Brigit Esselmont's Blog, page 28

All About the Aquarian Tarot Card Deck

All About the Aquarian Tarot Deck

In recent years, there have been hundreds of new Tarot decks coming onto the market and reshaping the way we see Tarot. We may think we’re all on the leading edge now, but did you know that nearly half a century ago, there was one deck that really turned the tables on how Tarot cards were seen? 

That deck is the Aquarian Tarot deck – one of the most popular decks from the 1970s. This beautiful deck combines Art Deco and Art Nouveau imagery with medieval depictions to create a unique aesthetic. The Aquarian Tarot was seen as cutting edge during its release in 1970 and it has become a classic and trusted Tarot deck many decades later, especially as we enter the Aquarian Age.   

In this post, I take a deeper look into the Aquarian Tarot deck – who created it, what makes it special, and how to interpret it in your Tarot readings.  

Who Designed the Aquarian Tarot Deck? 

Italian-born American-raised artist David Palladini released the Aquarian Tarot deck in 1970, when he was just 24-years-old.  Palladini received a degree in art and design from the Pratt Institute in New York City.  Beyond this iconic deck, his work spans posters, magazine covers, and children’s books.  After the Aquarian Tarot deck, perhaps his most notable work is an illustrated version of Steven King’s “The Eyes of the Dragon” 

Symbolism in the Aquarian Tarot Deck 

You’ll notice that the images on the Aquarian Tarot cards seem to be zoomed in, when compared to traditional decks like the Rider Waite.  Fittingly, the symbolism demands a closer look as it isn’t always apparent.  For example, the The Star card appears to be a huge departure from what you’d see in the Rider-Waite.  However, notice the bird and the eight pointed star. 

 Because of this, the Aquarian Tarot provides a more intimate feeling than what you find in other decks.  In many cases, the characters in the Major Arcana are so close that they seem to mirror the reader’s intent gaze. 

When you look at the characters’ expressions, they seem stone faced and introspective…which can be pretty frustrating during a Tarot reading!  But consider what they reflect.  They are lost in thought, when the solution or answer lies in their surroundings.   

Palladini said that the cards “explore man’s collective unconscious and its bearing on one’s personal life and growth.“  Indeed, some of the people in the cards to appear to be oblivious to what’s going on around them.    

Learn more about Symbolism in the Tarot Cards here. 

 Is the Aquarian Tarot a Good Deck for Beginners? 

I believe that the Aquarian Tarot Deck is best suited to intermediate Tarot card readers.  The imagery of the Aquarian Tarot deck has many traditional elements seen in beginner decks, but lacks many of the symbols found in decks like the Rider-Waite or Robert Henson.  It’s perfect for readers who have a basic understanding of the card meanings already, but might need a couple of reminders. 

However, the Aquarian Tarot Deck can also be good for beginners, particularly those who have an urge to dig deeper into each card.  While it doesn’t have all of the iconic imagery found in more traditional decks, it does present fantastic imagery that visual people may feel a strong connection to.   

The artist, David Palladini, believed that the deck can help anyone who wants to know themselves better.  He said that the Aquarian Tarot deck can point a person in a new direction and add a new dimension to one’s life experience. 

Are you having trouble choosing a deck?  Don’t worry!  Check out our 9 Sure-Fire Ways to Select a Tarot Deck That’s Right For You. 

Understanding The Star in the Aquarian Tarot Deck 

When you look at The Star card in the Aquarian Tarot Deck, you’ll notice that the traditional nude woman with her two jugs is missing.  Instead, you’ll find a majestic colorful bird facing away from us.  It rests on a bed of leaves and points towards a dominant star in the distance.   

For those who are very familiar with the imagery in the Rider-Waite version of the Star, the presence of a bird and greenery won’t be so surprising.  In the background of a traditional card, you’ll find an ibis representing thought, sitting in a tree of the mind. In the case of the very introspective Aquarian deck, Palladini chose to focus on the potential of the mind. 

The bird seems to be poised to take flight and speed head-first towards her goal. The bright and powerful star in the distance reminds you that all of your desires are possible and within reach.  The celestial light also serves as a reminder and that the universe has your back. 

While you won’t find the typical single star surrounded by seven smaller stars, look closer.  The single star has eight points, which is the number commonly associated with the card. 

When you lean in to each of these beautiful cards, you’ll find that each of them makes sense. Essentially, that’s what the Aquarian Tarot is all about: looking closer.  Not just at the card, but at your own life. 

Who Will Love the Aquarian Tarot Deck?  

If you have any Art Deco or Art Nouveau lovers in your life, then this is the deck for them.  We can all agree that imagery plays not only an important role in how we understand a Tarot deck, but also how we connect to it.  

While many see the Aquarian Tarot deck and immediately point to the Art Deco and Art Nouveau influence, few acknowledge that many of the colours are distinctly from the 1970s, when the deck was released.  The Aquarian Tarot will also resonate with people who vividly experienced in the late 60s and early 70s or anyone who feels connected to that era.  

The accompanying book to the Aquarian Tarot deck says that, “A proper reading of the cards can help one gain perspective on personal questions and reorder the priorities in his life.”  This is definitely a deck that is perfect for doing a Tarot reading for yourself. 

  

Where Can I Buy the Aquarian Tarot Deck? 

The Aquarian Tarot deck is available for purchase on Amazon here in two sizes.  One deck is playing card sized, while the second is in the traditional Tarot card size. 

 

Images from Aquarian Tarot used with permission of U.S. Games Systems, Inc., Stamford, CT USA. c. 1993 by U.S. Games Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. 

 

The post All About the Aquarian Tarot Card Deck appeared first on Biddy Tarot.

BTP126: Ask Brigit – Tarot and Intuition

Whether you’re a Tarot beginner or a reader with decades of experience, we can all feel vulnerable sometimes regarding our intuition.  Common concerns like, “Is it my ego or my intuition talking?” or “What do I do when my intuition is on vacation?” cross all of our minds. I know that I’ve wondered them many times. 

In this week’s podcast episode, I’ll answers some of your toughest questions on intuition.  I’ll tell you the different practices I use to boost my intuition, what I do when it feels like my intuition is failing me, and much more! 

In this episode, you’ll learn: 

Different practices you can use to boost your intuition 
How to tell the difference between “ego” and “intuition” 
What to do when you feel like your intuition is on a vacation 

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES 

Free Webinar Training 
BTP102: How to Tune into Your Inner Guidance with Betsy Lefae 
BTP67: How to Trust Your Intuition in a Tarot Reading 
What to do when you feel like your intuition is on a vacation 

WELCOME 

You’re listening to the Biddy Tarot Podcast, and this is Episode 126: Ask Brigit – Tarot and Intuition. 

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. Now, here is your host Brigit Esselmont. 

INTRODUCTION 

BRIGIT: Hello, and welcome back to the Biddy Tarot Podcast. As always, I am super, super excited to have you here and to be talking about Tarot. And, of course, today is a very special episode where I dig into some of your questions. You might have heard these before with the “Ask Brigit” episodes. 

Now, recently, I ran a free training webinar, which was all about how to read Tarot intuitively. If you want to check that one out, you can go to BiddyTarot.com/Webinar-Intuition and find the next available time, so you can take that free training. 

In this free training, of course, we’ve had thousands of people inside the training, and that means thousands of questions! What we noticed as we were going through those questions was there were a lot of questions about intuition. 

It’s kind of obvious, I suppose, since it is a webinar about reading Tarot intuitively, but I wanted to focus today’s “Ask Brigit” session specifically on Tarot and intuition because it is something that comes up so, so often. 

And here’s the thing… 

It’s not limited to people who are new to Tarot. Even seasoned professionals will have intuition on the mind. Tarot and intuition really do go hand in hand, and I think the more that we can understand about intuition and the relationship it has with Tarot, then the better Tarot readers we become. 

I’ve selected a few of the questions from that free training, and I’ll be answering those shortly. 

LET’S CELEBRATE! 

But first, I want to do a quick shout-out to the folks who have left a five-star review in iTunes. Remember, if you love this podcast, please jump into iTunes, leave a review and a star rating. I would be very, very grateful for that. 

This one comes from Tampline in South Africa. I’m going to take a guess this might be Peter Tampline, who we know from our Community. Tampline says:  

“OK, I have to confess I haven’t actually listened to Episode 36, but I’m about to. And being a psychic, I thought I should do the review before listening because I started listening to all of Biddy’s podcast from the beginning, and now I’m here at Episode 36. The thing is, everyone so far has been five stars, so why should this one be any different? Go and roll your dice, flip a coin, draw a few cards—it’s all the same. Five stars from a Biddy fan boy from Cape Town.” 

Awesome! Thank you so much for that kind review. 

Now, the second one I’ve got here is from GreenJA82 from the U.K. This person writes: 

“The Biddy Tarot Podcast has improved my relationship with Tarot not just in terms of the knowledge of the cards, but mainly because it’s given me the confidence to trust my intuition and my own interpretations of the cards. I now have the confidence to put down the books—although the Biddy Tarot card meanings book is fantastic—and freewheel it with friends and family at parties. Thank you so much to Brigit and the Biddy Tarot team.” 

Awesome! That is what I love to hear! The more that I can encourage you to put the book down, particularly when you’re doing a reading, the better, because that’s where your intuition truly, truly flows. So, I really appreciate that feedback. 

And again, pop over to iTunes, and you can leave a review and a star rating there. 

ASK BRIGIT – TAROT AND INTUITION 

All right. So, let’s get into today which is all about Tarot and intuition. Now, before we can get into the actual questions, I just want to spend a little bit of time on this concept of intuition, because intuition is something that here we all have our own definitions, our own connections with what it really is, and I wanted to share a little bit about how I see intuition and how it works with Tarot and why it’s important for Tarot as well.  

WHAT IS INTUITION? 

So, what is intuition? My definition is knowing something without knowing why you know it.  

So, no doubt you’ve had a feeling at some point in your life where it just feels like you have these little niggly feelings that you know something but you can’t really describe in rational terms why it is that you know this.  

Now, I had a friend Amy, and she had planned a trip to Vietnam. It was going to be just her and her husband while the kids stayed with their extended family, and they were going to have these beautiful, romantic holiday trip to Vietnam for a week. So, Amy booked it in and super excited when she was doing it, but then a few weeks later, she started to feel really uneasy. She thought maybe it was because she didn’t want to leave the kids behind, maybe she wanted to have a bit more family time with them, but she thought it was that. But she still couldn’t shake off these feelings, so she ended up cancelling that trip. 

Now, her husband thought she was crazy because he was like, “No I’m ready to go,” and she’s like, “We can’t do it. No, it’s not going to happen.”  

So, they lost a little bit of their holiday deposit but when the day finally came, the day that they were meant to be flying a huge typhoon hit Vietnam, and it severely damaged the resort at which they were going to stay. So, in Amy’s case, even though she couldn’t really describe or explain why she felt that way, she knew that something wasn’t right and she was correct. Her intuition really led her to the right path even though she was questioning it at the time, going, “I think I’m crazy, but I just can’t go.” 

No doubt you’ve had that kind of experience where maybe you have followed your gut, and you didn’t really know why at the time but you just knew you had to do it. That’s intuition.  

There are lots of different ways of looking at intuition. Some people see it as quite a scientific concept. Other people see it more as magical and mystical, even spiritual and almost out of this world. For me, I sort of see it as a bit of a combination of all of that.  

NOW HERE’S WHAT I BELIEVE… 

We take in so much information every day by just being in this world, and it all comes in, but our brain can’t really handle so much information, so it starts to filter things. It keeps some things for the conscious mind, and then everything else filters and flows back into the subconscious mind.  

Now, I believe the subconscious is where our intuition is. The intuition is also receiving huge amounts of information. Our conscious mind hasn’t touched it because it can’t really deal with so many bits of information, but it all sinks in at more of that intuitive level.  

So, when you start to have a feeling about things sometimes, it’s because you have already collected this information without knowing that you’ve collected it, and somehow your brain does amazing things, and it brings it back into the conscious mind and says, “Hey, check this out. Here is some information I’ve got about for you,” and that can be your intuition. So, for me that’s a little bit more on the scientific side.  

Now, with intuition I also say that we are part of a collective wisdom. We have kind of this collective consciousness or collective intuition that we are part of, and that’s this world, this universe, this galaxy whatever you want to call it, and we can connect into that any time to understand what is happening around us.  

Now, because we are part of this system, that collective wisdom is also within us. I strongly believe that we have all the answers we need all inside of us. It’s what we call our inner wisdom and our intuition. 

What I love about Tarot in particular is that it helps bring us back home, back into that place of inner wisdom and back into that place where we don’t need to go outside of ourselves to find the answer because it’s already inside of you. It’s just a matter of accessing it. 

ACCESSING INTUITION 

Now, one question that often comes up is, “Do you have to be special to be intuitive?” 

No, I don’t think so. I think it’s in every one of us, and again, it’s just about accessing that. Now, intuition itself is, I believe, part of this universal energy, it is part of God, it is part of the universe, and it is part of this greater sense of spirituality.  

So, intuition really does come from a place of love and abundance, and when we experience intuition, we often experience it in our heart space or in our gut/stomach. That’s why we often say, “I have a gut feeling here.” 

On the other hand, we have ego, and in some ways… Look, ego certainly plays a role in life, but in some ways, ego is a little bit of the enemy to intuition. Now, ego often comes from a place of fear—a fear of missing out, a fear of losing something, there’s fear of scarcity, that there’s not enough to go around—and we often experience ego from our head. 

Sometimes if you’re getting a bit of a headache, it can mean that you’re too much in your head. Sometimes it might mean you need a bit of water. Maybe you’ve had a bit of a hangover or whatever it might be, but sometimes it does give you a sign that you’re too much in your head. 

TAROT & INTUITION 

Now, when we read Tarot, those beautiful Tarot cards are giving us direct access into intuition, and really, it’s the images, the symbols and the stories in the cards that create this sort of instant connection into the subconscious mind, because the subconscious mind doesn’t really connect so much with words and phrases. Instead, it connects more with pictures and visual elements, and that really does go straight to the subconscious and that is, obviously, where the intuition is stored.  

Now, we can use the Tarot cards to connect deeply with our intuition, because it’s bypassing our conscious mind, and it’s going straight into our subconscious. So, we’re almost switching off all of the thoughts, the analytical part of our brain, and we’re going straight into the core essence of who we really are, which is our intuition, and that’s where all that knowledge and wisdom is found. 

Now, with intuition, it is important that you are proactive in accessing your intuition. You can still pick up Tarot cards and still be very much in your head. So, it’s important that you set an intention that you’re using your cards to go straight through to your intuition, and this is why I strongly recommend when you’re doing a Tarot reading that you put the book down and you read the cards intuitively first. 

Now of course, if you’re getting to a point at which your intuition just isn’t quite kicking into gear, or maybe you want to explore some different alternatives, then it makes sense to go and check out the book and see if that triggers any further insight for you.  

I’m going to talk a little bit more about how you can really connect and access your intuition, but I just want to set that up in your mind.  

Intuition is knowing something without knowing why you know it. We are all intuitive, and the Tarot really helps us to access our intuition, and it does that through those images, symbols and stories in the cards. So, I really do invite you to use your Tarot practice as a way of connecting with your inner wisdom and your intuition.  

YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED 

So, let’s dig in now to a few of these questions from the free training webinar that I held recently, and again, you can check out that free training at BiddyTarot.com/Webinar-Intuition.  

All right, this comes from Phoenix and Phoenix says: 

“Do you believe that anyone can read Tarot intuitively or is it a skill that only some people have?”  

Well short answer is yes, anyone can read Tarot intuitively, and I strongly believe anyone can access their intuition if they wish to. Now, it’s like intuition is there, and I think maybe it was [inaudible 00:13:28] Sonja describes intuition or psychic ability even as radio waves. 

Some of us are born with our radio tuned perfectly to the waves of intuition. It’s almost like you don’t really need to do anything, you’re already switched on, you’re pre-programmed, and it’s already in there.  

Now, others of us are born with the dial just not really on anything. All we hear is static. We might not even be able to hear it at all. We might not even realise that there is a radio that we can use. Over time, what it requires is for you to start saying, “OK, I get that there is intuition, and I’m going to try and dial in to that intuition.” 

