Tarot for Beginners: How Understanding Tarot Can Help You Grow (111)

If you've ever been curious about tarot or even fearful, this episode is for you. Holly Zajur & Kelly Eberle dive into the mystical world of tarot with tarot experts & learn how tarot isn’t about fortune telling, but rather a tool for self-discovery. 

Topics Discussed: 

What is Tarot? The history, origins, & evolution
Tarot for Personal Growth: How tarot can offer insights into life’s challenges
Debunking Tarot Myths
Personal Tarot Stories: Listeners share how tarot has impacted their lives
Choosing and Using Tarot Cards: Practical tips on selecting the right tarot deck, pulling cards, & interpreting them
Shadow Work and Tarot: How tarot can lead to self-compassion & wholeness

Juliet Sharman Burke has been teaching and supervising for the Centre for Psychological Astrology since 1983, and now runs the Centre’s administration. She is also an analytic psychotherapist with a private practice in London.She is the author of The Complete Book of Tarot, The Mythic Tarot Workbook, Understanding Tarot, Mastering the Tarot, Beginner’s Guide to the Tarot, and co-author of The Mythic Tarot and The Mythic Journey with Liz Greene.

Melanie Grace is an artist and intuitive, working professionally as an intuitive reader and creative wellness practitioner. She specializes in intuitive Tarot, Astrology, and Human Design. Discovering tangible ways to consciously incorporate the metaphysical into grounded physical existence is an important part of her offerin

Transcript

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:28:04
Speaker 1
You've probably heard the word tarot before and people talking about these mystical, magical cards. But what are these cards? Where do they come from? What do they mean? How and why do people work with them? And are they as scary as some might think? I know I've personally had and asked a lot of these questions, and even held some fear around tarot myself before.

00:00:28:06 - 00:00:46:08
Speaker 1
And over the last few years, more and more people in my life have shared with me how tarot has helped them during big moments in times of change. So I thought it was time that we take a deeper look into the world of tarot and how these cards can help us grow.

00:00:46:10 - 00:00:57:13
Speaker 2
The 78 cards have a way of describing every real situation that anybody can ever imagine in their lives, encapsulated in one of these little picture cards.

00:00:57:15 - 00:01:26:10
Speaker 1
Welcome to how the Wise One Grows, where we get curious about the things that help us grow and navigate being human together. I'm your host, Holly's Asia. Moving through it all with you. One breath at a time. Kelly and I got a chance to sit down on a Saturday morning to talk to Juliet Shaman Burke, who has been practicing tarot for over 40 years.

00:01:26:12 - 00:01:43:06
Speaker 1
She's written books about tarot, created decks, and really dedicated her life's work to better understanding psychology. And Juliette's long history with tarot began, like many others, when she was lost and looking for answers.

00:01:43:08 - 00:02:08:07
Speaker 2
Well, I mean, it started, when I was about my guess I was 18 and, my first big love affair. And I wanted to know what was going to happen. Was this it? You know, and I saw a book that just said tarot, and it was actually the, the, the line on the book was, tarot for Satan or something like fortune telling or something.

00:02:08:07 - 00:02:17:14
Speaker 2
And I thought, oh, maybe this will tell me what I, what I need to know about whether this is my destiny with this particular. It wasn't.

00:02:17:16 - 00:02:42:13
Speaker 1
While that person may not have been Juliet's destiny, tarot certainly has been. Once Juliet came across this book of tarot in her early years, she started engaging with it and reading more and more about it, and gradually friends started asking her to tell their fortune. And while she didn't think she could actually do that, she thought she should try anyway.

00:02:42:15 - 00:03:28:14
Speaker 2
But I'll try. So I took the book and I looked at the cards and they were very curious. They kind of kept saying things that I didn't really understand. I didn't know why, but they were making sense to the person that I was talking to them about. Gradually I became more and more interested. And then I started to I was talking with somebody who introduced me to astrology, and then I saw that astrology in tarot had quite a link and started my journey with, astrology with tarot, and began realizing that when I was reading the cards for people, things I didn't know about them were being revealed in the cards so I could put

00:03:28:14 - 00:03:37:01
Speaker 2
the cards out and I wouldn't know what what was going to happen to that person, but there was meaning to them.

00:03:37:03 - 00:03:48:19
Speaker 1
Juliet isn't alone, and noticing the deeper meaning that tarot can hold for people, and some of our listeners shared similar experiences on what pulling cards has meant for them.

00:03:48:21 - 00:04:14:15
Speaker 3
Hi there. Mariah here from Nashville. It seems like every time I pull a card, it's the perfect card for the moment. Sometimes I do. Yes. You know, spreads that I'm always very clearly showing the answer when things are going very well in my life, and I'm in sort of a happy flow exercising, getting sleep, being hydrated, having compassion for my fellow man.

00:04:14:17 - 00:04:46:20
Speaker 3
I always draw the world card or the sun card or the lovers. And I think, the inverse is true, right? When I'm struggling to meet my own basic needs, which, or there's some external event that's, you know, just causing internal turmoil. I will call the tower card or the moon card, which encourages me to put something to an end, be able to learn to let go.

00:04:46:22 - 00:05:12:16
Speaker 3
Or in the case of the moon card, really just to dig into the my shadows and hidden truths, you know that are there that are actually being, triggered. So I think tarot like everything that we use to discover more about ourselves just is a tool to mirror universal consciousness that is inside of us.

00:05:12:18 - 00:05:24:21
Speaker 1
Juliet first started to realize the powerful connection that the tarot had with people when she was young, and a coworker asked her to pull some cards for her.

