Using the methods of renowned reader Brigit Esselmont, Everyday Tarot blends mysticism with actionable self-help to create a method for building the life you want, using the ancient wisdom of Tarot.
This approachable guide, from the founder of the incredibly popular website Biddy Tarot, brings the allure and guidance of Tarot to contemporary, goal-focused readers through relatable exercises and an emphasis on intuition. Everyday Tarot takes a fresh approach to a timeless art, giving modern soul-seekers the tools they need to access their inner wisdom and create an inspired life, using the cards as their guide. This contemporary approach to Tarot is empowering, uplifting, powerful, and practical -- instead of seeking to tell the future, this method allows readers to unlock their full potential by connecting more deeply to their own instincts.
This unique book draws on the knowledge of Brigit Esselmont, the founder of Biddy Tarot. Her distinctive approach blends Tarot with personal growth, creating an actionable wellness practice that speaks to contemporary readers. Beginning with Esselmont's personal story of leaving behind a corporate career to pursue a more grounded, passionate life, this beautiful and useful volume explains how Tarot really works, with a focus on how we approach the cards and draw on our inner wisdom for guidance. Everyday Tarot moves through concrete areas of life (career, romantic relationships, major goals) and incorporates exercises and sample spreads, alongside a quick-start guide to reading the cards that reinforces big picture concepts and builds confidence as readers begin creating powerful and positive change.
Brigit Esselmont is known worldwide as a professional Tarot reader & teacher, intuitive business coach, and spiritual entrepreneur. She is the Founder of Biddy Tarot and inspires over four million people each year to live more mindful and enlightened lives, using the Tarot as a guide. A self-confessed Tarot lover, Brigit can t help but spread the love to other Tarot enthusiasts. She is the author of two popular Tarot guides and has taught over 1,200 students to read Tarot with confidence. Brigit is also a successful intuitive entrepreneur and business coach, helping heart-centered professionals build business empires that are aligned with their soul purpose. Brigit believes anyone can read Tarot. She doesnt own a crystal ball nor a crushed velvet dress. She s simply a down-to-earth, practical Taurus who likes to use the Tarot cards in everyday life. When she s not reading Tarot, Brigit loves spending time with her two daughters and husband on the Sunshine Coast in Australia.
I’ve never written a review before, but I feel compelled to with this one.
Biddy Tarot is a wonderful resource. When I first began learning about tarot, the Biddy Tarot website taught me so much about the basics behind the cards, various spreads, and Brigit’s unique take on using tarot as a conduit for intuition.
My experience with Biddy Tarot soured slightly after attending a free webinar being offered. I sat, pen in hand, preparing to take notes, only to find myself listening to an extended commercial for a very expensive online course. I do understand that Biddy Tarot is a business, and as such, shook it off, continuing to use the site for tips and reminders.
However, I don’t believe there is a justification for how many times the website and the courses it offers are plugged in this book. When the URL would be listed on the page, I’d cringe, feeling almost as though I was trying to be sold something.
Another issue with this book is the lack of diversity in examples and the feeling of misogyny I got at times while reading. All examples used except for one use names traditionally given to women, and the chapter on romance seems entirely geared towards heterosexual women (perhaps gay men). Worse for me was an example described in which a member of the Biddy Tarot community “attracted” an alcoholic boyfriend and a string of negligible bosses as a result of not loving herself. I see what Brigit was saying here, but the way it was framed made me feel uncomfortable. I felt similarly during a joke that described a friend whose date attempted to “Fifty Shades” her, and “not in a good way.” Yikes.
I feel that tarot is a wonderful resource for those who want to access their intuition, make a decision, or look at their surroundings through a new light. Brigit is at her best when she explains this to her readers in her naturally casual and friendly prose. This loses its charm and its impact when her privileged perspective rears its head. Whether it’s a story about yacht racing with her father, consulting the tarot cards about the right goal ($100,000 a year was too low, $250,000 was too much, $200,00 was just right), or a friend choosing the right resort for her honeymoon, the book oftentimes feels difficult to relate to, or even alienating.
