which is a pretty safe Yes. Maybe you flip over the Tower, which is a pretty strong No.  Now, the Seven of Cups, with the guy vacillating between all the possible choices, might be more of a Maybe. 

It’s important to decide your personal list of Yes and No cards before you do a Tarot card reading, otherwise you might be tempted to change your answer according to what you’d like to see. 

It’s always fun to test your connection to the cards by making your own list, but if you’re crunched for time or want some reference, I’ve created a downloadable PDF of the cards I think form a Yes, No, or Maybe.

>> DOWNLOAD THE FREE PDF: FIVE SURE-FIRE WAYS TO ANSWER YES/NO TAROT READINGSIf you don’t resonate with the way I’ve organized the cards, I definitely invite you to personalize it for your Tarot readings. Tarot is fantastically flexible, and there is no hard and fast rule as to whether a card means Yes or No. 

Favourable or Unfavourable Cards

Turning a definite Yes or No into a more flexible Favourable or Unfavourable plays into the notion that the future is not set in stone. Using language such as “favourable” or “unfavourable” leaves room for circumstances to change and shift as they are apt to do in life. 

You can also say it’s likely, or it’s unlikely, or it’s very unlikely as a way to soften Yes/No answers and add extra wiggle room if, like me, you feel some discomfort delivering a definite Yes or a definite No. 

The Yes, If…No, If

I believe that Yes and No answers in Tarot are often conditional, meaning it might be Yes, if this thing happens, or yes if a particular situation stays the way it is. 

Let’s say you want to know if you’ll buy a house this year. You draw the Seven of Pentacles, which sounds favourable. Now, add a “Yes, if” to your interpretation. So, Yes, if you’re willing to put in the work over the long term and Yes, if you’re willing to save money and use your savings. 

Now, let’s say for that same question you draw the Tower. No, if something unexpected happens. An interpretation could be: “It’s looking unlikely that I’ll buy a house, maybe because something else is going to happen that will put things upside down a little bit.” 

You can go even further with it. You might actually draw one card for Yes, If, and another for No, If. Let’s apply this to our example. We draw the Seven of Cups for our Yes, If, which implies there are a number of options you’re exploring. And it’s letting you know that if you want to buy a house this year, you need to make sure that you’ve got lots of different options. Then you draw another card for No, If and get the Three of Wands, which might be a sign that you’ll be moving or traveling overseas—not the right time to buy a house!  

What an interesting way to respond to Yes/No questions, because now you’re starting to really tap into the potential of the Tarot cards, giving the client more options and leaving the decision-making up to them!   

Interpret the Card Straight Up

Simply interpret the card. 

Let’s say we get the Six of Swords for our house-buying question. Now, the Six of Swords might be on your No list of cards, but, because you’re asking a question around moving, you may look at the Six of Swords and think: “Well actually this person is moving. They might not be particularly excited about moving, but they’re moving.” 

If you are comfortable with some ambiguity and uncertainty in your Tarot card readings and you’ve mastered the card meanings in such a way that you can read more fluidly, this is a great technique! 

So, there you have it—five sure-fire ways to answer Yes or No Tarot questions. Let me leave you with a few words of wisdom…

Be disciplined.  Don’t keep drawing extra cards if you don’t like the answer. 
Be prepared.  Don’t ask the question if you don’t want to know the answer. 
Be wary of questions skewed to a negative outcome.  Someone might ask: “Am I going to lose all my money and be poor for the rest of my life?” Is that really the question they want to ask? Or would it be more advantageous to know “How do I make sure I’ve got enough money to sustain my lifestyle or to live comfortably?” 
Be on the lookout for two-fers.  Check out the question above: “Am I going to lose all my money and be poor for the rest of my life?” You’ve actually got two questions. Am I going to lose all my money and am I going to be poor for the rest of my life. To get a direct Yes or No answer, you’d have to ask this as two separate questions. 

I suggest reviewing these tips before you do a Tarot card reading to help them become second nature. 

And with that, I will set you free to try your hand at some Yes/No Tarot card readings! Give it a go and see if Yes/No readings are for you.

For more inspiration on decision-making spreads and readings, check out my book, Everyday Tarot: Unlock Your Inner Wisdom and Manifest Your Future.

The post How to Do a Yes/No Tarot Card Reading appeared first on Biddy Tarot.

BTP8: 7 Steps to an Accurate and Insightful Tarot Reading

>>Download the Free PDF: 7 Steps to an Accurate and Insightful Tarot Reading

Do you want to create some magic in your Tarot readings? Where you go beyond just regurgitating the book meanings of each card and instead you dive deep into the intuitive messages and uncover the story within the reading?

Well, in this Biddy Tarot Podcast episode, I’m going to show you how.

Here’s what I’ll cover:

The 7 steps to an accurate and insightful Tarot reading
What you need to do before you even pick up the Tarot cards
How to get to the heart of the question
How to uncover the story in the reading
The one step many Tarot readers completely forget

And be sure to download the free PDF, 7 Steps Read Tarot for Yourself with Clarity.

>>Download the Free PDF: 7 Steps to an Accurate and Insightful Tarot Reading

Let’s get into it…

Additional Resources

If you are ready to reach your fullest potential as a Tarot Reader, sign up for Read the Tarot with Confidence
Click here to subscribe to the Biddy Tarot Podcast, so you’ll never miss an episode!
Did you love this podcast? Then leave a 5 Star Review on iTunes! (Here’s how)

Podcast Transcript

Brigit: You’re listening to the Biddy Tarot Podcast, and this is Episode 8: 7 Steps to an Accurate and Insightful Tarot Reading

Intro

Welcome to the Biddy Tarot podcast, where you will learn how to connect more deeply with your intuition and live an empowered and enlightened life with the Tarot cards as your guide.

Listen as Brigit and her guests share their very best tips and strategies to help you read Tarot with confidence.

And now, here is your host Brigit Esselmont.

Brigit: Hello and welcome!

Do you want to create some magic in your Tarot readings – where you go beyond just regurgitating the book meanings of each Tarot card, and instead you dive deep into the intuitive message of the cards, and uncover the story within the reading?

Well today, I’m going to show you how.

I’m going to walk you through the 7 steps to an accurate and insightful Tarot reading so that you’ll be tapping into your divine guidance in no time.

Now, I’ve made you a special PDF download just for this podcast episode; so if you’d like to go and download that you can get it at www.biddyTarot.com/8 – and that is just the number 8. And you’ll also find the show notes over there as well.

The Steps to Success

So let’s get into it – The 7 Steps for an Accurate and Insightful Tarot Reading!

At a very high level, let me walk you through those seven steps, and then I am going to walk you through each one so that you can feel really confident as you’re doing your Tarot readings.

So, Step 1: Create the space.

Step 2: Get to the heart of the question.

Step 3: Choose the layout.

Step 4: Shuffle the cards

Step 5: Read the cards and tell the story

Step 6: Answer the question

Step 7: Reflect and ask for feedback

So, let’s get into it and, again, if you want to have the 7 steps in front of you as I walk you through this, pop on over to biddyTarot.com/8 and you will find them there, along with the show notes.

Create the Space

Alright, so let’s talk about creating the space.

Now, when I say “create the space,” I mean you want to really set up the environment for a really inspiring and insightful Tarot reading. I see this happening over four levels.

One is the physical space –you want to make sure that you’ve got a clear and tidy area to do your Tarot readings…well at least I like to have that because, you know, ‘tidy desk, tidy mind.’

But you might also want to think about:

Do you want some crystals on the table with you?
Do you want some plants?
Do you want some candles?

You might just want nothing. It really depends on what resonates with you. You don’t have to have all that fancy paraphernalia in order to do a really good Tarot reading. I just want you to know that.

Okay, so that’s the physical space.

The other type of space you want to think about is your mental space.

And when I say “mental space,” this is about setting yourself up with clarity for a Tarot reading.

If you’re working with someone, that might be about clarifying some of the expectations around the Tarot reading before you get started; perhaps you might even talk about how you see the way that Tarot works, how the actual Tarot reading might work, and so on.

It might even be about setting up some boundaries, just the basics of: This is going to be a 30 minute reading, and I will let you know once we hit around 30 minutes…Things like that.

The next kind of space I want you to think about is the emotional space.

So there is nothing worse than coming into a Tarot reading with all your emotional baggage all sort of stacked on you. So when I say “emotional space,” make an effort to just empty all of that emotional stuff – as much as you can – leave it at the door – and then consult the Tarot cards.

I know that we often consult Tarot when we are feeling quite emotional and need some of that clarity and insight, but I believe that if we are too emotionally invested in something, particularly when we are doing a Tarot reading for ourselves, it can mean that we don’t get the clarity that we’re looking for. So just be mindful of:

Am I taking on too much emotional baggage as I’m starting this reading?
What can I do just to let go of some of that emotion before I start looking at the cards?

And finally, I want you to think about the spiritual space – and this is probably one of the most important aspects of starting a Tarot reading – and that is to really center yourself, ground yourself, and also connect yourself in with the Universal energy that’s around you – Spirit, Source, God – whatever you want to call it.

You can do this by meditating for even just a couple of minutes before you start a reading; taking in a few deep breaths; calling upon your Guides or your Angels.

Again, don’t feel that you have to do it in a certain way. If Guides and Angels is something that you think, ‘Ugh, that’s not me,’ then that’s fine. You don’t have to do that; just a few simple breaths will help bring you into that spiritual space.

Alternatively you might be really into, say, ritual; you might say a prayer or an affirmation before you start a reading.

So, lots of different options, but when you are creating the space, be mindful of the physical space, the mental space, emotional space, and spiritual space.

Get to the Heart of the Question

Okay, so let’s walk into Step 2 which is getting to the heart of the question.

Typically when you do consult the Tarot cards you go in with a question in mind, because ultimately you are seeking an answer to something that’s been on your mind for some time.

Now, when you’re working with a client, they will often come into that session with an idea of what their question might be.

So it might be something really general, like, “Tell me about my life. What’s going to happen over the next six months or so?”

It might be really specific: “When will I meet the man of my dreams?” or, “What do I need to know about my career transition that’s happening right now?”

One way of working with this is just to simply take whatever question is coming to mind – no matter how it is worded – and start working with that question…which is okay, but I do encourage you to try and get beneath the layers of the original question.

So, let’s say it is: When will I meet the man of my dreams?

Well, we could probably read on that, and we could probably get some indication of when, or what might happen over the next few months or few years; but I find that it’s more helpful to understand when you’re asking, “When will I meet the man of my dreams?” what are you really asking?

How do we get to the heart of that question?

Perhaps it’s not so much about “when”, but “what could I do in order to find that right relationship?”

What is the relationship that is most healthy for me?

How will I know when that relationship is coming to me?

What can I do to prepare myself for that kind of relationship?

And so on.

I think you’ll find that the more you try to unpack a question, and break it down into smaller parts to really get what’s really behind that question, you’ll find that you have more accurate and insightful Tarot readings in that way.

Now, of course, I think it’s good to unpack a question, but I think you need to be very careful when you get into things like rephrasing questions – particularly on behalf of a client.

If you are going into that space of rephrasing a question, or even shifting the focus of a question, it’s very important that you confirm that with the person that you are reading for. Make sure that that new question or rephrased question will help to get the answers that they are looking for. Because you might go: Okay, well they wanted to know, “When will I meet the man of my dreams?”

And then you are thinking, ‘Okay, let’s turn it into more: What actions can you take?’

And then they are saying, “No, no. I want to know when. I want to know what month it is and so on.”

If you start reading on the actions that you could take, then you might actually end up with a disappointed client. It is better to have a conversation up front, to set those expectations around what you can and can’t do with the Tarot cards, than to do the whole reading and have them disappointed.

So make sure you confirm the question when you are starting to unpack it.

Choose Your Layout

Okay, so, let’s get into Step 3, and that is to choose the layout – choose the Tarot spread that you want to use.

Now this question comes up a lot amongst Tarot readers: What’s the best Tarot spread to use?

And, unfortunately, there is no right answer.

What’s really important though, in my opinion, is that you choose the layout or the Tarot spread, that most fits the question.

I know sometimes we can look online or look in a book and go, “Oh wow, that looks like an awesome Tarot spread, I will do a Tarot reading with that spread,” and we go ahead and do it that way. So it is kind of like the spread comes before the question.

But I also like to work in the place where we really look at the question and think: What spread is going to best answer that question?

Now you can use a sort of Done-For-You Tarot Spread –like Past-Present-Future, or you might use Opportunities-Challenges-Outcome, you might use a Horseshoe Spread or a Celtic Cross Spread – or something else that you found along the way.

Again, those different spreads will have a place in different Tarot readings. Sometimes a Celtic Cross is great when you want insight into a bigger topic, and you want to understand what the energies are in the current situation; but a Celtic Cross might not be so great for things like: Should I go to the party on the weekend?

