I got my Tarot cards read!
Listen to some sound bites from the reading.
read my cards last weekend over Zoom.
It was the first time I have had my cards done! What’s that you say? How can my cards have been read all the way from the UK to New Hampshire? Well, they were and it was cool.
Above are the actual cards that Katy pulled for me. She had read my blog and gotten in touch with me when I asked on Notes if someone might tell me about Tarot and oracle cards. She’s been a great tarot tour guide.
Want a reading?
If you’re interested in having
read your cards, click here! I recently featured her as my first Maven5Q participant. Check out her answers to the five questions here.
Want to listen in on my reading with Katy?
Below I have sound from part of the reading if’n you’d like to eaves drop:)
Overall Impressions:
I don’t know about you, but I find at this time of my life I’m not too rattled about things like divination. I worry about my kids, the environment, the country, the fact that I can’t remember anything and that things seemed better pre-Internet and pre-cel phones. But divination? Nah.
So, when it came to having my cards read I felt pretty relaxed. Enjoy the process and don’t worry. Now that I have had my cards read by Katy, and I think the person doing the reading is key to the outcome, I want to do it again. There is so much to learn.
From the beginning, I knew that Katy was a positive person with a wonderful sense of humor. I truly enjoyed the process of having my cards read. Katy is a complete character as described by the photo she provided of herself for the Maven5Q (link ). Warm, deeply caring, and curious, Katy made me feel safe.
We have all seen movies and memes where a tarot card reading can be terrifying (note the God-awful movie Tarot…actually don’t. It’s just so bad). This is not that. Katy’s interpretation of the cards took my life into account. Where I am as a midlife female. Each card means something different for each of us.
I took pages and pages of scribbled notes because I lack retention for details and my mind tends to wander unless I am writing it down. The issue is that my notes were a play by play and not how I felt about what she was saying. Next time I will try to just let the reading wash over me and take a few notes on how it feels.
I was across the Atlantic from Katy but, didn’t feel distant. Katy is warm and kooky in that happy, Britty way. She began by telling me how the cards are laid out and what they represent.
So-called negative cards possess positive interpretation. As Katy said, “the universe wants the best for every person. It’s about perspective.”
Then she looks for patterns among the cards. There are twenty two major cards that refer to big life events and core beliefs. There are fifty six minor cards with four suits. So much has been written about tarot cards and I am such a beginner that I don’t want to pretend to teach you. Contact
for a place to learn the specifics about the cards.Katy told me when pulling cards we want less major cards because they are big life events and we want to know more abut the nuances surrounding the big life events. Only the past is fixed, everything else is open for interpretation.
Katy’s explanation of how she reads tarot cards for others:
I read the cards with the belief that nothing is set in stone for anyone. There are two certainties in life, once we were born and one day we will die.
Everything else is very much up for grabs and is a matter of choice and perspective, even if the choices are between awful things and/or the perspective isn’t much fun.
As a result of that, the cards offer us a different way to look at things, often things we already know, but to think about them and use them in a different way than we would normally so that our world opens out and offers us the chance to change. Whether we want to or not is up to us.
WHAT KATY TOLD ME…IN HER WORDS:
An explanation of the layout of my cards:
Card 1 - Steward of Cups - in the standard Rider Waite tarot this would be the Knight of Cups
Cups are about relationships: Love/friendship/relatives. They also refer to how we deal with our emotions and where we put them. They can also be about fears. They can often be about relationships with ourselves.
1st The first card is the one underneath the Swords card in the middle of the deck. The first card tells me about you. It’s all about the you you are right then in the moment of the reading. So, more like a Polaroid snapshot rather than a portrait for the ages.
Card 2 - Nine of Swords
Swords are about problems and conflicts, large and small. They can be problems we are experiencing which are external to us, but they can also be about mental health and our emotions that are causing us problems. Depending on which cards they are in the reading with they can tell us about relationship problems paired with cups, work problems paired with wands and money or self worth problems in conjunction with coins/pentacles. The Swords cards always point the way to resolution. Often they offer three fundamental solutions.