The digital version of this book is inexpensive, and I don’t regret purchasing it, because there’s valuable information here. But I can’t recommend this to anyone willing to pay full price for a physical copy.
I am really confused by all the goods reviews this book has. It is a self help book (how to set goals, identify limiting beliefs, get clear on what you want from a career/relantionship) mixed with mindfullness and law of attraction practices and using tarot cards to give additional feedback for them (eg: set a goal and then ask the tarot for details/clarifications as well). The issue is that it just skims the surface for each of these domains. So, unless you are alredy familiar with "standard" self development, meditation and tarot and you kave never thought of using them together - you will get very little value from this book. Instead of using the book space to provide actual information, much is used with stories from the authors life (which are nice to read, but, again, bring little value).
Everyday Tarot is geared towards using a tarot deck for self-help and reflection, so if that's all you're interested in, it may work for you. But if you want to learn to read cards within any kind of established framework, look elsewhere.
The book includes no card meanings at all. It does introduce the concept of combining a card's suit and number into a possible meaning, but that doesn't help with the Major Arcana, which there's no detailed info on. Novices are apparently expected to just jump right into interpreting those for themselves after a one-page explanation of intuitive reading. Looking at the pictures and making up your own meanings from scratch is fine if you're just using a deck for introspection, but that's not really reading the tarot.
My inner cynic couldn't help but notice that the author's website is suggested as a source to learn more traditional meanings. On the site you'll find a few basic resources for free, but it's also stuffed with ads for classes and other products, including a detailed guide to tarot meanings that runs $34 for a paperback copy. Good on the author for building a business, but this mercenary approach makes Everyday Tarot feel a little too much like a preview chapter that wants you to pay more to get to the good stuff.
1. Sách của sư phụ mình, đã dịch sang tiếng Việt tên là Nhật kí Tarot. Cầm sách lên mà cứ có cảm giác nhật kí công chúa haha.
2. Rất nhiều trải bài hay, hữu ích để bạn có thể khám phá rất nhiều khía cạnh khác trong mối quan hệ với chính bạn và mối quan hệ với những người xung quanh.
3. Nếu bạn chưa biết gì về Tarot thì đọc cũng được, nhưng phù hợp với những bạn đã có tiếp xúc, nắm sơ sơ nghĩa của Tarot thì đọc tốt hơn.
4. Học viên Tarot của mình thì rất nên đọc. Đọc sách của thầy của thầy sẽ thấy đỉnh cao mà thầy của mình chưa vươn tới :D
I appreciated what she had to say about intuition and there is definitely quite a bit of useful content for beginners, the target audience, but the overall capitalist tone and assumed cishetness sat poorly with me.
More specifically, I'm always put off when a white person, especially a wealthy one with decades of experience in this community, instructs beginners to smudge with sage with absolutely zero mention of the exploitation and endangerment of white sage/palo santo. It shows, at best, callousness toward BIPOC and also a lack of care for the newcomer who will now experience confusion and rightfully be called out for ignorantly doing what was recommended to them and then will either be an asshole or go through feelings of guilt and negativity about having tried to do something healing because they were misled by a teacher they trusted.
I'd say 3.5-ish, but I'm rounding down to 3 stars because I ended up skimming it rather than truly reading it, and I think if I tried to read it thoroughly I probably wouldn't have liked it as much as I did as a quick skim.
I still haven't touched the deck I bought over a month ago, but this is the third or fourth book I've read. (I'm a researcher so I like to do a thorough literature review before I start putting anything into action. Somehow I don't think that's a good method for this particular hobby, given that every book has said to jump in). I loved some of the very quick and dirty guides in here - I don't remember any of the other books having such a simple explanation of what each numbered card represents and each suit. This has a simple image reference for it, rather than the approach of describing what each individual card means. I like this approach given that she really highlights intuition as a huge part of the tarot process, rather than memorizing every single card's interpretation.
She also gives some example spreads and how to interpret them, which is helpful.
Some of this did get a little too woo-woo for me, which is to be expected given the topic, but after reading a book written by a converted skeptic, it skewed my view a bit. I also think that even though she emphasizes that the cards can't make decisions for you, there are some aspects that put a little too much faith/power in the cards, especially for a newbie.
