I see working with tarot as making a commitment to yourself. To paying attention to what’s making you uncomfortable, to listening to your intuition, and exploring what’s really happening in the present moment.
In this sense, the tarot is an incredible self-help tool—I don’t like to use it for divination and fortune-telling. It doesn’t serve anybody to be constantly trying to predict the future, since it leaves the present moment sort of flapping around, not knowing what to do with itself. Because also, the future is completely fluid and only NOW is real.
This means that the present moment is the only place we can act from, and our most empowered actions lie in our ability to take a risk and take a beautiful, brave step forward. The cards can show us what steps to take. This is often a humbling and heartbreaking process, because it often comes with a huge leap of faith and trust in our journey. Of surrender.
I’ve come to see that my misconceptions about tarot as a tool (an often scary one) for fortune-telling are shared by many. And based on the above depiction of a tarot “reading,” it’s easy to see why—for example, the Devil card appearing in the “future” position in a reading is enough to scare the bejesus out of anybody. Until, that is, you learn to interpret the tarot the Now Age way.
My dear friend Louise Androlia, an artist and mentor and one of the first people I shared my vision for The Numinous with, has been working with the tarot for almost twenty years, on both a personal and a professional level. And the first thing she will tell anybody is that, rather than a way to “predict” future events: “A reading is a perfect reflection of your subconscious.” And as such, each and every card contains a valuable learning to help us navigate whatever stage we’re at in our personal evolution. Yes, even the Death card—which corresponds with the energy of Scorpio, the sign embodying the cycle of death and rebirth (Lou’s Sun sign, and one of her favorite cards). The Devil, meanwhile, points to addictive behavior patterns that may somehow be enslaving us—pointing, therefore, to an opportunity to recognize these and escape the “hell” of addictions.
Scary since: “Change and the unknown are two of the things humans are most afraid of, and as such learning how to change our habits is one of our most important lessons,” Lou told me when I asked her more about it. “The Death card, meanwhile, is just a reminder that change is our natural state, since everything in nature goes through cycles of death and rebirth. There’s something so comforting in that for me.”
And so when Death shows up in a reading, it’s not a sign you’d better watch your step since there’s a body bag out there with your name on it. Rather, it can be read as an invitation to acknowledge where in your life an ending is occurring, to allow a new relationship/project/mind-set to come into being.
Lindsay Mack, another reader whose work I’ve come to know and love and who currently writes the monthly Tarotscopes on The Numinous, reads this card as a death of the ego—what she describes as “the sacred fertilizer that’s needed to help bring forth the new.” See how this changes the energy around the card from scary to exciting?
And then there is the multitude of new decks blossoming like spring blooms all over my Instagram feed—what Lindsay describes as “evolved” decks: “meaning they’re more feminine and holographic. A deck like the Rider Waite was created by men and based on Christian imagery. Motherpeace, the Medicine Woman Tarot, and the Starchild Tarot are great examples of more feminine and holistic decks.” Lindsay even thinks the Wild Unknown deck, featuring the inviting yet mythical black-and-white artwork of Portland-based artist and yoga instructor Kim Krans, can be held solely responsible for what she sees as the tarot currently having a moment. “People are really drawn to Kim’s style, which is so visually accessible and modern,” she explained to me.
I also feel like tarot is gaining in popularity because it’s kind of like Google for your soul. We have access to sooooo many answers in the Now Age, since regular ol’ Google means we can get instant access to all the information that’s ever been plugged into the Internet about every subject in the world, ever. But since very little of the information has been shared with our specific needs, questions, or journey in mind, things can very quickly become misleading—resulting in yet more confusion. The tarot, on the other hand, is a tool for tapping back into our own inner knowing.
Another deck I love is called the Thoth deck, named for the Egyptian god of writing, magic, and science and designed in the late 1930s by the famous occultist Aleister Crowley. And here’s the thing: in the past, that reference would have just reinforced my fear of the tarot. “The Occult” sounds dark and scary, right? But the word occult actually just means “hidden.” And what is the tarot if not a tool for excavating the hidden truths—truths our higher Self wants us to become aware of—of a given situation?
As for my personal practice? I’m still more inclined to celebrate and carry the message of the “positive” cards with me, but I’m learning not to shy away from the harsher-seeming messages too—just like my numinous journey overall is helping me accept and embrace every messy aspect of being human. So read on for twenty empowering Now Age lessons about the tarot that have helped me get to this place and incorporate the cards as a valuable component of my numinous toolkit.
Tarot is a tool for tapping back into our own inner knowing.
1. The different kinds of cards—an overview.
If the Major Arcana are like the A-list players in a movie, playing the “parts,” or higher forces, moving the action forward, then the Court Cards (King, Queen, Knight/Prince, and Page/Princess) of the Minor Arcana often represent our psychological state, as well as the actual people involved in a situation.
Meanwhile, the suits each correspond to an element and go something like this:
WANDS—Fire energy/passion/doing
SWORDS—Air energy/ideas/thinking
CUPS—Water energy/emotions/feeling
DISCS—Earth energy/work/making
As a rule, the Ace of each suit speaks to the energy of new beginnings, while the higher the number (2–10), the more extremely the element will be exerting itself in the reading.
This is a very rudimentary overview, and every reader I’ve met will agree you can do a whole two-hour class on the intricate meanings of just one card. But one step at a time. As Lou puts it, “Even just learning about the elements will give you an entire self-help practice.”
2. It’s all good.
The first thing to remember—as lovely Lindsay puts it—is that “nothing in life is happening to you, since everything is happening for you.” For you to be empowered in your personal evolution, that is. This simple shift in perspective has been enough to reframe my relationship with the “scarier” aspects of the tarot. Plus it’s kind of an amazing life lesson in general, so please keep this front of mind.
3. There’s no such thing as a “bad” card.
When I first starting reading about the meaning of the different cards, I was shocked how many, like at least half, seemed to depict the shadow side of life: disappointments, frustrations, and unscrupulous individuals. But let’s get really real—life ain’t no bed of roses, and actually isn’t the point of developing all this spiritual awareness to help us deal better with the inevitable thorns? In Lou’s experience, the more “challenging” cards simply reflect the things showing up in our reality that we’d rather not deal with. Like the Five of Cups, for example—which speaks to feelings of sadness and