My Approach to Tarot
First things first: I do not believe that when someone reads your cards that they know something you don’t. That is not the point. And anyone who purports to gatekeep your life or future in any way, to my mind, is misusing the practice and being unethical to boot.
You may have long lost your faith in systems and institutions as a mandate for control. Though those old beliefs die hard and you can’t help but worry that to do this work would be to dabble in the dark arts, to mess around in something you don’t understand.
Is it dangerous? It’s worth asking what the word means. Because it’s easy to label something dangerous simply to keep you away from your own power.
The few times you’ve had your cards read, you found it intriguing, even fun. But you don’t understand tarot, it remains a mystery, shrouded in secrecy.
You feel like it’s trying to interpret wisdom from another language. That you would have to know something you don't know, or worse, that it’s something you can’t know.
None of those things is true.
This is not the dark arts. This is not the devil’s work. This is not about gatekeeping mystical secrets or “knowing” someone better than they know themselves.
While I have studied the Tarot, you need not be an expert to effectively use the cards. They are not risky or dangerous. They are not “magic” in and of themselves. The magic is in your unique response to the meanings and symbols they serve up, the way they nudge your subconscious, tap into the collective unconscious, and open up pathways of thinking that you may not have considered.
In short, Tarot is a tool, no more, no less. In modern parlance, it’s not that different from texting yourself a meme.
The Tarot is a deck of 78 cards, featuring the Major and Minor Arcanas. The Major Arcana (arcana just means part) represents the Hero’s Journey as laid out by Joseph Campbell, it’s basically the human soul’s journey toward enlightenment. The Minor Arcana is like a deck of playing cards; its four suits represent the elements fire, water, air, and earth; there are ‘pip’ cards of each suit are numbered ace through ten, and four court cards (King, Queen, Knight, and Page) instead of the expected three.
It is a collection of symbols and images that go as far back as the Italian and French nobility of the 1400s. Most modern tarot (including my first tarot deck - Broadway-themed, naturally!) is based on the Rider-Waite Smith tarot drawn by Pamela Colman Smith in 1909.
Images evoke something powerful in us, as do stories. Storytelling and symbols are about as old as you get when it comes to human culture and civilization. I learned a lot about that in my Archetypal Symbolism class. But you don’t need to major in anything to understand and connect with them. Humanity’s collective unconscious does that for you.
The use of Tarot in my own work is one of the most powerful and transformative practices of my life. It has been an incredible complement on my personal growth journey, and it can be for you, too.
I told you about my access kink — well, in many ways, I see these cards, and our work together, as a kind of VIP access — not to a club or concert or box seats, but to something far more valuable: your Self.
You don’t give just anyone access to your life, your mind, your body.
I like to think of it like security clearance. Special Access is the max (let’s say that’s a level 7), and you’re the only one who has that authorization. Maybe your therapist is at Top Secret (6-6.5), a partner might be similar, a sibling maybe Secret (4-5) and a coworker might be at Confidential (1-3). And people’s clearance level can change if something happens to bring you closer or further from each other.
But the problem is, we often wall off access to it ourselves. We decide it’s not important, it’s not a priority, it’s not worth it.
And then we wonder why we feel incomplete or unseen. Because we haven’t taken the time or space to really see our Selves.
It’s time to give full security clearance — to yourself. This isn’t something I hand you; it’s something you decide to take.
If this sounds interesting to you, I hope you’ll get in touch!
