Robin Wood - The Robin Wood Tarot: The Book

This Book

In 1979, I became interested in the study of the Tarot, and began my journey along that path.

This book is my way of sharing that journey with you, because so many people have asked me to help them with their own exploration of the Tarot.

Here, I will share with you what I have discovered about the origins of these cards, and how they evolved into the tool that we have today. I will also give you the history of my own deck, the Robin Wood Tarot; why I decided to make it, and what happened after that decision was made.

Ill discuss the language of the Tarot, the symbols and colors that are common to many decks, and the patterns that I saw emerging from them, and so used in my own. To put it as simply as possible, my interpretations of the various common symbols.

There will be a section where I explore how the Tarot works; both the reasons that I have heard from various people, and the reason that I have found for myself.

The bulk of this book will be given to a detailed discussion of why I choose the particular symbols that appear on each card; what I was thinking at the time, and what those symbols mean to me.

Ill also teach you how to go about reading the cards, the way I teach it to my students. These are the methods that I recommend, including preparing yourself and the space that you will be using.

Finally, Ill speak briefly about spreads, the patterns in which the cards are laid out. Im not going to go into exhaustive detail there, though, because the book quickly became far larger than I had anticipated. I originally intended to make a companion workbook instead; but it hasn't happened, and I'm not sure it ever will. I'm sorry.

Throughout this book, I will emphasize the secret of reading the Tarot. Its simply this. Trust your own instincts!

When you lay out the cards, in whatever pattern you choose to use, you will get an immediate, visceral response to them. Use it.

The cards work beautifully as a gateway to open your own awareness of what is happening at a very subtle level, and to allow you to pick up information from things you are not even aware of intellectually.

I advise you to allow this to happen. Dont hinder the process by looking everything up in a book (not even this one!) The meanings in the books are sometimes contradictory, sometimes confusing, and sometimes they will feel odd to you. The meanings in your heart, when you look at the cards actually spread out before you, are far more likely to be accurate.

This is because the meanings of every card depend on the other cards in the spread with them. Since its impossible to give all the combinations of cards in a book, its just skipped altogether. This isnt accurate, but its the best compromise possible under the circumstances. But dont be fooled! The meanings given in isolation are not the actual, only, totally accurate meanings of the card.

Ive been teaching people in workshops and gatherings all over the country to read by tossing the book, and letting the cards speak to them, for many years now. A few people are made nervous by this approach. They have asked me if just looking at the cards doesnt unbalance the meanings. If a card never looks to a Reader as if it means what its supposed to mean, then isnt that concept missing from the deck?

I dont think so. In my experience, a reader who cannot see the traditional meaning in one card will find that very meaning in another. So my advice is not to worry about it. It all comes out in the wash.

But, and I cannot emphasize this point enough, that is my opinion. In fact, nearly everything in this book is my opinion. Its not gospel, its not the one right way, and just because its true for me doesnt necessarily mean that it will be true for you!

We are individuals, and we each bring our own unique perspective to everything we do.

The only things in this book that I will tell you without any room for disagreement are absolutely true are the things about me. Where I was, what I was doing, my reasoning behind things, and so on. I know these things, and thats that! But those are the only things I do know, with absolute certainty.

Even the facts given in the chapter about the History of the Tarot may be faulty. Im depending on other people for research here, because my publisher (who is me) wont fly me to Paris to look things up for myself. And if I did get there it would do me little good, because my French is virtually non-existent!

So you can see that Im not about to argue with you about the meanings behind the more esoteric things in this book. I think that the color yellow represents joy and vitality, for instance. If you think of a yellow traffic light when you see this color, and for you it means proceed with caution, then that is what it means when you are reading the cards!

Do you see?

This whole business of reading the Tarot is a partnership between the person who designed the deck, and the one who is reading. I put certain symbols there, but you are the one who has to interpret them. I did my best to make them as clear as I could; but they are, when you get down to it, those symbols that had meaning for me, that evoked the response I needed to each of the cards in the deck.