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Discussion
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Hello Tarot Friends!
I recently bought my very first tarot deck and I’m still getting to know my cards. It was suggested to me that I should go through every card, spend a few minutes with it and write down key words to sum it up. I’m very new so I still don’t know all the meanings to the cards therefore I don’t think I’d be going off strictly what the cards usually mean, but rather what my deck is telling me.
However, when I think about doing this exercise, I get a bit overwhelmed because my type A brain immediately dives into needing to note imagery, symbolism, suits, overall themes, themes personal to me, and many more details. This makes me think I’ll spend much more time on each card to the point where I may get mentally exhausted and have to do this multiple times across a few days. I also feel like might even lose sight of what the card intuitively tells me due to too much focus on the details.
So the questions I pose to you all are:
-How would you go about getting to know the cards in your new deck?
-Has anyone done it the way I described above and found it worked really well for them?
-Any tips to make my way more effective or any different methods I could try?As always, thank you lovely tarot community! I appreciate any feedback you would like to share ????
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Getting to Know Each Card in your Deck
updated 3 years, 2 months ago 1 Member · 8 Replies
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I feel you on the Type A approach. I personally went through the trouble of memorizing six keywords each for every card in my RWS deck – one set for upright and the other for reversed. Then I went on to memorize the Golden Dawn astrological correspondence for each card (for instance the 2 of Wands represents Mars in Aries). Memorizing the astrological correspondences helped me to tie the deck together. For instance, every major arcana card represents either a planet or zodiac sign or both. After memorizing the correspondences, I was able to group my deck by element, sign, and planet and see how certain major and minor arcana formed little families.
But true to the Type A personality, all of that ended up being purely logical for me and didn’t really help me actually read the damn things. It was helpful in that it provided ways for me to spend time with my deck without feeling like I was wasting time (like you described – trying to write down your own keywords for each card all while wondering if you’re even “right”).
Then one day I logged on here and someone said something along the lines of their approach to the cards as representing energies or personalities instead of hard meanings. And all of a sudden it just clicked – the keywords I had memorized moved more into the background when I was looking at a card and it became more intuitive to read them than just running down a list of meanings each time.
I would say find a way to spend time with your deck in ways that don’t stress you out. Tarot is a valuable tool, but it’s just a tool and it stops really working when you’re too stressed out. Try to have fun with it and keep the enjoyment at the forefront and you’ll do just fine.
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I would like to help you manage expectations. There is memorizing the cards, and there is using the cards. If you drive, you read the driver’s manual and took your test. You then learned how to drive every time you got behind the wheel. Tarot is the same.
An initial understanding of what the numbers mean, what each of the suits stand for, and a basic grasp on the Major Arcana is enough to get you behind the wheel. Then start reading. When you are confused, look it up. I had a complete brain fart the other day about the 9 of wands and had to look it up. I’ve been reading tarot for 40 years, but didn’t have my deck in front of me.
Every so often, just pull out your deck and select a type of card.. all the wands, all the 7s, the court cards.. and just review them with your favorite reference manual and see if you can see correlations, how are they alike, how to they differ? I used to have a really long commute to work. I used to go through the deck.. Ace of Cups.. picture it in my mind.. what does that mean? Two of cups.. what is the image, what does it mean.? I would go through the deck over and over and if there was one I got stuck on, I would look it up the minute I got home and boy, that card would stick with me for a while.
At night, before going to sleep, I would do the same thing.. Wand were problematic in a reading.. start with the ace, two three four.. go mentally through the deck
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Thank you for posting this! I also just got my first deck and I feel overwhelmed!
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This is YOUR practice. If you want to take notes than do so! And if you believe that looking at each card is unnecessary than it is! I do agree though, don’t overwork yourself. Its unlikely that you’ll be reading cards accurately in a months time (or maybe you will be who knows!) But definitely take it day by day.
What I personally did was I got a notebook just for tarot and each page or two was for each card. I only filled in one or two pages a day, and I never forced myself too. I write keywords, symbolism, upright and reverse meanings, and yes/no answers. I sourced them from a couple different books and websites AS WELL as the most important, my own intuition. I can tell you that come a couple months from now, I wont even be needing to pick up my notebook because, In my personal experience, what happens is you move from this general meaning of a card to your own intuitive meaning. This takes time and Im sure no one would be able to do this from the getgo.
As for getting to know your cards, this is personally up to you. My way of learning my cards was well, using them. Again start small. Do maybe one card a day or week, whatever you think is needed, and you’ll understand and connect with them completely! (I also slept with them under my pillow the first night before use, but thats just a personal thing haha)
Start small and eventually before you know it, it will just make sense 🙂
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Personally, I spent a day on each card. Writing notes, thinking about that concept throughout the day, and yes, understanding the original meanings. If I want to add onto them with my personal unferstanding and intuition later on, that’s fine, but knowing the original meanings can help you avoid mistakes like getting freaked out over the Death card or feeling bad about the Fool card or drawing a blank on cards like Temperance which is a concept we don’t mention much in out day to day. Any information is helpful in terms of building an understanding, so don’t feel likethe original definitions are limiting in any way! They’re more like a base for you to build off of.
Giving it the day also allowed me to reflect on the concept and let it simmer in my subconscious for a bit. Just allowing me to form connections, maybe think of people or TV shows I could relate this to. There’s so many concepts and it’s so easy to forget them – even when I gave myself that time, I still forgot a lot of things and had to refer back to my notes. But this gave me very rich notes to go back to, and allowed me to remember at least the general idea for a lot of the cards before looking to double check.
It’s one approach, and one that worked for me. Best of luck!
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I would try and only write ONE word. The first thing you think of. Just to “break the ice” with each card.
People have made fortunes overanalyzing decks, and I say, if you feel up to it, do your method. Every nuance is a little daunting, but again, you can try to write only the first few things rather than a chapter.
Finally, Golden Rule: this is YOUR deck. YOU decide what means what when you draw it. If you have a cheery impression when The Tower is drawn, then go with it.
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Start with the cards you love and hate the most, take your time, then expand, take more time. It is not a race, and there are no right answers.
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Maybe a little different than others, but I had the idea to “design” my own deck. I’m an artist, and it’s incredible the kinds of thoughts that a personally drawn image can hold, so I figured I would draw a picture for each card while thinking about the encompassing meanings of that card.
Though I can’t really vouch for the effectiveness. I tried on one card (what would be the ace of swords) but I think my mind trailed off on the themes of the overall deck versus the actual card, so I probably have to start over. I think there’s a coloring book that might help you do the same thing, though.