And then for others, we might be somewhere in between. We might be able to hear a little bit of that intuition coming through, and the more that we work on dialling in, the clearer that signal gets.  

I would say I was probably in the last group. I knew that I was intuitive in some way, and I know that over the last few years in particular, I’ve really dialled in that intuition and now it’s flowing through beautifully.  

It is interesting, actually, just on this… Sometimes I get up in my head a little bit, and I start to worry, and I think, “Well, I’m really intuitive for my own things, but I still struggle and find it hard to connect into other people and be intuitive for them.” So, I often find it difficult to just blurt out really specific things for other people that maybe I have never met before.  

So, just know that you’re going to find your own little starting place where you do some things really well and other parts where you’re like, “Ah no, no, I’m not sure that’s me.” So, just don’t feel bad that maybe you’re similar to me and that you’re highly intuitive for yourself, but maybe it’s a little bit harder to tune into other people as well.  

DIAL INTO YOUR INTUITION. 

How is it that you can then dial into your intuition? 

I’m going to touch on a few things here and few things later in the other questions, but just to get started, set the intention and the belief that you are intuitive. Be open-minded to the possibility that you are intuitive and that you can dial into your intuition. Imagine it as if it is that radio, and you’re just turning the dial so that you can tune in even more.  

Be disciplined. Put the book down when you’re doing a Tarot reading. Read intuitively first, and then check the book if you really, really need to.  

Actually, I’ve had quite a few people ask me, “Well, if you’re saying to put the book down, why have you made The Ultimate Guide to Tarot Card Meanings? What’s going on here Brigit? What are you doing?” 

So, I believe that when you’re doing a Tarot reading, read intuitively—no books unless you really, really need to, just at the end. But in between readings, you may want to use the book more for research and more for just building up a library knowledge about the cards. But ultimately, it comes down to what you intuitively see in a Tarot reading. So, I hope that clarifies things a little bit there.  

Another thing to do if you want to turn up your intuition or dial intuition is really trust it and go with it, even if it’s seems a little bit silly.  

For example, I was doing a reading for a client a few years ago, and she was asking about her relationship with her man. Things were a bit rocky, and he didn’t seem that committed, but she was like, “I’m ready for this. Let’s do it.” 

Anyway, I did the reading, and I drew the Knight of Cups. This was from the Rider-Waite deck, and I’ve never noticed this before, but I saw the Knight of Cups, and he appeared as if he was in this desert oasis.  

I know the Knight of Cups is a pretty romantic guy, and here he is in a desert oasis, and I started getting these really funny feeling that maybe her man was out romancing somebody else in a desert oasis resort. 

It made no sense to me, nothing at all, and I thought, “Oh, this sounds a little bit silly,” but I put it out there anyway, and the client came back to me. 

She was like, “Oh, my goodness. Yes, I just found out that he’s off some resort in a desert oasis with a new woman, and I’m devastated.”  

So, there you go. Sometimes you’ve just got to trust it. 

And actually, you know what here is a note to Brigit (note to me): Maybe I am quite intuitive for other people. I need to give myself a bit of it credit there. 

Also, it’s really important to focus on boosting your intuition in between readings, and that what I’m going to talk about next in this next question.  

Alan asked: 

“Do you have any ideas on how to boost intuition with practices, intentions, etc.?”  

I’ve talked a little bit about the mindset that you need to have in place of being open-minded, being disciplined, trusting it and sending the intention, but what are some actual activities and things that you can do to really boost your intuition? 

MEDITATION 

One thing that I think is essential to intuition is meditation. 

Now, meditation… I don’t know. For some people, they go, “Yeah, meditation. I can just meditate all day, every day! Fantastic.” Other people (like my husband), start to break out in a rash going, “Oh, God, what am I going to do? What do I do when I’m doing meditation? Should I be breathing? Should I be looking at things? Should I be talking to myself? How do I do it? Oh, my gosh, my brain is just going on fire.” You know, all this crazy stuff comes up.  

So, I find the most helpful meditation is simply getting into a relaxed state, sitting comfortably, closing your eyes, then focusing on the breath. And really it is as simple as just breathe in and breathe out and feel the air in your nostrils.  

Sometimes I really enjoy in that in-breath, bringing in the energy of the universe through my crown chakra. I exhale all that energy down into the earth. Then I inhale again, and I bring it all out from the earth back into my body, and then I exhale, and I shower it out through my crown chakra with all this beautiful white light just showering over my body. I just do that for a few times, and that gets me feeling pretty well grounded and connected, which is neat. 

Then the next thing I like to do with meditation, if I’m simply just doing the practice of calming down my thoughts, I imagine my mind like a lake, and every little thought I have is like a little ripple on that lake (or little wave, depending how big your thoughts are), and I just concentrate on smoothing out that lake, just let every little wave just ripple out to the edge. You know, gently lapping on the shore, and then it’s gone. Then there might be another thought, and I just watch that ripple out over the lake until eventually my lake just smooths out, smooth and smooth, until it becomes almost like one of those beautiful clear mountain lakes that’s dead still and reflects all of the beauty of the nature around it.  

So, that might be your simple meditation that you do even if it’s just for 5 minutes a day. It’s the practice of bringing your conscious mind into a very calm state so that you can access your subconscious mind more easily. 

Now some other ideas on how to boost intuition… 

CARD OF THE DAY 

Obviously, Tarot cards are going to help boost your intuition, and I really do recommend doing a daily card. Just draw a card every day and ask, “What do I need to know for today?” or “Where do I need to focus my energy?” 

Make sure that you just give yourself time and space to dive into that card intuitively. You might do some journaling. You might just focus on the imagery and see what symbol or picture stands out to you.  

MOVIE OF THE MIND VISUALISATION 

Another technique I really enjoy doing is playing the movie in my mind. This is something that has come to me in a lot more clarity in the last year or two, particularly in learning more about shamanic journeying, where you can journey into a forest, you can me a guide of some kind, you can call a guide in to see who comes in, and then you just have the experience, and it all plays out as if it’s a movie.  

So, for example, I was out for a walk in the local forest here, and I thought, “OK, I’ll just go and sit down near one of the trees.” 

I sat down, made sure there were no snakes under me, and I just closed my eyes. I did some deep breathing, just relaxed my thoughts, and then I just set the intention to call in a guide. Within a couple of seconds, I had this amazing aboriginal man covered in white paint, wearing a white lap-lap, and I thought, “This is interesting,” and he just started by throwing a spear into the trees.  

I’m like, “OK, good trick. What do you want to tell me?” 

And he’s like, “No, no you need to watch again.” 

This time I watched, and you could see, with accuracy, he was aiming for a specific part of the tree. 

I thought, “OK, what does this really mean? Oh, I need to get better at setting my goals. I need to have a very clear focus on what it is that I’m aiming for.” 

And I took a huge amount out of that experience, and it was simply by playing the movie in my mind, setting it up consciously. So, I set out where, in my mind, I was sitting there, and I asked for the guide to come in, and then I just let the movie play in my mind from there.  

A couple of other things… 

Obviously, pay attention to your dreams—that’s where your intuition really flourishes.  

Look for synchronicities, the things that line up quite a lot. Maybe you’re seeing a lot of eagles and then you can investigate. “What does eagle mean for me?” Or maybe you’re seeing lots of numbers, then what do those numbers mean to you? So, just be aware of those things. 

Look, intuition is just an everyday thing. 

It’s all around all of the time. You don’t need to turn on the tap and say, “It must happen now.” It’s really just about being instead of doing. That’s important: be instead of do.  

Jennifer asks: 

“Why do I feel that during some readings I’m so in tune with my intuition, yet other times, it fails me?”  

OK, I know this feeling. I’ve had it before. Sometimes I pull out the cards, and I’m like, “Come on, intuition! Let’s do it.” And I pull them all out, and I’m like, “Oh, this makes no sense. I’m not getting it. I don’t see the message. This is completely contradictory to what I thought it would be.” 

So, here is what I’ve noticed when my intuition is not quite showing, or the cards are not connecting me to my intuition… 

I often find that it’s because I’m in a rush to do the reading, and I’ve forgotten to really set a sacred space for my reading. So, just slow down and even before you do your reading, make sure that you’ve done some meditation, that you’ve really set the scene and set the intention that you’re going to create a very special experience for yourself. So, stop rushing. 

I’m guilty of it all the time. I’ll draw one card. “Oh, that’s what it is, OK!” I rush off, and I don’t even give myself any time to really dive into that card. So, make sure that you do that. Really allow yourself time and space. Honour the process. 

Another thing that I’ve noticed is sometimes I might read when I am too emotional. Maybe I’m too biased. Maybe I’m really am attached to a certain outcome or a certain reason something has happened, and I don’t allow myself that space to get into different possibilities. So, just be mindful of whether you’re feeling too attached to a certain outcome, or whether you’re too emotionally attached, and how that might be influencing your readings. 

Another thing is that moon cycles can affect intuition. So, during the full moon, it’s very much an intuitive time. During the dark moon, it’s often times when the shadow self comes up, and if you’re not ready and willing to open up to your shadow self during new moon, then you may struggle a little bit in your Tarot reading. So, just be mindful of where is the moon at, where you are at. Also, if you’re female, your menstrual cycle may have some influence over your readings. 

And finally, the message may also just not be clear to you in this present moment, but it will have relevance in the future.  

As an example, when I was getting the book deal… So, we’ve got Everyday Tarot coming out in September 2018. It’s an officially published book. I am very excited. Back in 2017, I was evaluating publishers. We had a number of publishers who were keen to publish the book, and of course, I pulled out my Tarot Cards, and I drew a card for each of those publishers.  

Now, at the time, I thought, “Great! Publisher A—yep, I definitely want to go with them.” The meeting felt awesome. It just felt like everything was lining up. And yet, when I kept drawing the Tarot cards, I kept getting things like the Three of Swords. 

I thought, “What? No, that’s rubbish.” 

And then the one I wasn’t so keen on and just wasn’t quite connected to kept coming up, I think it was like Nine of Cups or Nine of Pentacles, and thought, “That, I don’t really get that.”  

So, I’ll be honest—I swept those cards away, and I sort of forgot about them. In fact, I didn’t even write them down. I should have written them down at least, but a few months later, we started to get some of the offers for the book and—lo and behold—publisher A, who I thought were a total yes ended up giving us a really bum deal, so we were really disappointed. My agent and I were just like, “Argh, this is not really reflective of what was happening in the meeting.” 

So, in the end that was the Three of Swords that disappointment, and then the publisher who I wasn’t sure about came through, and they were amazing. They had such an amazing vision for the book, and of course, we ended up going ahead with that publisher.  

It just is testament that sometimes we get messages in the cards that at the time we can’t quite understand, but if we give it some time, then it starts to unfold. So, just keep that in mind, and don’t do what I did and just sweep out the cards. Make sure you take a photo and write down the card at least, so you can come back to them.  

All right. So, [inaudible 00:28:24] asks: 

“How do I know it’s my intuition talking to me and not me just making it up, or worse—that it’s my ego?”  

So, a couple of things to remember (and I said this at the start of the podcast)… 

YOUR INTUITION COMES FROM A PLACE OF LOVE. 

Even if it’s bringing out the kind of messages that are hard to hear, may be tough to deal with it’s always from a loving place, it’s always for your highest good.  

INTUITION IS ALSO FELT IN THE HEART AND THE STOMACH. 

So, if you’re feeling sensations in those places, then it is likely to be intuition. In fact, you can even place your hand on your heart to connect back into your intuition. 

If you’re thinking, “Oh, I’m not sure if this is my ego or my intuition,” place your hand around your heart and just check-in in your heart space and see what feels right for you. 

INTUITION IS PERSISTENT. 

The other thing with intuition is it is persistent. Internally, it will not go away until you have listened to it, and it will get louder and louder and louder over time until you absolutely cannot ignore it.  

Now, ego on the other hand… Often, you’re up in your head. Often, it’s a fear-based feeling. “I’m going to miss out,” or “There’s not enough,” or “Something is wrong,” from your problem place. Now, ego can be very noisy, very high in volume, but it’s typically temporary until it’s found something else that can attach itself to. 

So, ego… I find, within messages, hear them at the time, and then give yourself a couple of days and go back to that message and go, “OK, do I still have that same energy around it? Or has it shifted?” If it has shifted, it probably was your ego talking, but if you’re still feeling that energy, it’s your intuition guiding you towards something new.  

STOP, DROP AND ROLL 

Now here’s a really neat exercise that Betsy LeFae shared with us in Episode 102. So, you can go to BiddyTarot.com/102. Betsy talks about stop, drop and roll. 

Stop what you’re doing. 
Drop into your body (that might be through breathing, closing your eyes). 
Then roll. Just roll with it. Don’t force it. Don’t resist it, and just roll with whatever comes up for you.  

If you want to find out a bit more about that, listen to Betsy’s interview in Episode 102.  

The other episode I’m going to recommend is Episode 67, and it’s all about How to Trust Your Intuition. We go into a lot about intuition in that episode. BiddyTarot.com/67 or iTunes as well. OK, I think we’ve got two more here.  

So, Connie says: 

“I always have freak-out thoughts, especially when it comes to the bad cards. How do I know it’s my intuition versus me jumping the gun?”  

Oh, goodness—bad cards, good cards in the Tarot! This comes up so often, and people really do freak out. “Don’t tell me anything bad in the Tarot!” or “What if I get a bad card?” 

The first thing that I want you to know there are no good or bad cards. Every card has a light and shade. Every card has something that is… I don’t even want to call it a positive and a negative, because even the cards that have challenging messages, like the Tower or the Devil card, have these amazing opportunities in them.  

Even when we find something that’s perhaps uncomfortable in a Tower reading, it’s great because it’s shining the light of consciousness on that particular issue, and then we can do something about it. If there’s something in your life that is not working out for you great, bring it up in a Tarot reading, and then you can figure out what to do about it.  

I think if you’re starting to freak out a little bit, Connie, breathe. Number one, breathe and just know that there are no bad cards, and there’s usually an opportunity inside. 

In Episode 19 and 20, I go into the good cards and bad cards of the Tarot. 

Now, if you do see a bad card, and you’re freaking out, and you’re like, “I don’t want to see this! This is not the card I wanted!” then there are a couple of questions you can ask yourself. 

What’s the lesson here? 
How can I make the most of the opportunity? 
What’s the blessing in disguise? 

If I’m seeing, let’s say, the Three of Swords when I’ve asked about a relationship, what’s the lesson? What can I learn? How can I make the most of this opportunity? What’s the blessing in disguise? Think about those three questions. What’s the lesson, how can I make the most of this opportunity, and what’s the blessing in disguise?  

And here is the thing… 

Your intuition doesn’t want bad or evil in your life. It’s designed to bring you to your highest good, and sometimes you may need to go through some tough lessons, but ultimately, your intuition is guiding you towards your highest good. That is really important. 

Now, this leads me on to the last question from Bernadette and she asks: 

“Can my intuition fail or betray me?”  

Short answer: No. 

It cannot because I believe your intuition is serving your highest good always. Even when it feels like your intuition might have led you to a negative outcome, remember that it’s serving you in some way. 

I believe it was Tony Robbins who says this, “Life is happening for you, not to you.” Even when we have those really crappy situations that come up, it’s happening for you, it’s happening for a reason, and when you start to really embody that belief, you start to see so many new opportunities open up for you, because even those really negative situations can start to feel like, “Oh, this is happening for a reason. I get it. There’s something bigger in here. It doesn’t feel great right now, but it’s leading me to the right thing.” In that case, your intuition isn’t failing or betraying you. It may feel that way, but it’s leading you to the right outcome for your highest good. 

Now, sometimes our ego does interfere and take us off course. We may think we’re failing our intuition, but actually our ego is leading us in different direction. 

Now, what’s neat is you are exactly where you need to be, so even if your ego is interfering, it is serving you a purpose, which may just be simply to show you the balance between ego and intuition.  

