My Love Affair With the Tarot (2017)

In this heartfelt episode, I share the beginnings of my deep connection with the tarot—how it became more than just cards, but a trusted companion for self-discovery and healing. I talk about using tarot like a “therapist in a box,” uncovering insights that go beyond the surface and into the soul. Whether you're new to tarot or a longtime reader, this is a love letter to the transformative power of reading for yourself and others.

✨ Ready to fall in love with the tarot too?

Click play below to hear the story of how it became my favorite tool for healing and self-discovery.
If it resonates, don’t forget to subscribe, leave a comment, or share your own tarot story below or on the YouTube video itself—I’d love to hear it! 🌧️🃏

So, you'd like to know the truth about the tarot?  Well, there are a couple things you need to realize first before we dig into that:

1. People always use the worth "truth" to mean a universal truth.  When in reality, most truths are personal truths, which only apply to the person having the experience with said "truth". Meaning MY truth and YOUR truth can be two, totally different things.
2. The tarot is older than anyone living at this time.  Something that's been around that long has probably had many uses and many "truths".  So today's truth?  Is not yesterday's truth, and tomorrow's truth may look nothing like today's.  So keep that in mind when you're dealing with something that nobody can agree on, like the tarot.  

Is it good?  Is it bad?

It's freaking glossy cardboard.  How can you classify a paper product as good or bad?  The only way you can is to say "depends on how you use it".  

If you take a tarot card, and shape it into a knife and stab someone with it, sure, it's super bad.  But if you're just opening the package, laying them out on the table, and playing around with them?  Who on earth is that hurting?

If you're a con-artist and you say to someone "I can see everything with these cards!  Just give me $200 and I will tell you it all!"  Then YOU are bad, not the cards.  That's where the misconception lies.  When we lay the blame on the tool instead of the user of the tool, that's where the problems are caused. 

If I give you a hammer, and you build a homeless person a house, that hammer is amazingly awesome.  But if I give you a hammer and you kill a homeless person with it, then yeah, that hammer kind of sucks.

BUT is it the hammer's fault?  It's just metal and wood.  Metal and wood cannot jump up and do bad things. 

But, but, there's the devil and death and other bad stuff on in them!

So what?  Those aren't bad cards.  Those cards (among the 20 others which are called "the major arcana") are archetypes, which are symbols for universal life.  Endings are a part of life (which is what the death card means).  Every single card in the deck is a reflection of universal life.  Every single card can be applied to every single person, and it will make sense.  You can't fear pictures, that's just silly.  And if the pictures are REALLY scary, throw them away and replace them from some other deck with neat pictures you like to look at.

Simple.


But, don't you have to be psychic to use them?

Pardon my words here for a second, but only ignorant people think this.  The cards are tools, yes, but for anyone, not for "special" chosen people.  And the cards are no more magical than that hammer you used to build that house above.  Do psychics exist?  I have no freaking clue.  Maybe, and maybe not.  But, what does that matter in relation to you using them?

But as an atheist, I don't believe in psychics (because I don't believe in anything).  Am I okay with people thinking they are psychic?  Eh....not sure.   But I will say that there are many shysters out there looking for a sucker, and I don't approve of that at all.  Yet, which is almost worse, some don't even realize they're not psychic, and that's sad.  I know, because:

I used to be one of them.

Let me tell you a story....

I've been a tarot reader for over 30 years.  I used to believe hardcore in psychic abilities, ghosts, magic, and other junk.  Then one day, I got slapped in the face.

Granted, it was a metaphorical slap, but still, it kind of hurt.  I grew up my entire life with 2 certainties: I was psychic.  And my house was haunted (hell, I even wrote a book about it).  But then I started to learn about cold readings, and got really discouraged.  And then I wondered if anything I believed was true, so I stopped thinking about ghosts and guess what?  The hauntings stopped.  If I was actually being haunted, then me not thinking about it shouldn't stop it right?  But it did.  And that's when I reallly realized, it just wasn't true.

This turned my life upside down.  When I learned about cold readings, I realized that was exactly what I was doing in my readings that I was getting paid for.   I was the shyster!  But it wasn't on purpose...but the guilt was eating me alive, so I just put my cards away and didn't touch them again for almost a year.  How could I have been tricking people out of their money and not know it?  

But the truth was, I wasn't really tricking them.  The only thing I was tricking them about was how I was getting my information.  What I was doing true and real, because the way I read the tarot was never psychic at all.  In the 26 years I read the tarot, I only had a handful of people ever tell me what I said to them didn't apply, and yet not one of them asked for their money back.  So, why did my readings work?

Because of the way I read them.  

When I read them, I was not like Miss Cleo and told my clients a bunch of BS crap what "may or may not" have been real (most likely, may not).  I  counseled my clients with them, which is what I am best at.  I had clients all over the world (like Mexico, Australia, Europe, etc.) who contacted me on a regular basis to counsel them.  I made sure to tell them I wasn't a licensed counselor, I called myself a spiritual counselor...which I was.  But at my core?  I really did think I had some kind of psychic gift.  And that's why I felt so damn guilty when I finally realized I didn't.  And I felt like my entire life was a complete and total lie.

 But had I known?  Had I known I wasn't psychic and informed my clients that I wasn't?  I could have went on with my tarot practice without guilt.  But I was ignorant.  I didn't realize the truth.  


What is my truth?  


My truth now?  Is that the tarot is tool for everyone.  And it takes absolutely no psychic ability to read them.  And knowing how to read them is a gift.  Not from god or the universe, but from you.  You give yourself the gift of ability to do something when you work hard and hone your skills.  And the other gift you give yourself and your clients is: honesty.  You don't pretend to be something you're not.  You don't pretend to know things you don't.  The human mind is pretty suggestive, and if you go around suggesting something like, oh I don't know, that someone's husband is cheating on them (as I once did in my early 20's)?  You might ruin a marriage.  Or worse.  

