78 Notes to Self: A Tarot Journal

So you lay the cards out, you talk about what they mean, you tell all you can see and then some and then the sitter says, "Um...I'm not sure who you just read for, but it wasn't me."

Oops! Your face flushes and you sit there a bit stunned for a moment before stammering, "Are you sure? I mean, nothing fits? Nothing at all?"

Nope. So what do you do when you're just plain wrong?

May I present to you this fallible human suit. News flash: you will get it wrong. It happens to us all. Some will say, well the cards are NEVER wrong, only the reader can be wrong. The reader interpreted them poorly. Maybe. Or maybe the wrong cards came up. I've had it happen. I threw a spread meant for someone else but the cards distinctly and clearly told the tale of my life angst at the time. As I'm reading I'm marveling that this other person was going through exactly the same things I was, look at that! And when she couldn't relate to Thing ONE in the reading, I realized those were MY cards, not hers. Were the cards right or wrong? Well, damn, I was trying to give her a reading, not me, so the cards were wrong for her.

There's this Dan guy on Aeclectic Tarot Forum that always says, "It's not about you, it's about the sitter." True enough. It is about the sitter and when the sitter looks blankly at you and says the reading sucked, suddenly its really really hard for it not to be about you. You're the one that read the cards, after all. The ego really gets a bruising then and it can be difficult to regain your composure after such a flop.

We all want to read really well. We want to be accurate. We want to give the sitter what they came for. And if we admit it to ourselves, we want them to go, "Wow...how'd she do that?" Tarot reading is both easy and hard. It does take a lot of study and time and effort to get to know the cards really well. There is plenty of skill involved. But a tarot reading straight out of the box with the Little White Book that came with the deck can be just as chillingly accurate as one done by someone with thirty or forty tarot reading years under their belt. So there's one chip off the old ego. Your tarot experience does not matter.

Your reading ability does not matter. You read the cards, you were wrong, or the cards were wrong or something. And what does it matter which? The reading pooped. Oh freaking well. You just shrug it off, let it go, and move on. That's hard but it's really the only thing you can do. Sure, you can learn from it...I did. I still do. I'm certainly not past having those kinds of readings. I don't make excuses, I don't try to make what I said fit the situation or backpedal in any way. I simply say, well...I screwed up. Besides, one stinky reading in the many, many other good readings I've done shouldn't be the one that makes me throw the cards down and walk away.

Sitters come to readers for insight, advice, a psychic tickle for their nickel or some other reason. Ultimately, the responsibility for what they do with the reading is up to them. They received it, they own it. They can toss it, disown it, or follow every last word to the end. It's up to them. If they get angry because something you said you saw in the cards ended up being different than what ultimately happens, that's their prerogative, but I think that's a consumer mentality. It's like they bought a toaster that ended up fritzing out in a week's time and feel like they got gypped...literally. (I so amuse myself...gypped comes from gypsy doncha know?) But tarot reading is on a different level altogether. It's not a product, it's an experience. It's not a guarantee, it's an opportunity. It's just not measurable or concrete the way a purchased thing is.
So you're providing a service? You gave it. They don't like it? They won't come back. Oh well, them's the breaks. Don't sweat it. Do I sound callous? I mean, people come to tarot readers looking for advice, guidance, a peek into themselves and their lives. If we steer them in the wrong direction, it's hard not to feel bad. Well, I didn't say don't feel bad. Anytime someone's advice goes wrong, it's natural to feel a bit responsible. There's not a service professional in the world who doesn't sometimes get it wrong. There's not a lawyer, a financial advisor, therapist, doctor, student advisor, or anyone else who gets paid to give advice that hasn't dropped a bomb once or twice. Framed certificates on your wall don't guard against being fallible. And when you're dealing with something as hard to nail down as intuitive flashes, grasping into the ether for something solid to show someone, it's all the more difficult to hit it every single time. So take it easy on yourself and just let it go.

