Tarot Exercises to Help You Learn the Cards
It’s been 13 days since I’ve been in quarantine at home, and as the Covid-19 news gets more and more real, I’ve been trying to find a way to keep me grounded throughout all this. Enter, Instagram Stories and the opportunity it affords all of us to talk about the big stuff, and also the stuff that’s keeping us afloat. Over the last week or so, I’ve been using my Instagram account (and even this website) to walk you through how I study, learn, and practice tarot for myself.
Here’s a quick rundown of tarot exercises to help you study the cards, give yourself a mindfulness check-in, or simply keep your head out of the fog even just for a few minutes.
I sloppily edited my stories and uploaded them on YouTube so you can go over them anytime you feel like a quick escape. Just hover over or tap the cover photos below and they’ll take you to (the) YouTube :P I hope this gives you a little reprieve in this tough time (and even when we’re finally out of this). Hope you’re finding some semblance of safety and security these days <3
Learning Tarot Meanings and Spreads
This technique is great when you’re new to the tarot and still trying to memorize the meanings of the cards. It also works especially well when you’ve got a new deck you want to play around with.
QUICK DRAWS
Use the cards as flash cards. Flip them over, one by one, and say the first thing that comes to mind.
If you have the little white book or definition list beside you, you can give yourself a quick check if you got the cards right.
This will be fun if you have a partner to practice with!
SPREAD BUILDING
Put two decks together (oracle + tarot works great for this!) and flip the top cards.
String the two cards into a story. Again, say the first thing that comes to mind.
When you feel more confident, throw another deck (and another deck) in the mix, until you become used to reading several cards from different decks together.
Using the Cards to Check In
Checking in is something I learned through my yoga and meditation practice. It’s like pressing pause on everything going outside of us in order to see how we’re feeling. The cards are great tools to help us do this.
This is also a great way to learn numerology and the minor arcana.
Rate yourself
Fold a piece of paper into four quadrants and label each division with one suit of the minor arcana.
Under the suit, write down a word that you feel this suit symbolizes.
In each quadrant, write down the first personal experience that comes to mind when you think of every suit and what it symbolizes. Make it as short as possible—just one or two sentences will do.
Give that personal experience a number rating, with one being the minimum amount of that particular energy, and 10 being its maximum expression.
Use your Practical Magic Book or google tarot numerology online to check in on what the number you gave yourself means.
Combine this numerology meaning with what your suit represents.
compare notes using the cards
Use the number you chose and look it up in every minor arcana suit.
See what the tarot visuals evoke in you.
What you glean from the cards may be completely different from what you come up with using numerology, or it may align.
Rinse, repeat, and reflect.
Thanks everyone, for allowing me to connect with you in this little corner of the Internet <3 Sending you all virtual hugs.
PS: If journaling is more your thing, you can find a lot of prompts to help you learn the cards in the PM Starter Deck’s companion ebook.