Ultimately, though, with intuition, I believe that your intuition is your connection to God, to the universe, to Mother Earth, to everythingness and the nothingness, whatever you want to call it. Your intuition is connected to that higher being in some way, and if we see it in that way, it cannot lead you astray because that is pure love, it is pure essence, it is pure energy, all of those beautiful things. What a great place to wrap this up! 

WRAP-UP 

I hope today has been helpful for you, and I know we’ve gone a little bit longer than we normally do, but intuition is such an important topic, and if you want to learn a little bit more about how to trust your intuition definitely check out Episode 67.  

If you want to learn how to read Tarot intuitively, then also check out the free training webinar at BiddyTarot.com/Webinar-Intuition. Now, in that webinar, I’ll show you some really helpful tips to read Tarot intuitively, and I’m also going to show you one of our signature programs that will help you get even deeper with the Tarot cards and really switch on your intuition.  

There you have it. I hope today has been helpful! I can’t wait to connect with you to again very, very soon. Have a great week, and bye for now! 

The post BTP126: Ask Brigit – Tarot and Intuition appeared first on Biddy Tarot.

What Are Tarot Cards and How Do They Work?

When I tell people that I read and teach Tarot cards for a living, one of the first questions they ask me is, “What are Tarot cards and how do they actually work?”  

Now, the answer to that question may differ, depending on who you ask and how they personally connect with the Tarot cards. That’s because Tarot is simply a tool, and as with all kinds of tools, how you use it is completely up to you.  

However, because you’re here, on Biddy Tarot, I want to give you my version of how I believe the Tarot works and how you can use it to gain instant access to your intuition and your inner source of power and wisdom. 

What are Tarot Cards? 

The Tarot is a deck of 78 cards, each with its own imagery, symbolism and story. The 22 Major Arcana cards represent life’s karmic and spiritual lessons, and the 56 Minor Arcana cards reflect the trials and tribulations that we experience on a daily basis.

Within the Minor Arcana cards, there are 16 Tarot Court Cards representing 16 different personality characteristics we may choose to express at any given time. The Minor Arcana also includes 40 numbered cards organised into 4 Suits, with 10 cards each, representing various situations that we encounter day-to-day. 

What Can Tarot Cards Do?

Some may say that Tarot cards are simply ink on paper. However, what I have discovered from reading the Tarot cards daily for over twenty years is this:  

Tarot is the storybook of our life, the mirror to our soul, and the key to our inner wisdom. 

Every spiritual lesson we meet in our lives can be found in the seventy-eight Tarot cards. And when we consult the Tarot, we’ll get shown the exact lessons we need to learn and master to live an inspired life. It’s like holding up a mirror to yourself so that you can access your subconscious mind.  Tarot allows us to tap into the wisdom and answers that live in us all. 

How Can I Use Tarot Cards?

Tarot is perfect for self-development, making choices, manifesting goals, coaching others, planning a business, writing a book, meditating—you name it.  

So, How Exactly Do Tarot Cards Work? 

While many people believe that Tarot will tell you the future, making predictions are not really what Tarot cards are about.  

When it comes to Tarot, fortune-telling is out, and intuition is in, especially if you want to create your ideal future and manifest your goals. 

The most powerful way to read the Tarot is to use the cards to access your intuition and your inner wisdom. The imagery in the cards give you instant access to your subconscious mind and your intuition. And from this place of inner power and wisdom, you can discover how to make positive changes now so you can manifest your goals and your dreams in the future.  

For Example…

Let’s say you want to find a new romantic relationship. Instead of pulling a card to predict whether Prince Charming is just around the corner and either being blissfully excited or bitterly disappointed, you consult the cards to discover how you can attract love (and keep it!). You draw the Ten of Cups, and upon seeing the happy family dancing under the rainbow in the card, you are reminded that to attract love, you need to set a clear vision of what it is you want to attract.  

This simple act of envisioning your desired relationship then has a subtle, yet powerful, effect on your ability to find new love, and instead of waiting around for someone to find you, you are empowered to take action and find them. 

Creating a Connection

It’s as if the Tarot cards create an instant connection to our subconscious minds so we can access the inner wisdom of our Higher Self. And from there we can bring it into our conscious awareness where we can take action. Neat, right!? 

And here’s the thing – you may already consciously know the message or insight you receive in a Tarot reading, in which case, the reading can be a heartening confirmation of what you already know. Or, you might be completely unaware of the message until you see it reflected in the cards, in which case you are now empowered to take action based on your new awareness. 

How do Tarot Cards Work When Reading for Others? 

By now, you know that the Tarot is a powerful tool for self-discovery and manifestation. But, that doesn’t quite explain what happens when you’re reading for someone else and pick up that they’re dating someone twenty years their junior and have told no one about it (true story!). What’s happening there? 

Our Universal and Inner Wisdom

Well, here is where things might be a little more “out there” and magical. You see, we are all connected to a collective, universal wisdom and our inner wisdom. And when we read the Tarot cards—and connect with our intuition—we can tap into this universal wisdom. It’s a little like connecting in with the collective mind, not just the individual mind. 

Asking Questions for Others

When you ask the Tarot cards a question on behalf of someone else (who has given permission for the reading and whose energy is invested in the reading), you are tapping into this collective wisdom. You are picking up all sorts of intuitive messages through the Tarot cards and through your connection with the collective wisdom. And those insights are channeled through you to the person you’re reading for, often in a very powerful way. 

So, just imagine what might be possible for you – and the people you read for – with this limitless, timeless knowledge at your fingertips! 

Now that you know what Tarot is and how the Tarot works, I invite you to grab your Tarot cards, connect with your intuition, and don’t just predict your future, create your future. Make magic, my friend! 

The post What Are Tarot Cards and How Do They Work? appeared first on Biddy Tarot.

BTP125: Ceremonial Tarot with Katalin Koda

In recent years, I’ve moved away from doing traditional spreads when reading for myself. More and more, I’ve been creating almost a ritual around each card in order to integrate the energy of that card in a powerful way. I’ve found that this new approach has enhanced my connection to the cards and their influence.  

When I found out that author, healer, and artist Katalin Koda specializes in ceremonial Tarot, I knew that I had to invite her to the Biddy Tarot Podcast. 

In this episode, you’ll learn about: 

How you can find ways to connect to Tarot cards on a deep and secret level 
Creating ceremony around the Minor and Major Arcanas while doing a reading for yourself or someone else 
How Katalin combines her skills as a healer with her work as a Tarot reader 

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES 

KatalinKoda.com 
Personalize your Tarot card meanings with our free Tarot Card Meanings Workbook  
Our podcast episode on co-creating a Tarot reading 

WELCOME 

You’re listening to the Biddy Tarot Podcast and this is Episode 125: Ceremonial Tarot with Katalin Koda. 

Welcome to be 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 and 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. 

INTRODUCTION 

BRIGIT: Hello, and welcome back to the Biddy Tarot Podcast. As always, I’m super excited to be talking with you all about Tarot today. Now, I don’t know about you, but the more that I have started to read with Tarot cards, the more I’ve learned and discovered how to integrate the Tarot cards into my everyday life. 

These days, I don’t really lay out the cards in a particular spread or don’t really choose a reading and go, “OK, I’m going to do this reading and get an answer, and I’m done.” 

The way I tend to use Tarot more often these days is I integrate it with other processes. So, maybe I’ve just meditated and something has come up for me, and I just want to go deeper with it in my Tarot card. Or sometimes, I might be working with the different cycles of the moon, and I’ll use the cards as a way of manifesting the next thing that I want to create. 

Now, one of the really lovely ways that I’ve worked with Tarot, too, is to take a Tarot card and create almost a ritual around that card and really to embody and integrate the energy of that card in a really powerful way. 

Now, when I came across our guest today, I noticed that she does these too, and she does it in an incredibly powerful way. So, when I saw that our guest does a ceremonial Tarot and this is her specialty, I just knew that I needed to have her on the podcast. 

So, our guest today is Katalin Koda, and she is an author, storyteller, artist, poet. She does lots of ceremony, a healer, a mother, visionary and intuitive. Now, from her writing to ceremony creations to her Fire of the Goddess work, she searches deeply for beauty, truth and authentic power. She is discovering the extraordinary and the mythic. And Katalin is always in search of sacred story and its connection to the land, to the people and to healing and consciousness. 

Now, in addition to her book Fire of the Goddess, Katalin is also in the process of writing and publishing her new book called Ceremonial Tarot. And inside of these books, she talks a lot about how we can create ceremony around the Tarot cards.  And of course, that’s why I’m having her on the podcast today, to talk about how do we find ways of connecting with the Tarot on a very deep, sacred level. So, you’re going to be in for a real treat today with these conversation with Katalin. So, over to you Katalin. 

CEREMONIAL TAROT WITH KATALIN KODA 

BRIGIT: Well, hello, Katalin. It’s so good to have you here on the Biddy Tarot Podcast. How are you doing today? 

KATALIN: I’m doing wonderful. Thanks so much for having me. I feel really honoured.  

BRIGIT: Oh, it’s a joy. And we’re just having a chat before about how sort of how I came to find you, and that was because you were doing the Wild Unknown in Tarot readings in Portland. Then I started diving into your website, and I was just really intrigued by the work you do around ceremonial Tarot, which is what we’re going to talk about today. 

But before we get into all of that, I’d love to hear a little bit about your story and how it is that you came to Tarot and how it’s really helped you on your journey through life. 

KATALIN: Yes. That’s a great question. So, I had cancer, actually, when I was 19. So, that was about 22 years ago, amazingly… 23 years. And I like to call it facing the mortality reality where I really got an incredible glimpse at such a young age of death approaching. And that journey—with the cancer and getting chemo but really having a deep soul transformation—led me to start really exploring what it was that wanted so strongly to stay committed to life. And those things that showed up for me were teachings on earth-based spirituality and that included also the Reiki healing practices as well as the Tarot. And I loved the Tarot immediately. It was a way for me to access, to look at my life, and just figure things out and at first just kind of playing around, but then there’s a deeper symbolism and a deeper work with that. 

BRIGIT: And it’s interesting that you just mentioned, at first, it’s a bit of playing around because I think that’s how a lot of people come into Tarot. They think, “Oh, yeah, let’s just find out what’s going on in the future.” And then when they started to really open it up and really dive into to it, there is like this an immense level of depth in the cards. So, do you think that the Tarot helped you with your own personal healing journey? 

KATALIN: Yes, definitely. I’ve been working with it for 20 years. So, as my life has developed – like you said, at first, it’s just kind of checking and seeing what might be coming in for me, but then starting to realise, especially I started to become aware that… because I love stories so much and myth that the Tarot worked like a way to look at my life as a story. So, when certain cards would show up… The Tower, it would be an obvious choice because it’s this wild, destructive energy that comes forth, and then I could kind of pair that with what was going on maybe in my life and what was coming in, and then see that as the revelation. Because probably, fuelled by the awareness going through something like cancer, I understand that there is some deeper evolution happening. 

BRIGIT: Yeah. And in a way… I mean, sometimes Tarot can be like a reference point as well and you can identify with one part of it. Like I was thinking, “Yeah, the Tower card, you can identify that you’re going through a major upheaval, and it feels kind of shocking.” But what the Tower can do then is teach you that the Star is coming through, right? And that level of faith is what’s going to take you through into that next phase, and from this destruction comes growth.  

So, if you were just living through the daily life, you’d experience the Tower moment, but you may not necessarily have insight into, well, the Star comes after the Tower. So, I wonder, was that relevant for you? Did you find that the Tower was like a… Well, I mean, as you’re saying, it’s a story, and it links into your own story? 

KATALIN: Yes. I love that, thinking of the progressions, and I really use that when I’m giving readings. What came before the Tower, for example. What’s coming after? And then if a few Major Arcana, looking at the first cards, early cards are more like self-development, one through seven… The middle part of the Majors are more kind of an outward development and then more spiritual. So, you’re able to see this kind of storyline of the evolution. And then, it’s not just one shard but a more like global or overall perspective. 

BRIGIT: Yeah, absolutely. It’s neat. So, tell me about how you’re using Tarot now because, I mean, obviously you’ve got a number of different practices. I’m really curious how you integrate that with your practice or maybe you keep it completely separate? 

KATALIN: Yes. I use all my different practices. It’s true. I got an incredible opportunity of learning about spiritual work. After the earth-based spirituality I was fortunate to live in India for 7 years and then Hawaii for 6 years. I am someone who takes on different things and kind of creates my own mix. 

And I love the Tarot because I feel like that’s accessible for anyone. We don’t have to be a particular culture, because at this point, we’re moving around in a lot of different directions, trying to find our way.  

And the way that I blend it all about is to, like I said, I used the Major Arcana really as a storyline or a kind of an epic myth, thinking of myth as a public dream, and dreams are more of like our private myths. So, we’re able to have a reference of our place in the world, and that’s very healing for ourselves and also the collective. 

And then also, what I’m really deeply working with now as part of the ceremonial Tarot is using the elements of the Minor Arcana. With the Major Arcana, I think of them is more of archetypes, and Minor Arcana as more of situational archetypes.  

And when we do ceremony, we’re able to embody and communicate directly from our thoughts and our minds and with the spirit, through your body. We need a way to communicate to our soul, and if we have several thoughts—for example, “I want this,” maybe want the opposite thought, “Oh, I don’t want that.” But when we kind of commit to it and put it into a ceremonial form, then that’s kind of a direct line to our soul. 

BRIGIT: So, tell me a little bit more about like what is a ceremony with Tarot. What does that look like? What does it feel like? 

KATALIN: Yeah. So, with the Minor Arcana, because they have such clear associations of the elements… For example, one card I personally actually love, which many people feel, maybe not so excited when they see this card is the Five of Cups. Typically, we see Five of Cups maybe disappointment or sorrow. And maybe it’s my penchant for really loving the water and this process of letting go. So, a ceremony with the Five of Cups would be to do a water offering. Maybe we have something we feel some sorrow about. So, we can fill into that sorrow, we can do a process, but then to put into ceremony, we take flowers to the river and we put them in the river, and we’re watching this. And it nourishes us. We feel a connection to that process of letting go. We also create a moment of beauty and recognition with that process. 

BRIGIT: So, in light of that, do you feel that with every card, there is a ceremonial ritual that you could do? And actually, a question on top of that would also be, if there is, is there one ceremony, or are there many ways of doing that? 

KATALIN: Great question. So, in my book, well, I’m going to have lots of ceremonies. What I’m discovering… I think, yes absolutely. You could create one and many ceremonies with each card because each person is unique and has the potential to communicate soul to body in their own way. But I also use things like visualisations or meditations. 

Another example would be, for me, the Four of Swords is very much a card of forgiveness. This kind of indicates us moment of rest where we need to maybe look at contracts. A lot of times, I noticed when that card comes up, someone has an actual contract that you could deal with, maybe legally, or they have a kind of a soul contract—something that’s kind of needing to be looked out and just sort of opened up and put some rest on it. So, I included forgiveness not so much as ceremony but as a practice. 

BRIGIT: That’s neat. How do these ceremonies come about? Or I guess, let’s roll it back a little bit. And are you in a reading, and maybe there’s one particular card that really stands out for you? Or maybe there’s the stalker card, and then that’s the one that you design a ceremony around. How does this process kind of work? 

KATALIN: Yes. So, when I’m giving a reading, once I look and see which Major Arcana, so I know kind of what are the main archetypal forces that are moving through… And then when we look at the Minor Arcana, that again, like I said, is more situational. So, the ceremony that I design will mostly be from a situational, from a minor, kind of as a way for them to better access that major force. 

Let’s think of an example. If you got the Lovers card, and then you get the Three of Cups and the Ace of Cups, and I don’t know the Nine of Disks. I’m throwing these out there. But these are all kind of like the possibility of love, but maybe in a more communal sense. The ceremony I might come up with is to gather flowers and to kind of make a mandala, add something beautiful, unless they’re doing that, really setting the intention of calling in a community that feels supportive and nourishing and enhances love in your life.  

BRIGIT: Yeah. I see. OK. So, it’s more of a combination almost. It’s taking always the theme from that reading and then bringing that into a ceremony that your client could then implement after the reading. 