Or smaller topics where you don’t need to know all of the ins and outs of the situation.

Now, just as a side note, in a future podcast we’ll actually be covering the Celtic Cross in a lot more detail – so make sure you watch out for that one.

And we’ll also be covering Three Card Tarot Spreads, which are great for keeping things really simple – so look out for that podcast in the future as well.

But for now, just know that if you do use a Done-For-You Tarot Spread, make sure that that spread is the best fit for the question that you’re asking.

There is an alternative to using a Done-For-You Tarot Spread, and that is to create your own Tarot spread.

I could probably take up a whole podcast episode on how you can create your own Tarot spreads; but for now I want you to know this: When you were unpacking the question in Step 2, and breaking it down into smaller, mini-questions, you were actually creating your own Tarot spread!

So, let’s go back to our example: When will I find, you know, my dream man?

You can break that down into:

What can I do now to prepare for this right relationship?
What might a healthy relationship look like for me?
How will I know that it’s on its way?

Those kinds of question actually start to form your own Tarot spread. I find that these Do-It-Yourself Tarot spreads, or customized Tarot spreads, are often a really effective way of connecting in with the question, and answering it in a very specific way.

If you are working with clients, it shows your client that you understand them, that you are creating this Tarot reading just for them. I think that can make for a really special experience.

So I do encourage you to have a little play with creating your own Tarot spreads, rather than just relying on what might be readily available to you – and also watch out for a future podcast, because I am sure I will be covering this topic in the future.

Alright so we have created the space, which was Step 1; Step 2, we’ve unpacked the question, and we’ve got to the heart of the question; and Step 3, we’ve chosen the layout.

Shuffle The Cards

So the next step that we need to take is: Shuffle the cards.

Now you might be thinking: Why have you included this as a step? C’mon, surely, you know, it’s quite simple!

But many people struggle with: Well, how do I best shuffle the cards?

There are many different ways.

My favourite way is just that regular hand-over-hand shuffle. It’s very hard for me to show you that on a podcast, but it’s just the regular way that you might shuffle any kind of deck of cards.

Another way is Casino Style –where you have the two decks, or two piles of cards, and then you splinter them into each other, and they sort of fan into each other, and then you have a shuffle after that. Now I only recommend that if you know what you’re doing, because otherwise you can end up wrecking your cards. And I always freak out a little bit when I have clients doing the casino shuffle with my cards and I think, ‘Oh my goodness, please, please, I hope you know what you’re doing, otherwise I will end up with some really bent cards!’

Another way of shuffling the cards is what I call the Messy Pile. You can simply spread all the cards over a table, and swoosh them all around, and then bring them back up into the one pile again.   Not my favourite technique, but I just wanted to put out there as a possibility.

Now if you want to have reversed Tarot cards in your deck, then what I suggest for shuffling is:

Shuffle like hand-over-hand – the typical way of shuffling
Then split the deck into three piles
Choose one of those piles and turn it 180 degrees – so you are almost turning it top down to bottom, and bottom up to top (Not turning it over so you can see the cards. You are just turning it the other way so that you are getting some reverse cards)
Then put those three piles back together again
Shuffle again
And then you are good to go!

Now in terms of actually selecting the cards, there are many different ways that you can do it.

You can have the one pile, and take the top card off the pile – now, again, people ask me: Which is the right way? Should I be flipping it from the top of the card? Should I be flipping it from the side?

It really doesn’t matter, as long as you set the intention that that’s what you are going to do, and that you trust that the way that you are doing it is just right for that situation.

So that is one way of taking it from the top of the deck.

Now another way is to fan the deck on the table, and then draw cards one-by-one, out of that fan. I really enjoy that method when I’m doing shorter, quicker readings. When I’m doing more complex readings – say 10 cards or more – then I will typically take it from the top of the deck.

Again, it’s really up to you and what resonates and feels right for you.

Read the Cards and Tell The Story

The cards are now on the table, and we are ready to go with the actual Tarot reading.

Can you believe it takes four steps to get to that place before we are actually getting in there and reading the Tarot cards?

So for Step 5 I’m going to do a sample reading so I can walk you through how we actually go about reading the cards and telling the story.

So coming back to our question, which was: When will I find my dream man?

I’m just going to do a very simple Past-Present-Future Spread – so three cards.

And I’ve laid out the cards and what I have here is:

The Queen of Wands reversed in the Past
The Wheel of Fortune reversed in the Present, and
The Queen of Swords reversed in the Future

Very interesting!

The first thing that you want to do when you’re reading the cards and telling a story is: Scan the reading.

Without diving into individual card meanings and so on, all I want you to do is have a look at the overall picture that you’re seeing across all cards.

Now you might start to pick up a little bit on the energy of the cards: Does this feel like a positive reading, or a negative reading?

You might start to look for patterns and themes across the cards. So, for example, are you seeing more Major Arcana cards or Minor Arcana cards?

Are there more Swords than there are Cups? What does that mean?

Are there more Aces, Twos, and Threes, which signify the start of a cycle; or are there more bigger numbers like Eight, Nines, and Tens, which signify more of a completion of a cycle?

Now as I’m looking at these three cards, two things stand out very much.

One is that all three cards are reversed. On one level we could interpret that as obstacles coming up when it comes to finding love, but I also see reverse cards as an indication of needing to reflect inwardly. In relation to this question, when will I find my dream man, having three reversed cards tells me, “You know what, you need to do some inner work before you’ll find that man.”

And the other pattern that I’m seeing here are the two Queens.

Now, you know, if this was a female client asking, and we had two reversed Queens, that would again tell me there’s a lot of inner work that she needs to do first, before she’ll find her King, for example.

So let’s get into, reading each of the cards. You might notice my mind just naturally goes into creating connections, but I want to bring it back down to simplifying these steps. The easiest way to do it now is to start reading each card, and then we shall start creating some connections.

So, Queen of Wands reversed – remember this was in the Past position – what we can do is, we can think: Well what does the Queen of Wands reversed really stand for?

Well sometimes that’s about being a little bit more introverted than it is about being extroverted. So upright the Queen of Wands – very extroverted; but in this case she’s quite introverted.

And in the Past you might have been quite introverted when it comes to finding love.

In the Present we have the Wheel of Fortune reversed. Now this can mean a turn of events sometimes not in your favour. Or, alternatively it might also be this turn of events that leads you to feel some internal changes happening. That is very consistent with what we are seeing across this whole reading.

Then finally we have the Queen of Swords reversed in the Future position.

Sometimes this can be about not thinking so much with the head, but starting to think more with the heart; and balancing out that sort of head thinking and the heart thinking.

So we are starting to build a picture with these individual cards, and many beginner readers will probably just leave it at that and say, “Okay, reading done,” but what I want you to do now is to encourage you to look for connections.

Now as I’m looking at these cards overall, the strong message that I’m getting is this: That there’s been sort of a period of introspection with that Queen of Wands reversed. The Wheel in the middle is kind of like this wheel of change – this wheel of internal change, starting to shift and adapt one’s personality a little bit; because we’re dealing with two Court cards on either side, and two Queens which is an indication of the client’s own personality. So it might just be a shift and a change in one’s personality in order to attract the right mate.

So how am I creating these connections?

Well, again, I’m looking at those key themes, but I’m also looking at the imagery. I’m looking at the flow between the imagery in the cards. With the wheel in the middle, I am imagining this cycle turning, and the Queens are on either side, rotating. In a way, their personalities are changing as time progresses.

So, again, I think I could probably do a whole podcast episode on how to tell the story in the cards, and I will, but for now I just want you to…

Look for connections within the cards
Look at how the imagery and how it relates between each card
Think – how do the themes flow and evolve from one card to the other when you’re reading all card?

Answer the Question

Once you’ve made those connections, then you can start to tell the story in the card, and relate it back to the question; because Step Number 6 is: Answer the question.

I think often times, as Tarot readers, we can get so carried away with symbolism in the cards – you know, the deeper meanings, the messages, and so on, that sometimes we can actually forget to answer the question that was asked! So I have actually placed it in here as a stand-alone step to remind you to always come back to the original question, and answer that question specifically.

So, the question here was: When will I find my dream man?

Well, specifically, the answer within these cards would be: You’ll find your dream man once you’ve done the inner work, because right now, if you were to attract your partner right now, I don’t think you’d be in the right space in order to create a healthy and fulfilling relationship. What I see in these cards is that, first you need to do that inner work. And it may require retreating a little bit. Not going on so many dates for now, and thinking about what changes you can make to your own personality in a way that makes you feel really great about yourself. And also that starts to connect your head with your heart, so that you’re not always leading by your heart, or not always leading by your head, but there’s a nice balance in between. Once you have those factors right, then you’ll be much better set up to find your ideal partner.

So you can see how that might work. We’ve taken the story out of the cards, and we’ve gone back and we’ve answered the question.

Reflect and Ask For Feedback

Now, Step 7 is: Reflect and ask for feedback.

So if you’re working with someone, then you might wrap up the reading and say, “How does that resonate with you? What fits and what doesn’t fit?”

Because there may be parts of the reading that they say, “You know what, that just doesn’t make any sense to me.”

And that’s okay – when someone says, “That doesn’t make sense,” then it isn’t necessarily that the reading is wrong; it just is that it doesn’t make sense right now.

I always suggest people come back to their readings after a few weeks or a few months, because things change and evolve and become clearer over time.

If you’re reading for yourself, then I really suggest writing down your key insights from your readings; and then coming back to them over the next few weeks to see:

Well how did things really transpire?
What has that taught me about the Tarot cards?
What new things can I learn here – both about the Tarot cards and the actual situation that you read on?

Because, again, new things come up in those readings that may not have been visible to you at the time of the reading.

So really make sure that you spend time on reflecting and asking for feedback, whether that’s from the person that you’ve read for, or even from yourself.

So there you have it – those are my 7 steps to an accurate and insightful Tarot reading. So:

Create the space
Get to the heart of the question
Choose the layout
Shuffle the cards
Read the cards and tell the story
Answer the question
Reflect and ask for feedback

Now I really recommend that you get that PDF download that I’ve created just for you with all seven steps on there. And if you like, print it out and stick it up where you do your Tarot readings, so that you never lose sight of those seven steps.

I bet that once you start using those seven steps quite consciously and mindfully, your Tarot readings will be amazing. It’s kind of like riding a bike – you might start to consciously work through those seven steps when you do your next Tarot reading, but after several times of using the seven steps, they’ll become so natural and in-flow that you won’t need to refer to that anymore. It will just be a part of how you read.

Wrap Up

So there you have it. I hope that that has been really helpful for you and your Tarot readings. I want you to know that if you’re ready to take your Tarot readings to the next level, and you want to tap into the Divine Guidance that’s available to you, then I invite you to check out my signature program which is Read Tarot with Confidence.

My online Tarot course, Read the Tarot with Confidence, is specifically designed for aspiring Tarot readers who want to reach their fullest potential as a Tarot reader, and be the Tarot reader that everybody raves about.

So using simple yet powerful techniques, I will show you how to read Tarot in a way that creates change and transformation in your life and others’. And I’ll guide you as you set your intention for what type of Tarot reader you really want to become – and I’ll be right by your side as you turn your intention into reality.

I’ll walk you through, step-by-step, how to do a Tarot reading, including asking the right questions, choosing the perfect spread, weaving the story into the cards, and connecting deeply with your clients (or yourself) through Tarot.

And I’ll teach you not only how to read Tarot for yourself with clarity, but how to read for others in a way that is has a lasting impact and inspires deep transformation.

And, of course, I’m going to let you in on my “insider secrets” from my 15+ years’ experience as a professional Tarot reader.

If that sounds of interest to you and you want to find out more, go to biddyTarot.com/rtwc

After you enroll in the program, you’ll get instant access so that you can start learning straight away.

So I hope I’ll see you in the program, and I look so forward to speaking with you again in our next Biddy Tarot podcast.

Thank you so much for your time and energy today – I am absolutely honoured to be a part of your Tarot journey, and I look forward to next time.

Thank you and good-bye.

The post BTP8: 7 Steps to an Accurate and Insightful Tarot Reading appeared first on Biddy Tarot.

Major Arcana Tarot Spreads

Ever wondered what your life purpose is? Or ever wanted to delve deep into who you really are? Reading the Tarot cards can certainly help to shed light on these ‘soul searching’ questions, but one of the most powerful ways of answering these types of questions is to use a Major Arcana Tarot spread. In this blog post, I talk about how you can use the Major Arcana in your Tarot readings and spreads in a way that will help you to answer some of life’s more important questions.

Understanding the Major Arcana

The Tarot deck comprises 78 cards, 22 of which are Major Arcana cards. The Major Arcana cards represent a path to spiritual self-awareness and depict the various stages that are encountered in the search for greater meaning and understanding. These cards typically highlight the Universal forces and energies that are at play and that have a long-lasting impact on your life journey. Accordingly, the Major Arcana represent meaningful life lessons and offer deep insight from the collective unconscious .

