To encourage folks to stay home during the Coronavirus pandemic, I’ll be sharing lots of tarot exercises to help you deepen your tarot practice.
If a card could tell you about itself, what might it say?
In this exercise, we get to imagine ourselves as the card itself. Putting aside the normal way of interpreting a card (which tends to run: “this card represents XYZ”, or “this card is telling you to XYZ”), instead, we give the card a voice, a spirit. We allow it to introduce itself to us, via our intuition.
First – grab your deck, and give it a
Holding your cards in your hands, close your eyes, and take a couple of deep breaths. When you feel ready, open your eyes, and slowly, gently, leaf through your deck, until you find a card you would like to explore. It may be one that has come up in your daily card practice, or one you’ve previously found tricky. It may be one you’ve never noticed before! Or you may simply find that one card in particular calls to you as you leaf through.
Spend a moment simply looking, softly, gently, at your card. Try not to ‘think about’ the card, so much as feel it – its energy, its spirit, its unique message.
Beginning with “I am…”, describe the card as if you are the card itself.
Some examples:
The Fool
I am free, I am unburdened. I am dancing towards my edges. I am not defined by my past or by others’ ideas of me. I lift my head to the sky, trusting the ground below. I give myself permission to begin again. I am new.
This exercise was inspired by storyteller and tarot creator Jessica Zinchuk. Here is a beautiful example from her own tarot deck (shown above):
Ten of Pentacles
I am the Tree of Life. I am abundant, fruitful and joyous. I bask in the sweetness of my life now. Sharing it feels easy and natural.
Jessica Zinchuk, The Story Medicine Tarot
Let your imagination speak, here. Remember, there is no right or wrong, and your ideas do not have to ‘match’ anything you already know about this card. This is an intuitive, creative, deeply personal practice and I encourage you not to overthink it. Start speaking, and see what comes!
You may write this down, or you may prefer to simply speak aloud, really hearing the voice of the card.
This exercise is taken from the Alternative Tarot Course – an eight-week journey into the tarot, designed to help you create a really personal relationship with your tarot cards (whether you’re a total beginner, a tarot veteran, or anywhere in between).
The pricing is an accessible sliding scale, and 50% of all income from this course is going directly to the amazing Refugee Community Kitchen.
Hi! I’m a long-time reader, and still found this ‘simple’ exercise to be fantastic. Soothing, too. Thank you!
What a great exercise. Thanks for posting this. Also, I love your words about the Fool. I pulled the Fool as a final outcome card last night, and reading this reaffirms exactly what I was thinking about it.
Beth, have you ever considered publishing your library of tarot card meanings as a physical book? Reading your entry about each card has become part of my daily practice, and I would love to have them in a book I can flip through. You have such a way with words.
I second the desire for a book! Beth has so much to say and there is definitely a place on bookstore shelves for her to share her thoughts on tarot.
Ah, thanks both. A book is actually in the works… :)
Thank you…I didn’t know your site was still running. You’re a sweet soul!!