Marking this as read now even though I've read it in November 2019, when I first got into Tarot.
Definitely don't read this if you're just starting out and have no previous experience. I feel like you should already know the meanings of the cards from her site if you want to get into this one.
While it for sure helped me with spreads and numerology, the overall tone that Brigit uses throughout this book just.... wasn't it. I feel like most of the "true stories" she was talking about here were either hugely exaggerated for shock value or were downright fake (Like, come on, your tarot deck told you how much money you were going to make in a year? Really?) It is tailored to a very specific audience (more specifically, white heterosexual moms in their 30's and 40's) and therefore most of her advice came off as shallow, and she kept on with the narrative that you will get rich from Tarot and that it will solve every problem you have, which is not true.
**Please do not buy this book,get it from the library and/or a used bookstore. From the stories she tells in the book she has more than enough money.**
The first 3rd of the book was decent,she did go about 5 pages in between sponsoring herself and mentioning her website. I found this annoying because she did so once 3 times in less than 10 pages apart.
The 2/3rds remaining are not worth paying for, these are not traditional tarot spreads as she mentions in the very end, so if you are looking for that then this book is not it.
I find it very weird that she brags about going on trips and being able to have 6 figures, personally I believe spirituality can help manifest these things,but it's not something you should guarantee if your just trying to get into tarot spreads in general.
If I could go back I personally would not buy this book,and I thankfully got it used.
I'm a big fan of Biddy Tarot and Brigit's clear explanations not just of individual tarot cards and spreads, but how to actively use tarot as a tool for one's intuition. This book emphasizes her goal to bring tarot into the mainstream, to make it accessible and not scary, weird, or difficult. It's quite unlike other tarot books, which tend to regurgitate the same meanings over and over again (with a slight bit of variance). This doesn't go into the card meanings at all; instead, there are tips for how to use tarot to help channel and clarify your intuition --your "gut," your dreams, your desires, your hopes, or your expectations-- whatever form those take.
That said, there are a few things that caught my eye and detracted from a perfectly joyful read. One is just a simple typo, and the scant few others relate to Brigit's explanations of the cards vs. what is illustrated (using images from the "Everyday Tarot" deck that can go with this book, but certainly isn't required), or the use of specific terms as they apply to the reader/other people.
In Chapter 3, "Manifest Your Goals," there's a spread that can help you Manifest Your Goals. There are a few pages with goal-setting prior to this spread, but the explanation for the spread mentions a card that wasn't in those pages: the Eight of Wands. Step 1 gives a few example tarot cards that can help with dreaming big as you set your goals, but they're the Seven of Pentacles and the Hermit. Prior to that, an anecdote Brigit shared about her own financial goal setting featured the Eight of Pentacles... but again, not the Eight of Swords. I was a little confused by the later statement and kept thinking I'd missed something.
Later on in the same chapter, Brigit details the cards in the example spread. For some of them, her explanations don't match with her own cards, e.g. "...with the Seven of Cups, we see a man presented with seven cups..." but the Everyday Tarot card shown doesn't show any man, and she made a point of saying that the deck tries to utilize more female-presenting figures, as well as figures "of color" in order to create a more diverse deck. This is also true of the Six of Wands and the Page of Pentacles (a female in the Everyday Tarot deck, while male in many others). While this makes the book work in line with people using other Rider-Waite-Smith decks, it did seem off when referring to the illustrations from only pages before.
Finally, throughout chapters in the book, there is a slight assumption that the reader identifies as female and has/wants a male partner (repeated references to "Ryan Gosling" will unfortunately date the book for audiences in ten years). I say "slight" because for the most part, there are references to a "partner" or "significant other," (versus "husband" or "boyfriend") and the book uses terms like "him or her." Still a bit exclusionary (not everyone identifies as a "him" or "her," and some people might be in perfectly loving polyamorous relationships). I'm really happy that, for the most part, you can read this book regardless of how you identify, or what sort of relationship(s) you like or want. It's difficult to take any one thing once considered "underground" or "hidden" and make it mainstream and accessible. Brigit does it amazingly well with tarot; it's not too difficult to imagine that a few simple changes in word choice could do it for heteronormative or gender-biased language, too.
