Beginner’s Tarot: How to Learn to Read Tarot, from the Very Beginning (Part 2)
beginner's tarot
how to learn to read tarot, from the very beginning (part 2)
Welcome back!
In the first part of this introduction to learning tarot, we talked about the basics of getting started with this spiritual art: preparing your intentions of why and how you want to learn, choosing a deck that aligns with your needs, and starting to learn how a tarot deck is structured, something which helps us understand the individual cards as a set. Now, we’re going to take it further, to bring all of the pieces together and craft a complete, intuitive reading. After reading this article, you will have started building the skills you’ll need to do your own readings and share them with others (if you choose to!) – ideally, this article will be a resource that you return to as you move through your journey, finding guidance or inspiration as you need it.
Let’s begin.
craft a spread
When reading tarot, you’ll always need to know how to craft your spread – my spread? What even is a spread? In simple terms, a spread is the arrangement of positions you choose for a reading which helps you know how you’re going to interpret the cards.
In more abstract terms, though, a spread is really just knowing what question each card is responding to: when I place a card, what am I asking it to tell me?
One of the things I most see people struggle with when they’re newly learning tarot is getting confused any time there is more than one card. Mainly, this happens because they forget to – or just don’t – set an intention for each card’s placement, and so the meanings of the individual cards all start to blur together.
This is something I did a lot when I was first getting started, especially when reading for others – it came from feeling a pressure to have answers, as a *tarot reader*, to hear someone sharing about their life and feel like I needed to immediately start talking in response. If I am not being mindful even now, I sometimes will pull a card without knowing why I pulled it and am reminded that I need to slow down. To pause and think/feel through what was most important in what someone shared with me and how to translate that into a set of specific questions.
That’s what a spread is: a set of specific questions.
Many folks who read more traditionally will choose spreads that have been pre-made by others. Notably, the “celtic cross” is a common spread, with 10 cards talking through the past, present, and future – very classic tarot-reader vibes.
When I craft a reading, I nearly always do it from the ground up: I either create the spread in that moment, as the reading is happening, or I work with a spread that I had crafted previously. Either way, it is important to me that I build it from the very first card so that I know what every single card, what every single energy, is doing in the context of the reading.
Today, I’ve prepared a spread that I think you will find more approachable than most and which will support the learning you did in part one of this beginner’s tarot blog series!
I haven’t given this spread a name, in all the time I’ve used it (probably on purpose), but basically, it centers around the elements. Yes, the same four elements that we talked about in part one, the same ones you’ll find as the main structure behind the suits in the minor arcana and court cards: fire, earth, air, and water. This spread is for a general, check-in kind of reading.
For this reading, you pull a card for each of the elements (placing the card face down will make it easier to interpret the reading!), asking for the tarot card to be a response to that element’s themes. So, if we place a card in the “earth” position, for example, we are asking that card to tell us about resources and material truth, flows of money, time, effort, and supportive connections, and most essentially, the foundation of the current reality in a situation. Then, we do this for each of the other elements, until we have pulled a total four cards.
You might find it helpful to write out a spread’s structure like this, with your own, personal keywords:
1. fire (passion, opportunity, vital energy)
2. earth (resources, materials, work)
3. air (communication, ideas, day-to-day interactions)
4. water (feeling, emotion, deeper needs)
If this feels like a lot to conceptualise, don’t worry – we’re going to go one by one in interpreting the cards now!
interpret the cards
Now, once we have the cards laid out in our spread, we first just interpret each card position as its own thing – not trying to pull the meaning of the whole reading together at once. I find it helpful, before flipping the card face up, to remind myself that the tarot card I’m about to see is a direct response to where I placed it in the spread; it didn’t just appear out of nowhere, it appears as a response to my question. I may even ask the question again before/as I’m turning the card over: what do I need to know about fire, about opportunity and passion and energy in this situation?
It’s the ace of wands.
So, the first thing we want to notice is that it’s wands. And wands is associated with fire, a fact which as we know from part one of this blog series, can tell us about the card’s general themes. In this case, it already aligns with the element of the card’s position in the spread. Then, we may notice that it’s the ace, which in tarot is equivalent to one, the first card in a minor arcana suit. The aces – being associated with the number “one” – represent the beginning of something, or something being newly introduced into a situation.
Returning to the question (always return to the question!), what do I need to know about fire? Well, there’s a newness, a beginning of some fire energy. That may seem vague at first, and that’s fine; let it be. Sometimes a card just shows up vague and we look to the context of the spread to clarify things. If we were doing this reading in the context of someone wanting to know about their relationship with another person, for example, and we pulled the ace of wands in the “fire” position, what might we take from that? Again, we would say there is a newness, a beginning of some sort of fiery energy. Going from what first comes to mind and heart, I might interpret this to mean more specifically either “there’s a new person, someone of interest, appearing in the relationship” or perhaps “there is a feeling of greater passion here” or “there are heightened potentials for conflict or just generally higher energy” – which one do I choose?
