How I Got Into Tarot

Sometimes when I say I like doing tarot or offer free readings to people, I get people acting as if they couldn't get into the craft themselves. As if divination methods such as tarot are something that only a blessed few can do. As if everyone can't pick up a deck and begin learning.

So in this post I'd like to tell my story of how I got into tarot and a little trick I still use so that maybe, just maybe, any fear you have about doing tarot readings of your own will fade away.

Only Credit I Could Find

Living with My Dad

I don't like the question people sometimes ask about why I got into tarot. It's as if people want some fantastical reason that will answer questions about the nature of reality. It's as if people think you have to know you're being called to practice one form of magic or another instead of just believing you want to do something.

So one day I just really wanted to start getting into tarot. It just seemed fascinating to me and so I wanted to learn more about it.

I didn't have any great vision or feel like I was called by something. There wasn't any spiritual being that made its presence known to me and revealed I needed to do tarot. Nor did I grow up with any family members practicing tarot around me.

I just wanted to get into tarot. There was no more reason than that.

But as I was still living with my emotionally abusive father when I started to get an interest in tarot, I had to put divination on hold until I could move out. If I started practicing while living with him, my life would've become more of a hell than it already was. He is the kind of Catholic that makes others weary of people with that belief system.

And it felt for years as if I would never be able to move out. I couldn't get a job and there was no one I could move in with for the longest time. Each day in that house I had multiple panic attacks just from hearing him move around the house.

Moving in with revrezner

After many years of waiting I finally had a way out of the hell I had been living in. For around six to seven years I had been dating a man I'll call revrezner. We had gotten engaged not even a year after dating but couldn't move into our own place quickly. Nor could we ever get legally married as he was on Disability and I'm on SSI.

We spent weeks over at the other's house when we could. So we were able to tell how living with each other would be if we ever did move in together. This is actually a really good idea to do if you're planning on spending your life together with someone. There are just some things you don't notice if you only spend a weekend at a time with someone.

Even though revrezner is an atheist, he is more than willing to accommodate my spiritual side. He doesn't judge me for having a completely different system of belief than him. Nor do I judge him for believing something I don't.

He even allowed me to make him a talisman for his Disability Hearing recently.

So I now felt more than safe to buy things for my spiritual journey. It took a few months, but I finally bought my first ever tarot deck.

Choosing My First Deck

I had had an interest in tarot for awhile, but no clue what to do for my first deck. There are so many different variations on the same thing and I did not want to mess up. I wanted a deck that both looked appealing to me while also being easy to read.

But without any idea where to start, I knew I had to ask for help.

So I asked on the one place I knew people who were into tarot: Facebook.

I made a post explaining what I was looking for, that this would be my first deck, and where I was willing to buy from. Since I still had some Amazon gift cards with money on them, I decided to only buy from that site so I saved my money for other things.

In the post I also tagged people who I knew did tarot. Surprisingly there were a few people that replied to that post who I had no idea actually did tarot.

I made sure for every recommendation I received, to check Amazon before buying. I focused on looking at the artwork as well as the price. As it was going to be my first deck I wasn't going to go too crazy with costs. There was at least one deck that went above and beyond what I was willing to pay even though it did look really awesome.

So what deck did I finally choose? Legacy of the Divine Tarot by Ciro Marchetti.

What makes this funny is that I thought James had recommended me this deck when he had really recommended me another deck by Ciro Marchetti. But I don't regret my choice and will probably buy the actual deck James recommended to me sometime in the future.

White Sage Tarot

Doing Daily Readings for Myself

Tarot can seem challenging for a newcomer. I knew while I was drawn to this form of divination, I still needed to learn how to properly use it. And to properly use it there needed to be an understanding in my mind how to translate the cards. Each card has multiple meanings that can slightly differ from deck to deck. Which means besides understanding, there has to be trust in the reader's mind of what messages to take from every reading.

So I eventually figured out doing a Card a Day would ease me into tarot. One card every day is more easy to manage than three or four, after all.

The first task is to shuffle. Now since I wasn't good at shuffling, I made my own method. I would lay every card upside down, place my hands over them to feel their energy, ask a question, put all of the cards into one stack, break the stack up into different stacks, eventually make it into one stack again, and finally pull my Card of the Day.

A little overly complicated, sure. But at least the deck was properly shuffled.

After shuffling and drawing a card, I write in my journal what I think the card means for the day's reading. If I don't know clearly what the card means I'll go off on tangents until a meaning settles down. It can be quite a journey if I can't figure things out.

Then, after letting my hands rest for a moment, I'll look up the meaning. Sometimes I am way off and other times I am right. If the former I will write the correct interpretation underneath the wrong one. Depending on how wrong I got the meaning, I will cross off all or little bits of my original guess.

This is something I continue to this day. Doing a card for each day allows me to refresh myself on old decks as well as ease myself into new ones. If you are just getting into tarot, or have found a difficult deck, I suggest doing this exercise.