15 Tarot Lessons from 5 Years of Practical Magic
Practical Magic’s been running for five years!
I’m not one to track dates and milestones (sorry to all my friends whose birthdays I’ve missed). Last night, I was tweaking my website and caught a glimpse of the © at the bottom of the page. 2016 to 2021? Holy sh*t, I’ve been doing this for five years now?! 😱
I’m still a virtual baby in the field of tarot. People who have decades of experience are the first to say that they have tons to learn. But I think I have picked up some valuable tarot lessons through the years and I thought it would be good to document them. I’m thinking that someone will land on this blog post one of these days and will pick up something that they’ve been needing to hear.
Practical Magical lessons for Tarot Enthusiasts
You only need the one deck. I started PM because I liked collecting indie decks and thought of putting up my own shop. Over the years, my collection grew and peaked and then eventually got stripped down. Way way down!
I now only have a handful of decks that I use consistently. I consider them to be my no-fail allies.
Capitalism can be a butt-kicker (and I’m saying this as someone who sells decks!). Consumerism can distract us from why we’re even collecting decks or using them in the first place. Shop tarot mindfully.
It’s okay to dip in and out of it. Not everyone needs to be tarot-obsessed to enjoy their cards. I go through waves of being really into tarot studies and then go weeks without any immersion. I don’t think that makes me any less of a “tarot person.”
Using the cards in a #practicalmagical way means seeing them as a way to mirror your life (both internal and external). The more you enjoy life outside the tarot-sphere, the richer your experience with the cards eventually becomes. If you’re spending every hour of the day deep diving into the tarot, not only will you exhaust yourself, but you‘ll also lose opportunities to connect the cards to the real world.
You experience the tarot outside your deck. The more familiar you become with archetypes within the tarot, you see them all over the place—in people, in opportunities, in regrets, everywhere. This hands-on experience of the cards is way more valuable than any tarot deck!
Practical Magic lessons for Tarot Readers
Every reading you give to someone is a reading for yourself. I always feel like I’m helping people process what’s going on with them when I give readings, but what they don’t know is that behind the scenes, they’re helping me process my own experiences, thoughts, and feelings too. Amazing… and also v confrontational, lol.
Everything you’ve ever experienced and been through is going to add value to the way you read for people. Every stupid, idiotic mistake I’ve ever made has come in handy when reading the tarot for people! Everything I could have probably regretted in my life has become useful and handy in the context of tarot.
There’s room for all the tarot readers—everyone. Different people are going to seek different tarot readers. Apart from your ability to distill the cards and their meanings, your ability to use language to communicate, and your capacity for story-telling, it’s your unique life experience that’s going to set you apart as a tarot reader.
There may be a ton of people reading tarot these days, but that doesn’t make your work any less valuable. The people who identify and connect to your experience are going to find you.
Practical Magic lessons for Tarot Deck Creators
Focus on your creative work instead of what others people are doing. The sheer number of decks popping up everywhere can be super distracting. Looking for inspiration online can easily turn into a downward spiral that makes you second guess yourself. Create because you love it and because you have something unique to bring to the table.
Everything’s (sort of) been done before. There are no original ideas. Everyone’s been influenced in one way or another by someone else. Work on bringing your own POV to your deck instead of keeping tabs on who’s doing what. That said, be smart enough to protect yourself from people blatantly stealing your ideas too.
Do it because you love it. Create because you cannot imagine yourself doing anything other than this work. That’s what will see you through the roadblocks.
Practical Magic lessons for Tarot People on Social Media
It’s okay to stop curating every. single. thing. I’ve found that I reach for tarot when life feels messy and unpredictable and wildly chaotic. Why shouldn’t your content reflect this too? An erratic feed that’s colorful and mercurial and capricious is a direct reflection of what tarot stands for.
Forget the algorithm and analytics. There’s nothing more important than what you’re putting out there and why you’re doing it. Let social media serve you, not the other way around. It doesn’t matter if one person or one million people see what you’re posting.
Turning off my social media, taking out numbers from my feed, and busying myself with things outside Instagram has allowed me to cultivate more authentic connections with other tarot people.
Share what you want to, because you want to. There’s no better way to find your fellow tarot people than this.
Practical Magic lessons for Tarot Biz Owners
Just because it looks cool and free-spirited, doesn’t mean it’s not hard work. A business is a business. Handle it the way you would any other enterprise.
Follow your instincts. Never has the High Priestess done more for me than it has with the biz side of PM. It’s never led me astray as far as people, decisions, risks, and explorations are concerned.
Look outside of the tarot-sphere. I think it’ll serve you much better to take cues from non-tarot leaders, business owners, and entrepreneurs than it is to just stay holed up in the tarot world. There’s so so so much to glean from life outside the woowoo world. Inspiration is out there and it’s free! Make good use of it.
I could probably go off on this topic forever, but I’m going to stop myself now. After five years, all I know is that there is still so much to learn and experience, and I cannot wait for the next five, ten, and however many years doing this #practicalmagical work <3