Overall, I love how the book is a mixture of personal anecdotes (how tarot has helped Brigit become the authority on tarot that she is) and unique spreads. When I was first learning tarot, I had no idea you could come up with your own spreads, or how to tell the difference between my intuition and the answer(s) I wanted (my ego). This book helps with both those beginning fears and experienced tarot reader pain points, whether it's how to keep up a daily practice to becoming more comfortable with certain kinds of inquiries.
I had the pleasure of meeting Brigit in person at the Everyday Tarot book launch in Los Angeles, and she is just a warm, friendly presence in person as she is online via her courses, blog posts, and podcast. Her personality really shines in this book, and it is easily one of the most accessible, forgiving tarot books I've ever read (and I've built up quite a collection over the years).
Design-wise, it complements the Everyday Tarot deck nearly perfectly, utilizing a rich purple, white, and gold color scheme. I only wish the edges of the pages were the same gold color as the edge of the deck! Eleanor Grosch's illustrations are simple and evocative: you still get the same "gist" you do from other RWS decks, but with the illustrations boiled down to their simplest elements. If you have/use/enjoy another tarot deck and have it side-by-side with the Everyday Tarot deck, what is left in and what is removed is striking. Reading the book, you'll understand why the deck looks the way it does, rather than being an "artsy" carbon-copy clone of an RWS deck.
Ultimately, I highly recommend the book. It's unlike any others that I've seen out on the market, and the few points I highlighted above are not huge enough to detract from the overall awesomeness that is Brigit, Biddy Tarot, and the freedom that comes from knowing that tapping into your intuition is as easy as using tarot... everyday.
A holistic approach to using the Tarot to set a purpose for your personal growth. Supported with activities using Tarot to clarify and inspire you to establish SMART goals to become the best YOU!
Note: This is not a book of card meanings. It is just a guide on getting in touch with your intuition and the life situations you can guide yourself through by trusting in yourself.
Im glad to see that the tarot is no longer exclusively linked to 'witchcraft' and the occult. It's a psychological tool that can help you learn more about yourself and create your best life within reason. Great beginner's guide. Great ideas on how to spark your intuition and use tarot for guidance, healing, and personal growth.
I was really excited to read this, as I have the compendium of meanings from Biddy Tarot that I've been using for, what, five years now? and value Brigit's insights a lot!
What I found was that the first bit of the book - where the author discusses interpreting the card images themselves rather than memorizing the meanings - got me genuinely re-energized about tarot.
The rest, eh, felt like more self-help jazz in an already self-help saturated world. "ATTRACT that lover! ACHIEVE your goals! LIVE your best life!" It felt like this was pandering to the lowest common denominator of the book world, whoever buys those Oprah-approved best sellers that are, well, best sellers. And I get it, to some degree. But Brigit, I don't want to hear about how you furrowed your brow over which country to go to for that fabulous two-month vacay in Europe you had planned back when you wrote this, or which giant house on the coast you agonized over buying, having ticked all your Living the Best Life boxes. I don't care, and I can't relate. I just want to get a better handle on the symbols the cards present to me and how to weave them into an insightful narrative.
That being said, there are helpful spreads in this book; I could see it as being a somewhat useful reference in this regard, but I think overall I prefer Jane Stern's Confessions of a Tarot Reader instead, who discusses stories of readings she's done and interesting ways the cards have come up for her and her clients, which felt way more enriching for my purposes, personally.
The Tarot is so much more than dime-a-dozen self help platitudes and well-meaning advice (that someone like me has heard over and over from various well-meaning folks for YEARS). It's unfortunate that if this book were to be the only thing someone read about the subject, they might come away thinking that it's only for people who are into this scene (which is amusing, considering Brigit's talk at the beginning of the book trying to dispel the various creepy, witchy-in-a-bad-way associations that Tarot has gotten as a concept over the years) when that is so far from the truth.
