Should You Memorize Tarot Meanings or Trust Your Gut? (The Answer Might Surprise You)
Because the answer is BOTH.
I have a pet peeve. I hate it when tarot readers tell people they don’t need to memorize card meanings. Tarot has come to us over hundreds of years, with so many symbols, colors, and themes, and I believe that not learning the meanings is doing a terrible disservice to yourself and those you read for. There’s so much you can learn, and in fact, learning about tarot is a life-long process. That’s not a bad thing!
However, if you’re just memorizing keywords and not using your intuition to see the ‘story’ of the reading, your reading will fall flat. Sometimes you get just as much information from the way the Queen of Swords looks directly to the right (usually interpreted as looking forward to the future), as you do from knowing her traditional interpretation. What is she looking at? Or is she looking away from something? How does that relate to the cards around her? This is where intuition comes in. There is no set of meanings for how the cards relate to one another- that’s where you shine as a reader.
How to stretch your tarot knowledge
I recommend keeping a tarot notebook where you record not only keywords and phrases you find in tarot books, but also your own personal experiences with the cards and how they showed up in your life.
Draw a tarot card each and every day. If you study the meaning of that particular card and apply it to your day, you’ll learn a ton about the card meanings in no time!
How to stretch your intuition
Tell a story with the cards. Pull a card and create a character based on that card. (You can choose a court card for this, or really any card will do if you can stretch yourself mentally.) Then, pull cards and tell the story that comes up based on the cards you pull. You may use the meanings in the beginning, but after a while, you’ll start riffing off of the cards you pull. It’s a lot of fun!
Try pathworking with the cards. In pathworking, you draw a card, and then meditate on everything that card could mean. You put yourself ‘into’ the scene of the card, and imagine what you would do, what you notice around you, and how you feel on an emotional level. It’s a great idea to keep your tarot notebook nearby when you do this!
Do you tend to read in a more intuitive way, or have you spent years studying the cards like I have? What is your own personal blend of tarot goodness? Let us know in the comments!