Using only the Major Arcana cards in a Tarot reading is therefore incredibly powerful and insightful, particularly when you are in search of answers that relate to major life events and influences.

Major Arcana Tarot readings can generally be conducted in one of two ways:

Use only the Major Arcana cards for any Tarot spread of your choice.
Use a Tarot spread specially designed for the Major Arcana cards.

Using Only the Major Arcana Cards in Any Tarot Spread

You can certainly use the Major Arcana for any Tarot spread (as long as it is less than 22 cards!). However, my recommendation is to save these powerful cards for Tarot readings that are of great significance and importance in your life.

We know that the Major Arcana cards relate to Universal energies that are present in our lives and often reflect the deeper life lessons that we must encounter before we can transform ourselves and progress to the next stage in our lives. We also know that the Major Arcana cards point to aspects of our spiritual and psychological selves. So, in choosing a Tarot spread that is appropriate for the Major Arcana, we need to keep these aspects in mind.

Consider using the Major Arcana cards for the following types of Tarot spreads:

Spiritual and/or psychological Tarot readings
Personal growth and transformation Tarot readings, such as the Sacred Mandala
Yearly forecast readings
The Celtic Cross

You may also want to use the Major Arcana for questions that are of significant importance. For example, it may be appropriate to use the Major Arcana cards for a simple Past/Present/Future spread if the question is, “What life lessons do I need to learn?” or “What do I need to know about myself?” Look for questions that are associated with Universal or long-term influences.

Using a Tarot Spread Specially Designed for the Major Arcana
Oswald Wirth’s Major Arcana Tarot Spread

This is a five-card-cross spread, using only the Major Arcana cards. Designed by Oswald Wirth, this spread has been featured on Mary Greer’s blog. The original spread is set up as if you are facing a court of law and your ‘case’ is being decided by the judge. However, in an attempt to make it more practical and applicable, I have adapted this spread somewhat. In this form, it can be used for any type of major decision, choice or situation where you want to understand more about the pros and cons and the result or outcome.

Card 1 (left) – What is in favour of the situation.
Card 2 (right) – What is against the situation, and hostilities that should be avoided or feared.
Card 3 (above) – Weighing up the pros and cons and clarifying the decision that needs to be made.
Card 4 (below) – The result or solution, and what may come about as a result of your decision.
Card 5 (centre) – This card is determined by adding the numbers of the first four cards and reducing to 22 or less. (The Fool is considered 0 when adding the cards, and 22 when it is the result of the addition.) This card is a synthesis of what has gone before, and points out what is of prime importance on which everything else depends.

Circle of Eight Spread

The Circle of Eight spread was initially designed by Charles San, author of “How to Read the Cards”, and was also adapted by Mary Greer.

Shuffle the Major Arcana and deal six cards face down on top of each other. Turn the seventh card face up – this is the Significator and represents you in this present moment. Return the other six cards to the bottom of the deck.
Deal two cards face down and turn one card up, placing this third card at the 10 o’clock position (relative to the Significator). Do this seven times placing every third card in a counter clockwise circle around the Significator. Eventually, you will have seven cards surrounding the Significator card (eight cards in total).

The Circle of Eight spread highlights the ebb and flow of your life. There are no set positions as such, but rather a combination of Major Arcana cards that create insight into the energies that are present in your life.

22 Card Spreads

The idea of the 22 Card Spread is that you can take an existing Tarot spread and increase the number of cards drawn to total 22 cards so that every Major Arcana card is laid out in the reading.

For example, this method can be applied to the Celtic Cross. To create the 22-Card Celtic Cross Spread:

Draw one card each for Positions 1 and 2 (the significator and the crossing card).
Draw three cards each for Positions 3, 4, 5 and 6, such that the first card of the three is strongest, while the other two cards modify it.
Draw a pair of cards each for Positions 7, 8, 9 and 10. Consider each card in the pair equally.

Some More Alternatives…
The Major Arcana Spread (using the full deck)

While searching on tarotforum.net, I found a great spread that uses the Major Arcana to create the spread itself. That is, each position is related to each Major Arcana card. The difference, however, is that the full Tarot deck is used – not just the Major Arcana cards. Here’s the basic layout:

Card 1 – The Fool – The initial journey

Card 2 – The Magician – Actions that need to be taken

Card 3 – The High Priestess – Mysteries that need to be uncovered

Card 4 – The Empress – Sources of creativity and abundance

Card 5 – The Emperor – Required structures

…and so on until all 22 cards are laid out.

Major / Minor Arcana Spreads

Instead of just using the Major Arcana cards for a favourite Tarot spread, you may choose to separate out both the Major and Minor Arcana cards. To start, split the deck into Major Arcana and Minor Arcana (resulting in two decks of cards). Shuffle both decks and choose a Major and Minor card for each position in the selected Tarot spread. For example, if you use the Celtic Cross, place both a Major and Minor Arcana card in each of the positions.

The advantage of this method is that the Major Arcana card identifies the broader energies that are influencing you while the Minor Arcana card identifies how this is affecting you in the here-and-now. It is almost like you are looking at the situation from the high level, helicopter view as well as the more detailed, specific view.

Hopefully you’ve picked up some new and useful insights into how to use the Major Arcana in your Tarot readings.  Why not try it out with the beautiful, clear imagery of the Everyday Tarot Deck?

 

The post Major Arcana Tarot Spreads appeared first on Biddy Tarot.

BTP34: 5 Sure-Fire Ways to Answer Yes / No Tarot Readings

 

>> DOWNLOAD THE FREE PDF: FIVE SURE-FIRE WAYS TO ANSWER YES/NO TAROT READINGS

Love it or hate it, you’re going to get asked a yes/no question or two at some point in your Tarot reading career.

Will I move house? Am I going to get the job? Is my relationship going to end? You name it. Those kinds of yes/no questions are coming your way – trust me!

So how do you respond? Do you say, “No way, Jose, my Tarot cards can never give a yes/no answer?” Or do you jump at the challenge and whip out your deck and answer straight away?

In today’s podcast, I’m going to give you 5 sure-fire ways to answer yes / no Tarot readings.

You’ll learn:

A fast and simple way of giving a yes or no answer
How to provide a yes or no answer – without taking away free will and the power to create your destiny
What Tarot cards mean yes, and what Tarot cards mean no
How to avoid getting yourself in a pickle with a predictive Tarot reading

Let’s go!

Additional Resources

Join the Biddy Tarot Community for even more great tips on how to read Tarot


Podcast Transcript

Brigit: You are listening to the Biddy Tarot Podcast, and this is Episode 34: Five Sure-Fire Ways to Answer Yes, No Tarot Readings.

Intro

Welcome to the Biddy Tarot podcast, where you will learn how to connect more deeply with your intuition and live an empowered and enlightened life with the Tarot cards as your guide.

Listen as Brigit and her guests share their very best tips and strategies to help you read Tarot with confidence. And now, here is your host Brigit Esselmont.

Brigit: Hello and welcome back to the Biddy Tarot Podcast. Love it or hate it, you’re going to get asked a Yes or No question or two at some point in your Tarot reading career. Will I move house? Am I going to get the job? Is my relationship going to end? You name it, those kinds of yes, no questions are coming your way, trust me. So how do you respond? Do you say no way José, my Tarot cards can never give a yes or no answer? Or do you jump at the challenge and whip out your Tarot deck and answer straight away?

Well, in today’s podcast I’m going to give you five sure-fire ways to answer yes or no Tarot readings.

But before we get into it, I want to say a big, big thank you to everyone who sent in a review and shared their feedback and comments about the Biddy Tarot Podcast. I am so, so thrilled to read through all of your beautiful comments and just remember you can also support the Podcast by going into iTunes and leaving an honest review.

Here are two five-star reviews that have been left recently and I’d love to share them with you just to celebrate and honor the feedback that’s being shared.

This is CA Newsome from the US who says:

“The best Tarot teacher ever. I’ve been reading Tarot off and on for 45 years through teenage experiments and even a brief stint working for Mrs. Cleo and I’ve never felt so confident and connected with the process as I have since Brigit’s started this podcast. Brigit is knowledgeable, loving and an excellent teacher, this is one of my drop everything and listen podcasts. Thank you, Brigit.”

Oh my goodness, thank you, that’s awesome, I’m so excited.

We’ve also got another review from this person’s name is Threestarformoi who’s from Australia and she says:

“Biddy’s podcasts are a fabulous way to get an introduction to Tarot. I first downloaded her ebook that was a wealth of information, it had everything I needed. I bought a few books, which weren’t nearly as helpful. The book is really well set up and easy to follow. And these podcasts for me are the next step. Biddy’s knowledge and advice is incomparable. I’m a big fan. Thank you so much for sharing so much information in an easy to understand way.”

Awesome, thank you, and thanks to everyone who’s leaving such great reviews. I really, really do appreciate it and again, if you haven’t had an opportunity to leave a review, please do so by heading over to iTunes.

All right, so let’s get into Yes or No Tarot readings. I want to make sure that the next time you’re asked for a Yes or No Tarot reading, you’re not freaking out, you’re not going: “Oh my goodness, I don’t want to do that.” You’ve actually got a few techniques in your back pocket that you can use.

But before I get into these techniques, I want to have a little chat about, should we be doing Yes or No Tarot readings in the first place. There’s a lot of different ideas around whether this is a good thing for the Tarot or not. And even whether the Tarot is the right tool, does it really give you accurate yes or no Tarot readings?

So, here’s what I think, the future is not set in stone, so it’s really up to you to create your future. We can see something at a particular point in time, so it might be sort of a yes or no at a particular point in time, but as time progresses and as we make different decisions then that answer can indeed change over time. So, even though, like the present moment might be a no, your actions might change it to a yes and vice versa.

So an example that I often use is this one, if you wanted to know if you’re going to buy a house and you drew your Tarot cards and it said: “Yes, yes you’re going to buy a house.” You think: “Awesome, I’m going to buy a house, I don’t need to do a thing, it’s just going to happen.” And then you sit there and you do nothing, and you go: “Well the house said it was going to be here in June, and where is it?” And June passes and there’s no house. Well, clearly if you don’t take action then the result from that Tarot reading won’t occur. I do think it’s important to remember that we have free will, we make decisions, we take actions and that can indeed change whether a Tarot reading is a yes or no.

Then the other thing is that I really do believe that Tarot offers a whole lot more depth rather than just answering a question yes or no. The beauty about Tarot is that it really uncovers what’s underlying a situation, what’s going on around a situation, what energies are present, what actions you can take, and so on. For me I believe that there’s so much more that you can do with the cards then just simply go yes or no.

So you clearly know what my preference is, I prefer not doing yes or no Tarot readings and instead I prefer to use the Tarot cards to explore options and identify the actions that you can take. /but I’ve been asked, many times, for a Tarot reading that will give a clear yes or no answer and instead of just blanketly saying: ” Nope, don’t do it,” I like to be able to give a response but in a way that also honors the way that I see the Tarot and how I like to use the Tarot. So, I’m going to help you today with these sure-fire ways to give a yes or no Tarot reading so that if you’re ever put in this position of someone wants to know yes or no, you’re not just saying no straight away, you’re actually helping and doing your absolute best to use the cards to answer questions.

Here are a few techniques that you can use from the most basic to some more advanced techniques. All right, shall we get into it?

And actually before we do get into it, let me just remind you that if you head on over to BiddyTarot.com/btp34-yes-no-tarot-readings, you’ll find a reference sheet for how to do yes no Tarot readings. And I go through the five different techniques here as well as a couple other helpful resources and you can download that and have that in a handy place for when you do yes, no Tarot readings. Plus if you head on over to BiddyTarot.com/btp34-yes-no-tarot-readings, you’ll also be able to access the show notes and the transcript.

Ok, so let’s look at technique number one. This is super basic and all you need to do is look for an upright card or a reverse card. So an upright card would mean yes and a reverse card would mean no. Now of course you’ll want to make sure that your deck has a balanced mix of upright and reverse cards and to do that you can always cut the deck, turn the cards kind of 180 degrees from top to bottom, and then reshuffle again. Do that a couple of times so that you get upright and reverse cards and then when your draw the card for the question, if it’s upright, then it’s yes, if it’s reverse, it’s a no. It’s a really, really simple technique but it also does give you a simple answer. So let’s keep looking at a couple of other techniques that might give you a little bit more depth to your yes or no question.

Technique number two is to identify what cards in the Tarot deck refer to a yes and no or a maybe. Quite simply, you get your Tarot deck and go through it one by one and place the cards that you feel are more likely to be yes in one pile. In another pile you’ll have your no cards and in the third pile you’ll have your maybe cards. And so, for example you might flip over the Sun, well the Sun is pretty positive, so I’d be putting that in a yes. Maybe you flip over the Tower in which case that might be a no. Or the Seven of Cups, where the guy is faced with all of these choices that might be more of a maybe.