TL;DR: The beginning of this book got me excited about Tarot again; after that, it's a whole lot of somewhat bland self-help regurgitation smoothed like so much frosting onto and over the rich, beautiful world of Tarot meaning. Please, don't let this be all you read on the subject! The spreads are useful but there's much, much more to it than this!
I mean, it's a good resource for what it is, and it gave me what I was looking for, which was inspiration for different ways to use the tarot. The aesthetics were lovely. I enjoyed the woo woo.
I just was really, really turned off by the author's taunting of her privileges and making it sound like it's her spiritual accomplishments. She got a palace for a house, made 250,000 in a year, and takes six month long vacations, and it's because she believes in herself and manifested all that? I'm sorry but I actually find that offensive. If I sound cross it's because I am.
This isn't a book about card meanings. This is a book that includes spreads and feel-good stories about the power of positive thinking to make millions of dollars by giving tarot readings.
It must be admitted that tarot in general has within it certain assumptions about the power of human intuition that are, at best, highly problematic. Yet this book is not so much an exploration of esoteric thought, which would have been interesting, at least, but rather it is an appeal for women in general to view tarot in a positive light, to seek the insight of their own supposed inner light, to embrace the sacred feminine. As might be expected, these are not the sort of views that I am going to view all that positively, not least for the reason that I tend to have a dim view of appeals to the sacred feminine and to inner lights in general. Rather than seek a general esoteric introduction, though, the author seeks to make this a far more personal account by talking about the way that she has viewed tarot and the way that she has set up a business with a nickname she wanted as a child as well as some creativity when it comes to how she views the cards she is writing about. If you like the person behind this book, even in disagreeing with her you will find a lot to appreciate.
This book is about 200 pages long and contains several chapters. After beginning with an introduction the author looks at the way the author views the interaction between tarot and intuition (1). After this there is a quick-start guide to tarot that views it in a non-determined way that seeks to promote freedom and imagined insight (2). The author discusses the use of tarot for self-discovery (3), as well as the ways that card spreads can, in the author's thinking, manifest one's goals (4). The author discusses ways to use the tarot for decision-making (5), for work (6), and for love and relationships (7). After this there is a discussion of some "sacred rituals" that the author thinks tarot is appropriate for, and she spends some time talking about her own fondness for various supposedly significant astrological times like the retrograde period of Mercury and full moons (8). After that there is the usual acknowledgments section (labeled here as gratitude) as well as an appendix that provides a "full moon visualization" as well as a topical index. All told this book is neither particularly long nor particularly demanding for a reader.
What would make a book like this better? Assuming that someone wanted to talk about tarot and interject their own originality and personality into it, what would make a book like this more enjoyable and at least potentially more worthwhile in understanding the worldview of the writer? Well, for one, it would be wise for the author to recognize that this book is not only being read by women but by men too. The idea of inner lights and an authority that comes from intuition may be appealing for women who do not feel they have enough formal authority or who dislike the attention that is paid to rational analysis, if they are not equipped to use it, but one cannot assume that when one is writing about an esoteric matter that only women are going to read it, and so this book, like many others, loses some opportunities at building goodwill by assuming the audience is too small and too narrow. Aside from that, the author seeks both to encourage the use of tarot in decision-making while also cautioning the reader not to view it in a deterministic way but rather in terms of possibilities, which can be a tough thing to sell to people who are looking for answers rather than for a structure of one's intuition and imagination.
This was OK. It was a bit too self-help-y for me but I could see it being a great book for others who are just starting to get into Tarot, or who are looking to expand their knowledge of Tarot/self-knowledge/intuition.
My biggest issue was that I felt the author failed to recognize her own privilege when talking about using Tarot to manifest her destiny. She's obviously from a very wealthy family - she talks about her favourite activity growing up being yacht racing with her father, as one of many examples - but credits her financial success entirely on the fact that she "manifested" the life she wanted through will and intuition. Sure. She also talks about buying a house she couldn't afford because she intuitively knew it was the right decision and then selling her house for a much higher price than expected, leading everything to work out. I get that the message was not letting the fear of going into debt cloud your intuition, but many people don't have the privilege to take leaps of faith where hundreds of thousands of dollars are at stake - failing to recognize that is something that left me a bit cold about the entire book.