When you let it go you free your mind up for the next reading. When you let it go, you also let your ego go, and your ego really has nothing to do with reading tarot, so good riddance. When you let it go you embrace your own humanity and gain more compassion for the other humans in this world and that can only make you a better tarot reader. Honesty is your best tool. It's much better to say, "Well, I guess that reading really sucked, I'm sorry. Would you like a rain check for another?" Besides, I've found that I just read better for some people than others. If you've ever gone to a reader that your friend raved about and found the reading less than flat for you, it's not that the reader sucks, but the connection -- whatever that is -- just didn't, well, connect. Who's fault is that? No one's, of course, so don't waste your time taking responsibility for it.

I will admit, when I gave that first really, really bad reading it shook my confidence for a while, and that, too, only means I'm human, and in need of grace, as are we all. So whether you're on the giving or receiving end of a crappy reading, remember that. So you may not return with your coin purse to a reader with whom you did not connect, and no one expects you will, but unless there was some seriously fraudulent smack going on, don't hold it against them. If you've read tarot yourself at all, you know how it is. Some readings just suck.

Let it go.

Recently I watched one of those "magician tricks revealed" programs with a masked magician, masked to hide his identity from the other magicians who would supposedly be extremely pissed at him for giving away their precious secrets. Never mind that there are all kinds of instructional books and videos that reveal these same "secrets." The irony was profound. The smoke and mirrors were still present even within a context that was supposed to be transparent and revealing. It's funny, though, most of us really don't want to know how the magicians saw women in half or pull a rabbit out of a hat. We don't really want the sense of wonder ruined. We want to believe what we see the magician doing, even if we know we have to suspend our disbelief in order to see it.

Recently, we've seen a "new" kind of magician come on the scene but which is really a throwback to magician tradition: the street magician. These guys are good. They have to be. They have no special stage effects, no curtains, no tarted up assistants. It's just them, their own props, and you.

The tarot's own Le Bateleur, or "the street performer" means literally, "one who uses a wand," hence...a magician. Wands are a point of focus for the magic practitioner and for the audience. A magician may use it to distract, to point, to focus your attention on something, or something else. It is a tool and therefore not particularly imbued with any power of its own. Just like the wands in Ollivander's Wand Shop could only be wielded well by a particular person, so a magician's wand is his own tool and subject to his own bidding. The wand is the most consistent element in any Magician card from the earliest to the present, whether he is pictured more as a huckster or a sort of wizard, the wand is usually clearly visible in the card most often in the subject's hand. Most of all, what we need to remember about this guy is that, historically, he was seen as a cheat, a huckster who swindled people out of their coins by pulling the wool over their eyes. He's the guy who offers a chance to play a "fair game" with loaded dice and a stacked deck.

The Magician is the instigator. Numbered one in the Major Arcana, he's the guy who gets things started, who makes something from nothing, or so it appears. Is he for real? Or is he pulling the wool over our eyes? Does it matter? I don't think so. Some focus on this guy's shell game and others focus on his charisma and still others believe he has real power to magically manipulate the essences of life.

Tom Tadfor Little, in his essay about The Magician, shows how the use of The Magician in the game of tarocchi offers a great analogy to his meaning in tarot:

The tarot dates from times when the ancient feudal system had been intruded on and transformed by an ever more important middle class of artisans, merchants, and others "out for themselves" in the world. Such people were not well respected. The great artists of the Renaissance, whose paintings and sculptures are now seen as priceless masterpieces of what is highest in the human spirit, were in their own time lumped together with the cobblers, housepainters, tailors, and others who worked with their hands to provide purely utilitarian goods and services. So both the juggler/magician and the artisan/craftsman were "nobodies" operating outside the formal hierarchical world of the nobility, yet neither were they serfs or slaves; indeed they might be wealthy enough (or clever enough) to carry influence out of proportion to their social status...

In the game, the court cards are all worth points, but the trumps are generally not. The only exceptions are the World, the Magician, and the Fool, which are each worth as much as kings, making them among the most valuable cards in the game. Now if you are dealt the Fool or World, those points are guaranteed to you, because neither of those cards can be captured during play. The Magician, on the other hand, is extremely vulnerable to being captured, because it is outranked by all the other trumps. So to win a trick with the Magician, the other players must all play suit cards, not trumps. This is not an easy thing to arrange. It can happen only if (a) you are out of a particular suit that everyone else still has, or (b) everyone else is completely out of trumps. If neither of those conditions occur, you will likely lose the Magician (and all its points) to some other player. So arranging an opportunity to play the Magician card without losing it is a major component of tarot strategy.

