Sami Main - How to Deal: Tarot for Everyday Life

Contents

Contents

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FOR TAMARA MAIN, AKA MOMMO

S.M.

FOR MY FAMILY, ESPECIALLY MY MOTHER AND SISTER

M.D.L.P.

HOW TO DEAL: TAROT FOR EVERYDAY LIFE . Text copyright 2018 by Samantha Main. Illustrations copyright 2018 by Marisa de la Pea. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

www.epicreads.com

Cover art 2018 by Marisa de la Pea

Cover design by Alison Klapthor

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017959288

Digital Edition MAY 2018 ISBN: 978-0-06-285384-4

Print ISBN: 978-0-06-266217-0

18 19 20 21 22 SCP 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

FIRST EDITION

W elcome to the world of tarot, my friends. Tarot is a way to get in touch with your powerful, mystical side. We all totally have one, and its about time you tapped into yours.

Using the seventy-eight cards in a tarot deck, tarot readers attempt to predict and tell the future. You visit a reader for guidance if you want to send a question up to the universe and finally get it answered. (Good news is, by the end of this book, that tarot reader will be you!) By putting the cards in specific orderswe call them layoutsand then deciphering their message, youll be able to answer any burning questions for yourself and for other curious folk around you. The magic of tarot is about judging a group of cards meaning based on how they end up in a given layout.

I started teaching myself to read tarot cards a few years ago as a way to help answer big life questions. I had previously visited tarot readers and found them to be fascinating people with some kind of power of truth; one once told me I had an old soul, while another said I had lived eleven lifetimes and in each life I had been a healer or a mother figure.

Learning the skill of tarot meant that I could answer my own questions. Finally, I would have someone else to talk to about my life. And that someone was the universe. You know how you sometimes read your horoscope at the beginning of a month, just to prepare for whats coming up? Its the same thing with consulting the cards. Tarot is a way for me and my friends to get to the root of our problems. Its a bit like therapy. And if you leave yourself open to all the possible new experiences the tarot can teach you, I promise you wont regret it.

An important thing to remember is that the tarot will not give you a straight Y/N answer. The cards have lots of layers to them, which let you interpret them differently depending where they fall in a layout. On their own, every card has its individual meaning. Then these individual meanings interact once the cards are placed into a layout. (For example, as youll learn later, if a Queen of Wands happens to fall across another card, that means the person that card represents is a challenge for you.) Each tarot reading you do uses the cards in a unique way. No two readings are ever the sameeven if the same cards are drawnbecause no two questions are the same and no two moments in life are the same.

I like to think of tarot as a weather forecast: its predicting how things are going for you RIGHT NOW, but its also aware that things can easily change. Tarot knows that fate is fluid. Its up to you to take matters into your own hands. If you find yourself going to multiple friends asking them what to do about the same problem, it means youre seeking out opinions, but youre not happy with what anyone has told you yet. Thats a good sign that you should be asking the cards. Tarot can be an unbiased friend to you. Though, tarot has its limits, too: try not to ask about the exact same problem more than once a week. You can tell when the tarot is getting fed up with you.

For just a smidge of history: the first tarot cards showed up in the 1400s as a playing card game in Italy. The usage of the cards slowly evolved into future-telling, and ultimately into how we use them today. The meanings you read nowadays are more modern than whatever medieval-pop-culture references those tarot readers used to make. And so this tarot book is a little different from others you might see: not only do the cards here have a female friendly energy thats missing from some of the older tarot decks, this book also has mini-exercises built into each section to help you lock in what youre learning. Neat!

In terms of finding the right deck for your tarot practice, there are lots of different styles out there. A tarot deck is similar to a set of playing cards, so youll see cards like kings and queens. It might take a while until you find the perfect deck, so dont feel discouraged if you dont connect with the first one you get. Once you do find The One, make sure you keep it close so it can soak up your good energy. Do that by leaving it near your bed and shuffling through the cards every few days so they remember you. Tarot is just like a friend: you gotta check in with it every once in a while.

Before each reading, consider lighting a candle and getting into a calm mind space. That might mean loading a Zen playlist, doing some yoga stretches, or meditating. Howre you going to answer lifes big questions if your own mind is stressy and cloudy? Tarot is all about vibes, so give it your best shot! I like lighting my peppermint candle and grabbing a nice mug of tea before sitting down to do a reading. As soon as I start laying out cards, my cat totally tries to play with them. If youre like me, then your cat, little sister, neighborhood ghost, or any other super determined nuisance will just hang out during your readings no matter what, so get used to it.