00:05:24:23 - 00:05:42:03
Speaker 2
The first time I realized that very clearly I was quite young, was probably about 20, and I was reading the cards for this woman at work who wanted, she said she was about 30 and I thought she was terribly old.

00:05:42:05 - 00:05:51:20
Speaker 2
And she said, do you think I'll ever get married? And I thought, well, probably not actually would be. Oh, I was.

00:05:51:22 - 00:05:53:17
Speaker 4
It's over for you.

00:05:53:18 - 00:05:59:17
Speaker 2
And I thought, well, if you're not married by now, there's not much of a check ups.

00:05:59:18 - 00:06:03:07
Speaker 4
You're like, you know what? I don't even need to look at the cards for this one. I can just tell you.

00:06:03:07 - 00:06:04:07
Speaker 1
I already know.

00:06:04:09 - 00:06:29:21
Speaker 2
And I did actually sort of think that. But when I put the cards out, everything in the everything in the reading was to do with relationship with to do with marriage was to do with, you know, fertility all sorts of the and I thought, my goodness, this is strange. And I thought, well, I don't think that's very likely, but it's not my fault if the cards are wrong.

00:06:29:23 - 00:06:56:23
Speaker 2
So I said to her, well, actually, this is a really good time for relationships. And it you know, it was. But like, anyway, that 3 or 4 days later, she met, she met this man that she then married. Wow. My goodness. The interesting thing was I was so prejudiced because, you know, it looked to me like, because she was quite a difficult woman at work, you know, she wasn't.

00:06:56:23 - 00:07:22:23
Speaker 2
She was. It was nice. I mean, I liked it, but I was quite frightened of it. She was quite difficult. But but what I'm saying is, I just realized that the cards had this kind of magic about them where you could put things out, and it was giving you this weather forecast. So I probably thought it was going to rain today, but then the weather forecast said no, it's going to be nice.

00:07:23:01 - 00:07:26:12
Speaker 2
And I thought why didn't? So but then it was nice.

00:07:26:13 - 00:07:39:03
Speaker 1
Some listeners shared similar experiences to how pulling cards almost gave a sort of weather forecast, like Juliet talked about before big transitions during their life.

00:07:39:05 - 00:08:05:03
Speaker 3
I mean, like, okay, the time I pulled the three of hearts on five separate occasions the week before break out, like I really didn't want to hear it, but I needed to. Sometimes it's a message that gives me hope or gives me some confidence during times of change. I recently changed careers after like 12 years in the food industry.

00:08:05:05 - 00:08:44:16
Speaker 3
I was kind of feeling anxious, you know, after that. So I called up a friend for a reading. They pulled the Eight of Cups. And it's funny because this this card depicts a figure walking away from eight golden cups that are in a desert, and he's walking towards some unknown mountains in the distance. And I mean, just from looking at the picture itself, before even my friend told me the meaning behind it, it reaffirmed my decision to seek new opportunities, just like that figure was seeking my courage, Renee, or my current situation to feel like.

00:08:44:16 - 00:08:56:15
Speaker 3
I would probably say most of the time they do that. But, you know, I would argue that all of the time they're telling me exactly what I need to hear.

00:08:56:17 - 00:09:10:08
Speaker 1
Similar, this listener, Juliette, noticed the big things that would come up from pulling cards, and it started to change the way that she would engage with people and the course of her career and her life.

00:09:10:10 - 00:09:33:10
Speaker 2
I began realizing that I was talking to people, and people were asking me to do their cards and telling me stories about themselves and talking about themselves and using the cards as a way into discussion about quite deep problems. And then I trained as a therapist because so many people were coming with problems that I didn't know how to deal with.

00:09:33:10 - 00:09:37:02
Speaker 2
So then I became a therapist.

00:09:37:04 - 00:09:46:17
Speaker 1
So that's a bit about how Juliet first found tarot and started working with it. But what is tarot and where did the tarot come from?

00:09:46:19 - 00:10:28:04
Speaker 2
It started as a game about 500 years ago. A cool tarot key in Italy in about 1450, and it has similarities to the playing cards. But it's actually a 78 card deck. But it also has 22 pictorial cards, the Major Arcana, which have very curious, imagery, esoteric imagery, if you like, which is, you know, includes the star, the sun, the moon, but also death, the devil, the hanged man, the tower, which everybody gets quite scared about.

00:10:29:00 - 00:10:29:23
Speaker 1
It's me included.

00:10:30:02 - 00:11:05:01
Speaker 2
You okay? So it's, the history of tarot is quite complicated, but it's also very, very interesting. And over the years, the esoteric side of tarot has sort of grown or people have become more, more conscious of it. A lot of academics have argued that it was only ever a game, but there are a lot of, Occultists or Isa terrorists who say that it isn't that it's always had a symbolic value.

00:11:05:03 - 00:11:24:16
Speaker 2
And more and more research is being done, which has come out to suggest that there really is some, Divinatory side of it that's been going on for a long time. So nowadays the tarot is used for divination and for meditation and for self understanding.

00:11:24:18 - 00:11:29:14
Speaker 1
Listeners also shared how the tarot helps them with self understanding.

00:11:29:16 - 00:11:55:21
Speaker 3
The more I study tarot, the more I realize it's like everything. It's a mirror to the universal consciousness inside of us. Every card reflects a deeper truth about myself and the world around me. It's really a tool that's helped me connect with my intuition and, the life patterns more clearly.

00:11:55:23 - 00:12:20:09
Speaker 1
And this is actually pretty incredible that it's still so relevant to self understanding today in 2024, because the oldest surviving tarot deck dates back to the 1490s in Italy. And while new kinds of decks have evolved and emerged over time, not all that much has changed since the original deck was formed.