So go through all of the cards one by one and pop them into the piles and then make a list of the cards that you’ve put into each pile. And that’s really your personal list of your yes and no cards. And I think that it’s really important that you decide this list before you do a Tarot reading and then stick with it, otherwise you might be a little bit tempted to change the answer according to what you want to see in the Tarot reading.

Now if you’re thinking: “Holy moly, Brigit, how am I going to sort through 78 cards and put them in their exact piles?” Well, I have done some of the work for you and if you head on over to BiddyTarot.com/34 you’ll find my downloadable PDF with the list of cards that I think form a yes, no or maybe. So you can also download that and use that. Now you might look at my list and go: “What? Why did she put that card there?” And that’s ok if you don’t resonate with the way I’ve organized the cards, I definitely invite you to personalize it for what you feel is right for your Tarot readings. Remember, there is no sort of hard and fast way of whether a card is yes or a no. Ok, so that was deciding your yes and no cards.

The third way to do a yes or no Tarot reading is to look at what’s favorable or unfavorable. Now, this is really starting to tap into this idea that the future is not set in stone and I really struggle to be honest with saying a definite yes or a definite no when it comes these kinds of questions and using the Tarot. So, I tend to use, I guess more flexible language when I’m doing a yes or no Tarot reading. You might like to say: “Well this situation is favorable or the situation is unfavorable.” So, that’s instead of saying a yes or it’s a no, by saying it’s favorable or it’s unfavorable because that’s leaving a little bit of room for things to move and change and shift as they do in normal natural life. You can also use other language like it’s likely or it’s unlikely or it’s very unlikely something along those lines and again it gives you that little bit extra wiggle room so that you’re not giving a definite yes or no because again if you’re like me you might feel some discomfort in saying a definite yes or a definite no. Ok, so that was technique number three.

So, now we’re starting to get into the last two techniques, a little bit more advanced but really if you’re new to Tarot then these techniques aren’t completely out of reach it just takes a little bit more thinking space as you’re doing your Tarot reading. So stick with me.

Ok, technique number four is yes, if, no, if. Here’s what I believe, I believe that the yes and no answers in Tarot are often conditional, so it might be yes if this thing happens or yes if this particular situation is the way it is. So basically what we’re trying to answer here is what needs to happen for this to be true. For example if you say will I buy a house this year? And the card you draw is Seven of Pentacles, all right so that might be, you might think the Seven of Pentacles, that sounds like more favorable, it might be on your yes list, in which case you say: “Yes, if,” and as you’re saying the yes, if you’re interpreting what that card means. So, yes if you’re willing to put in the work over the long term and yes, if you’re willing to save money and you use your savings. So that’s one example.

Now, let’s say for that same question, will I buy a house this year? And maybe you draw, let’s see, maybe you draw the Tower, so again the Tower might be on your no list, in which case you might say: “Well, will I buy a house this year?” No, if something unexpected happens and so you’re starting to think: “OK, so it’s looking unlikely that I’ll buy a house, maybe because something else is going to happen that will put things upside down a little bit.” So, that’s a handy technique if you come from a perspective that the future is not set in stone and that there are often conditions around a yes or a no answer.

Now here’s a sort of an extra technique with the “yes, if, no, if” technique. When you’re doing a yes or no reading, you might actually draw one card for yes if, and another for no if. Let’s say we’ve got, again, will I buy a house this year? And you draw a card for “yes if” and maybe it’s the Seven of Cups. So, in this case it might be yes, if, if you have a number of options and you’re exploring a lot of different options. So that’s kind of telling you if you want to buy a house this year, you need to make sure that you’ve got lots of different options, maybe you’ve got to go to quite a few different auctions or you need to really keep your options open. Then you draw another card for no, if and maybe you get a no, if Three of Wands. Now in this case it might be a sign that you might actually be looking at moving overseas or traveling overseas so you might not buy another house if you decide to go and travel overseas. I think that can be a really interesting way of responding to yes and no questions, because now you’re starting to really tap into the potential of the Tarot cards which shows you more of the options that you can take and leaves that decision making up to you as the client or the reader, well as the client really. So I really do encourage you to try that out so draw one card for yes, if and one card for no, if.

Alright, so the final technique is a little bit more fluid and it’s not so structured as the one’s that I’ve just been sharing with you. And this is just a simply interpret the card. You might ask a question here again, maybe it’s like: “Should I move house?” in this instance and you draw the Six of Swords. Now, the Six of Swords might be on your no list of cards that mean no, but because you’re asking a question around moving, you might now look at the Six of Swords and go: “Well actually this person is moving, they might not be particularly excited about moving, you know we see that mother and child in the boat and the man’s rowing the boat across the water and they kind of don’t look too happy about it but it’s happening, they’re moving.” In this case it may be a signal that yes in fact you should move house, of course, that’s a whole other podcast topic around should and so on and not making decisions instead letting the Tarot make the decision for you. But in this case if you ask should I move house and you’re getting the Six of Swords, you might actually interpret it as a yes, so this is a good technique if you are comfortable with some ambiguity and uncertainty in your Tarot readings and you’ve mastered the Tarot card meanings in such a way that you can read more fluidly. Of course if you’re thinking about this and going: “Oh my goodness, how am I going to know what the Six of Swords is really meaning for me?” then use one of the previous techniques that I’ve walked you through, that has a little bit more structure to it. And that’s perfectly ok.

That was our final one, just to interpret the card according to the question and just be aware that it might be a little bit more fluid and flexible than those previous techniques that I’ve shared with you.

So, there you have it, those are five sure-fire ways to answer yes or no Tarot questions and just as a quick recap. We had one, was to read an upright card as yes, reversed as a no. Number two is to decide before you do any Tarot readings which cards are yes’, which cards are no’s, which cards are maybe’s and then just stick with that. The third technique was to look at more around using flexible language, so is something favorable or unfavorable, likely or unlikely and to phrase your Tarot reading that way. The fourth is to look at yes, if; no, if to use more of a conditional technique and even draw two cards that show you yes, if; and the other card would be no, if. And finally to interpret the card, so keeping really flexible around what that card might mean and how it will answer your question.

So, how exactly do you do a Tarot reading a yes or no Tarot reading, well, here’s the thing, simply ask your direct question that has either a yes or no answer, shuffle the Tarot cards and draw one card only and that is your answer. Of course, you could do that sort of yes, if, no, if two card spread but in general I suggest just draw card only to keep it nice and simple and straightforward.

Now there are a couple of things to keep in mind as you’re doing this yes, no Tarot reading. One is to be disciplined, don’t keep drawing extra cards if you don’t like the answer. I know it’s tempting, I’ve been there before but you really do need to set some rules and boundaries that you just draw one card and that is your answer.

Number two is be prepared, don’t ask the question if you don’t want to know the answer. Recently I just jumped online I thought I wonder what is out there in terms of yes or no Tarot readings and as a computer generated Tarot reading, I have different perspective on that but I asked: “Will my out coming launch be successful?” And it gave me a no and I thought: “Oh stuff that, I’m just going to switch that off and then I thought come on Brigit, you shouldn’t have asked the question if you didn’t want to know the answer, don’t ask the question.” So just remember that for your Tarot readings and also for your clients make sure that you actually want to know what the answer is no matter what that answer is.

So, number three, just be careful because if the yes or no question is weighted towards an unwanted outcome you may need to refocus that question. So for example, someone might ask: “Am I going to lose all my money and be poor for the rest of my life?” And you’ve got to think, ok, if the answer to that was yes, yes you’re going to be poor for the rest of your life, does it really help you? Is that really the question you want to ask here? Or do you actually want to know how do I make sure I’ve got enough money to sustain my lifestyle or to live comfortably? So just be careful of those questions that rare weighted towards an unwanted or negative outcome.

And number four, just watch out for those double or triple questions, so you might of noticed the one that I just gave you, for example in this question: “Am I going to lose all of my money and be poor for the rest of my life? ” You’ve actually got two questions in here. One is am I going to lose all my money? And two is am I going to be poor for the rest of my life. When you want direct yes or no answers then you need to make sure that you have just one question in the question, so it might be in this case: “Am I going to lose all my money?” Well then draw a card for that. And then: “Am I going to be poor for the rest of my life?” Draw a card for that, of course keep in mind do you really want to know the answer to this and will the answer be helpful for you? Could there be a different question actually that you want to ask that will be more helpful?

There you have it, I hope you’ve got some great techniques now under your belt so that when you’re asked a question in Tarot that requires a yes or no answer, you’ve got a couple of techniques that you can use and instead of running for the hills and going: “Ahhh, I don’t do that kind of reading,” you now have something you can work with and experiment with.

Even if you have been avoiding yes or no questions, why not just try it out for the next couple of readings to do a yes or no reading and see how it sits with you, try these different techniques. Find one that works best for you or maybe even decide after trying all five that no, that’s not your thing and that’s ok because you’ve tried it out and that’s what matters the most.

I Hope that’s been really, really helpful for you. Now if you really enjoyed learning more about how to use the Tarot cards then you’re going to love the Biddy Tarot Community. Just imagine a place that is just filled with amazing people who love to read Tarot just as much as you do and who are eager to learn to become confident and intuitive Tarot readers. Inside the Community you’re going to find discussion forums where you can ask your questions and get answers, you’re going to find Tarot 101 video course to help you learn the basics of reading Tarot, plus you get access to monthly live Tarot tutorial webinars with me and you get ongoing support and mentoring as you begin to really get into Tarot and learn how to use it in your life and others. If that sounds like something you’d be interested in, I would love to see you in the Biddy Tarot Community, head on over to BiddyTarot.com/community and you’ll find out all of the details.

I want to say a big thank you for listening. I’m so honoured and thrilled to be in your ear buds or in your ears talking about Tarot and sharing the Tarot love. Can’t wait to connect with you again soon, thank you and good-bye.

The post BTP34: 5 Sure-Fire Ways to Answer Yes / No Tarot Readings appeared first on Biddy Tarot.

9 Sure-Fire Ways to Select a Tarot Deck That’s Right for You

Whether you’re a Tarot beginner or a seasoned expert, choosing a Tarot deck can be incredibly overwhelming.

There are literally hundreds of different Tarot decks to choose from, all with their own symbolism, energy, stories, mythology and artwork.

So, where do you begin? How do you sift through the vast array of choices to find your perfect Tarot deck?

Here are 9 sure-fire ways to select a Tarot deck that’s perfect for you.

1. Look for a Personal & Intuitive Connection With the Cards

The absolute number 1 way to choose a Tarot deck is to find one that you personally and intuitively connect with.

Your best friend might rave about the Wild Unknown deck, but if every time you go to do a Tarot reading with those cards you break out in a sweat and go blank, then it’s not the right deck for you.

And if your Tarot teacher swears by the Rider Waite deck, but you’re totally in love with the Fairy Tarot Cards, then go with the Fairy Tarot Cards.

If you’ve got a new age shop or bookstore nearby, go to the store and handle all of the Tarot decks that are on display. What energy do you pick up from the deck? Is there a personal connection between you and the Tarot cards?

And if you’re looking to purchase your Tarot cards online, then do a quick Google search and look through the card images to see if you’ve got a connection.

Go with your intuition!

2. Explore the Imagery of Each Card

Take a good look at the Tarot cards within a specific deck. Go through them one-by-one or, if you’re viewing them online, find as many images as possible via Google or even Instagram (just search for #fountaintarot, for example).

What is your first reaction to the images? Do you like the colours and patterns? Are you drawn to the images and the artwork? Are there other variations of the deck that are more appealing? For example, I much prefer the Radiant Rider Waite deck over the usual Rider Waite deck for its bright colours.

Also, can you look at the cards and start to get a sense for the meaning of each one? Look at both the Major and Minor Arcana cards. In some decks, like the Tarot de Marseilles, the Minor Arcana cards do not have the same kind of imagery and ‘story’ as the Rider Waite deck, for example.

It’s important to view as many of the cards in the deck as possible as I’ve known some Tarot decks to have a handful of gorgeous cards, but the rest of the deck has not been as visually appealing.

3. Consider Your Experience Level

If you’re new to Tarot, you may prefer to start learning with the most popular Tarot deck, the Rider Waite deck. It’s easy to understand, the imagery is straight-forward and practical and there is a huge amount of information available for this deck. Or you may prefer a deck with clear, minimalist imagery like the Everyday Tarot deck, for ease of connecting with the symbols.

On the flipside, if you are more experienced or you’re looking for a new challenge, then you may choose a deck like the Thoth Tarot deck for its complexity and depth. Or a more abstract, mythical Tarot deck like the Shadowscapes Tarot.

Of course, don’t be limited by thinking that if you’re new to Tarot, you can only read with the Rider Waite deck. You need to also consider if you have a personal connection with the cards.

4. Decide If You Want to Go Traditional Or Modern

Are you fascinated by the old, traditional Tarot decks like the Tarot de Marseilles, the Visconti Tarot, or the Original Rider Waite Tarot deck?

