Many people want to learn tarot card reading but they do not know where and how to make a start. It is not always easy to access and visit a tarot teacher and time and life constraints make it really difficult to visit someone in order to learn tarot card reading.
Then what is the solution?
Well, tarot reading needs mindfulness, a connection with the intuition, a keen observant mind, and the ability to make a coherent story by connecting the dots. All these skills can be acquired by using the right tools and like any other skill, with practice.
I’ll share a step-by-step process here with links and resources that will make self-learning tarot card reading a fun, easy, and rewarding experience. So here are the ten tips.
1. Get a Tarot Deck
The first thing that you need to start reading is acquiring a tarot deck. Some people say that it is necessary that a tarot deck should be given to you as a gift but that is just an old wives’ tale. You can buy your tarot deck from anywhere, anytime, and start the learning process. Even though I am offering a free printable tarot deck on tarotoak.com, still I’ll recommend getting a copy of Rider Waite Smith deck. This is the most popular and easy to learn deck for beginners. You will find many free tutorials, data, and material about reading it. All the cards in this deck are adorned with beautiful and meaningful pictures and you can even derive the meanings by only interpreting the pictures. So just do not get confused by looking at a large number of decks in the market. Just acquire a plain and simple Rider Waite Smith deck. Also, make sure that the deck that you acquire is a legal copy and not a pirated one.
2. Observe the Images and make a story
Now as you have acquired a deck, what is next? Well take out your deck and observe the images. There are also numbers written at the top of the cards and names written at the bottom of the cards. Ask yourself these questions
What does this number mean to me?
What does it remind me of?
What does this picture trying to convey?
Look at the colors, imagery, animals, stars, moons, and symbols, everything in the cards, and try to make a story that the cards are trying to convey. Try to be intuitive and observant while making sense of the scenes depicted on the cards. Make yourself familiar with your deck. Keep it with you. Take it everywhere with you and just look at the cards whenever you get some free time and observe, notice, feel, and derive meanings.
3. Buy some Tarot Books
Many people will tell you to rely on your intuition while reading tarot cards. That is absolutely right but then there are some meanings attached to these cards and numbers. You do not need to memorize those meanings but you should know those meanings as well to feed your intuition. Like number 4 shows stability and structure, it might mean something else to you or when you’ll become a proficient reader, your gut instinct or intuition will tell you that it depicts something else related to the querent’s life or the question but you should know the numerological meanings of the numbers as well to know multiple perspectives and dimensions of the situation. Likewise, you should know what color means, what is the symbolic meaning of an object or an animal, and so on. To learn tarot card reading, purchase some good books. You can look into books and read the reviews on Amazon and Goodreads as well.
4. Watch YouTube videos
As a beginner, you shouldn’t stick with just one person and his or her interpretations of the cards and their meanings but you should have different perspectives. Learn to hear different voices and choose that makes the most sense to you. Many people have many useful tips to share and a fast and easy way to get these views is finding and looking at YouTube videos. You can use Youtube in various ways. Use some free tutorial videos set as a kickstart or find meanings of a different card every day and learn and observe how different people read it. Listening to people and observing them will help you a lot as a beginner.
5. Join Facebook Groups
I have already shared a post about various Tarot related Facebook groups on tarotoak. Joining a Facebook group is a great way to get connected to the community. You can ask all the apparently ‘silly’ queries that you might have and get instant answers from the people who were once beginners. Please remember that there is no silly question and no right or wrong in tarot so don’t be shy and be a part of a community.
6. Draw a Card Daily
The best way of getting connected to your cards is by pulling out a daily draw. You can start by pulling out just one card. Once you have the cards in your hands, observe it, look at the colors, see what message is it trying to convey to you? Then look at its meaning in the book you have. Try to find it on YouTube. Read about it on tarotoak and absorb as much as you can. There is nothing to hurry about as learning tarot card reading is a lifelong process. Even the experts say that they learn a new thing every day so take it slowly. Absorb it slowly.
7. Make a Tarot Journal
Tarot Journal is an amazing way to polish and enhance your tarot reading and learning skills. You can make a bullet journal, a picture journal, or you can just turn an ordinary spiral notebook into your tarot journal. You can also print these Tarot Journal Pages and make a small booklet. Note down your daily draws, observations, and interpretations in it. Paste pictures in it and write down the meanings. Write about symbolic language, tarot history, interesting observations, or any worthy facts that you come across. When you start reading for yourself or for others, take notes in your journal. If you’ll keep a journal, you will not have to solely rely on your memory and you can go through your notes and observations over and over again and derive new meanings as well.
8. Practice, Practice, Practice
Like any other skill, the key to becoming a good tarot reader is just practice. You should practice to ground yourself, practice to stay mindful and observant, practice to play with your cards, practice to make your own tarot spreads, practice to connect the cards and read those together, practice to translate your experiences in the light of your daily draw.
9. Integrate Tarot in your Life
I always feel that tarot is such a strong tool that brings changes to your whole lifestyle. When I started reading tarot cards, I had trouble with staying mindful so I started learning yoga. I started taking teas to help me with my health and intuition. I started making smudge sticks to cleanse my decks and started collecting different crystals. In no time I was reading about chakras and wellness and wellbeing. I think that just a simple deck of tarot cards changed my whole lifestyle and all changes that it brought were positive. So I’ll recommend it to you too.
10.Keep visiting Tarotoak.com
My last tip is that keep visiting tarotoak.com as I am trying to make it an honest and useful place for tarot beginners.