00:12:20:11 - 00:12:46:15
Speaker 2
Because over the years, tarot has it's always been around, and it stayed exactly in its original format, which is quite interesting in itself that it stayed in the same 78 card, what you call it, sort of, you know, nothing's been changed about it. Of course. Now, in the in the current days, it lots and lots of people are making their own decks.

00:12:46:17 - 00:12:59:00
Speaker 2
In 1984, Liz Greene, an astrologer, Liz Greene and myself, created the mythic tarot deck, which is based.

00:12:59:00 - 00:13:02:12
Speaker 1
You created your own deck?

00:13:02:13 - 00:13:06:05
Speaker 2
Yes. Wow.

00:13:06:07 - 00:13:10:12
Speaker 1
So I'm sorry. It's based on. Did you say mythology?

00:13:10:14 - 00:13:39:12
Speaker 2
Yes, it's based on Greek mythology. I've written a few books about tarot, and one of them was The Complete Book of Tarot. And following that, I decided that I wanted to create my own deck and have it completely different to most current decks at the time. So that was called the mythic Tarot, and that's still around today.

00:13:39:14 - 00:14:03:01
Speaker 2
And it's based on Greek mythology, because Greek mythology has a very rich, history of the gods and goddesses who all have dominion over certain areas of, of course, astrology, and mythology are all very closely linked. And I think you both know a little bit about astrology.

00:14:03:05 - 00:14:10:02
Speaker 1
Juliet is right, we love astrology, and our episode on astrology, episode 48 is linked in the show notes.

00:14:10:07 - 00:14:41:04
Speaker 2
The the stories of the Greek myths in the Mythic Tarot are merely ways of trying to understand the the divinity meaning of tarot, because a lot of people read tarot for in quotes fortune telling. I don't do fortune telling. I do divination, which is trying to underst and what the symbols. When you put the cards out, you try to find out what symbology is trying to tell you about your daily life.

00:14:41:06 - 00:15:08:01
Speaker 2
And it has a very uncanny way of reflecting back to you what's important at that moment. It's not about telling you what is going to happen. It tells you what the kind of weather forecast, if you like, the emotional or the psychic weather forecast is around. So there are times when it's good to be doing things, pushing hard times when it's better to stand back.

00:15:08:03 - 00:15:45:07
Speaker 2
You might get a card that says you're doing too much, hold off or, you know, green, go, go for it. And there's the the 78 cards have a way of describing every real situation that anybody can ever imagine in their lives, encapsulated in one of these little picture cards. So when you see one of these cards coming up in a reading, you can say, oh, so this is something I need to be looking at, and they can be used for meditation purposes, and you can pick cards for particular instances.

00:15:45:07 - 00:16:13:00
Speaker 2
If you're really needing. For example, supposing you really need discipline for something, you really need to actually focus and say, I really need to get a grip of this difficulty problem. You could use the strength card, see if I can find it. Which might be something that you could actually sort of, focus on. Can't necessarily find it right at the moment.

00:16:13:00 - 00:16:39:04
Speaker 2
But, another card, for example, if you're looking for balance, you might want to choose temperance, because as you can see, the temperance, angel is pouring water from one cup to another, which means that there's this need for compromise, this need for communication going from gold to silver, which is masculine to feminine. And it's a flowing card.

00:16:39:04 - 00:17:01:06
Speaker 2
So you're sort of saying this is a really good card for relationships. So if you're having trouble with relationships, this is actually quite a good card to focus on because you're saying actually try and see it from both people's point of view. Let let the let the emotion flow between the two of you rather than letting it stagnate, because that's what happens when water doesn't flow.

00:17:01:08 - 00:17:19:12
Speaker 2
So the four suits represent the four elements earth, air, fire, and water. So we're always looking for balance between the four suits. Because you need each of those elements in order to keep some sort of balance.

00:17:19:14 - 00:17:25:22
Speaker 1
I have never heard of using tarot in that way, in which.

00:17:27:04 - 00:17:46:15
Speaker 1
You choose the card based off of, like, the energy you want to call in and work with someone who, like, really enjoys practicing meditation, like thinking of the concept of like, okay, I have this card, this is the energy I want to call in. I'm going to like sit with this and process that in this way. It's just really, really lovely.

00:17:46:17 - 00:18:11:10
Speaker 1
And if I'm hearing you correctly, I just think it's beautiful that you're explaining it as like, not fortune telling, but rather like a temperature check. Like, I really love that weather analogy. It's just seeing like, what energies are here, what is present? I was relating it into my mind lately of like I've been trying to pay more attention to, like the symbolism I see in nature.

00:18:11:12 - 00:18:31:22
Speaker 1
Like when I see different birds or animals, like looking up their spiritual meaning and seeing like, what messages is that trying to tell me? What could I be picking up on here? What is my environment communicating to me? So it kind of seems like the cards is another practice or way of doing that, of just like, here is stuff that's just present.

00:18:31:22 - 00:18:37:11
Speaker 1
And how do you relate to that? And how does that, support you as you're moving through this moment?

00:18:37:16 - 00:19:05:16
Speaker 2
Exactly. So that's exactly how you can use it. And you can do a reading for somebody. You can do a reading for yourself. So you can choose a card, or you can pick a card that represents the kind of energy that, that kind of thing that you're, that you're going, through at the time, whether it's difficult or whether it's easy, you know, because they're card, there's a card for every, every eventuality, as far as I can see.

00:19:05:18 - 00:19:13:20
Speaker 1
The tarot is so good at relating to people who engage with it, because each card reflects a part of the human experience.