Or are you drawn to the modern (and often independent) Tarot decks such as the Wild Unknown, Fountain Tarot or Starchild Tarot?

Personally, I LOVE the new Tarot decks that are emerging right now. The artwork is beautiful and the imagery is relevant for modern times. (When was the last time you saw a Knight roaming the streets?!) In fact, I love them so much that I created my own! For an insight into how a Tarot deck is created, have a listen to my podcast chat with Eleanor Grosch, who created all the beautiful artwork for the Everyday Tarot deck.

5. Check out the Little White Book

Most Tarot decks will come with a book explaining the artwork and the Tarot card meanings. However, some decks have more information than others. And some may have no information at all!

If you prefer knowing exactly what a card means and why, then make sure you check out the Little White Book that comes with the deck to see if it gives you what you need. Or, if the accompanying book isn’t enough, look online to see if there is a blog or an eBook that explains the cards in more detail.

On the other hand, you might be quite content discovering and interpreting the Tarot cards via your intuition and energetic connection, in which case, having no book might just be a blessing!

6. Find a Size That Fits

Different Tarot cards come in different sizes. You’ve got to choose the size that’s right for you.

Giant Tarot cards may be great for group Tarot readings or parties. Regular Tarot cards may be better for face-to-face client readings or personal readings. And mini Tarot cards are perfect for fitting into your handbag for a Tarot reading on the go.

This is particularly important for when you handle and shuffle the cards. If the cards are too big or too small, they may be too clumsy for you or your clients to handle. So, before selecting a deck, handle the cards and practice shuffling them.

7. Consider How You Want to Use the Tarot Cards

Think about what kinds of Tarot readings you want to do and how you want to connect with your Tarot cards.

Are you trying to find peace and calm in your life? Then the Osho Zen Tarot may be the perfect deck for you.

Do you want to connect with your inner goddess? Then consider the Mythical Goddess Tarot or the Goddess Tarot decks.

Have a passion for earth-based ritual and practice? Then check out the Druid Craft Tarot Deck.

The beautiful thing is that there are so many Tarot decks from so many different backgrounds, you can find a deck that’s perfect for your personal needs and desires.

And if you’re professional Tarot reader, consider having a number of different Tarot decks on hand, depending on what is best suited energetically for your client and situation.

8. Check for Quality

Most Tarot cards will be of a good thickness to ensure that you can continue using them for many years.

However, there may be some cheaper reproductions that are not high quality and the cardboard may tear easily or become damaged much more quickly. Best to avoid these cheaper types if you are planning on using the Tarot cards regularly.

9. Don’t be Afraid to Buy Your Own Tarot Cards

There’s a rumour going around that Tarot cards should only ever be gifted to you and that you can’t buy your own.

Well, phooey!

I would much prefer to purchase a Tarot deck that I know is a perfect fit, than wait around for someone to give me a deck that may be just totally ‘off’. So don’t be afraid to buy your own Tarot deck rather than waiting for someone to give one to you.

Of course, there’s nothing to stop you from dropping a few hints at Christmas or birthday time about the decks that you love the most…

Ready to Find Your New Favourite Tarot Deck?

You’ll find most Tarot decks (including my new Everyday Tarot deck) on Amazon.com right here. Or you can check out your local new age shop or bookstore to get a real feel for the deck that resonates with you.

The post 9 Sure-Fire Ways to Select a Tarot Deck That’s Right for You appeared first on Biddy Tarot.

BTP146: What’s Next for the Biddy Tarot Podcast?

In this episode of the Biddy Tarot Podcast, Brigit opens up about her creative process and journey with the podcast so far. You’ll get real insight into why it’s time for a pivot, and hear Brigit’s thoughts and plans for the Biddy Tarot Podcast.

 Additional Materials

Stay in touch through the Biddy Tarot Community

Transcript

Intro: You’re listening to the Biddy Tarot podcast, and this is episode 146, What’s Next for the Biddy Tarot podcast? 

 

Welcome to the Biddy Tarot podcast where you’ll learn to connect more deeply with your intuition, and lead an empowered and enlightened life with the Tarot cards as your guide. Listen as Brigit and her guests share their very best tips and strategies to help you read Tarot with confidence. And now here’s your host, Brigit Esselmont. 

 

Brigit: Hello, and welcome back to the Biddy Tarot podcast. Today is a special episode where I want to give you an important update about what is next for the Biddy Tarot podcast. Now the short answer is, I don’t know. Now, you might be thinking, “What? Why is she recording an episode about I don’t know what’s next for the Biddy Tarot podcast?”  

 

Well, I want to explain things a little bit to you. So let’s go right back to the very beginning of the Biddy Tarot podcast. It started in January 2016, and when I hit record on that very first episode, my intention was to start a podcast really to start a new conversation about Tarot and intuition, and a conversation that was grounded in practicality, reality in our daily lives, and giving a sense of how we can integrate Tarot and intuition into our everyday lives, how we can make it more normal, how we can make it just part of how we do things. 

 

I also wanted to talk to some of the leading voices in Tarot and intuition so that we could start these engaging conversations about where Tarot is taking us as a collective and individually. So I absolutely feel like over these last, well, two and a half years, the podcast has certainly helped to open up this new conversation around Tarot and that is super, super exciting. And in fact we’ve had over a million downloads over those two and half years, and over 200 five star reviews. That is crazy good and I’m super appreciative. 

 

We’ve also recorded 146 episodes. That’s crazy because apparently only 2% of all podcasts make it to their 100th episode, and I think it’s a real huge achievement to make it this far to 146 episodes. Crazy pants, right? So, I want you to know I’m incredible grateful for all of your support and also for the impact that this podcast has had on so many people. I know that each time you’re listening to this, you’re allowing me into your little earbuds and into your brain so that we can talk about Tarot, and we can have a more open conversation about what it means to live in tune with your intuition. So again, I thank you so much for being a supporter of the Biddy Tarot podcast. 

 

Now, this is where things get a little bit real, because whilst I have thoroughly enjoyed creating this for you, I have also reached a kind of plateau point, and I’ve started to feel my energy around the podcast starting to shift and change. So, here’s the thing. Whenever I, like in my business, whenever I’d had a moment, it’s not really a moment, a period of time where I feel like my energy has changed, I know that I’ve got to pay attention. I could try and think, okay, no I’ve just got to push through, I’ve just got to get it done, but I know that when I do that, I end up in a place that’s completely out of alignment. So for me this state in alignment, it’s really important for me to honor and listen to those feelings, and I’m sure you can relate as well. 

 

So let me just talk a little bit about what’s been going on for me, and this is not meant to be like a big whingefest. I don’t want this to leave you feeling bad or me feeling bad. It’s certainly not about that. However, I do think it is important to be open and honest, and vulnerable about what goes on when you create something like a podcast that goes out to so many people. 

 

So, if you know anything about me, you’ll know that I am very efficient, very productive, very driven and I just get the job done. So when it came to the podcast, the way we worked it as a team was we would batch produce the podcasts. In fact, we would do 13 episodes in one go, not in one day, thank God, but it might end up 13 episodes, you know, over the course of a couple of days in terms of recording it. 

 

And so for example, the episodes that we’ve just recently wrapped up, I recorded those right back in, I don’t know, probably late May, early June, and whilst this whole process is incredibly productive and efficient, and it means that we always get our podcasts out on time in a really steady reliable way, like you know that you can depend on us to have the podcast there and ready to go, it actually does stifle creativity and it stifles being in flow. So let me talk a bit about that. 

 

I remember like in the very first days of blogging, you just kind of like wake up and you think, oh should I blog, should I not, what shall I blog about? Something really interesting happened today, and it’s as if you’re pouring your little heart out in the blog, but what starts to happen over time is you set schedules, you have people that are relying and depending on you to show up, and it starts to become more about getting the job done. Which is fine. That’s how you run, like, in my opinion that’s how you run a business. You get the job done, but you also need to be able to balance that with maintaining a bit of play, a bit of fun, and creativity. 

 

So I found that over time this batch production schedule has left me feeling a little bit stifled when it comes to creativity. I feel like I’ve got to think of the topics that I’m going to talk about months in advance, and it’s got to be all strategically aligned to what we do and what’s being launched at the time, and all of this good stuff, right? It’s all important for business, but again, I’m getting to that point where I think, oh, I just, this isn’t quite feeling right. In fact, I’d look at my calendar and it would say, okay, you’ve got six podcasts to record today and I think, oh, what a drain.  

 

Of course, now don’t get me wrong, I jump onto the mic and every time on the mic I am giving it my absolute all and I’m giving you everything that I’ve got, so much goodness and so much value. But it’s the kind of the lead-up to that and thinking oh, I’ve got to do this, I’ve got to do this, and feeling exhausted after I’ve recorded all of those episodes. So I think certainly this batch production has been challenging the last few months, and I’ve really noticed the impact it’s had on my own levels of creativity. And it’s led me to start feeling like this is becoming a bit of a chore for me, and it’s something that you know I might be putting off or not really looking forward to.  

 

And like I said at the start, I’ve got to honor these feelings. It’s okay to feel a little bit exhausted and burnt out, and it’s okay to start changing for your energy to change around things, where maybe it’s just no longer as inspiring as it used to be. That’s all okay. The important thing that is, that you actually listen to it and you honor those feelings, and you do something with it. 

 

I know that if I just push through it, I would just, I’d probably be in a very different state of mind, really resentful, and you know, as I said, out of alignment and that’s certainly not how I like to live my life, and it’s certainly not how I like to run my business, because I want to make sure that I do feel in alignment with everything that I’m doing.  

 

Now, the other piece that’s sort of come up for me as I’m reflecting on what’s feeling different around the podcast is I don’t know, it’s hard to explain this, I just feel like a sense of completion. I feel like this is now complete, and if only like when I started in January of 2016, we could have had seasons. I’m thinking back in time that’s the one thing I’d change is have seasons, because I think it’s very normal and natural for something like a podcast to have a shelf life or to have an endpoint. 

 

And what we often do like when we’re starting podcasts, and I know this because I have quite a few friends who have podcasts, we started thinking yeah, let’s do it, and we don’t really think about what’s our exit strategy. How do we kind of wrap this up with a little bow at the end, because we think oh, there’ll never be an end. We’ll just keep going forever, but nothing goes forever, right? 

 

So I’m kind of getting to that point where I feel like you know what? This feels complete, this feels done. It feels like I’ve poured my energy into this, and now I feel good about it. And I also think what happens is when you write a book, and for me, like I’ve just written a traditional book, traditionally published book, and I’ve got two other books that I’ve self-published, so that’s three books on Tarot. And I kind of feel like you pour your heart into these books, and then it’s done, it feels complete.  

 

And I want to be clear here. I’m not saying here like I’m incomplete, like I’m leaving Tarot for good. That’s certainly not my intention. Tarot will be with me forever, and Biddy Tarot will be with me forever. It’s more about just thinking what’s this next evolution? What comes next, because I feel like this expression through the podcast, it feels complete in its current form.  

 

So, you might be wondering, well, what’s next, and to be honest I’ve been asking this for many months. In fact, I was probably meant to record this podcast episode many months ago, and I have just continually put it off. In fact, I actually just recorded this episode about half an hour ago, and even that, it didn’t for whatever reason, thanks universe, it decided not to record that full episode. The recording didn’t work. 

 

So it’s kind have been something I’ve been putting on or off, and it just hasn’t been something that I’ve really wanted to do to say like this is complete, but it is important that I honor it. Now, where am I going with this? Okay, that’s right. 

 

So, what, like, what happens next? This is what I know. I know that I’ve got to sit in a void. I’ve got to sit in that place where I am in the nothingness, and I am in the silence so that I can hear the voice of my inner wisdom and my inner guidance, and then I will start to understand what will come next. Now, if I get into busy mode and start doing stuff, and thinking well, how can I change things up, or trying to enforce or implement things when I’m clearly not ready, then I know that I’m going to be out of alignment. 

 

So, that’s why I want to just sit in this space of the void, and really tap into what is coming next for the podcast or whatever it might be. I just don’t know. And here’s the thing with the void. Think about the lunar cycle. You have the full moon where you are fully expressing yourself. You’re out there, you’re radiating, you’re illuminating, you’re shining your light and putting yourself out there, and that’s certainly been these last two years with the podcast. 

 

And now I feel like I’m starting to enter the phase of the dark moon where you withdraw and retreat a little, and you’re going to your beautiful dark restful space until something else begins to emerge. Or it’s even like the winter cycle where those seeds might be in the ground. They’re just starting to germinate and start like little shoots are forming but it hasn’t come through the earth just yet. That’s how I feel about this podcast, and what’s coming next. I know I can feel like there’s something changing, but I just don’t have that shape and form around it just yet. 

