Listening to Your Intuition
Dear Friend,
I want to share a fun exercise I like to do with Tarot. This is especially fun to do if you’ve just bought a new deck or if you’re new to Tarot completely.
Take out your deck and turn it face up, so you can see all the images on the cards. Now I want you to take a few seconds looking at each card, face up. Don’t take too long analyzing the card or trying to get any messages, I just want you to look at the image and instinctually put the card in one of 2 piles.
Pile 1 will be cards that you’re just discarding.
Pile 2 will be cards that “spoke” to you, something on the card just resonated and interested you.
The way to know if the card is speaking to you, is to ask yourself as you’re going through the cards “am I pausing longer on THIS card than the others?” Sometimes the artwork on a card just really catches our eye and we want to stare, that’s great - put THAT card in pile 2.
Once you’ve gone through all the cards in the deck, I want you to revisit pile 2. Maybe lay out all the cards you picked in pile 2 so you can see them next to each other. If you have a LOT of cards in pile 2, I would suggest doing one more passthrough of this fast categorizing and pare down your cards until you have about 10 or less.
Now that you have these cards laid out next to each other, there’s a few options and this is where I really want you to PLAY and follow your intuition.
Looking at the cards together, do you want to sort them in any way? Are there repeating colors or symbols you’re noticing? If you look at all the cards together, do they tell you a story?
When you feel satisfied with how the cards are arranged and laid out, take some time to just take it all in. Each one of these cards has something to say to you. You can choose at this time to look at the booklet your cards came with or ask ChatGPT to do some analysis and interpreting for you. But I would suggest instead trying to just let your intuition speak to you.
Look at each card and ask yourself what about this card relates to me right now? Where is my eye going to on the card, which symbol can I not look away from?
Every time I do this exercise with people, especially when they’re not familiar with the meanings of the cards, the symbols often become really personal.
For example, one friend of mine I did this with was drawn to The Sun card. It’s a fun & happy card, I can see why anybody would be drawn to it, but when I asked WHAT on the card she was looking at she identified the horse. So I asked her to dig deeper…what about the horse spoke to her?
Come to find out, her uncle took care of horses and he had been on her mind a lot lately. This led us to have a conversation about her uncle and how she wanted to reach out and reconnect with him.
This is a great example of why sometimes letting go of the pre-determined meaning of the cards can be really helpful. Just open yourself up to whatever wants to come through. Whatever thought or memory pops into your head, is coming up for a reason.
Our brains process information SO fast and we often miss the subconscious meaning or significance if we’re not slowing down long enough to listen. So let the cards be a tool for you, let them facilitate a conversation with your subconscious and give your brain permission to bring up whatever it needs you to process and pay attention to at this very moment.
We all have things we’ve shoved away into the crevices of our minds, but those things still need and want to be processed. If we abandon those things, they start to fester. Give yourself permission to bring them up. Become a safe space for yourself.
Nobody else can do the healing for you.