00:19:13:22 - 00:19:41:21
Speaker 2
The 22 major cards start off with the fool, and the fool is the, the unnumbered card. And he he he's maybe a hangover for, the Joker from the, the playing deck. You know, where you've got a wild card so he can be all or nothing. He's. But he's everyman. And, we, started with the Fool's Journey.

00:19:41:21 - 00:20:17:12
Speaker 2
So the fool goes through each particular card, like, starting from childhood. He goes through with the first teacher. He meets the magician, who is also Hermes, who's the Greek god of of education, of business, of communication. And he's a messenger god. He takes messages between the gods and men, and so he can also symbolize, on the psychological level, the conscious to the unconscious or unconscious, coming up to conscious and then being sorted out and then taken back into the unconscious again.

00:20:17:12 - 00:20:46:07
Speaker 2
So it's like a, a teacher. And then there's the earthly parents, and then there's the spiritual parents, and there are various, situations along the way, like there's love, there's war, there's, justice, temperance, strength and prudence, which are all the four qualities, the four, moral lessons of life that we all have to learn. And so there's this, there's this traveling through life.

00:20:46:07 - 00:21:08:16
Speaker 2
So you get to sort of middle age, and you meet, you know, the, the search for meaning, which is different because the first half of life and The Fool's Journey is very much the outer life, you know, getting your act together, getting your career going, getting your, relationships in order. And then it's like, and what's it all about, really?

00:21:08:18 - 00:21:37:14
Speaker 2
So then there's the underworld journey, which goes into the, the there's the hangman, there's death, there's the devil, the tower. And then you come out again through the star to the sun. Moon, judgment in the world. So there's a spiritual journey in the second half of life, which is usually around the Saturn return. If you're anybody's interested in astrology, about 30 is the time that you suddenly really begin to grow up.

00:21:37:14 - 00:22:02:09
Speaker 2
You're not, you know, the whole of your up until that age, you're still kind of learning and assimilating and it's all about the outside world. And then it suddenly starts to change and you start to think, what else is going on? What else is important? What's the other side of life? And sort of going, taking an inner journey and in a, a dive into the underworld.

00:22:02:11 - 00:22:22:08
Speaker 1
So sorry to interrupt. I know you're at a really good part right now, but I'm going to chime in with a few announcements while I have a captive audience. One A quick update for listeners is that from now until the end of the year, episodes will be released monthly instead of bi weekly, so that every episode can be as strong as possible.

00:22:22:12 - 00:22:56:23
Speaker 1
And this is one of the most important things I'm learning about growth is that sometimes it's about quality, not quantity. And don't worry if you miss listening to my voice. Every week we have over 100 episodes in the Q that you can go through and listen to. Second, you listeners on the other end of this podcast make it possible, and you can support the podcast and help it grow by leaving a review rating and preferably giving it a five star review on your favorite platform and sharing an episode you love with a friend.

00:22:57:01 - 00:23:21:20
Speaker 1
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00:23:21:22 - 00:23:43:15
Speaker 1
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00:23:43:19 - 00:24:05:16
Speaker 1
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00:24:05:18 - 00:24:36:22
Speaker 1
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00:24:37:00 - 00:24:48:02
Speaker 1
All of the links are in the show notes as well. Now that's enough updates and let's get back into the episode.

00:24:48:04 - 00:25:15:07
Speaker 1
There can be a lot of fear associated with tarot, and part of this is because of this connection that tarot has to the underworld and the shadow part of our human experience. But the tarot isn't actually as dark as it might seem. And when you pull an ominous card like the death card, it could actually relate to a seemingly happy transition.

00:25:15:07 - 00:25:46:13
Speaker 2
The the thing that a lot of people will say is when you mentioned tarot, they'll say, oh, the devil or the death. And actually the death card is really only about the, the changing of phases in life. So the death card could just as well represent leaving school because it's a death. It's an ending. You leave school and you'll never go back to high school.

00:25:46:13 - 00:26:02:18
Speaker 2
Not in the way you did the first time round. You leave university. It's a death. Is that a bad thing? No. It's necessary because if you didn't leave you, you'd stay in university forever. And that's not a good thing. You want to keep going?

00:26:02:20 - 00:26:28:19
Speaker 1
I've heard, when I was getting married, someone gave me this book that was explaining marriage as a death. And like the wedding as, like a funeral ceremony in a sense, it's like this transition of, like, you know, yourself before marriage, like your maiden self dies and you, like, emerge into this next chapter. So I really resonate with what you're saying on that path, like life is all of these little deaths.

00:26:28:19 - 00:26:52:09
Speaker 2
Yeah, that's a perfect example of the death card because it is, you know, you you die as a maiden and you'll reborn as a as a mother, as a as a wife. And then the same with motherhood. And there used to be lots of rituals around that. And you know, in ancient times it's now kind of turned into a Hindu or a.

00:26:52:11 - 00:27:15:05
Speaker 2
No, I think it's a bachelorette party to Bachelor, but we don't know is better. Yeah. But you know, it's the same with the baby shower. But but it's it's actually a really big, serious, stage where you're actually saying goodbye to a part of yourself that will never be quite the same again.

00:27:15:07 - 00:27:27:21
Speaker 1
The deck that Juliet created, the Mythic Tarot, explains the deeper meaning and themes behind the tarot by using Greek mythology to explain things like the death card.

00:27:27:23 - 00:27:55:04
Speaker 2
And the myths that we used for the death card was the, in Greek mythology. In Greek times, the souls of the dead were always buried with a coin on their tongue, and they had to be shipped across the river Styx from the world of the living to the land of the dead. And if you didn't have your coin on your tongue, you couldn't pay the boatman and he wouldn't take you across.