 

So, I know that I’m sharing a lot with you, and I almost feel like you deserve, you deserve an explanation. You deserve to hear what my thought process has been. And also I wanted to share this with you in such an open way because no doubt you’re going through a similar experience or you’ve been through a similar experience, where you’ve had something that’s a creative project, and maybe you’ve kind of run out of juice, or just feel like things are starting to shift and change in a whole new direction. 

 

So, I want this to be opportunity for you too to step into that void if you need it, and don’t be afraid like, not to like turn off something even though it might be something that has a huge impact. It’s okay to turn these off so that something new can emerge from that space. 

 

So, what does this mean for you? Well, here’s the thing. The Biddy Tarot podcast has 146 episodes including this one. So if you haven’t listened to all 146 episodes, I strongly recommend going back to the start or back to wherever you haven’t listened to, and go and listen to these podcasts. This is the thing, like even though in real time this is kind of a closing out episode, it’s like you have this big general reason of Biddy Tarot episode that you can listen to, so please make the most of all of the podcast episodes that have been recorded. I think you will absolutely love them. 

 

Now, I’d also love to stay connected with you through the Biddy Tarot website and our social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest. Just look out for Biddy Tarot on those platforms, and if you want to continue the conversation about Tarot or connect with our Tarot lovers, or even jump on live calls with me and learn Tarot with me, then I highly recommend our Biddy Tarot community. Now you’ll find that over at biddytarot.com/community. It’s likely it will be on the wait list, so please sign up for the wait list. You’ll also get access to a special free training, and of course you’ll be the first to know as soon as we open up the doors again.  

 

You know, if it’s not the community, then I highly recommend our Tarot classes as well. There’s Master the Tarot Card Meanings, and Read Tarot with Confidence. You’ll find that all over at biddytarot.com. 

 Now, please stay tuned because who knows what might come next. It might be a new kind of podcast. It might be, I don’t know. You know what? I should stop forcing myself to try and think of what it is because really that is the essence of sitting in the void, right? It’s sitting in that, in the nothingness and the not knowingness, so, okay. I’ll just give myself a tap on the nose to remind myself to stay true to that, but yes, stay tuned because whatever emerges, I will let you know.  

 

But for now I want to say a huge, huge thank you for all of your love and support. Thank you for being a loyal listener of the Biddy Tarot podcast, and I hope that you can continue to make the most of these podcast episodes. And also continue to bring Tarot and intuition into your everyday life in a really powerful magical way. So for now, I will say goodbye, and I hope to connect with you again very, very soon. Okay, bye for now.

 

The post BTP146: What’s Next for the Biddy Tarot Podcast? appeared first on Biddy Tarot.

The Daily Tarot Card – Start Your Day the Intuitive Way with Tarot

If you’re a Tarot beginner or even someone who just wants to improve your ability to read Tarot with confidence, it can seem very overwhelming to try and memorise all of the meanings of each card so you get your readings right. The good news is that you don’t actually have to have all of the card meanings memorised to give quality, accurate readings to yourself and others! 

Tarot is all about tapping into your intuition- and trusting what comes up. One of my favourite ways to practice this is an exercise called the Daily Tarot Card, where you do just what it sounds like: pull one card every day for yourself and see what kind of guidance you get from it.  

Start Your Day Differently

Instead of reaching for your phone first thing in the morning, start your day off right by tuning into your intuition with your Tarot cards.  The act of having a ritual sets your day up for success, while the Tarot card makes you more intuitive by working as a tool to nudge your mind in the right direction.  

It gives you a starting point- a message- that you can take in whatever way you are feeling called to. Listen to the first thought that pops into your head when you think about the Tarot card you pull – it’s likely your intuition guiding you to the message that is exactly what you need to hear at that moment. 

Enjoy the Benefits of a Daily Tarot Card

When doing this activity, you’ll also start to see other amazing benefits, like making better decisions when you are able to see things more clearly. You’ll also be making decisions from a more intuitive place instead of seeking external validation – which means the decisions you make will be right for you. Plus, when you are starting your day off with a ritual that makes you feel good, you’ll feel more capable of handling difficult decisions if they arise. 

You’ll also have clearer insights that allow you to create a life you love, and you’ll go through your day with more purpose and intention.  If you stick with this ritual, you’ll begin to notice your intuition getting stronger, making life more enjoyable and empowering you to live the life you want. 

Getting Started

So how do you get started? Let me break it down for you…  

At the start of the day:

Ask, What do I need to know today? By asking this question, you’ll be able to tap into what your intuition is trying to tell you as you go about your day. This question is general enough to leave the card open for personal interpretation, based on what’s going on in your life currently and what comes to mind when you do this activity. 
Pull a Tarot card Tap into the energy of the card, and start to listen to your intuition. Allow yourself to feel into what the card might be trying to remind you of. 
Reflect on what it might mean for you Think about the ways the card might be reminding you of a situation, relationship, or issue that you need to pay a bit more attention to. What energy is the card bringing up for you? Consider these things as you determine what the card might mean for you in this moment. 

During the day:  

Look for people, events and situations that represent the card Keep the message you intuitively received that morning in the front of your mind, and keep an eye out for any situations or things coming up that speak to that message. If you aren’t sure about what the card means for you – simply be aware of anything that might remind you of the card you pulled, even if you’re not sure of the reason why just yet. 
Bring the card’s energy into your daily activity This can be a really fun way to incorporate Tarot into your day. Think about the type of energy that was present with the card you pulled, and find ways to “act out” that energy. For example, if you pulled the Six of Pentacles, you might see how you can be more generous, giving, and maybe even go out of your way to do something nice for someone else. 

At the end of the day:  

Reflect on what happened throughout the day Take note of anything that happened that reminded you of the Tarot card you had pulled that morning or any situations that happened because of the energy this activity was bringing into your life.  


Write down any new insights about the Tarot card Based on what you intuitively found from the morning’s activity and how you feel your day went after reflection, write down any information you’ve figured out about the card and how it affected your day. As you do this regularly, you will create a powerful, unique guidebook that you can use to determine what types of energies certain cards bring to someone’s life and what that can mean. 

The Long Term Effects

Over time, this activity will give you the chance to deep dive into each card, while building up your very own personalized meanings all in one place. It’s also a great way to establish your dedication to your Tarot practice and immerses you in Tarot on a daily basis. 

In fact, it’s a very efficient practice! One, it gets your day off on the right foot. And two, you’re learning Tarot at the same time! 

Doing the card-a-day exercise is a great way to create personal meanings of the cards because you don’t have to memorise a thing- you simply realize over time, what the cards mean for you. Then, when you do a reading for yourself or others, you can simply recall your experience from the card-a-day activity and bring that message into your reading. 

You can also try implementing this FREE fillable Tarot keyword chart to keep things easy every day:

>>Download your Free PDF Keyword Chart Now

Get Creative!

You don’t have to stick to the daily question, “What do I need to know today?”  

Here are six other questions you can ask your Tarot cards each morning to get your intuition flowing: 

What energy is affecting me this morning? 
Where can I focus on today for a great day? 
Is there anything I need to let go of today?
What can I do to improve [situation] today? 
How am I presently living in alignment? 
Where am I presently living out of alignment?

 

Or add your own favourite questions that set your day out on the right foot. 

Digging Deeper with Your Daily Tarot Card

If you want to really dig deeper into this activity and learn to tap into your intuition as a guide for each reading, check out my book, Everyday Tarot: Unlock Your Inner Wisdom and Manifest Your Future.

There’s something really important that I want you to get from all of this: This isn’t a chore. This isn’t homework. Pulling a card a day should be fun.  

You could do this activity when you sit down to have your morning tea or coffee, or when you’re laying in bed in the morning, just being quiet before you spring into action. It’s this tiny little ritual that begins your day from a beautiful place. 

A place of creation. A place of receiving. A place of wonder.  Sounds good, right? 

If you’re keen to learn more ways to integrate Tarot into your everyday life, you’ll find lots of information, spreads and rituals in my  book Everyday Tarot: Unlock Your Inner Wisdom and Manifest Your Future.

 

The post The Daily Tarot Card – Start Your Day the Intuitive Way with Tarot appeared first on Biddy Tarot.

BTP145: Running a New Age Shop with Juju Owner Leslie McAllister

 In this episode of the Biddy Tarot Podcast, you’ll hear all about Leslie McAllister’s path to opening her successful and much-loved metaphysical store Juju. Leslie also treats us to her fascinating beginnings with Tarot, which she was first exposed to by her great-grandmother.  You’ll hear how she uses Tarot professionally and in her everyday life. 

 Best of all, Leslie shares some awesome advice for people who are just starting out, and who are also going into more of a professional Tarot reading career. 

 Additional Materials

Shop-juju.com 

Transcript

Brigit: You’re listening to the Biddy Tarot Podcast and this is episode 145, Tarot Today with Juju owner Leslie McAllister.  

Leslie: Welcome to the Biddy Tarot Podcast where you’ll learn how to connect more deeply with your intuition and lead an empowered and enlightened life with the Tarot cards as your guide. Listen as Brigit and her guests share their very best tips and strategies to help you read Tarot with confidence. And now, here’s your host, Brigit Esselmont.  

Brigit: Hello and welcome back to the Biddy Tarot Podcast. Today I have a really special guest and her name is Leslie McAllister. She is the founder of the new age store, metaphysical store, Juju, which is in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the USA. Now we first came across Leslie probably about a year ago and, we were reaching out to different and deep bookstores, and Juju was one of the places we wanted to share our Biddy Tarot Planner with, so our team contacted Leslie and said, “Would you love to take the Biddy Tarot Planner and sell it through your store?” And it was like, “Yes, definitely.”  

So that was really neat. And then what was also really neat was, well one of our team members, Laura, is also in Pennsylvania or near Pittsburgh I should say, and this is one of Laura’s favorite shops too. She loves going and getting her crystals here, and learning more about all of the different metaphysical arts and so on. And so Leslie is like, almost like a member of our little Biddy Tarot family as well. So, it’s an absolute joy to be able to meet with her, and talk with her today about Tarot, and in particular what Leslie is seeing as different Tarot trends, where Tarot’s heading, not just now but also in the future, and also how Leslie’s working with her own Tarot reading clients. She shares some awesome advice for people who are just starting out, and who are also going into more of a professional Tarot reading career.  

And lots more good vibes, and also good Juju. So let’s get straight into the interview, and here we go, here’s Leslie. 

Well hello, Leslie, it is so exciting to have you here on the podcast. How you going today?  

Leslie: Doing well, doing very well. Happy to be here.  

Brigit: Awesome, well we’re happy to have you.  

Leslie: Cool. 

Brigit: So for those people who don’t know much about you, just tell me a little bit about your background, and particularly you know, how you’ve come to create Juju and do all this awesome stuff that you do with Juju. 

Leslie: Oh, okay. Well I started in music school, and I went to Berkeley College Music in Boston, and was there for a couple years. Really enjoyed it, and then wanted to go back to school for fashion merchandising. So I came back to my hometown of Erie, Pennsylvania, and I went to Mercyhurst University, where I studied fashion merchandising. And was, I’ve kind of always been drawn to the fashion industry and the artistic expression of just layering different patterns and textures of clothes, and did that, and then started running a thrift shop and was collecting vintage clothes for a long time. And started working for a big bank as an executive assistant in wealth management.  

They were really great to me, but my soul wasn’t where it needed to be, and so I just felt like such a need to leave there and start my own thing. And I was selling vintage clothes online, and I had this three to five-year plan of moving to Pittsburgh and opening up a brick and mortar, of what I thought would be, at the time, a vintage clothing store. But my Tarot readings were becoming more popular. I was doing more professional readings for people and it kind of became this calling that I needed to mix the two of them. And so, when we moved to Pittsburgh with my guy, I started searching for a place to open up the shop, and it took a really long time to find that.  

But as I was doing that, I continued to do readings, building my clientele, creating a name and a place for me in this big wonderful community that Pittsburgh has. And in 2016, March of 2016, I opened up Juju. 

Brigit: Yeah, awesome. And is it everything that you had ever imagined and dreamed of, or I guess, I mean there’s always like little hills along the way. 

Leslie: It’s bigger than I imagined. It’s been, it’s so incredibly well received, and I mean every day of my life in that shop, I drop to my knees in such gratitude because the wonderful people that come into the store, it just blows my mind. There’s so much love, and this community is so embraceable, and you know, it’s a small town but it’s a bit town, and it’s just created this little orb of love, it really has, it’s pretty cool. And so yeah, I mean Juju has absolutely exceeded my expectations, and she’s constantly growing and teaching me what the community needs, what people are reaching out towards, and what I need to bring to them. So, it’s been awesome.  

Brigit: Fabulous, I’m so happy to hear. So, I mean given that you’ve had, like with Juju you’ve got a lot of access to all sorts of different people. Tell me a little about some of the trends that you might be seeing, and what are people coming in with? Like what do they wanna know, what do they wanna buy? What are some of these bigger, sort of new age trends? 