KATALIN: Yes. But I’m working on a person. It’s like that. If it’s just like in the book, it’s just going to have one ceremony for each card. So, you could also do that. If I were to do a reading, and I just went by [inaudible 00:13:59], and I’ll pull an “action to take” card, and then we could do one ceremony of that card. 

BRIGIT: Yeah. If you can compare like your experiences of where you’ve just done a Tarot reading and that’s that, versus doing a Tarot reading and then creating a ceremony for someone to implement, what’s been the difference in experience? Are we looking at like complete poles apart? What’s the richness of the experience? What happens? 

KATALIN: Yeah. That was a great question also. Actually, funnily, I’ve been reading Tarot for 20 years but only professionally for the last 7 or so, and I am a healer, so I’ve been doing healing work for 20 years. I would always wonder, “How do people give readings?” because my healing mind will go immediately into “How can we create into ceremony? How can we embody? How can we work with the situation arising here?” It was adjustment and I was given very clear guidance from my personal guides to begin to read and to work with people, that they needed to have that vocalisation.  

So, it feels like what happens is that there is a therapeutic process as we’re doing the reading, and then the ceremony is the way to embody, for that healing take effect. And it’s powerful when people do that for themselves. It’s one thing to just receive a bunch of information from someone we may resonate totally or partially. And then often with my clients, I’ll co-create the ceremony with them, so it’s not just me giving it to them but having a sense. And also, that builds a feeling of community naturally when we do that, and then it directs them into the natural world, which I feel is so crucial to our wellness and wholeheartedness. 

BRIGIT: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that co-creation piece also reaffirms, I guess, accountability and responsibility for one’s life. Not just, “I’m going to go to the reader. She’s going to tell me what to do with the rest of my life and solve all my problems,” right? It’s more that like, “I’m responsible for my life and where it goes.” Yeah. 

And I also imagine that when your clients are working with you to create the ceremony, it’s also allowing them for their intuition to come through and for their body wisdom to come through in ways that maybe they’ve never experienced before. I don’t know if you’ve had an experience like that, where you have created a ceremony and even in the creation of that ceremony, you saw a transformation happening. Could you share any of your stories that you might have had with clients in that way? 

KATALIN: Yeah. Just to clarify the question is that during actual ceremony as it’s happening or when we’re sitting together and creating it? 

BRIGIT: I’m going to guess that even in the creation of that ceremony, the deciding of what it will look like, that the seed of transformation is always planted there, and then obviously when they do the ceremony, a lot more comes through. So, if you have any experiences that you’d like to share, I’d love to hear them. 

KATALIN: Yeah. I think, with one woman, we were working with the Four of Disks (or Pentacles) and kind of talking about what came out of that card was setting boundaries and needing to be clear about what are boundaries and permitting that foundation, and we co-designed a ceremony where she would sit with the Four of Stones. Yeah, seeing her get excited about thinking of Stones as something she could relate to and as protectors and then it kind of was a deeper realisation also that Stones are here long before us and long after us. I felt that there is a sense of security that also embodies that card—or can, depending how you read it when it comes to mind. 

BRIGIT: Yeah. I love it. And I’m so inspired by it because it takes a Tarot reading to a whole new level. It brings it into reality, and as you said earlier, it connects you back into nature and the ecosystem that we’re sitting in, and it’s not so much just about these cards on the table and what do they all mean, but how does this integrate into your life and connect you in to the wisdom of the earth and the universe and all of that good stuff? I just love it. So, what would be some of your advice or some tips for folks you might be curious about creating their own ceremonies for Tarot? 

KATALIN: Well, I think an easy way to start working with it is sort of look at each of the suits as elements. We know that Cups are water. Disks or Pentacles are earth or stones or bones. Swords are air, so we can think about feathers or smoke. Wands are fire, so that can be any candle or something that’s burning. 

I think, naturally, we’re so drawn to each of those things, of course, and our bodies are made up of all of those elements. So, if we were to pull maybe one Minor Arcana, and then just let our intuition kind of guide us to something simple. If we pulled Four of Cups, we could just put four cups out and fill them with water to just kind of have a feeling. That’s a really basic thing to do.  

But also, it’s kind of a cool and an artistic way of embodying the action of the card, and I think that in itself is really interesting. Suddenly you’re in a three-dimensional relationship with the essence of the card. 

BRIGIT: Yeah. Neat. So, what are some ways that you could embody the card? I mean, what comes to my mind is I think some folks have done dance with Tarot, so it’s like you fully embodied the card through movement and dance, which sounds fascinating to me. But tell me a little bit more about your concepts around embodying a card. 

KATALIN: Yeah. I’m definitely working that with the Major Arcana as well. I think of the Fool and going up to a cliff at the dawn. That’s one way that I actually did that practice, where at dawn, I went up, meditating on the cliff and welcoming in the sun and really was having a contemplation of sitting at the edge and feeling that spaciousness from the ocean before me. 

BRIGIT: Beautiful. 

KATALIN: Yeah. Just really… that willingness to step into the unknown.  

BRIGIT: Yeah, absolutely. So, not only does it teach you more about the card, but I think it’s this whole next level or phase, which is bringing the essence of that card into your life, and then you’re taking it further because it’s in here. It’s like you’re embodying it, so you can’t help it really draw in all of that energy. I think, that’s absolutely lovely.  

Also, tell me a little bit more about your book Ceremonial Tarot. Obviously, you’ve got some really rich experiences that you’ve shared today. Tell me more about what’s going inside of this book. 

KATALIN: Yeah. So, the main focus is, as I said, the Major Arcana, looking at it as journey—the hero’s journey that Joseph Campbell made it so popular—following the Fool. So, the Fool, as you’re going through the book is definitely… I’m looking up, I have the whole Tarot deck on my wall with the Fool. 

BRIGIT: Wow. 

KATALIN: Through all the Major Arcana and Minor Arcana like around my association. That would be another way to work with it. Just buy a Rider-Waite deck and start with the Fool, and put the whole thing up on the wall as you feel, and you will discover all kinds of things, interrelation. So, it’s looking really at a story. And like we talked about briefly with the progressions and then looking at the first seven cards as kind of the early life and development, mother/father, Empress/Emperor, and then kind of going outward into the world, and then further into our spiritual development.  

And I would say, alongside of this evolution, our spiritual evolution… My belief or understanding is really that our higher self is really wanting to experience the whole gamut of the human expression, and it’s the story, and when we track where we are in the story, that gives us a sense of where we are terms of our evolution.  

BRIGIT: Yeah. 

KATALIN: It’s elemental there with the Major Arcana. 

BRIGIT: Yeah. Beautiful. So, when are you launching your book Ceremonial Tarot? When will it come? 

KATALIN: Well, it’s just being finished now, and then it’s going to take a year because I’m publishing with Llewellyn, so I’m fortunate to be having a publisher. It’s my third book with Llewellyn, so it will take a year for the cover and the edit. 

BRIGIT: Yeah. I am in the process at the moment of publishing a book, and it’s so different to when you can self-publish. It’s like, “OK, I’ve had the idea. Right next week, it’s being launched.” But with publishing a book, you’ve got to be very patient, don’t you? Although, a year turnaround is actually pretty good. We had some publishers talking more about two years, so I think a year is pretty good. 

KATALIN: It’s good. 

BRIGIT: Fabulous. You also run some retreats. So, you’ve got a big retreat in February in Hawaii. Do you integrate Tarot into that retreat as well?  

KATALIN: We integrate the elements that I talk about with the Minor Arcana. So, there are aspects of that, and we definitely integrate archetypes. So, the Tarot will come up. It’s like the High Priestess or different archetypes that are embedded in the Tarot. The focus was really on sacred feminine. It’s a women’s retreat on the Big Island of Hawaii. Yeah, coming up, our next one (it’s a yearly retreat) is February 2019. 

BRIGIT: Yeah, lovely. And where can people find out more about that retreat? 

KATALIN: All of this is on my website katalinkoda.com.  

BRIGIT: Fabulous. And we’ll also have a link to your site over on the show notes, and that will be at BiddyTarot.com/125. 

Beautiful. So, Katalin, are there any sort of final words that you want to leave us with, particularly as it relates to using ceremony in our Tarot readings? 

KATALIN: Yes. Just be open to exploring, using the imagery, and welcome in this opportunity to embody that and know that as you embody and work with the elements of the Minor Arcana or the archetypes of the Major that you will experience rapid shift in your life and your own evolution, moving into more wholehearted and broadening your perspective. 

BRIGIT: Yeah. Beautiful. And I really encourage folks who are listening to choose a card. Just as Katalin suggested, choose a card and create your own ceremony around it, and perhaps it might just be something quite simple. It could be something even a little bit more complex. It’s completely up to you, but just have that experience, because I think this is something that is incredibly powerful, and I’m very grateful that you’ve been able to share your wisdom today with us. So, please do try it, and we’d love to hear how it goes.  

So, thank you again, Katalin. I really appreciate you and everything that you’ve shared today. 

KATALIN: Thank you so much. It was a pleasure to talk with you. 

WRAP-UP 

BRIGIT: So, there you have it. I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Katalin and me, and I hope that you are inspired to try to bring more ceremony into your Tarot practice. So, maybe you’ve got a stalker card in Tarot reading. Maybe there’s a particular card that is really standing out for you. Or as Katalin talked about in the interview today, maybe you’re looking more at the overall theme of your most recent reading. 

So, take that and create a ceremony around it. It may be as simple as Katalin said, just fill Four of Cups and see what happens. It might be a more in-depth ceremony. It might be a visualisation that you do. Be creative and follow your gut, and just know that there’s no right or wrong way of doing this. 

The most important thing is that you are feeling your way into it and intuiting your way, because that is where the transformation and the healing, and the power, and all the good stuff, all come into it. 

So, enjoy and really dive deep into it. This is such a good way of working with the Tarot. And of course, you’ll find more details about Katalin on the interwebs, over at katalinkoda.com. Now, if that’s a bit confusing, just go to BiddyTarot.com/125, and we’ve got the links there as well. 

I hope you have an awesome week ahead. I’m really looking forward to our next episode, where it’s a special “Ask Brigit” episode, and this time, I’m focusing all on using your intuition in Tarot, so I hope you’ll join me. All right. Bye for now. 

The post BTP125: Ceremonial Tarot with Katalin Koda appeared first on Biddy Tarot.

8 Tarot Card Truths Every Reader Should Know

8 Tarot Card Truths Every Reader Should Know

There are all sorts of myths surrounding Tarot cards and reading Tarot. Some of them come from misrepresentations in the film and TV, like the image of the velvet clad Tarot reader. Others are sparked by misinterpreted religious texts. Some are even believed within the Tarot community!  Today, I’m here to set the record straight.

1. You Don’t Need to be Psychic to Read Tarot

Want to know a secret? I’m not super psychic. And yet, I can read the Tarot with confidence and help others do the same.

Here’s the truth – anyone can read Tarot. Including you. All you need to do is say ‘yes’ to your intuition.  We’re all intuitive beings and using Tarot will help you develop those skills even further.

The more you open yourself up to what the cards are trying to tell you, the better you’ll be able to understand the people and the world around you.

2. Tarot is Not the Work of the Devil

Contrary to what some people may tell you, Tarot is not evil and it is not the work of the devil. In fact, it’s not connected to Satan at all.  Tarot cards are a way to connect with your inner self and tap into your Divine being.  I see Tarot cards as a mirror to the soul and there’s nothing evil about that.

Still not convinced? Check out my blog post “Are Tarot Cards Evil and the Work of the Devil?“.

3. There are No Bad Cards in the Tarot Deck

So many people are afraid of getting a Tarot reading, because they don’t want to get dealt a so-called ‘bad card’.  But really, there aren’t any bad cards in the Tarot.

For example, while the Death and Devil cards may look and sound totally scary, they aren’t necessarily ‘bad’.

The Death card most commonly represents the end of an experience in your life and the beginning of a new one.

And while Devil shows two people chained to a horned beast and doesn’t exactly invite thoughts of love, happiness, and prosperity, the Devil card actually teaches you about attachment and detachment and where you can regain control in your life. For example, while you may feel that certain things are out of your control, it is well within your power to change them.

So you see, these spooky looking cards often represent something good and inspire change.

You can learn more about this in my “Good Cards, Bad Cards” blog post.

4. Tarot Can Help You Create Your Future (Not Just Predict It)

While it would be nice if Tarot cards gave us the winning lottery numbers or clued us in to when we find the love of our life, that’s not the way it works.  It’s actually a lot more useful than that.

Tarot helps you to understand your present situation so that you can make positive changes now.  This allows you to manifest your goals and dreams in the future.

Instead of learning what will happen to you, the Tarot teaches you to reclaim your existing inner power to create the future that’s right for you. How cool is that?

5. You Don’t Need to Study Tarot for Years to Start Reading

Despite what some Tarot “experts” might lead you to believe, you do not have to study Tarot for decades to be a master.

In fact, I recommend that you start reading Tarot for yourself from Day 1.  Practice is the best way to learn.  You can start by doing a daily card draw as you learn.  As you continue to read the cards on a daily basis, you’ll learn what they mean for you.  Attaching personal meaning will create a powerful connection between you and the cards, which makes tapping into your intuition easier than ever.

Of course, if it helps you to have a book nearby as you do so, go for it.  But don’t feel like you have to memorise descriptions and interpretations before you can begin reading.

I know it’s scary, but don’t wait until your Tarot reading skills are ‘perfect’ before reading for someone else.  Doing free Tarot readings, like those in the Biddy Tarot Community, is the perfect way to get started.

6. It’s OK to Personalise the Tarot Card Meanings – Even If They’re Different to the Book

If you’ve read anything I’ve written or listened to the Biddy Tarot Podcast, you know that my motto is “read from the heart, not from the book”.  If you open your mind and read your cards intuitively, you’ll discover new messages that can’t be found in any Tarot book.

For example, I consulted my cards to help me decide where my family and I should go on our next vacation.  I drew the Sun and my attention was immediately drawn to the bright sunflowers on the card.  I instantly thought of the sunflowers in Andalusia, Spain, and I knew that’s where we needed to go. Now, I have a pretty good feeling that you won’t find “Andalusia” in any Tarot guide books – it was 100% my intuition that guided me there. (The holiday was wonderful, by the way.)

The good news is that if you’re reading intuitively, you’ll see so many new aspects to the cards that can’t be found anywhere else.  Don’t think of it as being “wrong”.  Instead, consider that you’re in tune with your inner wisdom, which is  a beautiful thing.

7. You Don’t Have to Wear Crushed Velvet to Read Tarot

When most people imagine a Tarot reader, they see a gypsy woman peering into a crystal ball, wearing a flowing robe of crushed velvet and burning patchouli in the background.  I’m very happy to tell you that none of that is essential to be a Tarot reader (although totally optional if that’s your style).

The truth is, anyone can read Tarot!  Whether you’re a mum (like me), dad, teacher, librarian, or run a company (also like me), you can do it.  Tarot is also great for all ages. No matter who you are, Tarot doesn’t require you to dress up or play a part.  Just be you.

8. You Don’t Have to Be into the Occult to Love Tarot

Some people think that Tarot readers need to be into the Occult or dark arts.  I’m living proof that this is not the case.  Sure, Tarot is a free tool that can be used however someone wants.  But I promise you that the overwhelming majority of Tarot readers do it with goodness in mind.

Besides, with its growing popularity, Tarot is becoming more modern than ever.  There are even Hello Kitty decks!  You’ll have a hard time convincing me that Hello Kitty is an avid member of the Occult.

If you want further proof of how progressive Tarot has become, check out my list of the Top 5 Modern Tarot Decks for 2018.

The post 8 Tarot Card Truths Every Reader Should Know appeared first on Biddy Tarot.

BTP124: 4 Ways to Personalise the Tarot Card Meanings and Make Them Pop

When we start to learn to read Tarot, we often fall into the trap of thinking we need to memorise and rote learn the meanings. But, what happens is that our readings end up becoming generic, robotic, and plain boring.  

Instead, it’s essential that you learn how to personalise the Tarot card meanings to truly make your Tarot readings pop. When you learn how to intuitively connect with the Tarot, you’ll uncover deeply insightful and accurate messages in your readings.  

