When you work with Tarot you are working with pre literate symbolism. The imagery on Tarot and Oracle cards can help a person understand what he or she needs to know about a particular situation. Decks are used as a tool of inner wisdom and guidance. Readings give a person insight to past, current and future events based on the person’s current path at the time of the reading. Personally, Tarot decks are an important tool that I keep in my creative medicine bag. As an Artistic Midwife I find that they help birth creativity.
Tarot cards have a mysterious aura around them and for centuries they’ve been used for fun, divination, and self actualization. With origins in the early Renaissance, the tarot has seen many iterations and PR makeovers. The tarot deck that has become the standard that many decks today are based on is the Smith Rider Waite deck, illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith in 1910.
Tarot is a deck of 78 cards, with a similar structure to a regular playing card deck. What sets a tarot deck apart from playing cards is the inclusion of 22 Major Arcana cards that represent shifts in the soul’s evolution. The 56 Minor Arcana represent universal feelings, actions, and situations from the human experience. So when we ask the right questions, we can gain a new perspective on where we are in our lives, what energies we’re dealing with, and receive guidance on how to move forward
There are a number of ways to refine your skills working with tarot. One of these is to undertake challenges which call upon you to talk about your relationship with decks and specific cards.
The Tarot Midwife 