Tarot as storytelling, Each card contains images that create scenes and stories about people, activities, events, challenges, triumphs, etc., that we can apply to our own life.
Have you been interested in learning how to read Tarot Cards but thought that you either had to be psychic to read the cards, or be prepared to put in hours and hours of memorizing keywords?
Well, let me share a little secret with you.
If you can read graphic novels just by looking at the pictures, or read the stories in photographs and paintings, then you can not only read Tarot cards, but start applying their messages to your life! Tarot as storytelling is reading Tarot cards as if they were pages in a graphic novel, using the images and symbols to provide meaning.
Yes, there is a little bit of structure involved with learning how to read Tarot Cards, but just a little.
But mostly Tarot, well designed and detailed Tarot cards, are about creating stories with the images in each individual card, and them
combining the cards to make even more interesting, more detailed stories.
The thing is, images and symbols bypass the logical, literate parts of our brains, the parts we use to read and think and analyse, and instead engage the creative, visual, and intuitive parts of our brain.
The more we engage the creative, visual, innovative, and intuitive parts of our brain, the more intuitive we become!
To read Tarot Cards through their stories, simply:
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- relax and let your mind wander
- look at a Tarot card (like the Sun card to the left)
- what image on the card are you being drawn to look at?
- what is the traditional, universal definition of that symbol?
- what does that symbol mean to you?
- What overall story is this card telling?
Let’s use the Sun in the Sun card above as an example of a symbol to explore..
Technically, the Sun is a star that the earth orbits. The Sun brings warmth and light to eveything it touches,. The Sum provides warmth, and energy that helps things grow and expand and flourish. The Sun brings light to the darkness, and provides us with the ability to see clearly.
Astrologically the Sun represents our ego, drive, and pride. The Sun is the giver of life. It represents our conscious mind, our will to live, and our creative life force.
The Sun also symbolizes clarity, freedom, happiness, abundance, and power.
For me, I love the Sun. I also love to garden and to be outside on sunny days – both of these activities bring me joy, make me happy, and I when I’m out and about, I’m seen by neighbours and others who are also out and about enjoying the sunshine.
When I’m reading Tarot Cards and the Sun card pops up, this combination of technical and personal meanings becomes part of the story I’m reading in the cards, so the message from that reading has to do with warmth and light, as well as having fun and being happy, of growth, of seeing what’s there, and of personally being seen. The story I create could be from the perspective of the Sun, sharing that energy with others, or it could be from the perspective of the young child revelling in the warmth of the Sun’s energy, or it could be from the perspective of the horse, or the sunflowers. With Tarot storytelling, you get to decide which perspective is most relevant to you and to the question this card is answering.
In reading a spread, I could explore how the Sun’s energy affects the surrounding cards, changing their stories with the clarity, the joyfulness, the freedom that the Sun’s energy brings.
Here, you try. Below are two Tarot cards from the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot Deck. Notice what card you’re being drawn to, the card that you prefer. Now, notice what symbol on that card you’re being drawn to? What does that symbol mean to you? What message do you believe your intuition is giving you by pointing out that symbol on that card to you?
What if you were to combine the two cards, like in a two card spread, or two scenes in a one act play, what story would the two cards combined create?
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