For today’s podcast, we went into the archives to pull out an audience favourite. In episode 124, I’m going to show you 4 ways to personalise the Tarot card meanings. We’re going to get creative and have a little fun along the way!  

In this episode, you’ll learn:  

The difference between Personal Meanings and Traditional Meanings 
How to let go of the book and embrace your intuition 


How to draw from your own life to create meanings for the Major Arcana 
How to create your own book of meanings 

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES 

Free Download: 5 Simple Steps to Read Tarot with Confidence
BTP6: Tarot Plain and Simple with Anthony Lewis
Free Tarot Card Meanings Workbook

WELCOME 

You’re listening to the Biddy Tarot Podcast, and this is Episode 124: 4 Ways to Personalise the Tarot Card Meanings and Make Them Pop. 

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. Now, here is your host, Brigit Esselmont. 

INTRODUCTION 

BRIGIT: Hello, and welcome back to the Biddy Tarot Podcast. As always, I love talking with you all about Tarot. 

This week, I’m digging into the archives and bringing you one of my favourite episodes, which is all about personalising what the cards mean to you. And as you do that, you create these amazing card meanings that have such deep and personal relevance to you. 

WELCOME 

You’re listening to the Biddy Tarot Podcast, and this is Episode 124: 4 Ways to Personalise the Tarot Card Meanings and Make Them Pop. 

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. Now, here is your host, Brigit Esselmont. 

LET’S CELEBRATE! 

I can’t wait to share that with you in just a moment, but before we do, what I’d like to do is just honour and celebrate some of the five-star reviews that our listeners have been leaving. I appreciate them so much, and I really want to give a shout-out to the folks who have shared their reviews. 

Here we go! 

This one is from QueenOfCrystals in the U.K. She says: 

“Biddy, I read your lovely words and Tarot interpretations every day when I’m reading my cards, and I think you’re amazing, so imagine my joy at finding your podcast! I’m currently working my way through all the episodes and loving it.” 

Awesome! Well, we’re up to 124 now, so you’ve got quite a lot of listening ahead of you, but thank you. I appreciate that very much! 

Here is also one from DaddyTaylor, who is in Canada. DaddyTaylor says: 

“Thank you, Brigit, for redefining Tarot and giving it the positive, life-transforming attention it deserves.” 

Golden words! I love it. Thank you so very much. 

And one last one… This is from VonMarvellous from the U.S. VonMarvellous says: 

“Biddy is so freaking cool! I love her! Listening to this podcast is super soothing and inspirational. It’s intelligent, down to earth, and always infuses me with new wisdom about Tarot and beyond. I especially love how there are downloads to go along with the podcast. Thank you, Biddy!” 

Well, my absolute pleasure! 

If you are loving this podcast, I invite you to jump into iTunes, leave a star rating and a review, and I would appreciate it so very, very much. 

Well, let’s get into today’s podcast episode. I’m just going to go straight into it, so let’s jump into 4 ways to personalise your Tarot card meanings and make them pop. Here we go! 

4 WAYS TO PERSONALISE YOUR TAROT CARD MEANINGS AND MAKE THEM POP 

When we start to learn to read Tarot, we often fall into the trap of thinking we need to memorise and rote learn the Tarot, but what happens is that our readings end up becoming generic, robotic, and plain boring. 

Instead, it’s essential that you learn how to personalise the Tarot card meanings to truly make your Tarot readings pop. That is, you learn how to intuitively connect with the Tarot and you uncover deeply insightful and accurate messages in your Tarot readings. 

In today’s podcast, I’m going to show you 4 ways to personalise the Tarot card meanings. We’re going to get creative and have a little fun along the way! 

And remember, you can view the show notes and the transcript for this episode over at BiddyTarot.com/124. 

You can also share your comments and questions on the blog. 

PERSONAL MEANINGS VS. TRADITIONAL MEANINGS 

Before we get into these 4 ways to personalize the Tarot card meanings, let’s talk about the difference between personalized Tarot card meanings and traditional meanings, because the question that often comes up for people when they’re learning to read Tarot is: Which is the right one? If I’m reading something in a book, but I’m seeing something completely different when I look at the card, have I got it wrong? Or am I on the right track? What’s going on here? 

With the Tarot card meanings, there are really a group of traditional meanings associated with those cards, and those traditional meanings are what most people would agree are the meanings for those cards, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that those are the only meanings for the cards. 

We also have our personal meanings associated with the Tarot cards, and I believe that this is really where things get more intuitive—when we’re connecting with the cards, and we’re seeing things that maybe no other Tarot reader would ever see in the Tarot card—because what we’re seeing is important to us, and it’s giving us an intuitive message about the card and about our situation that we’re asking for. 

I want you to know that there will be difference between what you personally see in the cards and what you might read in a book, but if there are differences, you are not wrong. 

I want to give you permission to explore and get creative with the Tarot cards, and really embrace this opportunity to use the Tarot cards as a way of accessing your sub-conscious mind and your intuition, because when you start to do that, that’s when things get really interesting with your Tarot readings. 

You break out of that mould of “Well, the Five of Cups means deep regret,” and then you might see the bridge and you go, “You know what, there’s a bridge—get over it!” 

And that has so much more meaning for you than what you just read in a book. 

But it is also a balance between the two, so I think it’s important that we understand what the traditional meanings are of the cards, but we also need to balance that out with our own personal and intuitive meanings of the cards. 

Now that we’ve got that clarified, let’s have a look at 4 different ways that you can personalise the Tarot card meanings and really make them pop in your Tarot readings. 

1. PUT THE BOOK DOWN

Step away from the book! 

When you do a Tarot reading, really resist the temptation to pick up your book; instead put it down, put it in another room, take it away, don’t have it anywhere near you. 

I think books are great in between readings, but what happens is, if we’re doing a Tarot reading and we’re solely relying on the book, we’re almost shutting down our intuition, and we’re not allowing ourselves to really explore what that card means for us, because we’re sort of defaulting, going, “Oh, what am I going to do? I’m going to look it up in the book and that will tell me the meaning.” 

When you remove the book, it really forces your intuition to kick into gear, and it really forces you to look at that Tarot card and say, “What’s jumping out at me personally? What is it that I can see?” 

A great way of doing that is just to start reading the picture in the card and tell the story of what you see in the card. 

For example, I have just pulled out the Ace of Wands, and I could revert to the meaning around Ace of Wands: inspiration, motivation, a new creative project, you name it. 

But I think that things get more interesting when we start to look at these pictures and we think, “What’s the personal message for me in this card? What is really attracting my attention?” 

Well, right now, I’m looking at this handing holding the stick, and I can’t help but notice this sort of radiance from the hand, and there’s so much energy in this hand and, in some ways, I’m envisioning the energy around the hand, and maybe it’s even something around healing hands, or that there’s power from within and I could use my hands for creating something, and maybe there’s energy within my hand. 

I might be starting to connect in this very different way now, with the Ace of Wands; whereas the Ace of Wands before was about inspiration, now I’m thinking of it as, maybe this is about hands-on healing – maybe this is about being hands-on and doing something with my hands, and that might actually be the solution to my problem. 

Now, does that mean that that is now the meaning for the Ace of Wands? 

Not necessarily. That might have been what I needed to see right now, right in this moment. The next time I do a reading with the Ace of Wands, I might see something completely different in this card. Maybe I start noticing that white castle and thinking, “Oh, that looks pretty nice. It looks like my dream home.” 

Maybe I’m starting to get inspired around what my dream house could look like, and my thinking might go in that direction. 

You can see that once you actually put the book down and you say, “Right, I’m going to just all those traditional meanings to the side,” you start to get much more of a personal connection with the Tarot cards. 

And, you know what, I find that so much more exciting, just between you and me.

2. MEDITATE WITH THE TAROT CARDS

Wow! Meditation and guided visualization is so incredibly powerful, particularly when it comes to the Tarot, because we know that the Tarot is so rich in symbolism. 

It really is this process of seeing a symbol or something in the card, and that then unlocks something in our subconscious and brings us much closer to our intuition. 

Just imagine if you were able to get yourself into a very relaxed state, and you were able to bring up the imagery of a Tarot card, and in your mind’s eye you were able to step into that imagery and start to explore and experience it, first hand. But in a way that you’ve actually said, “Hey, Conscious Mind, you go and sit in that corner over there because I want to connect with my Sub-Conscious Mind right now.” 

You are standing in this Tarot card, exploring and experiencing, whilst connected to your sub-conscious mind. 

Just imagine everything that might happen while you’re experiencing this and what a deep connection you begin to feel with that Tarot card. 

I know it because I’ve seen so many people who have used my guided meditation program, Soul Meditations, and I’ve read about their experiences with the cards. 

It goes so much further than simply – let’s say the Devil: The Devil means addiction, obsession, and possession and so on. 

But when people have gone into the Devil, and really experienced, perhaps being one of the people chained to the Devil, and what did that feel like? 

OK, that’s interesting – and then they go and become the Devil who’s got this control over these two people and go, “Well, what does that feel like?” 

And then that becomes this whole experience within itself that just opens up so much more about that card. And maybe you start to experience “What does it feel like to be controlled, and what does it feel like to be the controller; and what new insights does that give you in your life?” 

You can see how powerful it is when we do meditation with the cards, or we go through a guided visualization to truly embody and embrace the energy of the Tarot cards. 

And you can do that with my program, Soul Meditations, which you’ll find at biddytarot.com/Tarot-guides. 

And in Soul Meditations I lead you through each and every one of the Major Arcana cards to really connect you with their energy, and help you unlock some of those deeper lessons within those incredibly powerful cards. 

Of course, you can do it on your own. You can bring up the imagery in your own mind and step into them, but I know from my personal experience it always helps to have someone else leading you through that experience so that you can really switch off your conscious mind and let your sub-conscious come into play. 

3. WRITE YOUR LIFE STORY WITH THE MAJORS

Now technique #3 is a little bit more fun, but also equally powerful, and that is to write your life story with the Major Arcana cards. 

Here’s what you can do: Think about either your whole life, or maybe just a part of your life, or a theme in your life. 

It might be, “OK, I’m going to focus on my 20s,” or “I’m going to focus on my career path.” 

You might just start to write down some different turning points in that part of your life. 

Let’s say it’s career. Maybe you start with your first job and what you experienced there. Maybe you had a time when you had some really big successes, but you also had some challenges along the way. Maybe you made some decisions around your career to change the focus of your career. Maybe career became less or more important to you. 

Just note those down on a piece of paper, and maybe you will end up with eight or nine different turning points in that part of your life. 

Then what I want you to do is think about the Major Arcana cards. Now you might want to get these out of your Tarot deck and lay them right out in front of you, and consciously choosing them, start to match up those Major Arcana cards to the various points in your life. 

For example, start with your very first job, which might the Fool Tarot card. You place that next to first job. Maybe you had a time when you got some really negative feedback or were made redundant, in which case maybe you select the Tower card. Perhaps you had an overbearing, micro-managing boss, and maybe the Devil card comes up for that one. 

Start to pull out those Major Arcana cards and place them along your life journey. 

Now, here’s the really fun part… 

What I want you to do is, go through what is effectively a two-way process. What we want to know is: 

What does the Tarot card that you chose tell you about that time in your life? 
And what does your life tell you about that card? 

So, for example, if you’ve got the Fool at your very first job, what does the card tell you about that time in your life? 

Well, the Fool tells me that, yes, I was standing on the edge of a cliff, and I was stepping out into this big unknown that’s called Corporate Life, and I had no idea where I was going to land. I thought it would be my job forever—who knew? 

I just took that big step out, and I embraced it. And hey, you know what? I started to fly, and things started to work out for me. 

That’s one way of looking at it: What does that card tell you about that that time in your life? 

And maybe you start to get some new insights about that time in your life and how pivotal it was for you. 

Then I want you to reverse it. 

Think about that time in your life, that new job, and what new information does that give you about the card that you selected? 

Maybe you start reflecting about that first job and you think, “Oh my goodness, I felt like I was floundering. I had no idea. I thought I knew everything because I’d just come out of University, and I was in this really well paying graduate job, something that all my friends thought was really amazing, but I had no idea. I had no clue what I was doing.” 

And maybe you start to relate to “Well, maybe that’s what the Fool is like, that sometimes you feel like you’ve got to fake it ‘til you make it. And even though you don’t completely know something, you’ve just got to go with it and just go on the ride.” 

Maybe this gives you all this new information about the card that you drew. 

What we’re doing here is we’re creating this really nice connection between the Tarot cards and your life. The reason that we want to do that is because it is creating more of a personal experience that you can personally relate to. It gives it so much more power and energy so that when you see that Fool card come up in a Tarot reading—whether it’s for yourself or maybe somebody else—you can already connect with that feeling that you’ve created in your body and your mind around that card. 

Instead of having to think, “Oh, Fool, that means new beginnings, innocence, carefree nature,” you can go back to that experience in your life of, say, when you had that new job, and you go, “Yeah, I know what that felt like.” 

And then maybe that Fool card is coming up around a new relationship – in this case you can start to relate those feelings of: Yeah, you’re doing this new relationship, but you’ve got no idea, do you? You don’t know where this thing’s going to go. And that’s scary, but it’s exciting at the same time. I know it because I’ve been there before. 

Imagine how powerful your Tarot readings will be. 

That’s a really awesome, fun exercise to do, and that is writing your life story with the Majors. 

Now of course, you could flip through your deck and just draw a card—what have I got here? 

The Three of Wands. 

And you might look at that card and think, “When was there a time in my life that I really felt that Three of Wands’ energy?” 

That’s a very similar and powerful exercise that you can do. 

4. CREATE YOUR OWN TAROT CARD MEANINGS BOOK

So, with that in mind, let’s move onto the fourth, and our last, technique for personalizing the Tarot card meanings, and that is to create your very own Tarot card meanings book. 

So, yes, you can buy lots and lots of books about the Tarot card meanings – or, of course, you could buy The Ultimate Guide to Tarot Card Meanings and you won’t need any more books after that, but you will get so much value if you start to create your own Tarot card meanings book. 

And what I mean by this is, as you work with the Tarot cards more and more, and you create this personal connection with the Tarot cards, make sure that you’re keeping note of the new insights that you’re generating. Even write down the stories associated with these Tarot cards. 

Let’s say, coming back to that Fool example, you might write a short essay around how it felt like for you to be stepping into this new job, and what that means for the Fool Tarot card, and what the energy is around that. 

You might later do a Tarot reading for somebody and the Fool card comes up, and you see how that relates to them. Maybe it’s a completely different story. 

But write it down in your Tarot card meanings book because, again, you are creating this beautiful bank of experiences associated with the cards. And it goes way, way, way beyond what you’ll ever read in a Tarot book, because you are personally relating with these cards. 

In fact, I had an interview with Tony Louis, and that was back in Episode 6 – you can hear it at biddytarot.com/6 

And Tony talks about his book, Tarot Plain and Simple, and how he created this book was from years of doing Tarot readings for other people and keeping track of “OK, when I see the Six of Swords, I’m hearing about this experience.” 

And often times, it was different to what he was reading in all of the other books about the Tarot card meanings, but he saw it come up so many times he was like, “Yes! I get it! I get that meaning,” so he started to collate it in his own Tarot card meanings book. 

I did the same when I was creating The Ultimate Guide to Tarot Card Meanings, I was pulling together what I knew of the cards from traditional meanings but also what I had experienced of the cards in my Tarot readings for other people and for myself. And, you know, that’s what made it really actionable and real and practical. 

I get comments to this day of how useful those Tarot card meanings really are, because they’re connected with real life. They’re not just concepts that don’t necessarily have meaning or groundedness. 

I really do recommend that you start to create your own Tarot card meanings book. 

Now, you could easily do that in a notebook and put in different sections for the different cards. Or you could use my Tarot Card Meanings Workbook, which is available at biddytarot.com/Tarot-guides 

It’s a PDF e-book, but you can easily type in your meanings into the PDF, and that way you’ve got it on your computer, and ready to go whenever you need it. Or you could always print it out and write in your meanings. 

WRAP-UP 

So, there you have it, those are the four ways to personalize the Tarot card meanings and make them pop. 