Beyond that, the casual writing style with memoir-esque (but surface level) asides and cringey pop culture references (The High Priestess as the "booty-licious" goddess within, right Beyonce?) just didn't work for me.
I did appreciate some of the spreads and guidance for how to read those spreads and I think I will make use of those in my readings, and the guides for using the Tarot intuitively in different types of reading were parts of the book I mostly really enjoyed, but the narrative tying those parts together and to the greater whole were just not as successful, unfortunately.
Một cuốn sách ổn cho những ai đã biết xem tarot cơ bản và muốn hiểu sâu hơn về cách sử dụng tarot cho thực tại
Sách mang hơi hướng của thể loại self-help. Trước mỗi trải bài cho bản thân tác giả đều nhắc chúng ta phải thực hành tưởng tượng và quan sát cảm xúc của bản thân vào lúc đó rồi mới tiến hành trải bài. Tarot như 1 công cụ hỗ trợ để giúp chúng ta check lại xem những lựa chọn của chúng ta có thực sự là điều mà vô thức (tâm hồn) của ta khao khát không hay đó chỉ là những ham muốn, lựa chọn không phù hợp với bản thân bị thao túng bởi bản ngã ý thức. Mình đánh giá cao cuốn sách ở điều này vì nó giúp ta hiểu rõ bản thân mình hơn.
Tuy nhiên, theo mình mục đích ẩn trong sách này mà tác giả không nói ra chính là truyền thông và mở rộng khả năng kinh doanh cho doanh nghiệp biddy tarot. Trong sách tác giả liên tục đề cập đến trang web biddy và offer những khoá học trên trang web đó. Thêm nữa, sách không thích hợp cho người mới, để học tarot vì không đề cập đến nghĩa của từng lá bài và cũng không thích hợp cho những bạn tò mò muốn tìm hiểu xem tarot là cái gì. Vì khi đọc cuốn này với những ai không hiểu về tarot chắc hẳn sẽ nghĩ tarot reader là những kẻ kỳ lạ, lập dị và bị khùm 🥲
I have to say, I was looking for more of an actual “beginners” guide than a self help book. I’ve read my share of those (being in MLM’s does that to a person) and I know what I need to do for self motivation, etc. What I wanted to know was HOW TO READ CARDS. While Brigit does go into this a little bit, she focuses a lot more on the self guidance of reading them which isn’t super helpful for a newbie that literally doesn’t even know what each card is supposed to mean, like, at all. Her spreads are great, and so are her rituals (they don’t seem gimmicky or anything), but the lack of details on what the cards are, regardless of the deck, is off putting. That, and the constant push of her website/business. Like, yea, we get it, you do Biddy Tarot and yea I know you want me to use the links you are providing. The best way to do that, though, is the END OF THE BOOK UNDER A RESOURCES HEADING. Geesh. Overall, I wouldn’t mind having a copy of this on hand (not a new $34 copy, but a used one would be nice) but mostly for reference for spreads than anything else.
Mình đọc bản Tiếng Việt với tựa đề là "Nhật Ký Tarot". - Hình thức: sách bìa rất đẹp, thu hút ngay từ cái nhìn đầu tiên. Tuy nhiên, giấy quá dày và chữ hơi to một cách không cần thiết. - Nội dung: truyền tải được tầm quan trọng của việc sử dụng trực giác và tìm về bản ngã trong các trải bài. Tác giả đã cố biên soạn rất nhiều nội dung gồm khám phá cái tôi, xác định sứ mệnh...cùng rất nhiều các trải bài khác nhau theo từng mục đích và giai đoạn cuộc đời. Các kiến thức này vô cùng bổ ích nhưng mình cảm thấy hơi bị nhồi nhét quá nhiều nên người đọc dễ rơi vào sự lạc lối không biết phải nên bắt đầu từ đâu. Sách cũng ít các ví dụ minh họa và phân tích các trải bài mẫu chưa sâu cho lắm. Với lượng nội dung đầy chất lượng này mình nghĩ nếu chia sách làm 2 tập để có nhiều phân tích và ví dụ cụ thể hơn thì sẽ dễ tiếp cận hơn nhiều. Một điểm mình chưa hài lòng nữa là sách minh họa bằng hình ảnh của bộ Everyday Tarot do chính tác giả tạo ra nên nó hơi khó tiếp cận cho những người mới bắt đầu sử dụng hình ảnh Rider Waite nguyên bản như mình.
