Tarot for mums

Have you ever been tempted to have your tarot cards read? What about reading them yourself? Alice Grist shares her insider knowledge and explains how they can be helpful.

When checking off your tick box of skills needed to be a good mum, tarot reading ability, may not be high. Who am I kidding? It wouldn’t even be contemplated, like ever, unless you are hippy like me. For many of you tarot is a once or twice in a lifetime dalliance with a seaside gypsy, or perhaps a more sophisticated soiree round your best friends sister’s house with a tarot reader and a bottle or two of wine.

It’s not my intention here to try to convert you either. Tarot for some is just a no go but for others it remains a curiosity yet to be contemplated and explored. So for you gals, here goes…

Tarot is not what you think it is. Well it is. But it isn’t. Let me explain… It’s not evil for a start and it is most certainly not a tool of the devil or any other impish entities you can blame Hollywood for that stereotype. Tarot does have dark seeming cards, such as death or the hanged man, but tarot is a reflection of life and in life some real bad shizzle goes down. Though that is not to say that death means death, or hanged man means something equally irksome. The cards are metaphorical.

I love the death card. For me it represents change and an ‘out with the old’ kinda mentality. If I get the death card in a spread then I am laughing, because it means that the chains around my neck are about to drop off and some fascinating new stuff is about to grow! Whereas the hanged man, well he can represent a period of limbo, a bit of boredom, groundhog day, same old same old. As is life sometimes!

So with those fears thoroughly quenched. I would like to share with you what tarot is. It’s not just a bunch of wacky cards issuing out your future. Nobody gets off that easy. Tarot is actually a one-way trip into your own intuition. It helps you get to know your gut instinct and connect with your higher, wiser, more spiritual self.

Yeah I know, I just took it to a whole new level, and if you are in-between school runs and not feeling spiritually inspired, a few more readers may drop off. But for those still tuned in, the magic is about to start.

It would be really nice to imagine that the cards could give us definite answers or portray for us the name and address of our future beloved but they don’t. What they do with great panache, is tell us what we already kinda know, but haven’t really admitted to ourselves. They lay it down for us, with great aplomb, like a discerning, diplomatic, but brutally honest best friend. They show you your soul, and they tell it like it is girlfriend. What you do with that information is entirely your choice. Tarot do not interfere with free will, and they do not cause events to happen. You do that all by yourself sweetpea!

For me tarot are like an infinitely sensible best buddy that I can go to for advice. Often they don’t tell me what I want to hear but they tend to soothe and calm my emotions, help me to see straight, keep me sane. Whilst my mummy frazzled brain may be hyping itself up, thinking the worst, getting a tad hysterical, tarot will chill me right down, I will sigh and I’ll know that the drama is of my doing and all can be chilled with a little rethink.

Tarot connect me to my wisest core self. Now whether you believe that is a wise brain genetically gifted from your intellectually superior great grandfather, or indeed a more esoteric offering connected to an ever expanding universal consciousness doesn’t really matter. The fact is that if you put faith in tarot, you can get a whole lot of wisdom and sanity back. You tap into your own intuition, so that you start to listen to that wise voice inside, irrespective of whether or not you have a pack of tarot cards in your hands.

Getting started

I learned to read Tarot by practice. I started when I was 14 and I practiced on myself and friends. I did this for many years, and whilst I found it fairly easy to pick up the skill, I am still learning now.

Choose the right pack. I own several packs, I only read with one. Pick a pack that draws your attention, with images that you enjoy looking at and that you can connect to. There are so many to choose from, and in many different themes, so hopefully there will be a perfect pack for you out there!

Every Tarot pack should come with a basic leaflet explaining very simply the meaning of each card. That should suffice to begin with as you may not want to confuse yourself with overly wordy card explanations.

Practice by pulling out a card for yourself every day. Do this in the morning and reflect upon the card when the day is done. How does that card reflect the events of your day? This is a fabulous way to get to know the card and to build your own relationship and understanding of them.

Begin by reading each card as you perceive it. Look at the image, the colour, the way it makes you feel. Don’t be afraid to use your intuition and gut instinct. Your personal interpretation is vital to tarot. In time you will develop your own associations with each card that alongside the ‘official’ interpretation will lead you to be able to perform a richer and deeper reading.

Progress to pulling three cards, these could represent recent past, present and near future. Now that you have more than one card try to see how the cards relate to one another, what story are they telling? Notice how the meaning of a card changes depending upon the cards that are next to it. A card may mean one thing today and something very different next week. Don’t try to mould tarot to rigid meanings, tarot is fluid, just like your mood, and like life.

Notice themes that occur in the cards and how these may echo what happens to you over the next few days. Remember Tarot is about real, every day life, whilst you may pick out a seemingly significant card, don’t always expect to have a magnificent event occur. A fabulous card could represent something small and nice in an otherwise boring week.

Alice is an award winning author of three books, The High Heeled Guide to Enlightenment, The High Heeled Guide to Spiritual Living and Dear Poppyseed, A Soulful Momma’s Pregnancy Journal. Alice is an acclaimed tarot reader and soul coach with a long list of happy clientele. She is publisher of Soul Rocks Books and writes for a number of international publications.