Here are my ideas for starting out with tarot. 

I love Tarot but I remember starting out being very overwhelmed with it. I would study my books every time I pulled a card. This made the process rather longwinded and made me more worried about trying to memorise all 78! Here are my top tips to make the process easier:

1. Get a practise deck – My first deck was a traditional Ryder Waite deck. I chose this one as it is the most traditional deck and there is a lot of information to be found out about it. Researching the symbolism is also really interesting. This could include flower types, shapes and colours.
2. Write on your practise deck – It’s yours to make your own. I found two key words to write on each card, in order to to support the meanings. This would jog my memory when doing a reading. I chose the meanings that resonated most with me. The deck I decided on had a handy white border so I could do this.
3. Start with the major arcana – A lot less cards to work with at a time and plenty of quality readings to be done just with these to start with. Gradually introduce one of the minor arcana suits as you get more confident.
4. Differing meanings – Remember that my meanings and your meanings may be slightly different. The fool to you, may signify stepping into the abyss without checking, but to me may say that a chance should be taken. Your guides will show you the relevant cards for your set of meanings.
5. Changing meanings – As you are using your intuition, the meanings will change. For one person you are reading for, the moon might mean unknown information coming to light. For your next sitter it might mean someone being two faced. Lean in to your intuition to get the information that is relevant.
6. Tap into your tarot guide - Meditate and set the intention to meet them. My tarot guide is a little gypsy lady, who supports me with my readings. My guide suggested that in order to learn, I should pull a card each day and meditate with it. This develops my ability to use my intuition for reading it. It was good advice and really helped!
7. Set intentions – Call in your guide first. I set the intention of my readings to be for the person’s greatest and highest good before I start.
8. Don’t panic about spreads – There are 100s of them. I have a few favourites but I can’t remember them very well. I have mine printed out as a table mat so that both the sitter and I can see what all the card placements mean. You can also number them and simply write the meanings on a post it. It doesn’t matter. Your intention is the main thing. Set the intention of what you want the card to tell you before you pull it. You may just want to have a 3 or 5 card story, a past, present or future reading or a 25 card spread about the next year in detail. It is up to you.
9. Use your cards as oracle cards – You can home in on particular aspects of the picture that catches your eye and use that to explain the meaning. I might be focusing on mountains in the distance to mean a journey getting closer to the end for one person. Using the same card for another person, I might spot the rabbit in the foreground which gives me a message to impart about not running away from an issue.
10. Don’t overthink – Let your mind relax and your intuition flow. If you are stuck, you can say something generic about the card such as how lovely the flowers are and by the time you’ve said it, your intuition will have kicked back in and the messages will start flowing again.

If you would like to find out more about learning tarot, why not take Julian's Udemy course:

https://www.udemy.com/course/intuitive-tarot-the-complete-tarot-reading-masterclass/ 

For all of Julian's 35 tarot related circle replays, articles and courses see: 

https://lhcommunity.net/search/?q=tarot&quick=1 (subscribers only).

Hope these ideas are helpful to you! I'd love to hear your comments, feedback or further ideas. 

Thanks for reading,

Lynn

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