00:27:55:06 - 00:28:20:04
Speaker 2
So you have to pay the boatman. And the coin that you're paying psychologically is mourning because you lose. You mourn the loss of one life, and then you have to go into the next life. But if you don't pay, you just get stuck. So you get stuck not really living. You're not in the land of the living, but you're not in the land of the dead, which is another land.

00:28:20:06 - 00:28:56:21
Speaker 4
I remember someone, describing the death card to me as to or saying, you know, focus on the fact that it is a rebirth and I that it shifted my whole perspective because especially in this era of like or my own personal time with Saturn Return and with just being personally very lost and feeling like I was lost in my personal life, in my career, like all of these, it kind of felt like every aspect that I had spent the last decade plus building up was all like, they all changed places and then kind of rearranged, and I was like, wait, what?

00:28:56:23 - 00:29:26:09
Speaker 4
And I remember, yeah, having this kind of like feeling of, I just, I need something to ground me and help me know that it will be okay. And I know that there are people who turn to, like, an organized religion, or there are people who turn to spirituality or, you know, different things. And that was something where I felt really, I got I got very invested in learning about tarot and kind of being part of this moon group and learning about astrology.

00:29:26:11 - 00:29:45:06
Speaker 4
I will say I'm still very much a newbie. I don't know much at all, but I remember that being something where I kind of had this perspective shift, where at first I was so nervous because I was like, what if I'm already in this place where I feel so lost? I feel like so much is happening that's out of my control.

00:29:45:06 - 00:30:06:07
Speaker 4
And then I pull tarot to try and make myself feel better. And then it's like death, the Hanged Man, you know, the whatever. And I'm like, oh my gosh, it just means everything is going to be bad forever. And it's so interesting. I remember having yeah, someone say that that was like a death is only ever a positive thing because it means that you are living in that.

00:30:06:07 - 00:30:21:00
Speaker 4
You are like shedding one thing and moving on to a next thing. And I know for me, like my greatest fear is staying stagnant in any aspect. So it actually really helped kind of shift that perspective a little bit.

00:30:21:02 - 00:30:35:03
Speaker 1
Talking to Juliet helped me understand that these seemingly ominous cards like the Death Card aren't as scary as they might seem, and yet there's still so much fear around the tarot.

00:30:35:03 - 00:30:53:08
Speaker 4
Actually, Holly and our friend Emma got me for my birthday this year. A little debt, my first deck of tarot. And so I've had some people in my family and my my friends up here in Connecticut that I offer. I was like, oh, do you want to pull tarot cards? And I've had a few people be like, no, that it really freaks me out.

00:30:53:08 - 00:31:13:06
Speaker 4
Like it scares me. I don't want to mess with that. And I'm curious. I mean, you said that you've come up with that a lot of obviously people being like the devil, the Hanged man, you know, it's so dark. I'm wondering if you have had a, a way of kind of describing the flip side of that to people or like why it isn't scary.

00:31:13:06 - 00:31:19:23
Speaker 4
It's not like I'm telling your future in the future is bad, or you know, how you've kind of, dealt with that. Well.

00:31:20:00 - 00:31:44:19
Speaker 2
I will never I don't ever see the death card as being physical death. You know, I don't sort of say the death card means you're going to die, which is the kind of the Gypsy Rose Lee, if you like, the sort of the superstitious, the the, you know, the kind of, what can I say? The sort of.

00:31:44:21 - 00:32:11:22
Speaker 2
Well, the unknown. The person who doesn't really know what they're talking about with, with, with with the tarot. So for me, the death card is about the change. And the change is a necessary one, because if you don't change, you can't grow, you know, that's why if you don't, you know, if you could stay, you know, if you want to become a mother, you have to die and be reborn as a mother.

00:32:12:00 - 00:32:29:21
Speaker 2
You know, you can't you can't stay single and get married. You commit to something, and every time you commit to something, and then if it's not working out for you, you change again. So you get divorced or you, you know, you move into a new house and then it's not the same. It's not the house you wanted to live in.

00:32:29:21 - 00:32:52:23
Speaker 2
Five years time later, you move again. But every time you do that, it's a little death because the old thing changes. But, you know, the trees lose their leaves every year. That if they didn't, they wouldn't, you know, they die. They would literally die. You change. And then when you do, just at the moment of change, you have this, oh, no, it's so, so sad.

00:32:53:01 - 00:33:18:05
Speaker 2
Yeah. It's sad. It's necessary. You have to move on. And so I think the death card is a very important one like that. And I'm never sorry to see the death card. And the devil is an interesting one because, of course, the the church and the tarot and astrology and any kind of esoteric practices don't get along very well together.

00:33:18:05 - 00:34:00:22
Speaker 2
So the church always hate anything to do with anything that isn't the church, because the gods of the old religion become the devils of the new. They're the pagan gods are all the gods who were around long before Christianity came in. Wow. So all the Greek gods are pagan, and pagan simply means pre-Christian and the Christian, when the Christian, you know, Christianity came as the dominant religion, it had to get rid of all the, you know, the gods of the old religion had to become the devils of the new.

00:34:01:00 - 00:34:08:02
Speaker 2
And interestingly, Pan the god Pan. Have you heard of the god Pan, the Greek god? I, I.

00:34:08:02 - 00:34:09:11
Speaker 4
Have, I've heard the name. Yeah.

00:34:09:12 - 00:34:39:22
Speaker 2
Okay. So he's a goat God. Half half man, half goat. Goat. And he's the the god of untamed nature. So nature that hasn't got any taming to it. And also sexuality. So he's a god of, of of of sensuality sexuality, nature, everything that's to do with fertility. But that was something that was very much frowned upon.