One can generally not count on the lucky opportunity of running out of a suit that others still have, although it is easy enough to take advantage of the opportunity if you are the last one to play in a given trick. More challenging and fun is saving the Magician until everyone else has run out of trumps. (For this to work, you must be dealt many of the trumps to begin with--if not, you are likely to run out early yourself.) You hold the Magician card until the end of the game, when you hope all the other players will be defenseless against it. Furthermore, the way the game works, players are often caught holding court cards through the middle of the game, because it is too risky to play them when they might be captured by a trump. So at the end of the game, players are finally forced to play their valuable court cards. There is no greater glee in the game than taking a handful of royalty by playing the Magician in the last trick. This feature is so prominent that in most versions of the game, a player who pulls this maneuver off gets a hefty point bonus!

The Magician is a coward, a swindler, and a cheat. He lives by his wits. All the other cards of the major arcana depict high earthly rulers (Pope and Emperor, for example) or archetypal powers (like Love, Death, and Time), which are unambiguously superior to the kings, queens, and knights of the court. Only the Magician, as an ignoble commoner, cannot "logically" triumph over royalty. By his powers of illusion, dexterity, and fast talk, though, he can capture them! As if his portrayal on the card were not enough to make the point clear, the rules of the game are contrived so that the Magician lurks secretively throughout the entire hand, waiting for the great powers of the cosmos to play themselves out; he appears by surprise at the end to capture a veritable hoard of royalty who were too cautious or inept to enter the fray of the early part of the game. I think the game of tarot is full of wry social and metaphysical ironies of this type. The Magician is the ultimate manipulator. Although without nobility or rank, he rakes in his victory by unabashedly exploiting the rules of the game of life.

And here's another cool thing about the Magician card: if you add the value of the letters for Le Bateleur, the sum is 78, the number of cards in a traditional tarot deck; however, if one takes into consideration how the letter U was often represented as the letter V (whose value is 22) then the total becomes 100 which reduces to 1 which is the placement of the Magician in the Major Arcana sequence. Wow! How'd he do that?

When this card appears in a reading, you really have to be careful. He's not bad news, but he's not always good news either. With him, there's always more than what meets the eye, and even just knowing that can be helpful. He can represent someone who is just simply charismatic and charming, who naturally brings attention to himself, who shines in the spotlight. He has a bit of a Midas touch, too, in that he has the ability to transform any situation to his benefit. He is endowed with a creative energy and spark that creates something from nothing, or so it may seem. He's entertaining and, like celebrities tend to be, also a bit self-centered and yes, manipulative. On the negative side, he is narcissistic and uses his considerable powers of persuasion and deception to his own, selfish ends.

As advice, I often see this card urging me to start something, and encouraging me that I have what it takes within me already to accomplish something to make something I want to happen. See, in most tarot decks the Magician is shown with all the symbols of all four suits laid out on a table at hand. You have the tools, you have the knowledge, you might have to shuck and jive a bit to make it happen, but you can do it.

Michael recently emailed me with this lovely tarot deck in progress: The Urban Tarot by graphic artist Robert Scott. I emailed Robert and asked him if it was alright that I feature his work on 78 Notes and he graciously agreed.

I am not a tarot deck collector. Though I have upwards of 20 some tarot decks I use them all. I have traded or sold or given away decks that, while I initially felt drawn to the art, just didn't resonate with me in some way or another. There are many decks I can appreciate from afar and not feel the need to own. However, if this deck is ever completed, I really think I would like to work with it. These images, while maintaining the traditional symbolism also inject a modern sense to the meanings. Many deck artists do that, so it's not like that's something new, but the way Robert translates the Thoth tarot with gritty city scenes and characters is something that grabs my attention. The graphic style that appears as paper collage is multidimensional so that the images are layers and almost have a 3-D effect. The different parts of the scene will, at different times, appear to move forward and grab your attention. For both intuitive and traditional-meaning style tarot readers, these cards have so much to offer.

Life is not linear. In tarot, we so often do the Past, Present, Future spread or something like that and it may give the impression that life, too, lines up in a row like the cards where one thing follows after the next and the next. It's way more complicated than that. My life has tangential tentacles that reach out in various directions and get tangled up and weave in and out of each other.

