How specific can you get with tarot questions?

I am in the process of doing something I never thought I would attempt.

I am learning to drive.

I know that in many parts of the world, and especially in North American culture, driving is a necessity. And getting your license is seen as a rite of passage by some.

But I was never interested in driving. Maybe it’s because very few women in family learned to drive, either. Something seems to run in our blood to avoid it as much as possible.

My dad drove, though not always very well. My mother was a nervous passenger, which probably didn’t help.

And her nervousness quite likely rubbed off on me: I have always preferred to be a passenger, or a pedestrian.

I also spent most of my life in Toronto, a city where you can often get by without a car. There are streetcars, subways and buses to take you where you want to go. I don’t have many friends there who own cars of their own; a lot of them have let their licences expire out of lack of use.

My husband and I didn’t have a car of our own until 2021. We were renting a lot of vehicles and it was getting harder to do that once Covid hit. So we decided to buy a car of our own.

It completely changed our lives. An indirect way, that car facilitated our move out of Toronto and has allowed us to do and see so much more than when we were relying on transit within a single city.

My mind has opened up to driving since. But I’m not necessarily excited about learning how to do it. A large part of me is still stuck in my fears about driving.

It would be so much easier to stay a passenger and a pedestrian. But I’ve signed up for driving school and am going to at least follow through on completing my lessons.

Last week I had my first in-car lesson with an instructor. I was not looking forward to it at all: “What if I make a terrible mistake? What if everything goes wrong?”

I decided to pull a few cards to get some advice. I asked, “How can I do well in my driving lesson today?”

I pulled the King of Swords, Temperance and the Five of Wands.

The first thing I noticed was the lack of Cups cards: Temperance is holding a couple, of course, but she’s emptying them.

“Empty your cup” is something you often hear in classes when the teacher wants to encourage students to come with an open mind and let any pre-conceived notions or assumptions at the door.

Another thing that came to mind with the lack of Cups is that these cards are suggesting I not let my emotions override the experience.

“Go in with a clear head and hawk’s eye,” the King of Swords is telling me. “Be receptive to the learning experience, and follow each step with logic and clarity.” And, as my husband told advised me later, “You control the car. Don’t let the car control you.” The King is an authority figure and is a reminder that I need to step out of the passive, passenger mindset and into an active role of responsibility.

The combative energy Five of Wands on the end reminded me of the lessons I’ve already taken that focused on road rules and other information. “You’ve learned the importance of being a cooperative driver and staying alert to potential hazards. You can do well today by putting those ideas into practice.”

The Five of Wands in this deck, the Cosmic Tarot, is also an image of people sparring within a circle. Yes, it looks combative, but it can also be showing the development of a skill: Learning specific movements and techniques within a safe, pre-set parameter, which is what driving lessons aim to do.

These were helpful reminders to take with me in my lesson, but I’m not really sharing this story to talk about driving.

I’m sharing it because I sometimes see tarot clients and readers to ask specific questions. “How specific am I allowed to get?” is something I’m often asked when I open up space to clients and students to explore questions in our time together.

I know there are a lot of different opinions out there about what you “should” and “shouldn’t” ask in a tarot reading. But tarot isn’t inherently built with limitations: In my experience, the cards can provide insight and guidance on all kinds of topics if a reader is willing to puzzle through it.

When we get specific and move beyond the popular but general questions of “what do I need to know” or “what should I focus on,” it pushes us to see the cards in different contexts. This helps to build new interpretations and correspondences to the cards.

It also helps to build confidence as a reader for those times when querents bring specific questions to the table – or when you’re reading for yourself and want to zero-in on a particular issue.

In my upcoming course, Tarot for Magic, Spell Craft, and the Strange, we are going to be using tarot to mine the cards for very specific information within each lesson. We’ll explore tarot mediumship and spirit communication, spell writing, and more.

Will it help me end up with a magic wand I can wave to become a perfect driver overnight? Sadly, no – practice makes perfect, right? But Tarot for Magic will be an experiential course that will help you to work with tarot in adventurous ways, and leave you with new tools that you can use in your personal or professional tarot practice.

We start April 9. Details are here.

Until next time,

Liz