(note: He WAS cheating on her, but it wasn't for me to be the one to tell her with my tarot...the signs were obvious, but she had to be the one who saw them....as a tarot reader, I could had explored the idea of why she thought he was cheating with her, and let her see it for herself and not tell her myself what was obvious.  It needed to be obvious to her.  He, in turn, used the fact that she heard it from a tarot reader that it "obviously wasn't true" to get her to believe him.  Which she did.  Ethics, my friend, don't use them properly and it could blow up in your face.)   


Am I telling you to use the tarot for others and run out to become a reader at the local fair tomorrow?  Sure, if you want to.  But, honestly, I think you should wait a second first.  I'd rather you use the tarot for you first.  Learn how to use these gorgeous and amazing tools for your own personal growth before you go read them for others.  But don't learn how to read them from the booklet, that never works.  And other places online will teach you how to read the meanings of the cards in a "psychic" way, which is kind of foolish if you ask me.  And yet other places will tell you silly things such as "wrap your cards in silk to keep out negative energies!"  Where is the scientific basis for that?  What studies have been done?  None, that's how many.  Instead, just follow my instructions below on how to read them for yourself. 

 

I made you a mix tape!  Okay, so it's a playlist on YouTube, same difference (my son always thinks I'm so weird when I say that phrase LOL).  These songs are based on music that I like myself, but you can make Major Arcana playlists on all sorts of different subjects.  Like self-care, 90's music, or even a single artist.  The sky is the limit!  But here is mine that I made for you to enjoy, your Songs of the Major Arcana Playlist/Mixtape: 

0-The Fool: Into the Great Wide Open by Tom Petty

1-The Magician:  Solsbury Hill by Peter Gabriel

3: The Empress: Bitch by Merideth Brooks

4: The Emperor: Simple Man by Lynyrd Skynyrd

5: The Hierophant:  Take Me to Church by Hozier

6: The Lovers: All Through the Night by Cyndi Lauper

7: The Chariot:

 

8: Strength: My Body is a Cage by Arcade Fire

9: The Hermit: Sound of Silence (Disturbed version)

10: The Wheel of Fortune: The Dog Days Are Over by Florence + The Machine

11: Justice:  What's Up by 4 Non Blondes

12: The Hanged Man: Breathe Me by Sia

13: Death: Closing Time by Semisonic

14: Temperence: Holocene by Bon Iver

15: The Devil: SOB by Nathaniel Rateliff & The Nightsweats

16: The Tower:  Lightening Crashes by Live

17: The Star: Feeling Good by Nina Simone

18: The Moon: Jar of Hearts by Christina Perri

19: The Sun: Tel Aviv'n by Matisyahu

20: Judgement:  Awake My Soul by Mumford & Sons

21: The World:  My Way by Frank Sinatra

Have fun and happy taroting (while listening to my mixtape!!) 

You can also get this worksheet and many more in my tarot journal here: 

 

I am so excited!  I finally finished the Rainy Day Tarot Journal for you to download and enjoy!!  Here is a sample of what's in it: 

It's 50 pages of tarot journaling prompts, blank journal pages, a printable mini tarot deck, some tarot spreads, various fun worksheets, major and minor arcana keywords, and a list of major arcana archetypes (something I cannot find anywhere, so I had to create one myself!).  And so much more!!  You can get yours here (just click on the cover below!)

Don't forget to pin this to your Pinterest below!!! 

 

So I put together this tarot deck (<--click here) for you and I think you'll like it :) 

To be fair, I didn't "make" it, I got it off of Canva, so you can literally go make this yourself.  But if that sounds like work to you, then I already scaled them to the right size, and made it so you can print four on a page, which turned it into six pages, instead of 22.  I printed mine on cardstock and then glued on fancy scrapbook paper (that I normally would never use) to the back and then cut them out.  And the fun part is that they're colorable!  So, if you're looking for a fun craft to do while stuck indoors this winter, then grab these cards and tag me on instagram with #rainydaytarot so I can see what you do with them!  

This is a majors only deck.  But you can do so much with them!  Like: 

1. Use them with my  printable tarot planner!
2. Use them as journaling prompts!
3. Use them with my FREE printable Activities with the Majors!
4. Use them as scrapbooking inserts, etc.  
5. Use them with the Journeymaker's Planner, which I review here!
   
6. Anything you want!

They won't really work in a Soul Archaeology reading, as they don't really have too much on them, but don't let that stop you from using them in other types of readings.  You can take traditional meanings of the tarot and use them as prompts to stir up an SA reading.  I'll show you how in my video in my next post!

 

 

 

 

Hey guys!  I hope your 2020 has been ending on a better note than it started!  So, because this year has been crazy and totally unexpected, I decided to create a quick little daily tarot planner for you to use for the coming year.  It's my gift to you as a way of saying thank you for visiting my site and good job on making it through 2020.

It's not a planner in the sense of a calendar, but rather a daily three-card reading, a weekly roundup, and a monthly five-card reading so you can plan your week and month accordingly.  And with the true Soul Archaeology way, we don't do predictions, but rather more of a "what should I concentrate on" type of reading each time.  

You can purchase the planner here! (<--click!!) and if you like it, tag us on social media as #rainydaytarotplanner. It's undated so you can use it for years on end! 

Doing a daily reading is a way to ground yourself and stay in the present moment, which is sorrily needed at this time.  Getting caught up and swept up in the news and what's going on in the world around us isn't mentally healthy for anyone.  So, keep safe, wear your mask, wash your hands, social distance, and stay home and do some tarot readings! 💓🎴🔮🤗😁