Leslie: Absolutely, well I’d like to like speak to, oh geez there we go. I dropped my crystals on the floor.  

Brigit: Classic. 

Leslie: Oh man, oh God. 

Brigit: We’re not taking that out of the edit, that’s for sure.  

Leslie: I mean, so there you go, that’s me. There we go. 

Brigit: That’s everyday crystals, right there. 

Leslie: It’s the truth. Okay, so I wanted to talk real good, before I get into the trends. There’s this thing that has been brought to my attention about Pittsburgh, which I just recently found out, golly I think it was like December or January, that back when the Mayans had predicted that the calendar was ending, which was December 21st, 2012, there was reference of a geographical point, where three rivers were converging and it’s Pittsburgh. And so, I’m still learning more about what this means, but there have been confirmations. Even the Dalai Lama confirmed that Pittsburgh is this new spiritual center. There is a woman here, Vikki Hanchin, who’s a psychotherapist, and she’s been really leading the way with this research, and she says there’s this alignment that’s happening in Pittsburgh since 2012, that’s bringing us and shifting us to this higher consciousness, and she speaks to a thousand years of peace and love aligning the universe as one. From Pittsburgh. 

Brigit: From Juju probably no doubt. It’s like right under your store. That’s awesome. 

Leslie: Rose quartz that just exists like in the rock bed underneath the shop, but it’s an amazing thing, and this, I truly believe that this is why people are beginning to wake up to this, because I’m seeing traditional clients, right, so traditional clients would be crystal lovers, and readers, light workers, energy healers. But I’m also beginning to see, especially in the last year and a half, non-traditional clients, which are like my old self. Bankers, and lawyers, and analysts, and techies, and you know, wanting to tap into what is a Tarot reading? They’re crystal curious. They wanna know, “Oh, you know I know what rose quartz is, but what else can I get into?” 

And trends to is they’re wanting to learn, so Juju’s more often to building sort of a teacher community. Teaching classes on Tarot, on elemental magic, on crystal, using your intuition with crystals, using plant allies for protection. It’s so cool, and people want more of it. And I’m just so thankful that, and I’m not alone, I’m not the only shop in Pittsburgh. There’re a handful of us in this community that are really supportive of one another, but I can speak from my own experience that they’re interested, folks are coming in. Big businesses, you can go online and get what you need, your kind of, you know, your daily basics. But small businesses like being a reader, or selling crystals in your shop, it’s more of a one on one soul connection.  

And sure, people can Google, what is rose quartz, or how to read Tarot, but it’s so much cooler to walk in and be embraced by someone who’s warm and bubbly like myself, and be able to create that experience to guide them through. To talk from my experience, too. So that kind of speaks to the trends that I’ve seen. Pittsburgh’s just waking up, and I think so many, so many small cities, big cities are waking up, because I’ve got folks coming in from a lot of little rural areas around Pittsburgh. I’m just so thankful to be able to be here doing it, and have a space to share.  

Brigit: Yeah, I think we’re here at the right time, do you know what I mean? Like you I feel there’s a huge shift, and it’s taking on new meaning. Like, say for example, I know that like Tarot, it’s been around for hundreds of years, and I know in the 60s, it sort of had a bit of a resurgence, but I think there’s something new happening right now in these last few years, and it’s similar with other metaphysical subjects as well, like the crystals, and energy healing, and so on. It’s just, I don’t know. I don’t know what it is quite yet, but there’s something blossoming and blooming in a beautiful way, and in a way that is like fueled by acceptance, and inclusiveness as well. There’s not the whole kind of, oh you know it’s like you have to be the master of this thing, or you have to know every single thing about it. It’s more like, it’s okay to have a bit of this, a bit of that, and include that in your general lifestyle. So it’s neat, exciting stuff. 

Leslie: Yeah, I agree, I agree. 

Brigit: And we get to be kind of like the midwives of this, in a way. 

Leslie: It’s so true, it really is. And I’m a big believer in even after all of the years that I’ve been doing it, I still don’t consider myself an expert. I’m constantly learning, and I love to be able to share that with my folks. Because I think we’re all collectively as a team learning what we all need to learn, and come together as a community, and all of our strengths can really shine.  

Brigit: Yes. Yes, and I think one, we never stop learning, so I don’t really believe even in the idea of expert, like being an expert, because it sounds as if you have reached a certain point, which I don’t think really happens. And I think when you accept yourself as the dual role of teacher and student, you allow so much more space for possibility, and opportunity, and growth, and I don’t know, I just think there’s something that lights up when you take on that dual role, instead of just pure, “Hey I’m your teacher, you listen to what I tell you.” 

Leslie: Yeah, yeah, I just started to teach and it’s awesome, for lack of a better word, it is awesome to be … It’s a symbiotic relationship. You’re just bounding off of each other and you’re learning from each other and, yeah so I’m thankful that’s definitely, speaking to trends is, people are sponges for this information right now, and wanna learn as much as they can. I think that’s one of the biggest trends that I’m seeing.  

Brigit: Yeah, neat. 

Leslie: The need to learn. 

Brigit: Yeah. So tell me a little bit more about your connection with Tarot and how you use Tarot in your daily practice, or just general well being. 

Leslie: Sure. So personal connection, do you mean like what is kind of a little bit of history of how I came into it, and then is that kind of what … 

Brigit: Yeah, what attracted you to it? 

Leslie: Yeah, well my great-grandmother was a reader. Not a professional reader, she read for herself. She was really interested in metaphysics, astral projection, and out-of-body, and afterlife, and she was really into numerology, and she did our astrology charts when we were kids. And she passed when I was a little kid, so I only got to know her by way of her mystery, because she was very cool. But I really felt that when she passed on, she kind of handed that energy over to me. And I began to snoop around in her room, and I’d find her Tarot journals and all of her cool books. And I asked my grandmother, her daughter, if I could have them, and so this is about 12 years old when I started to really get into understanding what Tarot was. And it’s complicated. It’s especially complicated for a 12 year old kid. 

So I played around with it a little bit, was really attracted to the High Priestess Card, was mostly attracted to the symbology, the illustrations, the visual sort of inspiration of each card, and I played around with them for a little while, but set them aside at one point because they were complicated. But I wanted to keep that intuition flexed and so I started reading runes around the age of 15, and did that for a while. And started to realize that how much the runes and Tarot really mirrored and complimented each other, so it gave me the courage to start reading Tarot again. So that’s kind of my thing for folks too, if you’re starting to get confused with Tarot, set it aside, pick something else up, but keep that intuition strong, keep working with it. 

Pendulums, an oracle deck. Start small, begin to open up that third eye, and then come back to Tarot, which is what I did. Yeah, and it just kind of, you know I think it chooses you. I do, I never, I guess I never would have thought that I would become the reader that I am today, when I was 21-22. Hoped, I hoped I would be some kind of cool chick like that, but yeah I mean, it came, it just kind of came to me one day, and I was like, “I can’t stop this, I have to keep going.” So that’s kind of my personal sort of history with it. My connection to it, I was self taught. Nobody, you know back when I was learning it, it was not a cool thing to do. It was not even really popular at all. And so my sort of care and feeding of my Tarot deck, became this real relationship that I entered into.  

I would sleep with my cards at night, and wrap it in beautiful vintage silk handkerchief that was my grandfather’s, and just begin to feed it that respect that it needed, and it began to answer back to me. And yeah, so I just kind of stayed with caring for it, feeding it, and my intuition grew with it. And then I felt the courage to start reading for friends, and then I felt the courage to start reading for strangers, and then I felt the courage to start making it a business.  

Brigit: And when you started reading for strangers, was that for payment, or was that more like free for experience?  

Leslie: First it was, when strangers, it was for experience. And then when I turned it into a business, then I began to use it for payment. 

Brigit: Yeah, yeah. I’m just curious, so now that you have it more as a professional thing, do you still have the same passion for it, or has it changed?  

Leslie: Oh my God, oh my God, no. I, even today, I was almost broke into tears. I’m like, “You guys just know me so well.” It’s a thing. No I still love it, because I thought, I have heard of people getting a little burned out, and I do check in with myself about that. How are you feeling about it? Are you still excited to read, and I am. Because every time I read, you know you talked about how do I use in my everyday life. I don’t read for myself every day. Which I think is rare. But I think that I did, but I don’t as much. When I was getting to learn the language, I was with the cards constantly, reading every day, looking at the images, and now I feel like my, I’m reading to heal and help other people, but it’s in the healing and helping other people that I’m getting my answers every day. It’s so cool, and that’s why I love this tool so much is it really does connect you with folks, and your people, and the relationships that I built with clients have been wonderful. 

I do read about four to five days on average of the week. Monday, I try to rest completely but I’m usually researching or reading books about it. But yeah, it is reading for people every day, I rarely pull a daily card. But I go in and out of phases. Like I kind of feel like I might be getting back into doing that again, but it really is more like that connection with people, and those themes. Weekly themes, it’s like one week, everybody’s having a major meltdown, I don’t know what to do with my life. The next week, it’s like, I don’t know if I should stay with my boyfriend or leave him, and then the next week, it’s like, I think I need to completely change my job. So it’s so cool to see all these different themes.  

I feel so special to be able to be at this vantage point, to see us as a human species, and how we’re really … and the one thing too I’m always saying to folks is, you’re not alone. If you’re feeling scared right now because you’re going through a tumultuous time, have the solace in knowing that you’re not alone in this, because I’ve seen five or six other people this week, myself included, and we’re all going through it. So I feel like I have an opportunity to kind of calm a little bit too in readings. See these faces. 

Brigit: Yeah so in that vein, I guess as a Tarot reader, like we all think Tarot readers interpret cards and put together a reading, but it sounds like there’s so much more going on for you when you’re reading. 

Leslie: Yeah, yeah. You want me to walk you through what I normally do in a reading?  

Brigit: Yeah. Tell me.  

Leslie: So I’m not a … I don’t think I’m a traditional reader, because I am self taught, so when I sit down with the cards, I don’t do any spreads. I’ll start a consultation or a reading and I’ll explain that this is like spiritual therapy, and this is an open dialogue, and I’m a fast reader, and I’m a goal oriented reader, so my thing is, I tell them, “You paid for your time, this is about you.” You interrupt me, you ask me every single question that comes to mind. You are not going to get me off track. And I always say, “My goal for this reading is for you to leave clear, confirmed in where you’re going, and having a direction or a game plan.” And so, lot of people have, are like, “Well, Tarot is this mysterious thing,” but it’s like the best problem solver out there, in my opinion. You know? It’s like this baseline for problem solving. It is magical and mystical and really, really cool. But it also is an excellent way to kind of cut through and see what the focus really needs to be on.  

So I kind of give them that speil in the beginning, and then my good friend Kelly taught me to do this mind, body, spirit with folks, so I call it taking your spiritual temperature, and it just allows me to break the ice with them, and it allows them to break the ice with me. They get to understand my language, and I get to kind of understand what’s going on below the surface with them. And I’ll tell you what, with those three little cards, we can unearth so much stuff, as I’m sure you know.  

Brigit: Yeah. 

Leslie: But it’s really cool, and so and from there, we begin to work through problem solving techniques. This or that, here or there, where’s your block, what’s your solution?  

Brigit: Brilliant. And so I think you had an example of helping someone, a client choose which college she should go to. Tell me a little bit more about that. 

Leslie: Yeah, yeah, yes, so she’s, so this was, it’s so funny because we anywhere at anytime, you know? So this was at, this is at a little shop at our mall here, and I was doing an event with them, and a gal came and sat down, and I immediately put people at ease, because they tend to be a little bit nervous. And so, I was like, “So, what’s on your mind?” And she’s like, “I don’t know, like I’ve never done this before, what can you do?” I’m like, “Well it’s a problem solver. What’s your biggest stressor, what are you feeling the most anxiety around right now, where do you feel the most tension in your life? And let’s kind of demystify that a little bit.” And so she’s like, “Well, I’m a senior in high school and I’m choosing between two really great colleges, and I don’t know which one to focus on.” So I said, “Perfect, this is excellent.”  

So I drew a few cards around college one, and a few cards around college two. And it brought her such clarity, because everything that I was saying about, let’s say college one was our star, or sort of like a star, not to be confused with this star, but our main runner, right? This was the one that looked like it would be more of an opportunity for her to flourish, and more of an opportunity for her to kind of settle into a community, and then also the opportunity for her to grow and get a great job afterwards. And she’s like, “You know what? That’s the one I’m leaning towards. That’s the one my dad wants me to go to, that’s the one my dad went to.” But, you know both of them created great options for her, but one of them is always gonna shine a bit more. 

Brigit: And- 

Leslie: Yeah and there was another, go ahead I’m sorry. 

