Tracy began her own Tarot journey while recovering from her first son's
birth on New Year's Eve, 1996. She tried to study on her own for nearly
a year, picking up what she could from books and websites, but she had a
lot of trouble piecing everything together. Through membership in
the American Tarot Association, she met the contacts and gained the
expertise needed to gain her certification as a Certified Tarot Master.
Tracy uses a variety of decks to gain a
fresh perspective on problems, or to point out ideas or issues she might
not have considered otherwise. She admits that she can't predict the
future, but does believe that working with the cards can help "move life
forward."
She's honored to serve as Manager for
both the Free Reading Network
and the Free Tarot Network. She
is also the excellent Treasurer of the ATA. Please
contact Tracy at
Admin@freereading.us.
|
|
Dealing with sibling rivalries and longing
for love are pretty common reasons for clients to seek the advice of a
tarot reading. What if Cinderella’s fairy godmother had pulled out a
deck of tarot cards instead of a magic wand? The results might have
been something like “Looking for Mr. Right,” one of the 22 “Ask
KnightHawk” readings featured in Tarot Tells the Tale. If you
aren’t yet familiar with James’ column through various tarot e-lists
over the past few years, he uses three-card readings to offer advice
to characters from Joan of Arc to Winston Churchill, from Abel to
Aristotle. These real readings for fictional consultations provide a
wide variety of examples for handling tough questions, interpreting
reversed cards, and pulling individual meanings together into a
cohesive whole. |
from Llewellyn Publications
Author: James Ricklef
ISBN 0-7387-0272-2 |
Once a novice reader has
learned some basic meanings for each card, taking that next step toward
reading can be difficult. Merely looking at finished readings often is not
enough to figure out how those results were obtained. Beyond these
examples, James also goes into the process behind developing a reading.
His extensive commentary on each reading discusses topics such as why he
chose a particular spread, why he chose to interpret a card one way rather
than another, and sometimes why he chose to answer a particular question
for a character. He also demonstrates how to break down the daunting
Celtic Cross into more manageable mini-readings, and how to explore the
multiple interactions between the cards. Additional articles provide more
in-depth information on dealing with reversals, rephrasing and
understanding questions, choosing or creating spreads, and finally how to
bring it all together.
The bulk of the readings
follow the Major Arcana from zero through twenty-one. A few cards are
represented by the character or the question itself, as in the Moon-like
subterfuge of Lady Macbeth. The main appendix offers a brief overview of
each of the 78 cards, including a line or two of advice it might offer in
a one-card daily reading. The second appendix cross-references the
readings by card for the 60% or so of the deck appearing throughout the
book. I noticed the three cards pictured on the cover aren’t listed in
this appendix, so I decided to use them for a three-card freeform reading
of my own.
Question: What advice
does Tarot Tells the Tale offer us?
Eight of Swords –
Don’t be afraid! The biggest stumbling block for most fledgling readers is
simply a lack of confidence. It might not be easy, but tarot reading isn’t
as hard as it seems once you get started.
Knight of Wands –
Trust your passion. Your first instinct on seeing a card is usually a
message from your intuition. Let it ride forth and show you the way.
Lovers – Reading
is a series of partnerships. The interactions between you and your
intuition, and between you and your clients, are what turn a set of rote
definitions into a real reading.
Summary: Let
Tarot Tells the Tale help you overcome your fears and learn to trust
your instincts along your journey to better reading. |