Liz Worth ~ Tarot + Astrology

When I meet someone new and they learn I’m a tarot reader, they usually get curious – but also sometimes nervous.

“When you read for someone, do you connect to their energy somehow?” They ask.

I immediately get a vision of myself as a multi-tentacled being reaching into my clients’ auric fields to tap into their current states.

Which I imagine is what some people assume happens in a tarot reading.

While that might be kind of cool, in reality I’m not a supernatural being (much to my chagrin), and I’m not tapping into anyone else’s personal, psychic spaces during a reading.

But things do get personal. It can be an uncanny experience to receive a tarot reading that seems to cut through to the heart of your very soul.

And questions about energy between reader and querent go both ways. I’ve often had students in my classes ask, “How do I make sure I’m not absorbing someone else’s energy when I read tarot for...

In my previous post, I talked about working with questions in tarot, and the importance of understanding your intention and focus when posing questions.

But what do you when you are reading tarot for someone who doesn’t have a question?

Or, what if you just want to perform a reading for yourself, but you’re not sure what you want to know? I think every tarot reader can relate to feeling called to sit with your cards without knowing why.

The idea of pulling a few cards “just to see what comes up” is a beautiful one – until it comes time to interpret those cards. That’s when things can start to feel murky.

You might have already heard me say that tarot cards can mean anything, everything, and nothing at all.

Questions help to give shape and context to what we see in those cards. A certain symbol might have a lot of weight in a love reading but might not even be considered in a career context.

Questions essentially give your cards a job to do once...

This isn’t the first time I’ve shared thoughts on questions in tarot readings, but it’s been a while since I wrote about the subject.

And recently, I’ve had some good conversations with tarot clients and peers about the types of questions we can explore together. It’s been inspiring me to ruminate further, and to expand upon the topic.

Asking the right questions is something that, in my opinion, takes time to refine. And that doesn’t just extend to tarot readings.

The questions you ask yourself when you’re making a decision can help or hinder your path to clarity.

The questions you ask when you’re talking with other people can influence the quality of your connections to those around you.

The questions that pop into your head throughout the day can sway your future actions: “What if I did this? What if I try that?”

And of course, all of these questions can lead us in one way or another depending on how we approach them....

A common learning curve that tarot readers share is figuring out how to synthesize the information in their readings.

So many of us learn how to read tarot card by card. A popular piece of advice is to pull a card a day as a way to study each card organically. This can be a useful practice, and one that breaks down what can be an overwhelming 78-card deck into bite-sized actions.

But where card-a-day practitioners end up getting stuck is when they want to transition into bigger readings. That’s where they start to feel unsure about how to combine cards, or find the patterns between them.

Similarly, when we’re relying on guidebooks to build our interpretations, multi-card spreads can end up feeling clunky as we work through them one card at a time.

This can also happen when we’re not sure how many details to work into a reading. Confusing complexity for potency in tarot reading can become a huge block for readers.

You don’t need to layer your readings with a...

I have a general rule I follow when I’m online:

I don’t argue with strangers.

Not that I don’t argue with friends or acquaintances, either. I know better on all fronts that social media doesn’t often lead to good things when people are in disagreement.

This isn’t to say I’m against dialogue. It’s just that quite often, when I see people arguing, they’re spending more time trying to change each other’s minds than they are trying to understand each other’s perspective.

I find the same thing happens in the tarot community. When I first started connecting with other tarot readers, I joined some Facebook groups to meet other readers and have a dedicated space to share about tarot.

But after a while, I started to feel like those groups were counterproductive to what I was seeking. So often, posts devolved into virtual shouting matches, just like so many other experiences on social media.

And very often, the arguments that I...

When I was first learning tarot, I used to look down at my cards and feel completely lost as to what to focus on first.

I kept hearing that tarot was full of rich symbolism, but I was taking that advice a little too far.

I’d look at the number of clouds in the background of a tarot card and wonder, “Do those have numerological significance?”

Or I’d look at the colour of clothes a figure was wearing and wonder if I should take up colour theory and psychology to be able to fully understand tarot.

The problem was that by taking such a granular approach to my cards, I was overwhelming myself with details. I couldn’t see the full story of a card because I was so distracted by the little things instead.

And often, these were things that didn’t add to the insight or overall message I was looking for.

I wish someone had told me back then that not every symbol or detail had to count in every reading.

Sometimes, there are certain details in a card that...

Uncertainty sends a lot of people to their local tarot readers, or inspires them to pick up the cards themselves.

Sometimes the reasons for that uncertainty are obvious. Someone might be in a precarious situation at work. Or has just gone through some personal upheaval and they’re looking for reassurance that everything will be okay.

Other times, though, uncertainty is driven by our inner selves, rather than external factors. Our culture is so fixated on self-improvement and striving towards (an often vague notion of) potential that it sometimes causes us to live too far in the future.

This kind of thinking gets us so focused on what’s next that we’re not always connected to where we’ve landed, or whether we’re happy with who and what we are in this very moment.

We hear encouraging words to strive for more, to change for the better, to edit out our messes and flaws.

But – and this is a big BUT… it’s important to remember that not...

Years ago, before I was reading tarot professionally, I used to do a lot of tarot parties for friends to get practice.

I was at a café one night where a friend was having a trunk sale for a jewelry line she was selling. The room was full of my pal’s friends and family, and I didn’t know many people there.

A woman sat down for a reading with me. I laid down my cards. I saw something in them that was so specific: A story about a family inheritance.

Except that’s not what I told her.

Because what I thought I was seeing did not match the meanings of the cards that were in front of me.

I wasn’t experienced enough yet to know how to trust myself as a tarot reader.

So I played it safe.

I gave a by-the-book reading – literally – rather than talking about what I’d initially seen.

And it wasn’t exactly wrong. But it wasn’t exactly right, either.

It was generic, safe, and middle-of-the-road enough for this woman to find something...

I get a lot of questions about how to prepare for tarot readings from a reader’s perspective.

Readers are often concerned with protecting their energy by staying grounded. Or by shielding against a draining querent.

Boundaries in tarot readings go both ways, though, and it’s important to remember that our querents have boundaries, too.

But we might not always know what those boundaries are for each querent. Every individual will have a different comfort zone. And not all querents will be experienced with readings enough to know what they want from the experience.

People often come to tarot readings with an open mind. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that anything goes in a tarot reading.

Establishing some boundaries for your own conduct can go a long way in ensuring that querents have a great experience with you.

Here are a few boundaries I’m mindful of that you might find helpful, too.

Honesty and respect can co-exist.

Some tarot readers like to...

"How much should I charge for a tarot reading?"

This is one of the first questions people often ask when they start to read tarot professionally.

Charging for a tarot reading is a big step: It is a move that can change people’s perception of you.

Someone who is willing to pay you for your time is more likely to see you as a skilled craftsperson. They are invested in what you’re doing because they have some skin in the game.

When a client isn’t paying for a service, they don’t have anything at stake. It can be the worst reading, or the best reading, but either way, they’ve got nothing to lose it ends up being a bad experience.

But there is a "but" here, which is this:

There is actually a time and place to read for free – and a way to make it feel like a fair exchange. And that’s when you’re in the learning phases as a tarot reader.

I didn’t charge a dime for my tarot readings for seven years, because I was gaining experience.

I did offer...