Using Positions in your Tarot Spreads
I’m so happy to introduce a guest blogger this week – Lisa Hazard. Lisa wanted to share a bit of insight on how you can use positions in your tarot spreads to really give context to the cards. I pretty much always use positions as I find that I get more accurate and focused readings.
You can read more about Lisa at the end of the post but here is what she had to share…
Hello, and thank you, David, for having me as a guest blogger on learning to read tarot! My name is Lisa Hazard, and I’m a reader in North Alabama.
When learning Tarot, people sometimes have problems putting together the positions of cards in a spread with what the meaning is. For example, take a look at these four cards.
If you read them from left to right, you can number them 1, 2, 3, 4.
For our first exercise, we’ll assign the positions.
1. Past influences/experiences
2. Present influences/experiences
3. Future influences/experiences
4. Most likely outcome of query
Now, for the card reveal!
1. Fire Kitten (past)
Were you to read this out of the book that came with the cat deck, it would give you advice. But, let’s say the question is, what does my love life hold for me? So, the advice, in the present tense, doesn’t work for a past influence or experience position in the spread. This is where you put your creative and intuitive mind to work.
Fire Kitten is about taking risks, and not being worried about getting “burned” a little in the process. This can also represent a child with these qualities.
In the Past position of this spread, consider the person you’re helping, and the card’s basic message. Here, you could interpret the advice to take risks as, “You have always taken risks in love, not worried about getting hurt, since you were young.”
2. Ten of Sky (present influences)
Ten of Sky’s advice for you in the book would be that you gave it your all, and don’t beat yourself up that you’re alone.
The person your reading for will already know this about herself, so, you could read this present position as, “You tried hard in a tough relationship, but in the end, you are now alone, and you are hurt.”
3. Six of Sea reversed (Future Influences)
Everybody wants these next two cards to resound with them.
Our future card is Six of Sea, inverted. In the book, the advice would be to lighten up, play like a child. But we’re not looking for advice, we’re looking for divination. This is the future. So, you might say, “You let go of your childhood risk-taking because it hurt too much this time.” In this way, you are reading all three cards to make sense into a past, present, and future reading together.
4. Floating Cat (Outcome)
Now, let’s look at card 4. Outcome. It is the Floating Cat. This is the same as the Hanged Man. In the book, the advice is to see things from a different perspective. Again, we need to translate this to an outcome with regards to the last 3 cards. The outcome could be, “You begin to see things from different perspectives than before, and realize, from the pain you’ve been through, that you can see your prospective lovers’ problematic issues and if you’ll get burned, and how, because of the knowledge you have gained. This will lead you into a better, healthier relationship.”
I hope this exercise helps you with putting meanings to cards in their designated positions in Tarot spreads, as I’ve seen this be one of the hardest concepts for newer Tarot readers to grasp. Always look at the whole picture, and assign cards’ meanings accordingly. The more you do this, the more naturally it will work for you.
Big thanks to Lisa for sharing her knowledge. If you want to more more about Lisa you can contact her here. You can also reach her on Instagram under the name @psyreaderlisa OR you might want to hit her up for a free reading in her app Psychic Cat in Android stores!
Lisa was using the Mystical Cat Tarot deck by Lunaea Weatherstone and Mickie Mueller.
If you are interested in becoming a guest poster for Tarot Avenue you can get all the details here.
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