So, to recap I want you to: 

Put the book down when you’re doing Tarot readings 
Meditate with the Tarot cards 
Write your life story with the Major Arcana cards 
Create your own Tarot card meanings book 

If you do those four things, you are going to have the most amazing personal and intuitive connection with the Tarot cards, and your Tarot readings are just going to sing. Amazing! 

I hope that you’ve enjoyed today’s podcast – I’ve really enjoyed sharing these different techniques with you. 

And if you enjoyed today then I’d love for you to sign up for my 5 Simple Steps to Read Tarot with Confidence tutorial series. You’ll receive five easy to read emails, in your Inbox, with some really actionable activities that you can do straight away that are going to help you personally connect with the Tarot cards. 

I really want to get away from all of this memorising and rote learning. I’ve been there. I’ve done it. It was boring. 

I had so much more fun when I was connecting more personally with the Tarot cards and I really want you to experience that as well. 

So, make sure you sign up for my 5 Simple Steps  tutorial series over at biddytarot.com/5ss 

And once you sign up you’ll receive the first tutorial in your Inbox. 

Awesome – thank you so much for being here. I’m enjoying connecting with you and sharing all of this Tarot goodness with you. I can’t wait to connect with you again very soon. 

Thank you and good-bye. 

The post BTP124: 4 Ways to Personalise the Tarot Card Meanings and Make Them Pop appeared first on Biddy Tarot.

Monthly Tarot Forecast for May 2018

https://youtu.be/ZH_DjIBoQIs

In May 2018, after spending a little time doing some soul searching, you’ll figure out what you need to do. This month invites you to get all of those ducks in a line and just go for it! Gather your to-do list, put your head down and get the work done. Watch out for burnout, and keep in touch with your energy levels. If you find yourself feeling exhausted, take a step back and process what’s going on. This is no time to back out! Take a rest if you need to, but you’re nearing the finish line, and this month is about doing whatever you need to do to get your project done. Pay attention to your energy levels, let go of stress or tension, and get back into it! 

Watch the Tarot card forecast to learn more about what’s coming up in May 2018 and how to make the most of the month ahead. 

Tarot deck used in this video: Lumina Tarot

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Hi, I’m Brigit, Founder of Biddy Tarot, and this is the Monthly Tarot Forecast for May 2018. As always, I’ll go through: 

What is passing through your life right now?  
What energy is emerging?  
What can you do to take action for this month? 

Let’s get straight into it! 

WHAT’S PASSING THROUGH? 

For what is passing through your life right now, we have the Hermit from the Lumina Tarot deck. Now, the Hermit is very much about going on a spiritual journey and discovering new parts of yourself that you may not have discovered before. 

I feel that, with this card in the “passing” position, you may have already been through this phase of spiritual awakening and spiritual exploration, and now you’re starting to move through that. You’ve had your time for being on your own, like the Hermit is, and you’ve had your time for taking a retreat, being introspective—a bit of the navel-gazing, a bit of the journaling, all that good stuff. You’ve had that, and now you can start to let that go and just let it do its work. I think this is a bit like the soul medicine. We just need to take that time out for ourselves and then just let it go, and it does the work for us. 

When we look at the other two cards for this month, we can see that there’s not really the space anymore for lots of this soul searching and so on. In fact, the rest of the month is very much about getting into the work, doing the work and being productive. 

WHAT IS EMERGING? 

This is what is emerging. We have the Eight of Pentacles here. This is definitely the hard-working card. It’s about getting all of your ducks lined up and just going for it. You might have your task list all ready. You know exactly what it is that you need to do. You just have to get your head down and just do the work. 

Look, there’s a little bit of this coordination piece. If you’re working with others, make sure that you’ve got the whole team on the same page, and you’re all heading towards the same direction. You want to make sure that there’s a leader, just like we have here, so that people know exactly what it is that they need to do and how it integrates with other people’s work. 

You might be the leader, or you might be part of that group who is working very, very hard, but I can assure that this month is the month to be super, super productive and conscientious. 

WHAT ACTION CAN YOU TAKE? 

What action can you take for this month? We have the Nine of Wands, reversed. Now, with the Nine of Wands, it can sometimes feel like you’re just pushing and pushing and pushing just to get to the finish line, and you could be prone to a little bit of burnout if you don’t pay attention to your energy. 

Certainly, if you’re doing a lot of the hard work here with the Eight of Pentacles, you are prone to doing a bit of burnout as well. Keep in touch with your energy levels, and if you are feeling exhausted, just take some time to step back and process what’s going on, let go of any stress or tension, and then just get back into it. 

WRAP-UP 

We don’t want you to have a complete breakdown and completely back out of the project altogether. This is about helping you get to the finish line. With a Nine, you are so close to completion, and don’t want to back out now! This is about doing what you need to do to get across the finish line. 

If you’ve been through that Hermit phase, you know how to now quickly go into maybe a meditation practice so that you can manage those energy levels and then keep persevering. 

I hope you have a fabulous month ahead! It looks like it’s going to be quite a busy one. Keep in touch with your energy. Make sure you don’t burn out and get completely exhausted, but also make sure that you don’t quit or give up because there’s so much work for you here, and there’s so much for potential for you as well, so make the most of it! 

I hope you have a fabulous month ahead, and I look forward to connecting with you again very, very soon. Bye for now! 

The post Monthly Tarot Forecast for May 2018 appeared first on Biddy Tarot.

BTP123: Lunar Abundance with Ezzie Spencer

Do you often feel the influence of the moon? I certainly do, especially living out in the bush with very little ambient light. Today, I want to introduce you to Ezzie Spencer an expert on the subject of lunar cycles.  She’s an amazing author who recently released her book “Lunar Abundance: Cultivating Joy, Peace and Purpose Using the Phases of the Moon”.  

In this episode, you’ll learn about:  

Ezzie Spencer’s new book “Lunar Abundance: Cultivating Joy, Peace and Purpose Using the Phases of the Moon” and its intention. 
Ezzie’s journey from working as a lawyer to starting her own business and practice around lunar cycles 
How you can tap into the knowledge and creative power of lunar cycles 

ADDITIONAL FEATURES

Visit Ezzie’s website EzzieSpencer.com to purchase her book and download free materials.

WELCOME 

BRIGIT: Hello, and welcome back to the Biddy Tarot Podcast. Now, today we’re not specifically talking about Tarot, but we are talking about another entry point into our intuition and that is working with the Lunar Cycles. 

Personally, I love to connect in with the Lunar Cycles, and I found that I have done that even more now that we live on 5 acres out in the bush, and we have no curtains in our bedrooms, and we definitely know when it’s a Full Moon and when it’s a New Moon. 

In fact, normally with the Full Moons, I am usually out in the middle of the night, staring up to the moonlight and, you know, really trying to let go of some of that excess energy that I feel at that time of that cycle. I was really excited that we have the opportunity to speak with Ezzie Spencer. 

Now, Ezzie is very well known for her system, I suppose you can call it, called Lunar Abundance, and Ezzie is a published author, obviously, creator of Lunar Abundance, and also a speaker and consultant. 

Now, she has created this beautiful book Lunar Abundance: Cultivating Joy, Peace and Purpose Using the Phases of the Moon, and the intention behind this book is to really support people in not just connecting with the moon but also connecting with themselves, and using the moon cycles almost as a part of the practice to come back to who you really are.  

Now, Ezzie started out in a very different field. She started as a lawyer (she will talk a little bit more about that in today’s interview), and then she moved into academic teaching, but she always felt called to something more, and for her, that was these Lunar Cycles. And not only did she just see it as “OK, these are the Lunar Cycles,” but more “How do I tap into the knowledge or the manifesting and creative power of the Lunar Cycles?” 

That’s what we are going to talk about today, how you can encourage and introduce the moon cycles into your life. We also talk a little about how you can bring Tarot and your intuition into it, and I just think you going to really love today’s interview with Ezzie, so without further ado, here is Ezzie Spencer.  

LUNAR ABUNDANCE WITH EZZIE SPENCER 

BRIGIT: Welcome, Ezzie, to the Biddy Tarot Podcast. It’s always a super pleasure to have you here and to be kind of diving into some really fun stuff today around Lunar Cycles. Welcome, Ezzie. 

EZZIE: It’s such a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me on. 

BRIGIT: Of course, it is very exciting to have a fellow Australian to on the call. 

EZZIE: Right. 

BRIGIT: It’s neat. You tell me you are in Bondi right now? 

EZZIE: Yes, Bondi Beach, so I am basically one of the luckiest people in the world. 

BRIGIT: Quintessentially Australian. 

EZZIE: The best of everything Bondi. 

BRIGIT: Ezzie, you’re really well known for your work around Moon Cycles and Lunar Cycles, but I’ll love to hear a little bit about your journey, because you are similar to myself in that you came through a corporate background, and then you journeyed your way into something that some people might call a bit “woo-woo,” but it’s all backed by science. Tell me a little bit more about your journey to where you came to now… 

EZZIE: Well, people are often surprised when they hear that I started out in the law world. So, I tried it as a lawyer, and I worked in the law, and it was actually a really important step to creating the personal practice that became Lunar Abundance, which is what I teach now on the Moon Cycles, because I was feeling that sense of disconnection with myself really, that disconnection from something that actually I couldn’t name at the time when in my mid-twenties and the push and the hustle and the grind and the world that I know you know so well, and so many of your listeners would as well. 

It was very much focused around achievement and the external goals, and it was actually pretty meaningful work as well. I was doing, I was more on the social justice side of the law, so it had meaning and purpose, but gosh, I was working the long hours. I didn’t have a spiritual practice. I totally missed the memo on self-care. It was just a kind of environment where I was not only really disconnected from the rhythms of nature and the mystery and the magic of life, which had so captured me as a little girl, and I lost that along the way, but I was also really disconnected from myself, my body, my own rhythms, my own cycle. 

I was really stuck in my head, and I was drinking coffee in the morning just to keep going in the day, and I was drinking a lot of alcohol in the night to self-medicate to go to sleep, and there was something elemental missing from my life. 

I guess I became a bit of a spiritual seeker at that time. This was around 10 years ago now or more, and I ended up going down a bit of a rabbit hole with different things, and one of the things that really resonated with me the most, a practice which is so helpful for me, is journaling, and it still is to this day. I think it is such a great way to make sense of yourself and the world and your place in it as you’re showing up in privacy to the page at night. 

And then at some point, I don’t know exactly when or why, because the Moon was not really trendy at this point, I started to draw in my journal pictures of Moon phases.  

The moon goes through eight phases over the course of a moon cycle, which last for about a month and many of us are familiar with the Full Moon phase, but that is only one phase in the middle of the cycle. There are actually seven other phases that the moon goes through, starting at the New Moon, and then working through Crescent Moon, and First Quarter Moon, and waxing all the way up to Full, and climaxing there, but then waning on the way back down from Full to New. 

And what I found, as I was drawing these little Moon phases in my journal, is that I notice there were correlations between how I was feeling. My energy levels, for instance, might be peaking at the Full Moon, but I’d be a lot more introverted Balsamic Moon, for instance, which is the eighth of those eight phases in the Moon Cycle. 

And then, I also found that there was a predictability, a repetition to how I was feeling at each one of those phases. It was this sort of airborne flow movement that would repeat over multiple Moon Cycles, which was so fascinating to me. I went deeper into it, I started to work more consciously, aligning with the Moon Cycle by setting an intention at the New Moon and working more with the principles of abundance. The Moon is often represented abundance and fertility and creativity in many cultures around the world for millenniums. I really started to come into it and tap into it and play with the Moon Cycle on a deeper level, and what happened then was a couple of things. 

One is that I became much more intuitive. I’m much more connected with myself, my own deep purpose, my own sense of why it was that I was here on this Earth, and I realised that it wasn’t actually to be a lawyer. I was just going through the motions because that was what with… I guess I got the grades, and I got into it, and that seemed really good. And yes, there is a lot that’s good about the law, but it was not actually the right calling for me. I just needed to do something, which was meant to be a lot more creative and a lot more heart-centred. 

I also found, as I was working with the Moon Cycle, I became a lot more relaxed. Instead of being constantly in my head—the push and the hustle and thinking—I was able to tap into the feeling world, the emotional world, and tap into my instincts on a deeper level, listen to my heart more. 

I made a lot of changes in my life, and I must have talked about this at the time. People became so interested in it. It was something that I was speaking about literally as a passion, as a hobby from the heart, and I never planned to start a business. I actually went into academia after the law, and I was studying a PHD, which I finished, and I was lecturing and all of those things, so I never thought that I would end up doing what I do now. 

But it was just that people were so interested! Free workshops and free sessions turned into paid workshops and paid sessions, and a blog, which is a passion project, ended up turned into an online course, which ended up being really financially successful and a way that I was able to support myself, and to create a location-independent lifestyle. 

I had hundreds of women who went through the practice who had experienced the same results as me: meeting soul mates and being able to go from a six-figure business to a seven-figure business, and leave jobs that they hated, and leave a marriage that they hated, to really finding a deep sense within themselves of who they really were, what they were here for on Earth, and doing it in a much more sustainable way as well, really working with the instant flows of life. 

It ended up happening very organically. If I had tried to plan what it is that it has now become out of the practice… And now there is a book that’s coming out, too. I would never, ever in a million years have been able to sit down and figure this out with my brain, trying to do a five-year plan or strategy or anything like that. It’s been a process of following the crumbs the whole way through and just tapping into the magic of life.  

BRIGIT: I think that’s true testament to following your intuition versus trying to think your way through life. I think that’s just the magic place, right? That’s where all the magic happens, when you start to, as you say, follow those breadcrumbs, and then everything drops into place. 

I’m in a very similar journey going from corporate and not intending on creating a business, like Biddy Tarot, but just following where the energy is, and then it just grows and it grows and it grows, and it is incredibly abundant. It’s crazy, right? Well, it’s not crazy—it’s actually very normal. It’s all about following your intuition, nice and easy. 

So, tell me a little about like how you integrate the Moon Cycles now. Are you still including that into your spiritual or daily practice? Or have you found that it has evolved in a different way? I’m curious. 

EZZIE: Oh definitely! I feel like I have. There are other things that I work with now as well, but it’s still the foundation point of my daily practice and my monthly practice as well, so I still set intentions at each New Moon, and those intentions are feeling-based intentions, because the Moon represents the feelings, the emotions and the subconscious realm very much about working with the senses to activate how you actually feeling in your body. What are the physical sensations? What is it that your body is wanting? And what is that inner wisdom really telling you at the New Moon phase? It is a beautiful time to set intentions, and there is a particular way that I craft intentions in the Lunar Abundance practice, which I still do today. 

I don’t think I have ever missed a Moon Cycle now for a decade or so. That’s kind of juicy. I then sit with that intention each day in meditation, before I even get out of bed. It’s the first thing that I do in that luminal space, as you are coming into the day. 

I think, with many of us, we sometimes think that these spiritual practices need to be quite ornate or ritualised, and some of them do benefit from that, for sure. But I find even you just bringing your attention and awareness to what it is you are focusing on, what it is that you are cultivating in your life, what kind of abundance it is that you are welcoming at this time, can be done in as little as a couple of minutes a day, and then I work with each of those eight Moon Phases, and I talk about that in the book. 

There is a chapter in the book for each one of those eight Moon Phases, but the big one is the New Moon setting intentions at the New Moon, and then the Full Moon, releasing whatever it is that is holding you back from being able to manifest what it is that you are wanting to bring into your life, and to take really clear steps forward with confidence, knowing that you are on the right track, lit up by the literal and metaphorical light that we experience at the Full Moon stage.  

BRIGIT: Yeah wonderful! Of course, my Tarot brain is going crazy on how to integrate these. For the New Moon, we are setting intentions, and you are also saying that it is a highly intuitive time. Would you say a New Moon is more of an intuitive time than the Full Moon? Is there a difference there? What do you think? 

EZZIE: Well, I feel what happens at the New Moon, by working with the symbolism of the Moon Cycle… I love to, “as above so below,” the principle of correspondence is one that I live my life by, and the Lunar Abundance practice is founded on that, so this idea out there in the sky at the New Moon phase, the Moon is between the Earth and the Sun, so it’s blocking the Sun’s light, so it’s dark in a literal sense, particularly if you’re outside in nature, outside of the city or urban environment. 

