I bought my first deck of tarot cards about two years ago. I started using it regularly in December time, about 8 months ago. The reason I started using it regularly and became obsessed with tarot was because of a boy
but at least I learnt about tarot
The first deck I got is called the 'Oceanic' tarot spread. I chose it because it has dolphins and mermaids and I love them. It was also a very good beginner's deck because it gives you the keyword for the theme at the bottom of the card.
Here is a photo of the Oceanic tarot deck -
It is well used now. I shuffle the cards by halfing the deck and bending it and flipping them on to each other but by doing it this way, one of the cards is now ripped. When I was learning the meanings I would google the meaning of each card. Most of the interpretations on the internet are based on the 'Rider Waite' deck, and so I dismissed this deck as a beginner's deck only. I was made aware recently though that the Rider Waite deck is not the authority on tarot. Other people have favourite decks they feel connected to and use the art work to free form their interpretation. Now I look back with appreciation to my Oceanic tarot deck and I have learnt to appreciate the individual art work of each deck, especially if you feel connected to it.
For example, you will see the Queen of Cups and King of Cups cards together in the photo above. The Queen is facing towards the King but even though the King has his cup facing towards the Queen, his body is facing away from her. This body language is significant and any good tarot deck will have subtle meanings like this that you can use to explore the meanings by observing the art work.
However, when I was learning, I googled the meanings of the cards and this is how I learnt. Now I am ware of other methods, I will start using the 'observing the artwork' technique and I will return using my first tarot deck out of loyalty. However, since one of the cards was now ripped and was getting in the way sometimes, I decided now was the time to buy a new deck and I chose the Rider Waite.
I was going to order a Rider Waite deck on Amazon but the reviews were so bad. I suddenly had an idea to look at Etsy and I came across a Rider Waite set which included a wooden box that you can choose your own print from a small choice of about six tarot cards. It comes with a drawstring bag too. I requested a purple bag but a black bag arrived which was a bit disappointing.
Here is a photo and a link for buying the tarot deck if you want a recommendation (I have no link to the business).
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https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/529...allery-1-2&organic_search_click=1&frs=1&bes=1
When I began shuffling my new deck, I felt a sharp energy that was not there with the Oceanic deck. It felt more refined and mature. I did not want to spoil the cards by using the method I used before, so I just held them and gently shuffled put the bag to the side but when I was shuffling a thought appeared to me that said the tarot deck wanted me to use the bag, so I began using it. Black takes away negativity even if purple is my favourite colour and I wanted to respect and listen to what feelings I was getting.
I decided to introduce the deck to me by asking what kind of deck it was and what I can expect from it. I pulled three cards.
I always pull three cards because while googling tarot one time, I read that when you pull three cards the interpretation always lands with a past, present and future sequence. I have requested in other readings to not use this sequence but in my experience what happens is this sequence is usually what the cards are saying but three cards is such an easy spread to do for general, quick and every-day questions that three cards is what I usually do, unless I have a specific thread in mind.
So I pulled three cards and can you believe the cards I got? I was so amazed at the meaning behind the message.
The three cards are 5 of Cups, 10 of Cups and 7 of Pentacles.
I googled the meaning as I always do to get inspiration and the keywords for 5 of Cups is 'misery, loss and grief.'
The next card I got was 10 of Cups. You could not get a more different to the previous card. It has a bright banner of cups and it means 'happiness in general.'
The next card is the 7 of Pentacles, key words for this card is 'commitment.'
So the deck was telling me that it would be here for me for the good times and the bad, it will be committed to those times. To make this more personal, my grandad once told me that the high's are high and the low's are low, so that meaning has special significance to me. I was told that phrase through a psychic who said it was from my grandad but it stuck with me and it helped me grow and understand my emotions better.
What a lovely meaning
I do not remember if that spread was the first or second one I did, they both happened on the same day. I think the first one might have been one about the guy that got me obsessed with tarot in the first place. I want to talk about this spread to show you how I organise my readings and also the special significance of the first card to me.
So instead of using my general 3 cards readings, before I pulled the cards and while I shuffled them, I 'told' the deck in my mind that type of spread I wanted in advance. I wanted a card to represent me, a card to represent him, a card for his feelings for me and an outcome card.
