7 Things You Need To Know About Tarot

1. It is not fortune telling.  Tarot WILL NOT "tell your fortune".  You are responsible for your own life and have the wonderful gift of free will.  It WILL help you to identify choices and options available to you and highlight the impact of those options.  It will also allow you time to reflect on your current situation, how you arrived at this point, and what will help or hinder you to move in the direction you want.
   
2. There are no scary or bad cards.  Contrary to the image portrayed by some, Tarot is an amazing and powerful tool.  Some cards may highlight some areas that may be challenging to us.  That doesn't mean they are "bad" cards.  Yes, we know that "Death" is a very powerful and emotive word but it doesn't automatically mean someone is going to die.  Far from it, it is a card that points to the transformation available by clearing out or "pruning".  Our favourite description is that of a gardener who prunes back beautiful roses - cutting away what is required in order to ensure fresh, new and strong growth for the next season.  There is a time of clearing out and cutting back so that our new growth is stronger in the future.  And we've all seen what happens to roses that don't get cut back and pruned . . they grow weak and spindly with no strength to hold themselves up.  So, if this is the powerful message behind this card - we shouldn't get distracted by the name "Death" on the card.  Work with your reader/consultant to understand the message of the card to you.
   
3. The Tarot Deck consists of 78 cards - in our opinion "78 snapshots of life and wisdom".  Each card has a range of meanings - like many of our words.  The finer points of meaning depend on where the calls fall in a reading.  Your reader/consultant will work with you to ensure you obtain the finer points of meaning in your readings.  You can work with other "oracle decks" but 78 cards made up of 22 Major and 56 Minor Arcana cards are what makes up a standard, widely accepted Tarot Deck.
   
4. It is fun.  Tarot is great fun and can often make us smile with its wisdom.  To us it is like having a very good friend who will say the things that others may be thinking but unsure of saying.  You can consult the cards on a daily basis - a card a day is often insightful and may point to something worth bearing in mind for that day.  It is also a great way to get to know your Tarot deck better.  You don't always have to approach Tarot in a serious way although that will depend on the purpose of using this powerful tool.
   
5. It is not evil.    Nothing in itself is inherently evil and any deck of cards is essentially a pile of paper cut in a particular shape and style with various designs on.  To say Tarot is evil or the devil's work or any of those other things we've heard is - in our opinion - nonsense.  Things are only as powerful as you believe them to be.  Our Founder, Mary, was brought up as a Roman Catholic and considers herself a born-again Christian (having gone away from her faith as a teenager and then rediscovering her spiritual connections as a 30 year old in Jerusalem).  She now seems herself as catholic having looked up the word in a dictionary and recognising it means "universal".  The Tarot is an empowering tool in helping each of us in true "divination" - connection to the divine part within each of us.  Some like to see this as connection to the universal or collective unconscious.  As the saying goes "there is nothing good or bad but that thinking makes it so."
   
6. Tarot is at least 600 years old.  There are many theories and conflicts about how and where Tarot started and much can be read on the subject.  The fact is that we have Tarot cards from decks in the early 1400s which are still in existence.  The symbolism contained in many Tarot cards link back to these times when swords were used to cut a path through to our destinations and staffs were used as walking sticks to make our way in the world.  There is a great deal of symbolism in the Tarot and the hundreds and hundreds of varieties of decks that have been created will put their own slant on the key areas of life:  love, emotions and feelings; creativity, spirit and adventure; mental intellect, clarity and action; and the more down to earth, grounded realities including work, money, success and practical/physical issues.