Melissa Cynova - Kitchen Table Tarot: Pull Up a Chair, Shuffle the Cards, and Let’s Talk Tarot

Llewellyn Publications

Woodbury, Minnesota

Copyright Information

Kitchen Table Tarot: Pull Up a Chair, Shuffle the Cards, and Lets Talk Tarot 2017 by Melissa Cynova.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Llewellyn Publications, except in the form of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

As the purchaser of this e-book, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. The text may not be otherwise reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, or recorded on any other storage device in any form or by any means.

Any unauthorized usage of the text without express written permission of the publisher is a violation of the authors copyright and is illegal and punishable by law.

First e-book edition 2017

E-book ISBN: 9780738751603

Book design: Donna Burch-Brown

Cover design: Kevin R. Brown

Cover illustration: Harry Briggs

Interior cards: Llewellyns Classic Tarot

Llewellyn Publications is an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Cynova, Melissa, author.

Title: Kitchen table tarot : pull up a chair, shuffle the cards, and lets

talk tarot / Melissa Cynova.

Description: First Edition. | Woodbury : Llewellyn Worldwide, Ltd, 2017.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016054414 (print) | LCCN 2017004327 (ebook) | ISBN

9780738750774 | ISBN 9780738751603 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Tarot.

Classification: LCC BF1879.T2 C96 2017 (print) | LCC BF1879.T2 (ebook) | DDC 133.3/2424dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016054414

Llewellyn Publications does not participate in, endorse, or have any authority or responsibility concerning private business arrangements between our authors and the public.

Any Internet references contained in this work are current at publication time, but the publisher cannot guarantee that a specific reference will continue or be maintained. Please refer to the publishers website for links to current author websites.

Llewellyn Publications

Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

2143 Wooddale Drive

Woodbury, MN 55125

www.llewellyn.com

Manufactured in the United States of America

Contents

: Getting Started

: Care and Keeping of You and Your Tools

: The Ethics of Reading

: The Major Arcana

: The Minor Arcana: The Pips

: The Minor Arcana: Court Cards

: Professional Tarot Reading

: When Readings Go Weird

To Mary Elizabeth Strange,

who believed in me and my readings before I did.

I love you.

Introduction

My friend Karin called me a while ago. She grabbed her first tarot deck and book and was so excited about starting her tarot journey. Then, the texts started coming in.

Karin: My beginner tarot book recommends bundling a new deck and sleeping with it under my pillow for two nights.

Me: Thats gross. Dont do thatyoull mess your cards up. Set them next to the bed. Or dont. Just think about each card before you go to sleep.

Karin: It also says to charge a quartz crystal to keep with it to absorb poopy energy anyone might bring near the deck.

Me: Also, bring the deck to a verdant meadow under a new moon to let fairies flip through it and sigh over it.

Karin:

Me: Kidding. The crystal one is actually not a bad idea, but I dont do it all the time and my cards work just fine.

Karin: It also says I should shuffle left-handed.

Me: Karin, shuffle with whichever frickin hand you want. Love, Melissa.

Karin: LOL, yes, sensei. I cleanse crystals and decks with salt and full moonlight. And whatever fairies want to stop by.

Me: Right. Like you do.

These conversations sum up exactly why I wanted to write this book. Reading cards is difficult, and learning them can be really confusing. When I started reading in 1989, before the Internet, we had to rely on books and word of mouth to gain information. I know, right? It was archaic. I also went to Catholic school. Guess what they dont teach you in Catholic school? Yeah. So when I was fourteen, my friend Steve gave me a tarot deck out of the blue and a book to go with it. I still dont know why, and I really want to find and thank him. Anyway, I sat down with my new book and started reading about the World and the Hierophant and Death, and the book that I had was so cold and academic that I couldnt figure some cards out. What does a guy in a funny hat have to do with my friends boyfriend? If someone gets the Death card, theyre not going to die, right? I mean, they arent, right? It was uncomfortable and frustrating. I would try to give someone a reading and suddenly Id stop. Id look at the World card and say, Well, it says here that the four animal heads in the corner represent the four apostles and that you should probably, like, go to church? Or something? I dont know. People generally dont generally come to a tarot reader to hear I dont know.

I started practicing readings. I learned by intuiting meanings and confirming with my tarot book. I learned cards by just reading the pictures in front of me. I did it completely backward. It took about ten years until I was comfortable enough to do it without the books, but it was worth it. The Internet came along about ten years after I started reading. Nice timing, universe. Very funny.

Im not dismissing those books with the history and symbolism. Absolutely not. One of my favorite books is Holistic Tarot by Benebell Wen, and its bigger than my head. Youre supposed to fill in your tarot studies wherever you can. What this book shows, and what I want to teach you, is that you can pick up a card, see where its going, remember a few keywords or mnemonic devices, and then own the card. Youll have it. Once you have the card, you cant lose it again. It belongs to you, and you can embellish it as much as youd like. This book is for beginners, and I think it will help you start off on the right foot. Which is a metaphor that describes the Fool card perfectly, by the way. See what I did there? Im teaching already.

I started teaching tarot to my friends at my kitchen table. We would have a few beers, and Id hold up a card and pull out every pertinent detail I could about the cardwhere Id seen it in readings, what was happening next, who it reminded me of. The kitchen table isnt always the most comfortable part of the house, but its where everyone gathers in my house. Its a place for conversations, for ideas, and for sharing whats worrying you. Most of my early readings were born out of conversations around the table. A friend would be stuck, and looking at the cards would help us figure out how to get them unstuck. My classes began in the same way. Id start telling stories about the cards, and before you knew it, we were fifty cards in and they were well on the way to knowing how to read for themselves. I want to bring the old knowledge to the table and break bread with it. I want to make it approachable and accessible. Thats why this book is called Kitchen Table Tarot . Because were about to become friends, you and I. Pull up a chair. I have a lot to teach you.