Under the hood of tarot cards

Using tarot cards for self-reflection, decision-making, and gaining insight into the past, present, or future, are a few ways to manage your emotions and decisions. 

Historically, people have leaned upon tarot cards to predict the future. However, predicting the future is difficult because of the human’s capacity to exercise free will.

Over time, we’ve come to see tarot cards as a tool for exploring our inner landscape, understanding personal patterns, and potentially finding guidance or inspiration. Some of the top things you can explore with tarot cards are listed below.

The Rider tarot card deck

Self-reflection

Drawing a few tarot cards can help you to drive deeper into your feelings and motivations and help you discover the meaning of emotions.

Intuition

Tarot can stimulate intuition and creativity. You can develop your intuition by reflecting on the cards and what they mean to you personally as related to your situation at that moment. They can help you develop that inner knowing and this inner knowing can provide guidance.  

Spiritual development

As an output of exploring the cards through intuition and self reflection, you can advance your spiritual development. 

This involves understanding one's inner experience and finding meaning in the greater world. 

Decision making 

If you’re facing a difficult decision and can’t find an answer internally, you can draw a card while focusing on that issue. The card can help you consider various options or potential outcomes which can guide you in your decision or provide insight that you hadn’t considered on your own,

Subconscious mind

Drawing tarot cards can help you tap into the subconscious mind as you try to explore their meanings. Whether you’re using intuition or exploring emotions, the card is prompting you to more deeply explore what’s hidden within you. If your intuition is keen, you may also receive insight about immediate circumstances where you need to make decisions or you may reveal pains that need to be healed or the path to healing those pains.

Using the cards

The tarot is made up of two sections called the Arcanas. Arcanas means secrets.  There are 22 Major Arcana cards  and 56 Minor Arcana cards.

Minor tarot cards contain four suits and each suit is associated with a different element and aspect of the self. The suits and their associations are listed below:

• Cups – Water and the emotional self

• Pentacles  – Earth and the physical self

• Swords  – Air and  are all about the mind

• Wands –  Fire and how you apply your energy

The major tarot cards can tell you about significant shifts in life such as:

• Beginnings and endings 

• Discoveries and losses 

• Stillness and growth.
  

Major Arcana cards give users an opportunity to reflect on significant life lessons, spiritual journeys and archetypes. These cards help us to reflect on your life – both positive and negative challenges and can offer guidance and insights into personal growth and life experiences including losses. The meanings of the major arcana range from the fool which depicts new beginnings or innocence and if drawn upside down represents recklessness or naivety.

The high priestess is about intuition and spirituality and hidden knowledge but upside down is about lack of clarity, repression and secrets. If you draw the two lovers, this card is about relationship choices, harmony and love but if it’s upside down when you draw it, it’s about conflict, imbalance and temptation.

Learning aids on the spiritual journey

If you’re looking for a way to augment your spiritual journey and help reflect on your day-to-day events and emotions, tarot cards can be a tool to help you with these discoveries. There are many tarot decks out there. I selected the Rider Deck but any deck will do.