Tarot Reading - Understand Your Tarot


by Jyotika Joe - Date: 2010-06-20 - Word Count: 629 Share This!

The playing cards we are so familiar with did not exist a very long time ago. It was in the fifteenth century that these cards made the Europe's shores. At those times, these tarot cards were not looked upon for revelations of the future, but for entertainment purposes.

The tarot cards consist of a total of 78 picture cards. These cards are said to reveal the hidden truths about a person. With the coming of the twentieth century, the interest in tarot card reading has increased tremendously and is considered a useful method to personal growth and insight.

There are four suits in the deck of tarot cards: Swords, cups, pentacles and wands. Each suit consists of cards numbered form two to ten, a page, a knight, a queen, a king and an ace. Apart from these 56 cards, there are 22 cards that are known as major arcane, which contain the fool (representing freedom and new beginnings), death (referring to mortal death, sudden change or something good being corrupted), the tower (a sudden change in relationships) and the world (referring to a journey completion and for new possibilities afterwards). The four suits mentioned before are known as the minor arcane.

The suits in the minor arcane have their own meanings; the sword is associated with the elements of fire and refers to combat and chaos. The wand is associated with elements of air and this signifies distance and change. The pentacle is associated with earth elements and is considered to be very stable. The cups are associated with water and these are adaptable and changeable and free flowing.

All cards containing in the major and minor arcane have individual meanings or other meaning associated with it. For example: the death card, as mentioned above, signifies actual death or can also signify change, mortality or corruption. The exact interpretations of these cards depend on the location of the tarot card in the spread.

For tarot card reading, the tarot reader spreads the tarot cards in a particular pattern. The cards can be considered as letters and spread in the form of a sentence, just like each letter has its own sound and makes sense only when spoken in a sequence. That is why the individual meanings of the cards are difficult to understand unless they are read according to the sequence of the spread.

Another aspect of tarot card reading is the concept of inverted tarot cards. If in a tarot card spread, a card is laid upside down, it generally refers to the opposite of what it would generally mean. For example: if the death card, which means corruption or failure, is laid upside down could mean success or a new start.

There are two types of tarot card reading:

• Question readings: In this type of reading you answer specific questions asked by a person through the tarot cards. The tarot cards are not meant to answer basic yes or no questions. Most tarot card readers suggest that the tarot cards should not be used for making specific decisions, but as a guide for helping you make the decisions yourself.

• Open readings: Unlike the above type of reading, open reading does not answer only the specific questions asked, but gives a broader perspective of a person's life. These tarot card readings are usually done when someone is about to take a big step or starting a new chapter of their life, like getting married, graduating or even starting a family. You can direct these reading to a specific area of your life, like your career or health but not to the specific questions as the question readings.

Tarot card reading is just like any language you learn. You should be able to interpret the meanings of respective cards in their altering combinations and sequence of appearance.

Related Tags: tarot, tarot reading, tarot card reading

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