One is that we can fight our way through, two is that we can use the sharpness of our intellect to pare back to the bones of the problem, three is that we can play dead and wait for things to blow over. Swords also offer us a different kind of resolution in that we can refuse to make this a problem, put our sword down and walk away. The position of the card both in the spread and whether it is reversed or upright will give us more information here, as with all the cards in a spread.
2nd The second card tells me what things are making you the you you are right now, that would be the Swords card with the person thinking. It lays across the you you are right now, because so much of that person is made up of your thoughts, feelings and beliefs based on what is going on around you. It tells me what bits of you are non negotiable, which bits of you are up for change and which bits of what makes you you right now are not actually about you at all.
Card 3 - Seven of Cups
3rd The third card sits above these two, and is about the near future. You may know something is coming up and it might give you tools or perspective on that, or it might flag up something that’s coming into view that you hadn’t prepared for but now can.
Card 4 - Four of Wands/Staves/Rods
4th The fourth card is to the left of that card and it represents the past, but only in relation to something that is coming up in your future that you can prepare for and potentially get closure over.
Wands are about ambitions, direction and drive. They can be about work in the day to day sense or work we need or want to do on ourselves. They can also ask us the much bigger question, why are we here and what are we doing with our life?
Card 5 - Apprentice of Cups - in the standard Rider Waite this would be the Page of Cups
5th The fifth card sits to the right of the spread at the top, in this case it’s the Ace of Cups with the fish. This is about the future.
Card 6 - Guardian of Swords - in the standard Rider Waite this would be the Queen of Cups - yours is reversed here
Card 7 - Ace of Swords - yours is reversed here
6th & 7th The sixth and seventh cards sit below the past and future cards and these are tips, tricks, tools and resources that you have to hand that you may not be using but which if you did, might make things go more smoothly for you.
Card 8 - Surrender - one of the Major Arcana and in the standard Rider Waite this would be the Hanged Man. Yours is reversed here. My 8th card was the Hanged Man. This seems scary! AND, my card was upside down. Katy said, this card is a “major” card and a sign that life has shifted and that I am at a point of transition. The upside down part she noted that stuff falls out of your pockets, in a good way. Less to worry about.
8th The eighth and final card sits in the middle at the bottom and depending on what we have discovered during the reading it either gives you a summary with a core piece of wisdom to take forward, or if you’re just about to enter a new phase of being, it offers you a smoother path over that rough transition period.
MORE
Pentacles/Coins are about value and worth. This can be a very basic outward sense of worth in that it might point up money problems or the need to rearrange our finances, but often they are about our sense of self worth and what value we put on ourselves in the world. Pentacles are often about day to day life and how we manage it or don’t.
Each suit can also be aligned with elements. Cups are water, wands are fire, swords are air and pentacles are earth.
There are 78 cards in total. 22 are the Major Arcana, starting with the Fool at 0 and moving through to the World at 21. These signify the big events, beliefs, morals and actions that have a significant impact on our lives. The four suits range from the Ace or 1 at the bottom through to the King at the top.
Meanwhile…
I am finished with my oracle deck but am busy writing up the fifty five explanations of each card and an overall narrative for the deck. I have six below, what do you think?
MEET ME IN THE COMMENTS!
What do you think about tarot cards? Oracle cards? They are very different but both require curiosity.
What do you think about tarot cards? Oracle cards? They are very different but both require curiosity.
Having my cards read taught me there is A LOT to learn about tarot. But, it also showed me the different between oracle cards and tarot. At least a bit. I see oracle cards, of which I am working on a new set now to be published, as a visual to think about and apply to one's own life. A visual to journal about, meditate on. Like tarot cards, the seemingly negative cards can be positive!
what about you?
I love symbolic systems. My first tarot deck found me decades ago and I've received and given in person, over video in real time, recorded, and written readings. My niece loves it when I show up with my cards and will sometimes ask if she can "tell me stories" with them. She does so beautifully.