If you are looking for a book on Tarot that focuses on how to use the cards to help you (WITHOUT memorizing a whole bunch of meanings and symbols), this is the book for you. Sharing her personal experiences and years of wisdom, Brigit shows you how to tap your intuition through the Tarot for goal-planning, navigating relationships (from desire through break-up), career development, and personal exploration. Everyday Tarot provides you with several Tarot spreads and examples where Brigit goes card-by-card and then shares the meaning of the sample reading as a whole.
This book is more than just a "Tarot book", it is about tapping your inner wisdom and learning how to follow your intuition in order to create a more fulfilling life.
While there are some good tarot spreads, and general information in this book, this is definitely leaning heavily towards the self-help category. Everything in general seems very... shallow and surface-y. It's very 'believe in your soul purpose, and love yourself!!!' Which can be nice in some cases, but this isn't what I signed up for. Not very academic either.
If you're looking for a detailed book about tarot itself, I suggest you look elsewhere. The self promotion was a bit much, too, though slowed down in the later chapters. I also have a feeling that Brigit might be somewhat detached from reality, but that could just be me. Still, it was somewhat a fun read, so I'll give it 3 stars.
I was really hesitant first picking up this book because I wanted a book about tarot to tell me exactly what each card meant. Brigit has encouraged me to tap into my intuition and now my insight is screaming at me. I've been unlocking the mysteries of myself and discovering truths, all from reading the cards intuitively. It's a good space to exist in. I've read plenty of self-help books, and I don't know what's up with the authors writing in a way that thinks their readers are stupid, but Brigit writes in a way that speaks to something within. It's all about ME (you -- the reader!) when you open this book. It's powerful, and I feel more in-tune with myself.
This book is one of those that I sort of have been reading on and off for a little while but I finally got it finished. I enjoy learning more about Tarot and how I can use them in my everyday life. I have decided to take some of the tips that Brigit gives and bond more with my cards and learn them in a more conscious and unconscious way. I have really been wanting to do more with them than just the simple reading every now and again. So, it will be nice to take her words and put them into action.
I really connected with this book! It’s the first Tarot book I’ve purchased and I love the combination of traditional Tarot meanings while also using your own intuition to reflect and manifest. Maybe it’s because I’m still new to Tarot but this combo is perfect for me.
I also like that Brigid Esselmont lets us in on her own journey with Tarot. Plus she includes website links for extra resources for readers, very clever!
I’ve put a bunch of sticky notes to flag spreads and rituals to do and I can’t wait to try them out!
3.5 really. There's lots of helpful information in here about tarot, and I will be referring back to certain parts for sure. But I basically skipped over the sections about relationships and work because those are things that I don't need to be using tarot for. I've been married almost 10 years and I have my dream job! But otherwise helpful, and Biddy Tarot is definitely my go to website for all the basics.
While I enjoyed some of Esselmont's rituals that she taught in this book, overall I felt a bit underwhelmed when I finished. I wanted a book about tarot. I understand she has a focus on intuition and your Higher Self, but I did want to learn about Tarot more too. While I will try to use intuition in reading, I also wish to have a better understanding of the cards and more traditional means of reading.
Book 07/75: Everyday Tarot: Unlock Your Inner Wisdom and Manifest Your Future by Brigit Esselmont. When fiction wasn't helping, going within to understand tarot a little bit more was the way to go because all the other non fiction I have started required more concentration to keep up. This was easy to understand, not about understanding tarot per say but to look within and trust your intuition when it comes to reading tarot.