How To Turn Tarot Cards

You can either decide to flip all the cards at once or complete the reading as you go after you’ve flipped your first card. When doing a Tarot reading for yourself, always arrange the cards in a spread from left to right.

If you are performing a Tarot reading for someone else, however, and you want the cards to face them, arrange them from right to left so that, from their perspective, they seem from left to right.

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How are tarot cards activated?

What to Do First:

Get out your tarot deck.
The cards are in your hand.
“Knock or tap the pile of cards numerous times while holding them in your palm to disseminate your energy throughout the deck.

Shuffle the cards completely.
The cards are divided into three heaps, which are subsequently reassembled into one pile.

Lay some simple ground rules with yourself

Before you even pull your card, Marmanides advises you to consider what your gut feeling is telling you about the solution.

We are expected to consult the tarot guides for knowledge or direction, but we should also trust our instincts. Therefore, whether you’re performing a tarot card spread or just picking cards, you should follow the High Priestess’ advice and go inward. Concentrate on the directions you want to be led in and the feelings you already have about a specific circumstance, then channel that energy into your reading.

When is a tarot card reversed?

It basically implies that you’re missing some of the energy of the card’s turned-right-side-up meaning when you draw a reversed tarot cardwhich can happen accidentally or on purpose if you flip the deck upside down and choosebecause you’ve lost some of the energy of that meaning. The queen of cups, for instance, denotes both excellent intuition and emotional security. Therefore, a reversed queen of cups could represent emotional insecurity and a blockage to intuition. (You might think about purchasing a tarot book or visiting a tarot website to confirm the precise significance of a reversed tarot card that you selected.)

You are free to select whether or not to interpret a card as a reversal. Maria Sofia Marmanides is a tarot reader.

According to astrologer and tarot reader Maria Sofia Marmanides, you are under no obligation to interpret reversed tarot cards when you are dealt them: “The choice of whether or not to interpret a card as a reversal is yours. You get to choose how you want to approach that trip because tarot is a very individualized discipline, and one of the things you can pick for yourself is whether or not you read reversals.” You’re learning various things depending on where in your tarot journey you are “Adds she. “In the beginning, it might be best to merely adhere to the upright meanings rather than the reversed ones. Why, if you don’t have to, would you want to increase the amount you need to learn?

Exactly how do I sage my tarot cards?

Here are four simple steps to purifying tarot cards.

Meditate. Simply unwind for a moment and get rid of all your thoughts.

Pass each card through the smoke after burning sage.
Place bay leaves within the deck of cards.
And for protection, place a crystal on top.

How do I connect my tarot cards’ energy?

Advice on connecting with your tarot cards whether it’s your first time using them or you’ve owned your deck for a while.

Connecting or reconnecting to your deck can be a helpful activity, regardless of whether you haven’t picked up your deck in a long, are hesitant to conduct a reading for yourself, feel “wrong” with the readings you’ve been conducting, or have purchased a new deck.

Check out Reading Tarot for Beginners: How to Start Reading Tarot for Yourself for advice on how to pick your deck.

Being a competent reader requires you to connect with your tarot deck. But you must invest time, effort, and attention in a good relationship.

How can I tell if I’m not meant to work with a deck or I just need to reconnect?

The connection you have with the deck has to be strengthened, or it might not be the best fit for you at this time, if you’re having trouble getting a good reading from it or feel off with it.

It’s possible that you and your tarot deck aren’t intended to be in a serious long-term relationship if you don’t feel like you connect with it or if you don’t appear to speak the same language. There is a deck available for you if you want to learn, therefore this does not imply that you are not destined to be a reader.

However, there’s also a strong chance that you can establish the connection with a little time and effort. especially if you were initially drawn to your deck.

You can utilize some decks for specific purposes and not others. The majority of your magic will probably be performed with one main deck, although you may occasionally use other decks for fun, support, or clarity. Since decks are exquisite works of art, I love collecting them. And I adore using them when I want to switch things up or am performing a certain style of reading, but I only use my original ride or die deck for all of my professional readings and lectures.

All of this is to indicate that testing out a variety of decks is a wonderful idea. For your first deck, conduct some study, examine the imagery, and choose the one that sparks your interest.