00:34:40:00 - 00:35:27:19
Speaker 2
Right. In the church and the God Pan has been associated with the image of the Christian devil, as have, you know, looked like a goat like figure. Yeah. So the only, many of the Greek gods of actually many of the, the, Christian gods are actually Greek gods sort of suit up called saints. Who have been kind of transformed, but, was the only one that was actually, announced by, I can't remember which of the, Christian apostles or was it even Saint Paul who said, the great God Pan is dead, meaning the pagans are all gone?

00:35:27:19 - 00:35:58:19
Speaker 2
And of course the Christians did. In fact, the monks did destroy many of the Christian, many of the pagan temples and burnt lots of pagan imagery and destroyed. Yeah, many, many texts. So when you see the devil, it's actually the Christian version of all things that are to do with the body sexuality. All know knows to me.

00:35:58:21 - 00:36:01:00
Speaker 4
This is blowing my mind, right?

00:36:01:01 - 00:36:06:02
Speaker 2
Yeah. Watchfully. You know, this might be a bit much for your podcast. You might have to do a lot.

00:36:06:02 - 00:36:09:06
Speaker 1
No, it's so interesting. It's so interesting.

00:36:09:06 - 00:36:10:00
Speaker 2
Like.

00:36:10:01 - 00:36:41:14
Speaker 1
I've been very curious about paganism and just hearing it defined as like pre-Christian provides so much clarity to that. And it does seem to really help with that understanding and why we have such deep fear of it. Yes. Because our, you know, religious culture has so deeply communicated like, this is the devil, this is bad. So anything associated with those things, we have this like almost like intrinsic fear, because that's what we've been reared over and over again.

00:36:41:16 - 00:36:54:14
Speaker 1
And by naming it like you are, you're communicating that like inherently those things are not the devil. Those are not bad inherently. It's just before Christianity. It's just I mean, these let.

00:36:54:14 - 00:36:55:14
Speaker 4
Nature and.

00:36:55:14 - 00:37:10:12
Speaker 2
Its nature, this is this is things people do rather than this is something wrong? You know. Yeah. There's nothing there's nothing wrong with, experiencing earthly pleasures. If you like.

00:37:10:14 - 00:37:21:13
Speaker 1
Fear around things like the devil card might not only come from religion, but also because it touches on the shadow parts of ourself and our psychology.

00:37:21:15 - 00:37:57:14
Speaker 2
So the devil card in the tarot actually means obstacles. Inhibitions, things that block things that you're afraid of, things that you're ashamed of. All the the sort of things that you bury deep down in your shadow. And if you've ever heard of Jung and Jungian psychology. Yeah. So Jung talks a lot about the shadow, the parts of ourselves that we try to hide, the parts of ourselves that we don't want anybody to know about because they're shameful.

00:37:57:16 - 00:38:30:03
Speaker 2
And so the devil has become associated with all of that shame and guilt and feeling of, you know. Disapproval. But of course, when you actually bring that into the open, you realize that there's nothing to be ashamed of, but it's something that really inhibits you and stops you living freely. So the devil is nothing to do with black magic.

00:38:30:05 - 00:38:41:22
Speaker 2
Although of course it has been appropriated in that way over, you know, because you can take anything and turn it into some, into a into something evil if you want it to.

00:38:42:00 - 00:39:15:11
Speaker 1
To me, this is actually one of the coolest parts about the tarot, because it can help bring light to the parts of ourselves that we keep in the shadows. We're so often encouraged to put on a smile and show our best selves, and only crave our positive emotions. But being whole, being human means that you experience a wide range, and these seemingly dark cards allow us the opportunity to tap in and to get to know our shadow parts of ourselves and to tap into our wholeness.

00:39:15:13 - 00:40:05:02
Speaker 2
But it also allows you to experience the whole of you, rather than having something that gets pushed down. Because of course, when you push it down in you, you projected onto other people, which is what's happening at the moment. There's a great deal of shadow projection going on in the world, and people are projecting onto groups onto, you know, things out there, because when you don't recognize your own shadow, when you don't accept the things about yourself that you're upset about, that you're ashamed of, that you're having problems with it, you want to kind of get rid of it, so you push it out onto somebody else or onto something, something else.

00:40:05:04 - 00:40:43:12
Speaker 2
So I think the shadow work that you can actually do through the tarot is really very, very useful. And the other one is the tower, which is the breaking down of, of old ways in order to make new something different, something, something new and creative. You can use all the, all the, all the tarot images in different ways to, to kind of just understand a little bit more psychology, a little bit more about people's inner world, because we're all the same, all basically vain and greedy and tempted.

00:40:43:12 - 00:40:59:05
Speaker 2
And you know, we all want the easy way out and we'd like to cover up if we possibly could. And a morals, a decent people who want to live good lives. And we're kind and we could and we're generous. We're all a big mixture of that, aren't we? Yeah, yeah.

00:40:59:07 - 00:41:22:10
Speaker 4
I love the, saying that, shame thrives in the dark and shame cannot survive when you shine light on it. But some, you know, some version of that. But I think that has been something that's been so helpful for me because there's just through my life. I mean, growing up, when I was a kid, my parents used to say, it all comes clean and it all comes out of the wash clean in the end.