These are the cards I got:
The card to represent me is the Page of Cups. I think this was the first spread I did because I got an automatic excitement at seeing this card because it is my favourite one so it was like the deck was saying it knew my soul! That feelings probably inspired the idea to do a spread to introduce it to me. The reason I like the Page of Cups is because months before using my Oceanic deck, I saw a spiritual spread online, which I will post on here for you to see. But one of the cards was saying what spiritual advice there was and for the answer I got Page of Cups. It was telling me not to lose my innocence or faith even if life is hard. I could never lose my naivety but when you are faced with dark times, you wonder if it was wrong to still believe. The spread was telling me not to lose faith and ever since then it became my favourite card.
Anyway, for this spread I am represented by the Page of Cups. In this context, it is saying I had naïve excitement and expectations from meeting this guy. My heart was open.
The guy was represented by the 5 of cups. In the artwork his back is turned away and 3 cups have spilt over. His heart is closed and his heart is broken. This is also a card of loneliness. It describes him well, he told me he is heartbroken over an ex (even though the relationship sounded stupid anyway).
For his feeling's I got 2 of Cups. This card is saying the feelings are reciprocated. So even though he turned his back and walked away, he feels the same as me.
For outcome, I got 2 of pentacles. This one confused me a bit more. Would there be two women he likes, or will there be another man I like? Or sometimes two of pentacle's can just be over-thinking two options.
When I get confused on a meaning, I take the card to the side and pull two cards for it, one for what it means and one for what it does not mean. This is a great tip that I picked up online and I highly recommend it. This time though, it was the next day that I decided I was confused on the meaning of the two of pentacles so I specifically picked it out of the deck and did a general 3 card reading on what it meant in the spread.
The three cards I got for the meaning of the Two of Pentacles was:
I got the Knight of Cups, Ace of Swords and Eight of Cups. As I mentioned earlier, when I pull 3 cards usually it shows a journey of past, present and future and you can see that sequence happening here.
The Knight of Cups is like charging in with the promise of an emotional offer. Cups are the emotions card. Although a knight is strong, it is not as strong as a queen or king, and can quickly charge away again.
The Ace of Swords is strong clarity on something, what I did not know so you can guess I pulled two cards for what it meant and did not mean.
And Eight of Cups is walking away from a situation that has been making you sad, or having to leave a situation that is sad. For clarity, you can guess what I did.
So I pulled two cards for each of those two cards.
For Ace of Swords, I got 6 of Pentacles and the Justice card.
The 6 of Pentacles is the card of imbalance, you can see the wealthy man is giving coins to one beggar but not to the other beggar who looks in worse shape. Justice is associated with Libra, think the scales. So I concluded the Ace of Swords is meaning I will get clarity that even though Ross may return with a promise (Knight of Cups), I will soon realize things have not changed (Ace of Swords) and I will leave (Eight of Cups).
But I wanted clarity on the Eight of Cups and so I continued with it, I wanted to know if I would walk away or he would walk away or what exactly the sad situation would be that would make one of us walk away.
For what Eight of Cups means I got the 5 of Wands, for what it does not mean I got the King of Wands.
5 of Wands is the card of fighting but not hard fighting, it is playful.
The King of Wands is the master of the wands suit. I googled and came across a meaning about the King of Wands that said 'the ability to over come hardship.' Then the meaning became clear, one of us would walk away because of petty fighting and would not stick together and overcome out differences. That would be the outcome.
This is what happened last time between us but I have a feeling he will be back and the same will happened again, or maybe the outcome has already happened and this is just describing it. If this is talking about the future, I know what will happen and even if it looks like he is promising me the world, it is the Knight of Cups, and he does not have the staying power of a Queen or King.
I would like to add, I have read that the King of Cups can indicate a player, someone with too many cups but I have never read anything bad about the Queen of Cups, expect to say you are open and ready but the other person may not be.
This is the sequence of how I do my readings and this is how I learnt the meanings of the cards. Everyone will have their different ways of doing this, so feel free to post your own method or describe what you think a card means that I have used here, or post about a different spread or cards.
My next post I will post the spiritual thread I did and more about my favourite card, the Page of Cups.