Here are some methods for getting back on your deck. I’ve listed them in the sequence I’d perform them, but you should feel free to customize this exercise according to your own preferences.

How to connect with your tarot cards

You can accomplish this in a number of ways, including by shuffling, using crystals, moonlight, salt, or sacred incense. Click here to learn more about cleaning your deck.

Hold your cards firmly in your palms while taking a few deep breaths. After that, think about the intention you want to have for your practice with them. It could be a word, a sentence, or an emotion. You can use this time to ask any guides or spirits you enjoy working with for assistance or to help you open your channel to divine advice that is in your highest and best interests.

Cleaning the energy in the deck through shuffling. Additionally, it creates the random system that allows us to access the advice we need from the deck. We can gain a completely new viewpoint from the cards because of the randomness that shuffling creates; by doing so, we are deviating from logic and embracing the unknowable. Check out this article on card shuffling.

To get to know one another, gain some fresh perspectives, and, yes, bond, spend some time completing a tarot spread that is tailored to your deck.

What details about you do you want me to know?

Your restrictions?
What type of partnership are we capable of having?
What task are we supposed to complete jointly?

Which card can currently be my teacher?
How can I use this card to explore deeper?

Make putting your deck away a ceremony. You might keep it in a box, cover it in a special scarf, place a crystal on top of it, or place it on an altar while not in use. Choosing to follow this quick procedure at the conclusion of each session or day is a way to show your deck some love, gratitude, and appreciation.

Bonus Tarot bonding exercises:

the whole picture The Major Arcana numbers 0 to 22 should be arranged in lines of seven cards across. Next, arrange the Ace through King cards for each suit in the following order: Wands, Cups, Swords, and Pentacles. Take a good look at the deck in this format. Then thoroughly jumble everything together.

Select a map. To serve as your anchor and guide for connecting with your deck and intuition, choose a card based on its look and/or its meaning. Write down all the thoughts, emotions, and queries this card triggers for you in a journal. Use it to meditate. Keep track of how it manifests in your daily life and tarot practice (and keep a notebook of your observations!). When not using your deck, place this card on your altar. You can carry out this for a week or a lunar cycle before selecting another.

Put your deck beneath your pillow while you sleep. You can connect with the cards in your unconscious time if you can make it comfy.

Also keep in mind that it takes time to establish a connection and relationship with your deck. Like any relationship, it evolves as you develop and gain new knowledge.

Familiarize yourself with the traditional meanings

During intuitive tarot readings, your intuition will direct you in conveying messages, but Rose thinks it’s still beneficial to comprehend the conventional meaning of each card. She advises developing a regular tarot reading ritual where you ask your trusted tarot deck questions about your life and keep a journal of the readings you do for yourself to explore the meanings of the cards. According to Rose, intuition can come through more clearly the more you connect with yourself and your deck.

Can you perform a self-tarot reading?

It’s normal to be a little clumsy when you first start practicing the tarot. Tarot study is similar to learning a new languageit takes time to become proficient. But what happens if you no longer require the booklet and have intimate familiarity with the deck? Are you able to read yourself? No, except for a few rare instances. Simply put, it’s a horrible idea.

You see, the majority of us turn to astrology or tarot when we’re looking for clarity amid a period of ambiguity. In contrast to astrology, which is quite technical, our consciousness restricts our capacity to read tarot cards. Working with your personal interpretation of the cards, you are not constrained by short- and long-term cycles like the planets’ orbits. It might be tricky to go beyond your current circumstances while utilizing the tarot to better understand a trying scenario. Even if all the cards are spread out in front of you, putting them together requires such a broad perspective that it is all but impossible to fully understand the meaning of each card. Basically, any biases you already have will always be reflected in your tarot reading!

How many cards from the tarot should you draw?

If you find this daunting, Howe advises you to take a deep breath and believe in your own initiative. “In order to see it less as “This holds all of these secret meanings that I have to do all this work to access” and more as “I know all the meanings; it’s just a matter of establishing the connections and being able to articulate them,” use language or knowledge that you already possess. She points out that the four elementsearth, water, fire, and airplay a significant role in the tarot, which is advantageous because the majority of people already have an understanding of the meanings of each element. ” If you do that, your viewpoint will be more personal, and you will be able to express yourself more freely.