I've been married and divorced twice now. My first marriage was in many ways horrible. Just horrible. The man was brutal and cruel and sadistically abused me. But there were sweet times, too, and we had a child together that we both love. My second marriage was sweet but died a slow, painful death. We had three children together and raised my first child together as well. I am without a doubt heartbroken that that relationship fell to pieces and couldn't be put back together again.

And yet...I am in love again. This man is incredibly sweet and fine and we fit together despite our sixteen year age difference. I find myself smiling absentmindedly because my heart is so full and whole.

Whole? Didn't I just say it was broken? What the hell?

Yeah...it's like that. Do I have a heart for each man that I have loved...one for each that beats and breaks? Or just one heart that opens a bit wider for each person I love? A heart that hurts for the failures and mistakes and abuses and injuries and that same heart that is filled when my love is loved. Relationships...men...people... are not interchangeable. One relationship cannot take the place of another. I have lost much and those losses are not replaced by another relationship. Am I making sense? The loss of my marriage is profound and being in a new relationship really does not quell that sense of defeat and disappointment.

At the same time, I am walking on air, happier than I've been in a long, long time. I don't want to hurt anyone with my happiness, so I tend to keep it to myself. I don't shout my feelings from the rooftops...I play my cards close to the vest and watch how things play out. But damn, I am in love. Seriously. He and I both have tried to get each other out of our systems. I went back to my marriage and tried to make it work. He went to another relationship and tried to make that work. Through it all we could not let the other go entirely. We kept gravitating back to each other until finally we both had to look each other in the eyes and admit what had been incredibly obvious to others: we were and are in love.

So what is this in tarot terms. Five of Cups? Yeah...the sense of loss overwhelms at times yet the two cups that remain standing show the potential of what can be. Five of Swords? Yeah, that, too. Loss and gain together at great price. Three of Swords? A truth that both hurts and heals and sets one free. Judgement, a crucial realization that moves one from one way of living to another. Ace of Cups? Sure thing. A flood of emotions, both positive and negative, the force of which pulls you away and toward. The Fool? Quite right. The Lovers, The World, The Star. Death, Strength, Temperance. They all play a role and describe a facet of what has transpired these last few years.

That Two of Pentacles juggler and the Two of Swords blindfolded woman both trying to hold two opposing realities at the same time. I can do it. I do it all the time it seems. I hold it all in my heart and in my life and realize that I do not have to choose one feeling or another...but simply feel.

To everything there is a season and a purpose under heaven, so said Solomon the Wise. And yet even he separated the times to laugh and to cry, whereas I tend to do them both at once. My seasons overlap like an Indian Summer in October or an April snow that blankets the forsythia.

I know this and remember this when reading tarot. That while the cards may be read in a neat row, seldom is anyone's life mapped out like that. Read the space between and around the cards, see the various intersectional lines that connect them in a spiderweb like pattern that allows for blended experiences rather than ok, this will happen then this, then that. Remember that while a card may say a person will feel thus and so it does not mean they will act accordingly nor make a decision based upon those feelings. Or just because X and Y are in place it doesn't not necessarily follow that Z will be the outcome. Leave room for inconsistencies and overlaps and ambiguities and ambivalence. Because this is real, human life we're reading in those cards and life is one big soup pot sometimes.

Hellllooooooo! Feels great to be back. I finally got most of my stuff moved to the new place and I'm feeling much more settled and able to breathe a bit easier. Finally getting caught up on readings, too, though my turn-around time is still about a week. The new place is small but comfortable and starting to feel like home now that I have my belongings there. All I need now is to have my kids come and spend some quality time and it will really feel like home. It's been a difficult transition and difficult to know what the "new normal" will feel like, but it is a life change that was entirely necessary for me to make.

I've been thinking a lot about the Three of Swords. It's a difficult card to see in a reading as it's undoubtedly referencing something painful occurring. The Rider-Waite-Smith rendering of the pierced heart and clouded, raining sky reveals that the realization is not merely cerebral but emotional as well. The water falling from the sky and the pierced heart are a graphic representation of the kind of emotions that proceed from this revelation. This is the "truth hurts" card, and yet it isn't without hope. It reminds me rather of lancing a boil or cutting out a cancerous tumor. The process is painful but the truth revealed is a necessary one that brings the situation to a head and clears away the confusion so healing can begin.