Well, you ask yourself: which one does it feel like? Usually, if you are open to what you feel, you will get an intuitive sense of the interpretation, a sort of tint to the card’s usual meaning. Then, know that you can also ask the person you’re reading with about the situation for more information (“are you aware of anyone else you or your partner has been taking interest in?”, “have you two felt more connected and passionate, or more likely to be in conflict?”). And lastly, the other cards in the reading, when read all together, will almost always give some clarity to the individual cards pulled. Trust yourself and go with what you receive first, asking questions (of the querent, the other person/people in the reading) to further sharpen what you’ve read from the cards.
As you’re reading each card, you might feel overwhelmed with all of the potential interpretations and – especially when just starting – feel very afraid of “what if I say something that’s wrong?” Remember that your job is not to know everything, it’s just to (1) hold the space for the reading and (2) interpret the cards as they come to you, then hopefully balance that with what the querent already knows in order to (3) help them be more informed about opportunities, challenges, and questions they should be asking. You should not expect yourself to know everything and it may not even be helpful to know everything; your work in any reading is to go through your process and just receive what’s shared in the cards.
If we move to the next position in the reading, for “earth”, we know that we are asking about the material reality of the situation and what resources are available right now. And then, we flip over the card – it’s the three of cups! What do we know about the three of cups?
(pause and think and feel before reading ahead now!)
Well, we know that going back to our elements/suits is a great place to start; we notice the card is cups, meaning that it is associated with water, so likely something to do with feelings, emotions, relationships, connection, or deeper needs. Then, we notice the number is three – if we know a little bit of numerology, we might then notice that “three” is a number of groups, togetherness, collaboration .. and if we aren’t so familiar with interpreting numbers, we can just google some of the cards’ traditional meanings (or just go from the visual story the images tell!). One site lists the three of cups as symbolising, among many things:
“celebrating, dancing and singing, getting together with people you like, sharing, relying on outside help, taking part in a support group, discovering a common goal, forming a group bond, uniting with others”
When we take these things into consideration, finding what ties all these meanings together, there appears some common theme of togetherness and group feeling. So, returning to our question “what do I need to know about earth, in the context of this relationship?” we get to the idea that around resources and material facts or energies, there is a need to understand the role of togetherness and group feeling. This could suggest, for example, that the two people in this relationship need to get others involved in helping to sort out some financial issues or to make some solid, difficult decisions. The three of cups could come up as a suggestion that the two people seek therapy together, as a mode of being able to explore the facts of their relationship with outside help.
Regardless of how we take this interpretation, the point is that there is a question of “what is the role of togetherness?” in some part of this relationship; we don’t always need an answer, and sometimes, what we really need is a question. Don’t hesitate to bring the question back to the person you’re reading with and ask them to help in filling in details from what they already know. The reading space is collaborative, and having someone tell you what they already know means you can both spend that time on exploring what they can’t and don’t immediately know.
Okay. So, I’m going to leave the next two to you – comment here what you might interpret for these two cards, again going with the idea that we are reading for a person wanting to know about their relationship with someone else. Trust yourself and go through the process above, one piece at a time; go from stating what you know and can recognise immediately, then to asking questions about what isn’t yet clear. What comes to you in these cards?
(really, comment it below! - the next two cards are the three of pentacles, and then VII, the chariot)
take it further
As you complete your first readings, you will become more aware of not only what challenges you and how to work on it, but also just how many potentials there are for how tarot can serve in healing and growth.
Maybe you’ll find different traditional spreads that you resonate with, or you’ll take time to explore your own way of creating spreads. Maybe you’ll incorporate “inverse” interpretations for the cards or start working in astrological concepts or dive deeper into the psychology of the tarot archetypes. And maybe you’ll go on to work with others in your own tarot practice, to help them in decision-making and just to feel more alive, inspired, and whole in their day-to-day lives.
Whatever you choose to do with tarot, just know that every bit of intention you put into your practice will come back to you as healing; with time, you may come to know tarot deeply as another part of yourself, something/someone you can trust to bring a clear reflection of truth. And throughout every part of that journey, we will be here to support you; if you find any way we can support you further or want to know what other resources we have to share, like our complete, in-depth tarot course or workshop series, don’t hesitate to reach out. With years of experience in tarot and other healing arts, we are here and excited to help you find a deeper, higher, and fuller you – we offer these writings as the first step of many in that healing, growing process. May these words serve you whenever you seek them.
With love and light,
Amani
P.S. If you’re excited about learning the tarot, join me in our next online tarot workshop series, where I will guide you through the process and we can practice together – the next series will be beginning soon. Click here to learn more and sign up today!
Amani Michael
intuit.hue founder + guide