Howe suggests the three-card draw and the Celtic Cross as the two fundamental spreads for beginning readers. In the former, three cards are chosen at random from the deck to symbolize the subject’s mind, body, and spirit, or past, present, and future. According to Howe, you could even up the stakes and use a six-card draw, with one card for each location.

How should I maintain my Tarot deck?

While rearranging the cards in the tarot deck is a good approach to purify and clear their energy, there are some circumstances in which you might wish to perform a more specialized ritual. If you’re just getting started with tarot, cleaning your deck can be an excellent place to start.

You might want to clean your tarot deck for a variety of reasons, including:

beginning with a fresh deck
readings for other people

You think you need to recharge.
Your card readings seem a touch “odd” or “disconnected”
Your deck hasn’t been used recently.

Your deck has been handled by others
You think you’ve been utilizing your deck a lot. A LOT, especially for books with strong emotional content

Why should you cleanse or clear your tarot deck?

Tarot deck cleansing helps keep the energy flowing between you and your deck. Consider it as a little spiritual hygiene to maintain a strong and clear connection. It’s not necessary, but if you have any of the aforementioned symptoms, try a few of the energetic cleansing techniques listed below and note which ones seem to work the best for you.

How often should you cleanse your tarot deck?

This is another way of stating USE YOUR INTUITION: there are no hard and fast laws. Don’t stress if you don’t believe it is necessary for your deck. Alternately, if you like to cleanse them once per week or once per month, that’s great. If it feels appropriate to you, you can even place your favorite crystal on the balcony each night.

If you frequently place crystals on your deck and store it on an altar while not in use, you might not feel the need to cleanse it frequently because this quick ritual will likely be sufficient to keep your deck feeling nice.

There are numerous ways to cleanse your cards, just as there are numerous reasons why you might desire to do so.

Different ways to cleanse your tarot deck

Use holy smoke. Light a dried rosemary, lavender, cedar, sage, or palo santo cleansing wand until it begins to smoke. Hold the smoke a safe distance below the deck while holding the burning herbs in one hand and the deck in the other so that the smoke drifts upward onto the cards. Turn the deck so that the smoke covers it from all angles. Next, safely put your deck to the ground and put out the fire.

On the deck, set a selenite stone (or a black tourmaline or a transparent quartz). It works well to leave it like way for an hour, but I prefer to leave it overnight.

Set them on display during a new moon. The New Moon is energy of a blank slate; you can purify the deck by setting it on a window sill on a new moon night. At this moment, you can also make a brand-new intention for your deck.

Place the cards in a salty dish. A strong and stabilizing cleaner is salt. My preferred choice for a thorough cleansing is this. Allow it to sit anywhere from one to eight hours in a dry area.

Unorderly shuffle. Spread the cards out on the ground, then shuffle them around like a child playing in dirt. This method’s freedom and randomization serve as an excellent reset.

the shuffle and sort. Set up the deck in rows of seven cards across, commencing with the Major Arcana numbers 0 to 22. (see photo above). Next, arrange the cards, Ace through King, one for each suit, as follows: Swords, Pentacles, Cups, and Wands. View the deck in this configuration, then mix everything up (like the chaotic!) and shuffle it thoroughly.

How can the shuffle of the tarot cards be reversed?

There are many various ways to shuffle the Tarot cards, despite the fact that it may appear to be very straightforward at first glance. Here are a few examples:

The most typical approach to shuffle a deck of cards is in this manner. Shuffle the cards in the main deck from one side to the other while holding the deck in one hand.

The deck should be divided into numerous piles, then the piles should be reassembled.

After placing the cards face-down on the table, spread them out into a large, jumbled pile with your hands. Bring the cards back together into a single pile after that.

Which approach is thus the best one? So, give them a try and decide which works best for you. Additionally, you might combine different approaches in your readings. As an illustration, I shuffle overhand, divide the deck into three piles, turn one pile 180 degrees, reassemble the piles, and shuffle once more.

You might be curious as to why I rotate a stack 180 degrees. That’s because I deal with reversed cards and prefer to shuffle them while turning them both upright and reversed.