Brigit: I was just gonna say, I think that’s a really neat example because it sounds like you, you’re not there to make the decision for her, and what you’re able to show her was, even if you went for option A or option B, both would bring great outcomes, but there might be a leaning towards one or the other. And then that’s also confirmed by her sense, so helping to link her up to her own intuition, and help her make the choice, versus, Tarot says option A, right? What else you got? 

Leslie: I love that you touched on the because that’s a big theme for me in readings, and often part of the conversation is, “You already know the answers. I’m here to just lift that veil for you and confirm it.” And that’s also why I love Tarot, especially with your Tarot planner. I love the fact that it’s something you can use every day, and it strengthens your intuition. Because you’re starting to realize, I know these things. And I love that Tarot illuminates that. It absolutely illuminates, wow I really am in the right track. I knew this all along. I guess I should listen to myself more. Really trust that intuition.  

Brigit: Yeah. 

Leslie: Yeah I love that.  

Brigit: Absolutely. So I guess you’re starting to see also a lot of people getting interested in Tarot, and then also starting to take on Tarot more as a profession, or for payment. How do you feel about that, as a professional reader yourself, as a teacher, as a member of a beautiful conscious society? What are your feelings about more and more people taking on that professional Tarot reader role? 

Leslie: I think it’s wonderful. I think it’s awesome. The more the merrier. The more in a community, the more amplified and focused the energy, and I’m for it all. And I, you know we need each other. We absolutely need each other more than ever. You know, I was talking about how, when we think about all the doctors, when we think about all the lawyers, when we think about all the yoga instructors, we’re all needed. And one of my very favorite themes about the universe, is that there is enough for us all. There is so much abundance in this world, and there is enough for all of us, and when we’re all beginning to do the same thing, it starts to create this beautiful community, this beautiful conscious community that you’re speaking of. And just even you and I connecting right now, this is all amazing. I never would have but thankfully we’re all part of it.  

You’ve created a platform for us all to come together which is a beautiful thing, but yes, I think it’s a good thing. I think it’s a great thing. I think it strengthens what we’re doing, and I think it brings, why do I wanna say like a credit to it I suppose? Strengthening that need more.  

Brigit: Yeah absolutely, it’s funny- 

Leslie: And we learn from each other. 

Brigit: Yeah, yes. I was just thinking with, well when I was putting together my business program for Tarot readers, A Great Tarot Business Online, I had a few of my friends say to me, “Are you sure you wanna do that?” I’m like, “Why?” “Aren’t you training people to create their own businesses, and what’s that gonna do to your business?” I’m like, “I don’t care about that.” I would love to have hundreds if not thousands of people going out there, shining their light in a really positive way, and changing, like changing the perception of Tarot. Changing kind of the value that they offer in the world, so yes please, like bring more people in. I wanna train more, more people, because I think that can only have a positive impact.  

And here’s the other thing, particularly with something like Tarot, we all have our own little magic ways of working with the cards, right? And you know what will be the right reader for one person is not gonna be the right reader for the other, and in fact the more people that we, the more readers that we have, the more choice people have and can connect into the right person for them. So, yeah I’m with you, there’s plenty to go around, and yeah. 

Leslie: Oh yeah, yeah, 100%, 100%. Yeah really, and the fact of the matter is, like I said earlier, we need each other. We really need each other, and I totally agree with you. My people are out there for me, your people are out there for you. But, it just, to create this sisterhood is a really beautiful thing. So I say go for it. 

Brigit: Yeah I think, poor all that energy into the collaborative spirit, the abundant spirit.  

Leslie: Absolutely. 

Brigit: And in fact, you know there’s a podcast I would love to do with you, which is really about choosing your tribe, and choosing who it is that you want to spend your time with, and this particularly feeds into it, being around people who are of the abundant mindset versus the lacking, there’s not enough, and so on. So I love communities and groups of people that see that abundance and can support each other, and hold that space for growth. 

Leslie: Yeah, yeah it amplifies it.  

Brigit: Most definitely. Awesome. So again, like as a teacher, you’ve probably come across a lot of people who are new to Tarot. What advice would you have for them as they’re starting to learn how to read Tarot, and then also take it into that professional place?  

Leslie: Yeah so for me, and probably for you as well, and for all of us, Tarot is a language. And so it really is about learning the language. So what, when we’re learning any kind of language, we do it as much as we can. Read for everybody, read for everyone, read for your friends, read for yourself, read for strangers. Anybody that’s gonna listen, sit them down and read for them, even if it’s just a few cards. And if you have to use that guide book, use the guide book, but the important thing to know is when to set that guide book aside, and then when to take the training wheels off, and really start to get into it, you know? And that can be scary but, you kind of intuitively know when it’s time to set the book down. And then, just begin to really sit and work with the cards. What is the story that’s being told here? What is the journey of The Fool? How do all of these cards work together, and like what intuitive cues are you getting. 

When I sit with my cards, I feel like they’re more of a visual cue for my Spirit Card, like they’re holding up these little cue cards for me. So get to that intimate place with your deck, where they become visual cue cards for you, so it’s more about … and then it allows you to really get into your own intuition as well. And then you’re trusting your intuition more and more, but yeah, bond with your deck, sleep with your deck … 

Brigit: Have a little snuggle.  

Leslie: Carry it with you, yeah. Yeah like really create that bond and that respect, but yeah, begin to read for everybody. And then start to maybe do parties for people where there are strangers, where you’re kind of getting to know strangers, because you kind of, you know when you’re reading for friends, you’re a little bit more informed. When you’re reading for a stranger, it begins a dialogue. And don’t be afraid to say to people, “The more that we discuss, the better I can give you a reading.” So yeah, like events and parties, and then you’ll feel stronger and stronger, and oh I think, never stop learning. We kind of started right off saying that, right? But also for me, I will take every advantage I can of being read by another Tarot reader, because when you’re also being read by somebody else, you’re beginning to learn.  

You’re learning through that whole process. You’re learning their style, you might take a little bit of their style and adapt it to your style and see what feels right for you. And I think the more that you communicate with others through Tarot, the more you’re learning, and the more it becomes a true language, and then you’re fluently speaking. And you’ll know when the time is right to kind of set off and start your own business, and start your own journey. Probably like the Fool, right? 

Brigit: Well yeah, you’re not really sure what’s on the other side, but you just go anyway, right? 

Leslie: Yeah, and sometimes I feel like it’s just, it is a push. It’s just that absolute magnetic push to just, it’s time. It’s time to begin.  

Brigit: Yeah. Absolutely. And I think your advice around seeing other readers and learning from those experiences is really important. Both for what you want to do and what you don’t want to do. I’ve had a number of readings and I’m like, “Okay, I’m not going to be like that.” I’m making a choice, yeah, and other times I’m like, “Whoa, he handled that really well,” you know, and then integrating that into my own practice, so yeah that’s good advice. And I guess, so what do you see is the future of Tarot over the next five, ten years? Where do you think Tarot is going from here? 

Leslie: Yeah, well this is exciting. I think that there is, I think we’ve come a long way with Tarot, and I think there’s a lot of longevity for Tarot as well. I think we’re just now scratching the surface, and I have to attribute a lot of that to you, and to also some of these amazing indie artists that are creating these modern decks with a modern take. There is no doubt about it, that there is a new way of looking at the deck. And I know a lot of artists have been changing some of the names, instead of judgment, it’s like awakening or rejuvenation, and I love that. You know I love this female spin on Tarot. It was originally a male created thing, so I really attribute a lot of the growth of Tarot to some of the beautiful decks that are coming out.  

I read with the Wild Unknown deck, but Dark Days Tarot, and Mesquite Tarot these beautiful, gentle feminine energies, and Spirit Speak is doing some beautiful things, and Holly Simple has got that really fun deck as well. So I just, I really attribute it to this community of artists that are representing a new inspired visual for us. I also think that when you think about what a fad was like yoga back in the day, look at where yoga’s gone now. I would like to see Tarot grow into lots of problem solving tools. I know that a lot of therapists are bringing it into their spaces right now, and I mean I say, it’s a beautiful way of kind of working through that kind of healing. Really I just feel like, I feel like it’s got some ways to go, I really do. I feel like I’m still gonna be reading when I’m 80-90 years old.  

Brigit: That’s neat, yeah. 

Leslie: I just feel like it’s in my life forever, I can’t escape it. It’s chosen me and I’ve chosen it back, so.  

Brigit: Yes. Yeah I think Tarot will continue to become more of an integrated tool. So let’s so much, less I kind of do reading, finish reading, done. But more like you say, integrated with a therapeutic practice. Integrated with other healing practices, where a Tarot reading isn’t just those 60 minutes that you’re set in front of the cards, but there’s a whole flow of events that happen around that reading. It’s almost like a full coaching experience. And I think we will probably see the Tarot cards come into places we haven’t expected like, maybe not board rooms just yet, but getting close, like maybe start up businesses. They might start having a bit more of the Tarot cards. Yeah I think there’s huge opportunity for it to be an integrated tool, versus a standalone tool.  

And that was certainly my vision like with the book, with Everyday Tarot, how do we start to express Tarot through our everyday life? And our everyday decisions, or relationships, or career and so on. Because I think that’s where it’s the most magic, because it just then flows into every cell, every part of your being in beautiful ways, so it’s exciting.  

Leslie: Yeah, it really is, it really is. I’m humbled everyday to be doing what I do. Humbled.  

Brigit: Yeah, that’s lovely. And Leslie, where can people find out more about you? 

Leslie: Oh my goodness, well I’m on Instagram at Juju_pgh. I do have a website that I’m making prettier, starting tomorrow, and email, I can give you, I’m jujupgh@gmail.com. But mostly Instagram is a tool that I use a lot, so I’m really good about getting back to people very quickly, vis a vis that sort of platform, and then there will be more information on my website as I begin to grow that, and build that up. And that is shop-juju.com.  

Brigit: All right, we’ll make sure, we’ll post those links.  

Leslie:Look at you … 

Brigit: So they’re crystal clear. So they’ll be over at, let me see, biddytarot.com/145 and you can get the exact links, and I bet by the time we actually publish, because we record this well in advance. By the time we publish you’re gonna have a gorgeous website. Actually is your plan to then sell online, will you have an online shop? 

Leslie: Yeah, yeah I currently sell just some rare sort of ritual vintage clothing right now on the site, but I will be putting more things up there. I think I have to. 

Brigit: Yeah, it’s an online world. 

Leslie: I think we just have to move that way. 

Brigit: And what about your course, are you gonna be doing online courses, or mostly in person?  

Leslie: I haven’t thought about that yet, but it’s not out of the question. Yeah, I’m just really getting the classes together, sort of IRL right now, and I am so open and just open to the guidance of where it’s supposed to go next, so yeah I wouldn’t doubt it. I’m not technically savvy, so these are lessons that I need to begin to learn in my life, so it need to happen. 

Brigit: Yes, it’s well worth it. And what’s the address of your store as well? 

Leslie: Yeah, so Juju is in a cute, cute, cute little neighborhood called Point Breeze and I’m at 6739 Reynolds Street. Pittsburgh, PA.  

Brigit: Awesome, and again we’ll make sure that address is also available in the show notes, just in case. Beautiful, it has been such a joy and pleasure to talk with you today, thank you so very much.  

Leslie: You as well. Thank you. I was so nervous and you just complete … like the second I saw your face, I was like, “Oh, I’m fine.”  

Brigit: Because it’s my coffee and sticks in the morning face. 

Leslie: No, you’re bright and fresh, and you’re radiant, and you’re smiley and giggly, and it just immediately put me at ease, so thank you.  

Brigit: Awesome, my pleasure.  

So there you have it. I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Leslie and I as much as I did. So nice just tapping into someone who has so many good, positive vibes around Tarot. I’m sure you could feel Leslie’s joy throughout the interview. Now, I wanna let you know that this episode of the Biddy Tarot Podcast has been brought to you by my book, Everyday Tarot. So, Everyday Tarot is a practical guide filled with actionable tips, soulful activities, and loads of Tarot spreads, to help you access your intuition, and manifest your goals and dreams in your everyday life. You’ll discover how to use the Tarot to manifest your wildest dreams, create love fueled relationships, set and achieve your goals, fulfill your sole purpose in work and life. Make important decisions, and bring the divine into your life through everyday rituals.  

Now Everyday Tarot is available right now for purchase. You can go to everydaytarot.com and choose your favorite book store, or you could also go into Leslie’s store like Juju or any of your favorite book stores that sell really awesome books and you’ll find it in there, and if you don’t you ask them why, and you ask them to stock it immediately. Now when you buy Everyday Tarot, you’ll also get access to the free Everyday Tarot Tool Kit, which includes even more Tarot spreads that I couldn’t fit into the book, and worksheets to help you work through the book as well. So check it all out. Go to everydaytarot.com.  

Awesome, well I hope you have a really good week and yeah, I look forward to talking again soon. Bye for now.  

 

 

The post BTP145: Running a New Age Shop with Juju Owner Leslie McAllister appeared first on Biddy Tarot.