A word on picking a tarot deck...

Reading tarot cards is an intuitive art. It is not a skill. And its true that some people are born naturals at it. In fact, its true that all people would be born naturals at it if their intuitions were allowed to flourish.

Regrettably, most of us have the intuition sucked out of us before we can even make sentences. Not all of it, of course, but quite a lot. Parents tell their children what to do as a rule, rather than taking the clues from their children and providing guidance for them. Babies are smart.  Children are smart. Left to their own devices, at an instinctive level, they know what to eat and what to wear to be comfortable in the surrounding temperature. Parents tend to override all that, insisting on heir choices. Eventually most kids just give up trying to exercise their natural instincts and they shrivel up. Intuition is part of that instinctual tool kit, so when the instincts get shoved aside, the intuition goes with them.

To read cards well, you've got to get to that space where intuition lives inside you. A deck of cards that you resonate with, that feels good to you, can actually help you get there.

This is what I tell all my students: find a deck with images that you identify with, buy it and throw out the "instructions." If there is information about the inspiration for the creation of the deck, by all means, read that. That is important information as it tells you about the feeling, creative process that spawned the deck. That story should resonate with you too. This is a relationship you are about to enter into, you need to know your partner's background. What you do not need to know is what each card "means," for it may mean something different to you. That is because you are not the person who created the cards. Their explanation of the card will reflect what it means to them. You are someone else.

The tarot cards have a huge morphogenetic field, (a term coined, I believe, by Rupert Sheldrake). A morphogenetic field is a body of energy created around some thing or some activity that is repeated again and again. Most cards in a traditional tarot deck have history that goes back hundreds of years. That's a lot. So when you step into the field of the energy of tarot, you are enveloped by - and add to - that field. Your intuition feels that. hence, if you are in touch with your intuition then you are also in touch with that filed and all those hundreds of years of information and that is way more important and way more potent than what one person says a card means. That morphogenetic field is where the good stuff is, the stuff that will allow you to read well.

When you find a deck that resonates with you, take it to bed. Sleep with it for a while before attempting to use it. Let your energies mingle. Get to know each other. At some point, shuffle it and pull one card - just one! That card will tell you what this relationship - this deck - will bring you. Then sit down and let your mind go. It deserves a vacation anyway.