Final Reflections

Getting started was overwhelming, the second week was probably the hardest. There’s a lot to learn, a lot to memorize, and the going is slower the less you know, so it was a fairly arduous process. It was not always easy to find relevant meaning in the cards or to see how the cards interacted with one another. Some readings call for more inter-card communication than others, but it helped that I was able to mull over the cards and return to continue my analysis later. I found self-reflecting for the moment that I was in and asking for what to do in the immediate time frame a more rewarding experience and more personally useful than looking to the future. I found that asking the cards for advice on how to solve a problem or where the root of my struggles stemmed from was a more effective tool for my purposes than using them for divination. This makes sense as ultimately I wanted to undertake this journey for self reflection purposes.

Reading for someone else was an unexpectedly fun challenge and I have started doing it as a fun activity with my friends. Even if it is not used in an overly serious setting, or if the second party went in not expecting much, I have found it an insightful way of helping the people close to me hash out their problems. I do believe, having done this a few times, that even if someone does not see the cards as a spiritual experience, they are designed in such a way that you may find introspective value in them anyway.

My final two weeks involved channeling tarot through a religious and spiritual lens. I informed my practice through wicca and learned a lot about channeling readings through a waider spiritual scope in that time. I did find that doing this made the reading a more centering experience. Perhaps it is simply the ritual of reaching out to the gods or setting up the altar, but I found that in the aftermath of these experiences I felt satisfied and a little more confident that I had thought through the situation carefully. These were possibly my favorite weeks, they felt the most involved emotionally, and ended up feeling very significant and meaningful. Assembling the altar and then reading on it in particular was fun. Something about it felt special and fulfilling, with fewer emotional stakes and the most reward.

I also went into this hoping to find use in it as a mental-health management tool, and I can say that it did definitely help. Posts two and three were bad times for me mentally, and while I didn’t alway walk away from the reading feeling good, I often walked away feeling better. If for no other reason than thinking through your problems in a methodical and structured manner makes them much easier to digest. By the time you’ve finished with a reading, you usually have at least some idea of where your problem came from. This is not a cure all for any given situation but it can help one center themselves in the moment and even if they don’t (although sometimes they do) know how to move forward, at least the acute pain is easier to isolate and recognise. I found it an effective tool for mental health management and I plan on using it in the future.

Final Reflections

Technical

There's still a long way to go before I can say with confidence that I know all of the cards. Each card has several meanings, implications that depend on whether the reading is abut love or business or money or a person or just a general reading, and all of those have a secondary meaning if the card is inverted. It’s a hard road to learn them all, but as more and more came up, I gained passing knowledge of the card and was more likely to be able to remember some details about them. I learned that some cards, such as the nine of swords, three of swords, or five of pentacles, are more dread-worthy than cards like the devil or death, which is only something you learn through gathering knowledge.

However, the fact that not all of the cards have been memorized can be somewhat mitigated by the fact that I have gotten much better at reading the aspects of the cards as I learn. The numbers, suits, symbols, and stories all have meaning, and if you learn those, you get reminders or even just hints towards the meaning of the cards. For example, I often used the rules such as Threes = Growth or Wands = Creativity and intuition or Red = Passion and string emotion to take a guess at a card’s meaning before turning to other materials. While they don’t tell you the whole story, they do a good job of jogging your memory if you already knew a little. I think that these connections and patterns are the skill I best honed over the course of this experience.

I cannot say the same for seeing how the cards relate to one another in a reading, which I had far less success at. I often forgot to do it, or couldn’t see where a connection would be. That is something that comes a little easier, I suspect, when you know the cards better. When you have seen the cards interact with each other before, and how they might work with or against one another. Getting good at this specific skill may take more practice.

Reflection through Reading

In general I found that finding relevant answers to questions and parallels to my life was not as hard as I expected it to be. There were a few times that I felt the connection was not very clear or overt, but I was usually able to make one. I think the biggest stretch of my experience was the Page of Cups in week 7, but usually I could find pretty solid connections.

Whether or not the cards affected actions I took later in the week depended on what I was reading for, but I can say with honesty that there were a few times where it did. I did not use the cards expecting them to revolutionize my future, and I did not expect them to always be exactly correct, but even if their advice wasn’t infallible, I found some instances where I really was told what I needed to hear. After the celtic cross reading, I was inspired to go for job interviews I wouldn’t have usually tried for. None of them panned out, unfortunately, but I tried, which is half the battle.

Will I Continue?

Short answer, yes I do think I will keep using my cards. Probably not weekly, but when I need to do some reflection, either by myself or with a friend. I found them effective tools for managing my mental health when I’m particularly distressed but not sure why, or for helping friends work their way through issues.

This has been a very informative journey, and I hope that using tarot continues to feel fulfilling and helpful as I continue to use it.