00:41:22:10 - 00:42:00:10
Speaker 4
And it was like, if you lie, we're going to find out about it. It's just how basically how excruciatingly long you want it to be. While you're ashamed of the lie you're telling or lies trying to cover your tracks or just be like, I messed up, here's what it is and just be done with it. And it's that kind of like, I think something that I have learned that does it does feel like it relates to tarot and that you can kind of I love that you said it's like a, understanding psychology of humans generally is that you really do get a sense of I think shame is so isolating and you become or

00:42:00:10 - 00:42:24:08
Speaker 4
I should say, in my experience, it's very isolating and I become kind of closed off to people around me when I'm experiencing shame because I'm like, certainly no one else has experienced this. This I'm bad. I'm the problem. I know for me, now, at 31.5, I'm like, okay, now you know what? I've really learned that when I'm dealing with shame, there are different ways to deal with it.

00:42:24:08 - 00:42:49:19
Speaker 4
But one of the fastest ways for me to not like, have that almost instantaneous relief is to just say out loud to someone like, I'm feeling really shameful, and I want to just say it and have that. And so much of the time, if I have that conversation, I think Holly and I were just on the phone on Thursday and I literally there was something like that that I was like, yeah, I'm just feeling weird about this and it's so helpful to just say it.

00:42:49:19 - 00:43:10:11
Speaker 4
And then when people are like, oh, I feel that way all the time, or like, oh, I've totally done that. Or, you know, you kind of go like, oh, right. I'm not, I'm not horrible, I'm not bad, I'm not the the monster in the labyrinth, you know? And it's just like, okay, it's, you know, we can we can kind of like, I think show ourselves a little more compassion with that.

00:43:10:12 - 00:43:31:03
Speaker 4
And I think that's a beautiful way to maybe, you know, to kind of tie back into the, the fear of tarot. It's like, but you can also use it to gain real insight and have that kind of compassion for yourself and for others. And just like how how we live out our lives as humans.

00:43:31:05 - 00:43:55:07
Speaker 1
We could have talked to Juliet forever about the esoteric elements of tarot, but we also wanted to dive in to some of the more logistical questions that we had about working with the tarot. So I want us to kind of go through some, like, almost like a lightning round of like, tarot questions and misconceptions we might have for like a very beginner level.

00:43:55:09 - 00:44:21:02
Speaker 1
Kind of like first and foremost, you mentioned you created this amazing deck, which I am definitely going to link in the show notes and I am going to get for myself. But I kind of leads me to my first question, like I was told and I like spread this to Emma and Kelly. So I don't know if it's true or not, but I was told that you're supposed to be supposed to be like, gifted your first tarot deck, or you're supposed to be gifted tarot.

00:44:21:02 - 00:44:34:16
Speaker 1
You're not supposed to, like, buy it. I guess, just like overall, how do you know what deck is right for you? How do you get a deck? And then how do you like pull cards? How do you set your space for that.

00:44:34:18 - 00:45:08:13
Speaker 2
Okay. So I don't believe that you have to be gifted it. But I think that that is a that's an old kind of gypsy superstition as far as I'm concerned. So I don't believe that. I think that most important thing is to look at cards. If you want to get some cards, go to a card shot, a tarot, you know, a bookshop or a place where they sell tarot cards and look at as many, as many cards as you decks as you like, and see the one that you're most drawn to, the one that appeals to you, the one that you like the look of, and one that you that you like.

00:45:08:13 - 00:45:28:22
Speaker 2
See, it could be a very ancient deck because some of the decks, you know, still exist from the 14th century, and some are very modern, and there are a lot of modern decks around now. Lots of people are designing decks, and, and you choose the one that appeals to you, that you like colors, you like, the artwork you like.

00:45:28:22 - 00:45:31:23
Speaker 2
See, I've done.

00:45:32:01 - 00:45:34:23
Speaker 4
So it is okay to judge by a cover in this.

00:45:35:01 - 00:45:48:19
Speaker 2
Case, by the cards, by the pictures. You know, it's like, yeah, look at, you know, you wouldn't get hit by a piece of art that you didn't like just because you wouldn't hang it on the wall if you didn't like it, would you. So if you use.

00:45:48:21 - 00:45:52:15
Speaker 1
More sense that way because it's so personal to what you're going through.

00:45:52:15 - 00:46:08:14
Speaker 2
So you got to be friends with these cards. They've got to speak to you that you're, they're your friend. And if you don't like the look of them and you don't like the design or the color, then they're not going to you're not going to get friendly with them.

00:46:08:16 - 00:46:19:02
Speaker 1
What is the difference between Oracle and Tarot? I feel like when I go to buy tarot I often am like drawn to these oracle cards. And then I'm like wait is this the same thing or what. What is the difference.

00:46:19:02 - 00:46:45:04
Speaker 2
It's not. But the Oracle cards have there's a similarity in the fact that you, you pull an image of pull a card that has an image and it has a statement to it. It might say wisdom or it might say tranquility, or it might say, you know, just a couple of words that you're supposed to then meditate on for that day.

00:46:45:06 - 00:47:08:13
Speaker 2
So the tat but the tarot is part of this 78 card system. So it belongs to a whole system. Whereas the Oracle cards are you know they they work on their own. They're individual. So you might just put like you can still use the tarot in the same way you might pull the the devil card first thing in the morning and you think, okay, so what shadow stuff am I working on today?

00:47:08:15 - 00:47:30:05
Speaker 2
Or if it's the death card, you might say, okay, so what am I? What am I ending? Well, you might pull, the magician, which might say, what am I, what am I opportunities. Let me think about my opportunities and what's, you know, the full which is what risks am I taking today or temperance. Which is what balance am I looking for?

00:47:30:07 - 00:47:39:21
Speaker 2
Okay, so there are different meanings, but the oracle cards are this. There's a similarity, but they're not the same.