If we look at the cards immediately preceding and following the Three of Swords, one can almost feel the angst of the Two of Swords, the refusal to face the issue, trying to decide not to decide, then the relief felt in the Four of Swords where the subject is able to finally be at peace. The Three is the event between them which brings about the healing and recovery of the Four.

Some truths are just incredibly difficult to look full in the face. I've lived for years in that Two of Swords place, knowing the pain of the Three would be just too difficult that I could not and would not decide nor face the reality of what was actually true. I had to fully recognize and admit that my marriage of fifteen years was over and that the differences were irreconcilable and that I would have to begin the process of starting over in a new life. I wavered and hesitated for an extremely long time in the hope that something could be resuscitated. When it finally became clear to me that I had no more strength to hold those two swords crossed over my chest, their weight had become unbearable and heavy, they, along with the third sword dropped and all three pierced both mine and my ex-husband's hearts. Certainly the pain felt and the truth realized was different for each of us, but my hope is that with this truth and the reality of the divorce genuine healing can begin for everyone.

In a reading when the Three of Swords appears, there's no denying it hurts. Nobody likes to tell a seeker that. Being the bearer of news of a heartbreak or painful revelation is uncomfortable. However, if you understand and convey that this is a truth that must be told, understood, and accepted before anything else positive can happen, there is less to fear from this card. Denial only works for so long before it becomes destructive. If this card shows up, you might ask your sitter if there's something they've been avoiding facing, or if they've felt there is something "hanging" in the air, things left unsaid or unclarified that is making them uncomfortable. In this way you may get to the root of the Three of Swords and identify exactly what issue will be revealed or should be addressed. You might even show the sitter the Four and tell them the way through to that peace and recovery is only through the Three, hurtful though it may be.

If we could avoid the Three of Swords in life, we would. We can't. So it's best to face them honestly and head on. Otherwise, being stuck in that Three of Swords place is much like having your heart pierced again and again and again, over and over and that is far more painful and destructive than one brutal blow that cuts away the bullshit and denial.

Hi! Long time no see!

Ok, so I haven't blogged for a while and I apologize for letting things lapse here, but I've been trying to look for a job and apartment and life has just gotten in the way of blogging. Ok, that and World of Warcrack, ahem, I mean Warcraft. For those who are blissfully unaware of this MMORPG (What's that? Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) I can only say: come play! I'm an Alliance player ( a level 27 human mage and a level 17 night elf druid) on Korgath server. That will mean nothing to anyone not familiar with WoW, so I'm sorry for that and I will stop now. The cool thing is I can play the game and log on to give tarot readings online at the same time, so it's not entirely a waste of time. But seriously, the life transition thing is taking up most of my focus and time. Job hunting is difficult and this whole divorce and moving, well, it's all very emotionally traumatic. Which is probably why I distract myself when I can with WoW. That and the online gaming addiction thing. They don't call it Warcrack for nothing.

Meanwhile, on the tarot front, I am working on writing that book many of you have urged me to get written already. It's not a small project and it's just getting started so it will be a while, but I have begun. I'm looking forward to it, as the whole process is new to me.

I will get a real tarot post up here in the next few days. Promise!

Have you ever asked a fairly mundane question of tarot like, "So what's in store for me today?" and had a bunch of Major Arcana cards show up? So then you're like, "Oh my god, something huge is going to happen today." Then all that happens is...nothing out of the ordinary? Conversely, you could get a fairly mundane reading with a bunch of Minors and win the lottery. What is up with that?

Frankly, I don't know what is up with that, but I think the notion that Major Arcana are "destiny" cards that project something that will for sure happen in one's life is, well, not bogus per se, but just not always true. That's the wondrous and irritating thing with tarot. Pretty much nothing is always true or consistent when it comes to the meanings of the cards. They're so freaking fluid that you really can't rely on a dogmatic system and read accurately.

