#TarotTipTuesday
Thinking of the minor cards as memories, or small skits of everyday life, can help in memorization and application of the card to different situations.

If the Major Arcana represents the milestones of The Fool’s Journey, then the Minor Arcana are the everyday experiences of living that we all commonly go through. For example, the 6 of Cups is an adult passing on cultural knowledge to a child. The 2 of Pentacles is a person juggling different priorities and commitments, trying to find balance. Or the 10 of Swords, where the character is literally stabbed in the back. These are things that all of us go through in different flavors and intensities throughout our lives.
A tarot deck is the sum of the human experience.

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#TarotTipTuesday
Often in tarot reading, the very first reaction to a spread is the best one. But second-guessing yourself is common, especially for beginners.
Using an audio recording app (or speech to text on your phone) when doing a tarot reading can help capture initial first impressions without having to stop the flow of thoughts to write.

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#TarotTipTuesday
Tracking your daily tarot pulls in a spreadsheet or other readable format makes it easy to see broader trends.

Counting the number of times a card is pulled throughout the year can hint at over-arching or longterm lessons or messages coming through. Probablility math says you'd draw each card about 4 or 5 times if you pulled one every day. So if you've drawn a card more than that, it could be a clue to a long-term or persistant issue. (I got the King of Swords 12 times last year, wow, that gives me something to think about.)

The percentage of times you drew a suit can also be helpful to know. Math says you'd pull each suit 18% of the time, and a major card 22%. So for example, I just noticed I drew Wands 26% of the time last year. That really reflects what an active year I had, lots of fire energy!

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#TarotTipTuesday

The suits of tarot are based on the four elements. In classical systems, earth and water are paired as the "heavy" elements, whereas air and fire are the lighter or "higher" elements.
Think of it like Pokémon, where some elements are strong or weak to each other.  
Taking these pairings into account can help lend more clarity to multi-card readings.

This is illustrated perfectly in the Rider-Waite-Smith deck. If you pull out all the suits of the same number, you see how the images on the Cups-Pentacles and the Wands-Swords reflect each other.

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#TarotTipTuesday

Reminder to count your cards every so often to make sure you have all 78. It's easy to lose one, especially if you're an erratic shuffler, and you won't know if you don't count them. (Or you find them while cleaning your cats' hoard of toys from under the couch.)

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#TarotTipTuesday

There's a trend out there to color the edges of your tarot cards with a marker or pen to make them look pretty or hide rough edges. Don't do it if you plan on actually using the cards.

When the ink is absorbed, the fibers of the card will be loosened, meaning the edges will fray much more quickly than they usually would. It's like dipping the edges of your cards in water, I would not recommend it.

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A quick and dirty trick for reading tarot card reversals, without learning the meanings of each reversed card, is to put the phrase "lack of" in front of the upright meaning. If that doesn't make sense, use the word "inner." Not a perfect system, but it'll get the job done.

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#TarotTipTuesday

There are tons of tarot spreads to choose from, the Internet is full of blogs and graphics. Some are better than others, and some are so bad that even an experienced reader is going to have a hard time using them.

Here are some tips to finding a good tarot spread:

-It's been around for a while. Some spreads, like the Celtic Cross, have been around for generations. If people have been using it for years, it's probably legit.

-It has been thoroughly tested. Good spreads have been tried many times, and have likely been edited and improved as things play out. Don't rely on someone's first draft.

-Vague questions give vague answers. This is the biggest issue I see with social media spreads, the questions are so broad as to be useless. Look for specificity, nouns, time order words, not just a question with a string of vibes.

-Professional or amateur doesn't really matter, just try to find an example of the creator's readings. If their answers are clear and understandable, they're probably good at asking the right questions.

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#TarotTipTuesday

Tarot decks can be expensive, especially if it's just something you want to try out. But the first tarot decks were playing cards, so you can make your own tester deck from 2 packs of regular cards and a marker.

Use 1 complete deck. Hearts are cups, diamonds are pentacles, clubs are wands, and spades are swords.

Use the 4 jokers as the Pages, one for each suit.

Use the Jack of Hearts from the extra deck and mark it as The Fool

Use the extra deck's Ace through 7 of the diamonds, clubs, and spades, and lay them out in order, one row for each suit. Then, mark them with the names of the major arcana cards, 1 to 21.

You now have a deck of 78 cards, shuffle well and have fun!

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