Tarot is transformative for both the reader and the client. A good reading should cause you to pause and really think about the choices you are making, how the past has formed who you are, and what you need to be doing for your ongoing prosperity – mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual. 

The most common topics people ask about are money, career, love, and health. To me, tarot is not about “Will this happen?” but more about “What things should I be doing to make my desires happen?” Sometimes it’s also about “Nope. Bad idea. Here are some good ideas for you.” When I do a reading where the cards have laid out some ideas for the client to make progress toward meeting their goals, I will often ask the client to make a plan of action right then. I ask them what they plan to do, what actions they plan to take to make things happen. Just knowing what to do is useless if you don’t take action. Do you want a better job with better pay? That’s unlikely to happen unless you apply for the jobs you want. Better times generally don’t just fall into your lap. You have to make things happen!

Sometimes we get a tarot reading because it might be fun. If that’s your intention going in, that’s what will happen. You will still get some interesting feedback from the reading, but you may not really plan to do anything with that. That’s ok too. Play with tarot, and have fun with it. It started out as a card game anyway. I know someone who actually does readings for the characters (not the players) during D&D games sometimes. They are still amazingly accurate, even though it’s done in a game for fictional characters. Some tarot decks are designed to be very funny and playful indeed. If there is something you like, there is likely a tarot deck themed around that thing. It’s ok to do readings as a character for an event too. Tarot as entertainment is entirely appropriate. Play, by its very nature, is a transformative experience. 

Readers are also transformed by reading for others. Anytime I give a reading, it makes me think about my own efforts in that area. Client gets a message about self care – Am I managing my self care well? Client gets a message about watching their spending  – that prompts me to look at my budget too. Engaging energetically with another person through tarot allows me to see things from their perspective, thereby broadening my own view of the world. Reading tarot makes me think more deeply, and take actions I might have not considered before. Am I sitting around just waiting for better things, or am I making them happen? Even when I have the rare negative experience with a client, that makes me think about the best way to handle that situation. What are their motivations? What is driving them to create that negative experience? I listen to them and I learn. Every reading causes me to learn and grow in my own life. 

Using tarot for spiritual transformation is very powerful. Drawing a card everyday and meditating on what that card means to you and how you can embody that energy in your spiritual practice can be a life changing experience. Journaling around one card draws or larger spreads, creating art based on tarot cards or readings, making music based on your learnings from tarot – the possibilities are endless. There are any number of books about tarot and how to use the cards to make real and lasting spiritual connections. Feeling disconnected from your spiritual path? Use tarot to reconnect with your spiritual self, with your guides, your deities, and the energy of the world around you. 

For me, it is very important to always view the cards as a tool for transformation. The real message comes from your Higher Self (god, goddess, infinite wisdom, whatever you call All That Is). Higher Self just wants to help you have a better life. Tarot helps you sort through the infinite possibilities to find the paths that work for you. The cards are archetypal pictures and symbols that we understand from our spiritual nature. Yes, it takes some work to learn how tarot works. It also takes some work to learn a new and complicated tool or machine so you can use it safely too. You might even need to take classes to learn how to operate it, and spend long hours practicing. In the end, the tool makes things easier for you and improves your situation in a way you could not have done without it. Tools transform the things they are applied to – if you know what you are doing and take appropriate safety precautions. Improperly applied, a tool can cause quite a bit of pain and you will be unlikely to get the results you were looking for. ( Pain can be very instructive and transformative in its own way, but I don’t recommend that path personally.) If you are prepared to do the work to learn about tarot and how to use it safely and responsibly, the cards can be a transformative tool in your life.