When I see a Major appear in a reading, depending on its position, I often see it as a compelling and strong motivation or pull in a certain direction. It's almost irresistible, in fact. I say almost because a person's chosen free will always reign supreme over anything the cards might have to say. Human beings are also very fluid and inconsistent, so they may feel a very strong urge or desire but resist it. That's why I have a very hard time seeing Majors as destiny cards in every situation. There are a few exceptions. When I see Death, for example, I know something, somehow, is going to end despite the seeker's choices or intentions. It may be a welcome end or an unwelcome one, but no matter, something will cease. In a reading I did recently for a young woman, Death and the Hierophant came up together. I asked if she or someone she was closely related to was about to leave school or the military, that some kind of institutional way of life was about to end. Turned out she was about to take her final and if she passed she would graduate. One might wonder why the World card did not instead appear. I think it's because she had not yet graduated, but was about to. The World is more about the time after you've completed that big deal thing and haven't yet moved on to the next phase of your life. Death heralds an ending coming soon.

While it's true that Majors can indicate a Big Thing it doesn't always matter much unless the little things are practiced as well. For example, I have a friend who has a difficult person in her life whom she had, for a long while, hoped and prayed would get it. This person needed a kick in the pants big time, a Judgement wake up call. Well, we did a reading and sure enough, finally Judgement showed up to say this person would indeed have that wake up call. But wait, hold the confetti and streamers. The person did in fact have that eleventh hour what the hell moment, but lacked the follow through, the every day Minor Arcana stuff to make the change actually stick.

When I talk about the Minors, I'm not really talking about the Courts. They are in their own little group to themselves. Courts project attitudes and manner, how someone is likely to go about something rather than tell you what they will actually do. The Minors, on the other hand, might give more concrete action-oriented advice or information. Some say the Minors indicate the small stuff of life, the day-to-day happenings. Yet, I've seen the Eight of Cups signal the end of a relationship, so that's pretty big. I've also seen it mean a person would be going on an extended trip far away. That's no small potatoes either. Deep hurts and losses can be indicated by the Five of Cups and winning the lottery just might be shown by the Ace of Pentacles. Though the Minors are said to be minor, they can be anything but.

Delineating the Majors and Minors into The Big Stuff and The Small Stuff really doesn't work. Instead, I tend to recognize the energies of the cards and when a Major appears I know the energy is deep and strong, its pull is magnetic and almost irresistible, and there is a compelling energy present. Sometimes they do indeed indicate destiny, something that will happen regardless the seeker's choices, but more often they show strong energies toward something the Major indicates. Aces and Courts are pretty strong, too, yet Majors trump (no pun intended...ok, maybe it was intended) them both. For example, if I were to get Eight of Cups with Strength, I might interpret it as the person really wants to leave a situation but is resisting it and/or it is taking everything they have within them to go. Conversely, the Eight of Cups with The Lovers might mean that though the person really desires to leave, their commitment to the relationship overrides this desire and they will, ultimately stick with it.

Viewing the Majors and Minors as having different levels of energy and pull really helps me figure out why when Majors come up they don't always happen and why Minors can sometimes mean huge life changes. They don't quite fit neatly into the boxes of Big Stuff and Small Stuff, do they?

A few of you have requested that I share the Double Celtic Cross spread I referenced in my post about reading card combinations, Pairing Up. So, without further ado, here it is:


Wow, them's a lotta cards, right? I don't usually use spreads with so many cards, but because the cards are paired up, there are still only ten positions. It's not like each individual card has to be interpreted, so it's not as overwhelming as it may seem at first. The only position that is not doubled is Position 2, the crossing card. I'm not sure why that is, but this is the version of the spread I found ages ago and have stuck with ever since.

You begin by laying out the Celtic Cross in the usual manner. I've numbered them on the picture in the order I lay them out, but if you are used to laying them out in a different order, by all means stick with your usual way. Then, you continue laying out a second "layer" of cards around the spread starting again at number one and doubling up through the last card, excepting the crossing card.

The cards are read as pairs, interacting with each other. The second layer isn't necessarily clarifying the first, though it can, but the cards are to be read together, sharing information between them in each position. Once you have the pairs sorted out, you can then see how they interact with each other positionally and the spread is then read in the same way you would read a regular CC spread.

I've used this spread a lot and have found it to be very useful for me, but if reading card pairs or the addition of that second layer of cards is just too much information for you, then this isn't the spread for you. If you are comfortable with the Celtic Cross, then this might offer you a bit of an enjoyable challenge.