00:47:39:23 - 00:48:05:23
Speaker 4
So when you pull cards for yourself or when you're working with a client or someone and you're, you're pulling cards for them, do you have different, ways that you go about it? Or are you like, I've heard of people, I've heard of some people literally saying, I scatter them and then I hold my hand over them and whatever I feel like energetically drawn to I'll pull or having a specific system for like past, future, present.

00:48:06:01 - 00:48:09:12
Speaker 4
Do you have a set way that you do it or.

00:48:09:14 - 00:48:32:11
Speaker 2
Yeah, I do. But I was like, I mean, some people shuffle, some people ask the client to shuffle, and then they lay out from the shuffle. Some people won't let other people touch there. Some readers don't like people to touch their cards. I like to shuffle myself. And then I lay this. The cards out facedown and have the client pull them individually.

00:48:32:11 - 00:48:44:04
Speaker 2
So ten cards. And then I lay them out in a particular spread and read them from there. And and I usually do three spreads per reading.

00:48:44:06 - 00:48:46:22
Speaker 4
Oh, interesting. So it's always ten cards when you do.

00:48:46:22 - 00:48:56:10
Speaker 2
I do ten, seven and three and five. But that's my little sort of ritual. But there are loads and loads of ways of doing it.

00:48:56:12 - 00:49:23:15
Speaker 1
Just like Juliet said, there are all kinds of ways to read tarot. So we spoke with a tarot reader, Melanie Grace, based in Richmond, Virginia, about how she works with the tarot. There's definitely no right or wrong way to tarot, but when I'm teaching tarot to other people and in my personal practice and in my practice that I do professionally, I am not one to use spreads.

00:49:23:16 - 00:49:29:11
Speaker 1
The cool thing is, is that there's no right or wrong. It's all about how you choose to work with the tarot.

00:49:29:13 - 00:49:41:11
Speaker 4
I was just wondering when you said that you put them into a pattern for clients like they pick, and then you kind of arrange them. Is there a particular way that you personally tend to arrange them, or is it just kind of the order they came out?

00:49:41:16 - 00:50:01:00
Speaker 2
I take the first one chosen and put that one down first. But I have a there is a spread. It's like a layout called the cat. I use the Celtic cross, which is a ten card. It's a it's an old fashioned but a ten card layout. And then I do another seven card spread and then I do a five card spread, which is the horseshoe spread.

00:50:01:02 - 00:50:23:17
Speaker 2
And then each of those positions have a meaning. So it's where you are at the moment, where you're working towards what's expected, what's not expected, where you're going towards in your in your future. But it's it's it's very loose. It's not like this is going to happen, but this is your like I say, your weather forecast for about six months.

00:50:23:17 - 00:50:45:11
Speaker 2
That's how long I reckon a card reading will maybe take. And sometimes it can come out very, very quickly. And sometimes it can take about six months to to sort of play out. But it's, it's not. So sort of it's not like what I would call real fortune telling, you know, can shall I take this job or not?

00:50:45:12 - 00:51:01:21
Speaker 2
You know, I wouldn't ever tell anybody, take this job or don't take it and say, well, what are the pros and cons? What are you struggling with? What you know, and sort of tease it out by, by looking at the images and, and working with the, with those stories that they tell.

00:51:01:23 - 00:51:27:10
Speaker 1
While the way that Melanie and Juliet pull cards might look different, the way in which they encourage the people they work with to engage with the tarot in their cards, their pulling is actually really similar. A lot of people will come to tarot asking questions of like, what's going to happen in this relationship? What's going to happen in this job?

00:51:27:13 - 00:51:51:04
Speaker 1
They're looking for external things and sometimes you will get internal answers, but sometimes you'll actually get external answers. You could get a mix of both. But that's why I like being able to distinguish the two is really important and like, know when it could even be a reflection. The King of Pentacles could be someone else in a reading.

00:51:51:04 - 00:52:07:15
Speaker 1
It could, at the very same time represent part you like a mirror. Not only can tarot help you find internal answers, it can also give people the language to communicate about things that they might not have had the words for before.

00:52:07:17 - 00:52:29:22
Speaker 4
I'm very nerdy on getting into like, learning about myself, I think. I think many of us who are into astrology or tarot or any kind of thing, share that where it's like, I just want to learn like every little piece of, you know, oh, this might kind of explain something about why I feel the way I feel about this, or why this is a struggle for me or something.

00:52:29:22 - 00:52:31:13
Speaker 4
It's it's fascinating to me.

00:52:31:14 - 00:52:38:15
Speaker 2
A gateway to, to to talking about oneself.

00:52:38:17 - 00:53:07:05
Speaker 1
So after hearing Juliet and Melanie and our listeners share their thoughts on tarot, maybe your perspective is different than what you thought before. Maybe tarot isn't so scary after all, but instead offers a window into looking more deeply at our internal landscape and the wholeness of being human. If you want to engage with Juliet's work, work with her.

00:53:07:07 - 00:53:32:19
Speaker 1
And Melanie, all the links are in the show. Notes. And thank you for listening and taking this journey into the world of tarot with us. I'd love to hear what you think, how this may or may not have changed, what you think about tarot. And if you want to continue the conversation, you can do so by leaving a review and especially joining our intentional Living community on discord.

00:53:32:21 - 00:53:54:03
Speaker 1
I'll have a note in there for you to share about your thoughts on tarot in this episode. I also want to take a moment to thank you for listening to this podcast and making it possible. If you love this podcast, share it with a friend, give it a five star review and join the Dream Team for as little as $3 a month to keep it going.

00:53:54:05 - 00:54:03:19
Speaker 1
All of the links are in the show notes, and until the next time, let's keep taking it one breath at a time.