On that metaphorical, symbolic level down below inside of us, if you will, we don’t necessarily have a lot of light to show us the way forward. It’s a time, as you say, to go within and to tap in to your own intuition and to get very clear about, “What are your desires? What is your deep purpose? What is your body telling you? What emotions are coming up? What physical sensations and feelings are coming up?” Certainly, that is a time where you can experience and where you can tap into and where you can cultivate tapping into. The more and more you do this, the more practice you have, the more intuitive I definitely think you become with this practice. 

And then at the Full Moon, I feel like it’s the instincts that time. There’s that opportunity, as I mentioned before, again working with that symbolism of light. Now, the Moon is on the other side of the Earth, so now it is reflecting the Sun’s light back down to us here, down below again, so we have that full illumination of the way forward, so there is that opportunity to really trust our instincts at this time and to move forward and to actualize what it is, to take the right action to bring what we want into our lives. 

BRIGIT: Wonderful! Awesome. OK, I’m seeing with Tarot, we could really use the New Moon again around setting intentions, and Tarot could be helpful in terms of guiding that process, perhaps even a little bit around the shadow self, and particularly in that concept to the darkness with the Moon and just seeing what is surfacing there, but certainly around setting intentions. 

And then, with the Full Moon, that is as if when everything starts to lock in. What often happens with Tarot reading (and I know you have just started using your cards too, which is awesome, so you might be able to relate to this) is sometimes you do a reading, and you are like, “OK, that was interesting, and now what?” 

And then it’s a few days later, or even a week or two, if it’s in alignment with the Moon, and then they all start to drop in, right? You’ll start to see, “Ah, now I get that, and I get that.” And perhaps that’s also where the Full Moon is supporting that process, is allowing whatever you created in that New Moon to really drop in. 

And the other thing for me, personally, when I get near a Full Moon, I know it, because I get really angsty, and I get busy. It just feels like my motors are turning like crazy, right? And as soon as that Full Moon has come to its fullness, I’m like, “Right, what can I let go of? What am I not going to do anymore? This is too much! Right, just strip back everything.” And that’s also where I find Tarot can be helpful to go, “All right, what else do I need to release here, perhaps more on an emotional or spiritual level as well?” 

So, I’m curious, how does that resonate with your understanding of the Moon? And maybe does it give you any kind of new ideas that we can add into this mix around using Tarot with the Moon? 

EZZIE: I love the idea of planting the seeds, which is something that happens at the New Moon, and of course, the Moon things are associated with agriculture and creativity and fertility, so a line begins symbolically with those elements. So, certainly, I love what you just said about having the initial sort of presentation of the archetypes and the information and whatever it is that is coming through in that Tarot reading, and then the dropping in down the track. 

Once it’s been percolating a little bit in the subconscious mind, once there is that sense of potential and there’s also that… I like that sense of allowing a little bit of time for things to grow and evolve. I think so often we are in such a rush to have that instant gratification which is so endemic in our culture, like, “We want it and we want it now!”  But of course, when we are working with the natural rhythms of life and the universe whether being with Moon Cycles or Tarot or whatever kind of modality, sometimes really good things take time, and to cultivate that sense of patience is, I feel, a really sound spiritual practice. 

BRIGIT: Wonderful. OK, so this is a bit more of a technical question. How soon around the exact moment of the New Moon or Full Moon do you need to do your activities? 

EZZIE: So, I am a big believer in going with the flow. What that means is, as a recovering over achiever and perfectionist, I don’t get too rigid about it. For example, if the New Moon happens at 3 o’clock in the morning, I’m not getting up at 3 o’clock in the morning to do my New Moon ceremony, because sleep is an important value of my energy =, good for my limbic brain and my ability to work through and function in the world. 

I guess what I found is that having… When I initially started this practice, I was very rigid, I was extremely regimented, and then I realised that that was not actually in alignment with what this practice was teaching me and showing me, which was to be more relaxed and easeful and allow myself to move through life with more grace and flow. I found that when I ended up moving, just having some flexibility around it, it didn’t actually make a huge amount of difference for me, and it allowed me to relax more around the process. 

Ifeel like if you are doing it as close to the time as possible, then it’s going to give you the opportunity to work through the entire Moon Cycle at a pace, a rhythm. It’s a system, the more that you keep to the system, the more devoted you are to any kind of system, the better the rewards that you reap, right? But, I think there is a line between that and then just getting to obsessive about getting it right, which can actually interrupt that flow and magic as well. 

BRIGIT: Yeah and that applies to Tarot as well, because you can get a bit perfectionistic at that, “Have I got the right reading? Am I doing it right?” Then it takes away from the whole intuitive flow that’s in there, so it’s similar with the Moon Cycles then. 

EZZIE: Yeah, I think core takeaway is to trust yourself, and sometimes that might mean you get up at 3 o’clock in the morning, but you don’t have to.  

BRIGIT: I’ve noticed sometimes I’ll be aware that maybe it’s the New Moon or Full Moon, and I think, “Oh, OK, I should do something,” and then I think, “Oh, I can’t be bothered,” or my kids are screaming at me, and I’m not feeling very spiritual at all, and so I just wait until I feel really inspired and ready to do it. And if that means it’s 3 days out, then it’s 3 days out, and I feel like I’m still honouring the process, so it’s good to hear it’s OK to have that fluidity and flexibility as well. 

EZZIE: Definitely, because we exist in the real world, this new era where, to have this spiritual practice, you don’t become a renunciate and go off and live in a cave. We are living in the modern world, and we got families and obligations and jobs and businesses and clients and all of those things, so I think any spiritual practice needs to be able to flow with everything that makes our lives what they are, in order to be something which is sustainable for us to work with over time. 

BRIGIT: Absolutely. I think, otherwise, we place a lot of pressure on ourselves to be über spiritual, and we rarely get those über spiritual moments. Do you know what I mean? There is always someone coming and going, “Make me my breakfast! Mom!” Anyway. 

EZZIE: And that’s the most spiritual thing of all, right? 

BRIGIT: Yes, calm and Zen. Ezzie, you have created this beautiful book Lunar Abundance and just in case we use the video at any time, this is it. It looks amazing, and it’s beautifully illustrated, but the best of all, the best piece is, this does go into each part of the Lunar Cycle, and let’s put it in your words. Tell me a little bit, what does this book offer to people who do want to connect with the Moon and with their intuitions? Tell me a little bit about how it works. 

EZZIE: Well, it’s really practical, as you say, because what I wanted to do was to inspire people to create a better life for themselves, in line with the Moon Cycle, because I know so many people have that innate fascination and curiosity with the Moon Cycle, like I did and like I still do, a people mystics and sages and musicians and everyone over the ages has. 

I wanted to make it really practical and grounded, because I do come from a traditional, mainstream background. I find that some of the information online can be really esoteric and up in the clouds, and I needed something that was going to make sense for me, in my life, when I was going to be…. I wanted it to not just make sense to me, so I wanted to see that there were going to be results from it. I didn’t just want to get off on the idea of it. I actually wanted this to make my own life better, and that’s what happened. 

It has transformed my life, and I wanted to inspire other people to do the same and then give them the practical tools that they were going to be able to use at each one of the eight Moon Phases, starting with the New Moon ceremony, in the New Moon phase, and then working all the way through. There is a chapter in each one of those eight Moon phases in the book, through to the Yin and the Yang phases, and then working through the Full Moon ceremonies, the release ceremonies, journaling questions. 

It’s full-colour, it’s illustrated, it’s got graphics, and it’s got the photos. The entire Lunar Abundance experience is a sumptuous activation experience, and I wanted the book to reflect that. It’s sort of got that coffee table/bedside table vibe, but it is also really practical. 

BRIGIT: Spot on, because it’s super luxury, just the look and the feel, but you’ve also included space where you can journal and write and really use it almost as if it is a work book, which I think is great, because I am all for taking what could be potentially esoteric… I don’t think your books are esoteric, but taking this and bringing it back into the everyday life and into real life, because once we bring it in to the now, that’s where we can take action and that’s where it becomes part of what we are doing versus just a froufrou thing that you do on the side that it doesn’t really have any meaning in the day-to-day life, so I think you’ve done an awesome job with it.  

EZZIE: I’m so glad that you like it. I’m really happy with it. I’m delighted. My publisher has done a really good job as well. I’ve been so lucky along the way that I’ve worked with people who have just got it. They got vision, and they have helped me to bring the vision into this very tangible form.  

BRIGIT: As someone who has just recently finished writing the book part, and is about to enter the part of actually finalizing the book and putting everything into it, I know that writing can be a really transformative process. In my personal experience, I have just found myself going deeper and deeper into what is my connection with Tarot. I am curious for you, how did this writing about the Lunar Cycles, what did it teach about you? And what depth did you go into and unfold and discover? 

EZZIE: It’s such a good question, because I feel like I got to the point when I was writing the Lunar Abundance book, and I’m like, “Yep, I’ve be teaching this for years. I’ve led hundreds of women through the practice, and I really got this.” I did! I applied the Lunar Abundance practice as well to write the book, so it was very intentional, and there was lots of going with the flow, and I was able to draw in all the right people and publishers and opportunities and agents and everything to help me. 

But I have to say, the element around going deeper into the Yin was something which happened after the book was finished, and this is a big part of working with the Moon Cycle for me, working with the Yang and the Yin phases. I discuss all of this at length in the book, but essentially working with Yang phase… 

The Yang and the Yin phases are different modes of operating, if you will, the Yang being more about that initiative [inaudible 00:27:49], forward motion, doing, giving energy, and the Yin being more about the receiving, restoring, listening, being energy. On the whole, the Moon Cycle is actually pretty Yin, and that’s what I felt was missing in my life.  That’s why I was drawn to it. Even if I was not able to articulate that 10 years ago, I can see that now. And that’s the piece which I deepened into after, particularly after writing the book. 

After the book was finished, I had a very Yin period of my like, and that could be very uncomfortable for us go-getters and people who are used to be able to take action and to do things and to get things out into the world. To have a time when that project is completed and the goal is achieved and the book is finished? What happens then, you know? It was a period for me of going very deep into the unknown, into the proverbial darkness, not sure what’s going to happen next, and allowing myself to be OK with that discomfort, being OK with the mystery on a much, much deeper level because, of course, as you say, there are layers of this. 

You are sort of this conduit, I believe. Anyone who is writing a book is really a conduit for a message, and that message is as much for us as it is for our readers or our listeners. It’s certainly something which will work you, and I got really worked and taken into a period of uncertainty and unknown, which then has ended up opening up so many new things for me. And I think the longer you are able to stay in that unknown, the longer you are able to be with the mystery, then the more magic will emerge. 

BRIGIT: That’s a very interesting phase. Whether you are writing a book or not, I think this comes up quite a lot throughout one’s life where… Was it Kate Northrup? I think she called it the Fertile Void, and I love that concept of it’s the not knowing what’s coming up next but really sitting in that void, knowing that something is stirring and evolving, but you don’t necessarily need to do. You don’t have to take action. In fact, it’s better if you don’t. 

EZZIE: And if you try to, it will go nowhere. 

BRIGIT: Yeah. I think, in terms of Tarot, like it’s very much a Hanged Man kind of moment or phase where you are in suspension, but the whole intention of that is so you can see things differently. I’m curious, what do you think is then evolving for you? What’s coming through this new? Perhaps what’s this next phase or next level from this Lunar Abundance? What else? 

EZZIE: Yeah, I’m just going to say as well, I did call the Hanged Man card when I was in this time. Tarot was very helpful for me. Learning Tarot was very helpful for me in 2017, let me tell you. 

BRIGIT: Yes, it is! 

EZZIE: I am really excited about the growing integration in the world between spiritual concepts and the ability for science and research to catch up. I feel like there is a time where people who were interested in more of the sacred arts and were interested in any intuition and more of these spiritual concepts existed way over here on one side of the spectrum, and the mainstream was way over here on one side of the spectrum. I feel like there is this growing integration now, where things which use to seem a little bit strange or out there are now more and more accepted by the mainstream. 

I think first and foremost, that’s really cool. I feel the mainstream really benefits from all of these extra modalities and ways of working with the world. I feel like, for me, I am a bit of a bridge between these two worlds, as I think you are as well, because you come from that very mainstream traditional background and come into this kind of work. I am excited now to bring this work back into the mainstream and to be working with different ways of expressing perhaps what are those deep universal principles that I have learnt through this work to consider, “Are there ways that I can change the lexicon? Are there ways that I can better engage people?” 

Really, we are all talking about the same thing, whether that be emotional intelligence [inaudible 00:32:23] work with the principles of neuroscience, neuroplasticity and your ability to change our brain but also change ourselves and our lives, epigenetics. I think these are all the very interesting areas where there is a great amount of alignment between the kind of work that those in the more magical realms have been doing for a really long time and what the mainstream is increasingly interested in. So, I’m doing more of that bridgework. 

BRIGIT: That’s neat. It’s big, and it’s neat. And I think the challenge is, just picking up from what you said, being able to express it and articulate it, because it’s almost as if, once you start putting words around it, it starts to channel it into specific things, and we start to name things, when really, it’s the no-name. Does that make sense? 

I think what has happened, say, in the past, is we’ve created these frameworks to understand the big-ness, the everything-ness, the nothing-ness, and then we start to label it. But I don’t think it necessarily needs to be labelled, but then how do we convey and be that conduit without being able to express it? I think the challenge is up. 

EZZIE: It’s such an easy challenge, isn’t it? But I think that the Moon Cycle, maybe even Tarot, always to attempt to name it, they are all languages, you know? All these systems and mentalities are all languages, and I feel like similarly so, science is another language. It’s just another way of being able to express, as you say, that great unknown, because ultimately, that’s what it all comes down to, in our relationship with ourselves and the relationship with all it is. 

BRIGIT: Absolutely, and I think that’s something I discovered quite a lot through the writing of my book, with Everyday Tarot. I thought what I was doing was writing a book about how to use Tarot cards, or how to use them day to day, and what I realised was that I was actually helping people to really reconnect with their wisdom and their inner power, and reconnect with the everything-ness and all of that beautiful stuff. And I think, just like you said, it’s kind of these little doorways… It’s like a thousand doorways into this giant chamber almost. That’s what I am envisioning, this giant chamber. It is the same thing, but we have these little different like entry points that we can go in that help us make sense of it. 

EZZIE: Ah, I love that, all of these different keys. Some of them are a little more sparkly perhaps than others, but everyone uses the perfect key, don’t they, to get to the same place? 

BRIGIT: Yes, because if someone is not into Tarot, then maybe it is the Moon Cycles that connects them to intuition and the universal energy. And if it’s not that, then maybe it’s science, and there is quantum physics, and that gets you into that space. Like you said, it’s different languages. Yeah, that’s really neat. I can’t wait to see what comes through from you next. 

EZZIE: Me too. 

BRIGIT: No pressure. With Lunar Abundance, by the time we publish this podcast, it will definitely be on bookshelves in the U.S. Tell us a little bit about where people can find your book. 

EZZIE: Yes, in the U.S. and around the world! Exciting! You can get it anywhere where books are sold. You can probably just do an internet search for Lunar Abundance, and it will pop up. Or you can come to my website which is www.lunarabundance.com, and there is a link there where you can also get the book. And then, come on over to my Instagram, @EzzieSpencer on Instagram. I post about each one of those eight Moon Phases, and there is always an invitation for you to comment. 

I love to connect with people who are working with this practice. I love to hear results. I love to hear people’s intentions. I feel like it’s really fun to have that ongoing communication, dialogue and support as people are working through the book as well, because it’s a living, breathing practice for so many people now all over the world doing it—the same way that we are all under the same Moon, I think. It’s really fun to be connected with the people everywhere in the world who are into the same kind of things. 

BRIGIT: Fabulous. Ezzie, is there anything else that you want to add that would help make this session or this conversation complete? 