To give an idea how I read with reversals, here are two examples of simple three-card spreads with reversals. How I read reversals is reflective of my own personal reading style, and as with all of tarot reading, there is no "right" or "wrong" way to read with them.

Ok, so when I read reversals, I keep my mind open to all the various possibilities just as when I read the cards upright. I don't lock myself into one set of meanings for reversed cards any more than I do for upright. Keep in mind, then, that reversals don't always mean a card's negative side is being highlighted. It could mean just the opposite, as you will see in this sample reading.

In this simple, Past/Present/Future three-card reading, the reversed card, the nine of swords, is in the Past position. The center card tells us what the issue is about. Three of Cups may inform of a get together with close friends or relationships with sisters or other women friends.

I wonder when reading tarot cards upside down began. Though it started in the 20th century, I imagine it was akin to any other form of divination where one reads the objects as they lie, such as with throwing sticks, stones or bones. Shuffling certain ways can result in cards being naturally reversed when laid down, so being reticent to "change fate" by altering the arrangement in any way, the cards were read as they were, upright or upside down. Someone, somewhere applied a different meaning to the card if it came up reversed, usually negative. The history of this practice is not likely to be traced, and today we have various theories and practices of reading, or not reading, with reversals.

When I first began reading tarot, the idea of reading reversed cards was daunting. I could barely remember the meanings of all the 78 cards to begin with, much less 78 more meanings for those same cards reversed. It is often recommended that a newbie reader forego reversals until one feels more comfortable with the cards, but that really isn't necessary if you use one understanding of reversed cards: that the energy of the card is "blocked" somehow in the person's life or situation. Basically, the card has the same meaning as upright but the reversed position indicates this is a challenge or obstacle for the person. This is a perfectly acceptable interpretation of reversals and isn't just for new readers only. It's just that it may help a new reader by not adding on additional meanings to the existing ones.

One doesn't have to read with reversals at all. Tarot reading is totally "upside down optional." A lot of it depends on the way you naturally shuffle. I decided to forget about reading reversals when, after noticing that the same cards came up reversed time and time again in my readings, I tracked it to my particular way of shuffling. When I shuffle, I don't get reversals. To get reversals, I had to pointedly cut the deck in thirds, reverse one pile, then reshuffle. On subsequent reshuffles, those reversed cards never got reversed back around. The randomness factor of reversals just wasn't working, so I said the heck with it, turned all the cards upright, and learned more about the duality of the meanings of each card so that reversed cards simply weren't necessary for me.

I can read reversed cards, no problem, but I don't care to lay the cards out with some of them upside down. It's kinda hard to see the pictures that way. Some folks have no problem with it and intuit all kinds of cool stuff from a Hanged Man who is no longer standing on his head but dancing like the World Dancer upright. In general, I am usually able to sense from the interaction of the cards whether or not a particular card is communicating a more positive, negative, or neutral meaning.

As I was discussing a card with my friend the other day, I said, "Well, that's more like the Emperor sideways."

"Emperor sideways?" she asked, "What's sideways?"

"Well," I said, "It's like he's not as dictatorial, abusive and control freakish as he might be upside down, but he's kinda leaning that way."

Oh, don't moan and whine and say, "Oh so now I gotta learn sideways meanings, too???" No, no, you don't. In fact, you don't have to think of it in those terms at all. As you learn to relate the cards to each other and follow the storyline of each spread and throw, you will naturally pick up on how a card is expressing itself in a reading, whether it is to be read more positively or negatively or somewhere in between. If a card is thrown literally upside down, it may limit your perception of its meaning. It doesn't have to, but it may.

There are vigorous proponents and opponents to reversals in the tarot community. Many see them as entirely unnecessary and cumbersome. Others feel they add meaning and depth to a reading and give more information. There are several books by competent tarot professionals that focus on reversals. If you're unsure about whether or not to use them, I would say try them. Read up on the various ways to use them and incorporate them into your readings for a while. Get comfy with them, if you can. Then decide if they are something you want to use or not.

In another post I will demonstrate a reading with reversals so you can see how I might use them, if I did, in a reading. I will also demonstrate how to interpret that same reading with upright cards that includes "reversed" meanings.