EZZIE: Oh, I think this is just beautiful. I really enjoyed chatting with you. I feel like the takeaway for me is always a very similar message to you, which is that the Moon is a mirror, and it’s always giving you that opportunity to come out to yourself. At the end of the day, it’s not all about the Moon making you do anything or making you feel a certain way. It’s just illuminating who you are and how you feel, and providing that opportunity for you to connect in more deeply to who you really are. 

BRIGIT: I love it. Thank you so much, Ezzie. It’s been an absolute pleasure. 

EZZIE: It’s been divine. Thank you for having me.  

BRIGIT: So, there you have it. I hope you enjoyed that interview with Ezzie as much as I did. I just loved hearing how Ezzie has been connecting in with her intuition and supporting and encouraging other people to connect with their intuition by using the Lunar Cycles as a guide. 

Now, remember, you can get Lunar Abundance at any good bookstore, of course, and you can also find Ezzie on her website EzzieSpencer.com. 

Now, I just really invite you to find out where you are in the Lunar Cycles. Go outside to start connecting with the moon. Use to the New Moon to connect with your Tarot cards, your intentions, set your intentions, connect with your intuition, and then feel that energy, really building up through until the Full Moon, where everything is coming into fruition, and those seeds that you planted at the New Moon have really started to grow. And as Ezzie said, this is where your instincts really come into play and show you how to bring this into being. And then, of course, comes that beautiful release that is from the Full Moon into the moon. And again, your Tarot cards can guide you through this process.  

 

The post BTP123: Lunar Abundance with Ezzie Spencer appeared first on Biddy Tarot.

3 Questions to Ask About Your Tarot Certification Program

Are you considering becoming a certified Tarot reader, but you’re not sure where to start?  

If you want to become a trusted Tarot advisor and boost your confidence, then getting certified may be a very smart move. But before you go ahead and sign up for that Tarot certification, you need to know that that not all Tarot certifications are created equal. In fact, some Tarot certificates may be barely worth the paper they’re written on. 

Just as you would with any other professional certification, it’s important that, when you’re looking to become a certified Tarot reader, you do your research and find a program that’s right for you. 

To help you do this, here are 3 questions you should be asking when choosing a Tarot certification program. 

1. DO I TRUST, RESPECT AND RESONATE WITH THE TAROT CERTIFICATION TEACHER? 

I once hired a business coach who I was sure would help me grow my business in a really big way. He had helped other successful online entrepreneurs and had a solid reputation for creating big results.  

But after just a few sessions together, I quickly realised that we were way out of alignment. He was more interested in telling me what had worked in his business rather than figuring out what would work in my business. And he fundamentally did not believe in the work I was doing and thought Tarot was a bunch of baloney! 

Needless to say, I quickly ended that relationship. I made a promise to myself to only work with people who I fully trusted, respected and resonated with. 

It’s the same with Tarot certification. You’ve got to find a teacher with whom you truly resonate. 

It might seem very simple and obvious, but if you don’t resonate with the teacher’s approach, then it’s unlikely you’re going to get value from the program. There will always be that niggling feeling that something isn’t quite right, and you might find it hard to excel and do what’s required to be successful in that particular program. 

When you’re selecting a Tarot certification program, make sure you learn more about the teacher’s approach and check that there’s a fit. For example, do you have to stick to the rules and follow a specific methodology when reading Tarot, or is there room to adopt your own personal style and flow?  

Also find out what the teacher believes to be true about Tarot and whether this aligns with your beliefs. For example, does the teacher believe that Tarot is for prediction, empowerment, manifesting or something else? And how does this align with your personal Tarot reading style? 

When it comes to teaching and certifying our Tarot students, I’m always mindful of allowing each student the space to adopt their own unique style of reading the Tarot cards. Of course, there are certain standards that need to be met, especially when it comes to certification. However, there also needs to be room for creative expression and differing styles. If your teacher is forcing you into a style of reading that doesn’t resonate with you, then it’s not the right program for you. You don’t have to compromise who you are and what you believe in. 

2. WHAT IS INCLUDED IN THE TAROT CERTIFICATION PROGRAM? 

Some Tarot certifications are literally just a piece of paper.  

“Pay me $100 and I’ll send you a certificate!” 

Other Tarot certifications are a whole lot more – training, practice, support and so on. 

In my personal opinion, I believe that if you are going to be called a certified Tarot reader, then you also need to make sure that you have the skills, experience and support to fully step into the role of trusted Tarot advisor.  

Simply filling in your credit card details and sending a piece of paper just isn’t going to cut it! 

Consider what you will receive as part of the certification process. Will you get structured training? Will you get an opportunity to put your new skills into practice? What if you run into a problem—who will help you? And what will happen after you are certified? 

For example, the Biddy Tarot Certification Program is way more than ‘just a piece of paper’. It is a 7-month online learning experience that offers a complete approach to Tarot to quickly develop your competence and skill. Inside you’ll find our fully accredited Tarot training courses, group discussion forums, live support calls and real-life practice reading Tarot for others. And after you’ve successfully completed the certification program, you’ll be listed in our directory of Certified Biddy Tarot Readers. It’s one of the most comprehensive Tarot certification programs available. 

3. IS THE TAROT ORGANISATION LEGITIMATE AND REPUTABLE? 

Let’s say you had the choice of being certified by two possible organisations. 

Organisation A is one that you’ve never heard of before – and neither have any of your friends. The website consists of a single page with a flashing banner that says, TAROT CERTIFICATION – BUY NOW!! and an order form where you type in your credit card details and hope to God that you get something in return.  

Organisation B is one you know well. It always comes up in search results when looking up your favourite Tarot cards. Plus, you often recommend it to friends. When you dive in to find out more about certification, you see that it’s fully accredited by a reputable organisation and you see a series of amazing testimonials from people you know and admire.  

Which one would you choose? (Hopefully it’s a no-brainer!) 

You see, when you’re choosing the right Tarot certification program for you, you need to be sure that it isn’t ‘any old’ program – because the sad fact is that any man and his Tarot cards can set up a website and claim that they can certify you.  

What makes the real difference is the reputation and legitimacy of the organisation that is doing the certification. 

In researching the organisation, you need to ask: 

Is the certification organisation fully accredited by a third party (e.g. the International Institute of Complementary Therapies)? 
Have you had any interactions with the organisation in the past? Is this a one-man-band, or a professional organisation with a team to support it? 
Does the organisation have a solid reputation in the Tarot community? 
What are other people saying in their feedback or reviews about the program? 
Do you know anyone who has participated in the program? Can they share about how it’s helped them get where they are now in their Tarot journey? 

These are all important questions to help you find a Tarot certification program that’s right for you. 

It’s these three things – a teacher you can trust, a certification program that includes not only the certificate but the training, support and practice, and an organisation with a solid reputation – that make the Biddy Tarot Certification Program a cut above the rest. 

Many consider Biddy Tarot one of the best in the business. Our internationally accredited trainings are grounded, ethical and well-respected. We’ve now had over 150 students in the certification program since starting in 2017. 

I’m so proud of what our Certified Biddy Tarot Readers have been able to achieve – more confidence, more skills, more clients. I can’t wait to welcome YOU into the program, too!  

You can find out more information, sign up for the wait list to join, and see what other people have to say about the Biddy Tarot Certification Program, click here. 

The post 3 Questions to Ask About Your Tarot Certification Program appeared first on Biddy Tarot.

Everything You Need to Know About Tarot Certification

When it comes to Tarot certification, the jury is most definitely out. Some Tarot readers love the idea of becoming a certified Tarot reader and see it as an opportunity to build credibility and improve their skills. And yet others are vehemently opposed to certification, believing that something as creative and fluid as Tarot should never be ‘standardised’.  

If you’ve ever considered becoming a certified Tarot reader, but you’re still on the fence, then listen up because in this post, I share everything you need to know about Tarot certification. What is Tarot Certification? Is it even a ‘thing’? Do you really need certification? How do you get certified? And so much more. 

What is Tarot Certification?   

Let’s start with the basics. Certification is “the action or process of providing someone or something with an official document attesting to a status or level of achievement” (source: Google). When it comes to Tarot certification, it is a recognition that you have undertaken the necessary study to read the Tarot, and that you also meet a certain standard for being able to interpret and read the Tarot cards.   

To receive certification, you may need to submit a written exam or a practice reading.  Other Tarot certifications may be more in depth, requiring that you complete a comprehensive training program, including in-person readings.  Perhaps you’ll need to pass a number of quizes or log a certain number of hours of readings.  

Ultimately, Tarot certification is designed to give you more credibility as a Tarot reader, both professionally and also personally. It’s a huge confidence boost especially when you need that little bit extra validation and confirmation that you ARE a great Tarot reader.   

Do I Need to be a Certified Tarot Reader?   

No. You don’t have to be certified to be a good, or legitimate, Tarot reader.  If you invest in developing your Tarot reading skills and practice reading Tarot for others, you will be well on your way to becoming a good Tarot reader, without requiring certification.

However, many people choose Tarot certification because they want confirmation that they have the skills required to deliver a Tarot reading and they actually know what they’re doing. They want to be a part of a full Tarot training and certification program so that they know they’ve covered all bases, and don’t have to spend countless days, even months, searching for free Tarot classes online without getting the full picture. And they want the increased credibility that comes with certification, especially if they go on to become professional Tarot readers. 

At the end of the day, no-one is forcing you to be certified, and it’s important we respect the choices each individual makes about what’s right for them. Many people take a lot of pride in their Tarot studies and certification, and rightly so – it’s an awesome achievement! 

What are the Benefits of Becoming a Certified Tarot Reader?   

There are LOTS of reasons why you would want to become a certified Tarot reader. Here are just a few: 

Gain Knowledge  

You may want to become certified, because you want to have the educational base that gives you the confidence to read Tarot.  A certification program, if it’s a good one, will help you master the fundamentals, including card meanings and complex interpretations.  

Sure, you could probably find some free Tarot lessons online and piece together how to read the Tarot cards, but the quality of these lessons is so variable, and who knows if you’re learning the right stuff or not. Not to mention the amount of time it takes to search for the lessons, weed out the dodgy ones, and teach yourself how to read. (Hey, I was self-taught, and it literally took me years to finally work it all out.)  

Learn from the Best   

Tarot certification is an opportunity to learn from Tarot readers who you respect and resonate with, and who have decades of experience in reading and teaching Tarot.  This may also mean getting certified through a trusted and well-known Tarot company.  Plus, the credibility of the company or individual goes hand in hand with the credibility of your certification  

Receive Personal Validation  

So many of our Certified Biddy Tarot Readers have said to me, after completing the program, “You know what Brigit? This isn’t so much about the piece of paper. It’s about the confidence I now have when reading Tarot for myself and others. I finally feel like I know what I’m doing!” 

Perhaps you want to become a certified Tarot reader because it offers you personal validation.  Many of us learn Tarot on our own, but there can often be self-doubt and worry that plays in the background.  Instead, a complete training and certification program can give you an extra boost of confidence to move forward with your Tarot practice.  

Gain a Sense of Pride  

As we go through our education, we receive marks on tests, report cards, a degree.  And, assuming they meet our standards, we like to display them for others to see.  They’re tangible proof of all of your hard work and personal investment.  The same can be said for a Tarot reading certificate, whether it’s paper or a badge you post on your website.  

I tell you what, it is such a joy to receive photos of our Certified Biddy Tarot Readers holding their certificate, beaming with pride!  

Build Your Credibility  

Lawyers, doctors, psychologists, and even hypnotherapists, are required to have some form of certification.  Their qualifications bring peace of mind to patients and legitimacy to their practice. While the Tarot industry doesn’t require you to have certification to practice, having evidence of your commitment and dedication to your Tarot reading practice goes a long way with your clients and instantly establishes credibility. 

Grow Your Client List  

For people who read Tarot professionally, having a certification can be a big selling point for clients.  Think about it.  If you’re a hiring manager for a company, candidates with experience at well-known companies or prestigious universities automatically have an edge on the competition. Tarot Certification is validation that you’ve put in the work and have received approval from an accredited program.  

Potential Pitfalls of Getting Certified   

Unfortunately, there can be some downsides to certification. But luckily, there are ways to avoid them.

Conflicting Methods  

Many of you will ask, “Who’s to say what’s right or wrong on a certification test, when Tarot is so subjective?”  I think that’s an excellent question! Tarot is wonderfully fluid and following your intuition is more important than following the book.  So how do we measure that?   

When I was designing the Biddy Tarot Certification Program, I knew we had to really nip that concern in the bud straight away. I believe that a good program should have flexibility to embrace everybody’s different reading styles and interpretations. At the same time, you want to make sure that your certification program demands that you meet certain criteria that resonates with you.    

The Book Versus Intuition  

Make sure that your certification program makes an acknowledgement between book meanings and intuitive meanings.  For example, if you feel that the Three of Cups signifies online dating, but no one can find that interpretation in the book, will you be penalized? Find a program that leaves room for creativity.    

Personal Style  

Everyone has their own method for reading Tarot cards, which is why you need to be sure that your certification program respects yours.  When we consider applications for the Biddy Tarot Certification Program, we appreciate that some readers are going to have different coaching styles and some will use predictive language.  Does your preferred program respect all styles of reading?    

Fast and Cheap Programs  

Sure, you could spend 100 bucks to have someone whip up a certificate for you, without having to go through rigorous training.  Believe me, there are a number of people who will do this for you.  But is that really what you want?  

Be absolutely certain of the value that your program is providing to you.  If it’s a six hour course with a multiple choice exam at the end, it’s probably not what you’re looking for.  

As you can see, it’s incredibly important to choose your Tarot certification program carefully.   

How Do You Become a Certified Tarot Reader?   

There are a number of different certification programs available. So how do you decide which one is going to be right for you?   

Find an organisation that is accredited, reputable, and well known in the Tarot space.   
Find a teacher who you resonate with, who nurtures different styles of reading, and who will support your growth as a Tarot reader.   
Look for a certification program that offers an end-to-end experience, with comprehensive training and development, opportunities to practice reading Tarot in a safe learning environment and a robust certification process.   

Now, of course, I want to be able to bring all of these things together. So, I’ve created the Biddy Tarot Certification Program, which is fully accredited by the International Institute of Complementary Therapists. So far, over 1,800 students from 29 countries have participated in our courses and over 300 of them are Biddy Tarot Certification graduates.  

This program is an all-inclusive, 7-month online training and certification program that teaches everything you need to know about how to read Tarot with confidence. 

Whether you’re on a journey of self-discovery and want to learn to read Tarot for yourself, or you’re ready to share your intuitive gifts with others, the Biddy Tarot Certification Program will challenge you to take your Tarot reading skills to the next level. It’s designed to help you access your inner wisdom, increase your confidence, and become a trusted Tarot advisor. 

You can now enrol at BiddyTarot.com/certification!  

Biddy Tarot Certification Program benefits include:  

Master the Tarot Card Meanings Program  
Read Tarot with Confidence Program  
Group coaching calls with me every month for 6 months where I’ll answer your questions live  
Access to The Free Tarot Readings platform, where you can gain valuable experience and get feedback  
Support and mentoring inside the Biddy Tarot Community, where you can interact with over 500 members  
The opportunity to apply for certification and become a Certified Biddy Tarot Reader  
A listing on the Certified Biddy Tarot Reader Directory on our website for 12 months  
A beautiful paper certificate mailed to your address anywhere in the world  
Certified Biddy Tarot Reader badges for your website  
Much, much more!  

My Personal Thoughts on the Biddy Tarot Certification Program

I take this program so seriously and I want to make sure you have everything you need to be the Tarot reader you’ve always dreamed of becoming. At the end of the day, this isn’t just about a piece of paper. This is about helping you become a trusted Tarot advisor, and giving you the skills, experience, and support to do so.   

This is not one of those fly-by-night certification programs you see in a pop-up ad online in the middle of the night. The Biddy Tarot Certification Program offers an end-to-end learning experience, complete with comprehensive training, opportunities to practice reading Tarot in a safe learning environment, and a robust certification process. 

We open this program once a year in around March and April.  The Biddy Tarot Certification Program encompasses training, practice, and certification. 

Of course, there’s so much more in this certification program. If you want to find out more about it, head over to BiddyTarot.com/certification and you can see everything that’s included.   

 

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