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About Tarot Reading
Performing a Reading for a Client
 There are many components of performing a reading for a client. The reader becomes a combination of storyteller, guide, and spiritual advisor to the client. Putting together classic and esoteric knowledge of the Tarot with psychic ability produces a powerful evaluation and assessment of the patterns presently at work in a client's life and where these energies are taking the client into the future.
A Tarotist's Reading Space
In Kathleen's reading space, you will always observe the following items in addition to the Tarot cards:
 A "reading" cloth. A special reading cloth provides a beautiful frame and boundary for the Tarot reading layout. It showcases the Cards and boundaries a surface upon which the reading is taking place. It also conveys a sacred message that this is a special event, which is deeply honoured and respected.
Crystals. Kathleen always uses crystals; a raw, clear crystal attached to a gold chain which she uses for cleansing the energy between readings. You would see her passing a crystal over the fanned out deck to clean the cards of energies that might have been attached during a previous reading. She has several crystal balls including a full ten inch one on a gorgeous brass stand.
Kathleen positions a small carving of the Venus of Willendorf on her reading cloth, a very special sacred object to her. Her partner carved the Venus for her for her birthday years ago. This Venus symbolizes the sacred feminine. The Goddess – divine loving energy. Most of Kathleen's clients will instinctively reach for her and hold her lovingly in their hands before the reading. Her small carved Venus is quite heavily infused with positive loving energy by now!
Experienced readers have a clear recall in the meanings of their cards, the placements of the cards in a layout pattern, and how to read the client's story as it unfolds from one card to the next in the layout. One of the keys to understanding and interpreting the relationship between the cards in a layout is how the primary elements in each card interact with each other.
Helping Clients to Formulate Helpful Questions
Some questions are easier to address in a reading. Consider questions beginning with what, where, how, and why. A "when" question is challenging to address for most readers with absolute accuracy. There are a number of methodologies Taroists use to determine the "when" of an event.
- The season of the card (ie. Wands are summer, Cups are fall, Pentacles are winter and Swords are spring),
- Cups are minutes and days, Wands are weeks, Swords are months and Pentacles are years
- The number of the card indicates how many minutes, days, weeks, months and years.
Few methods are 100% reliable. The unseen world doesn't work on the same time experience as the seen world, which is why it's impossible to attain a perfect time assessment at every reading.
The Tarot works on what one Tarotist refers to as "vast time". When we focus, carry ourselves deeply into the cards, and open our inner listening ear, we tune into this "vast time" dimension. What we perceive may be an event, feeling, or insight that has happened and is relevant to our present and future experiences. We enter a realm where past, present and future all exist at the same time.
A client is not required to ask a question and many are hesitant to do so for a myriad of reasons. If a client doesn't choose to ask a question they are faced with the complex task of translating the messages conveyed into something that makes sense in their lives. If they do ask a question, that translation work is done for them throughout the reading.
Overall the reading is far more effective and accurate when the reader is able to establish an interactive style of reading with a client who is open to asking questions.
Questions with a yes/no answer are especially difficult for Tarot interpretation:
Better suited questions are,
"What do I need to pay attention to in my relationship with _________?"
"What will the outcome be if I do ____________?"
"What am I supposed to learn from this?"
"What am I not seeing in this situation?"
If you or your client is making a choice between 2 things then you might do 2 small readings – one for each choice.
Layouts
The 3 card layout, past, present and future are helpful for a quick reading to address a single question. In a one hour reading at least 2 layouts are done and a second deck is spread out to pull single cards to answer specific questions.
Divination is a kind of reverse perception where one has to see the whole picture and work from the whole to the particular yet one must simultaneously be aware that the whole is composed of particulars. This is the challenge of reading. A reader looks at the whole pattern – breaking it down into its particulars and at the same time see how the particulars make up the whole.
Storytelling is as a rather complex skill. Proceeding slowly, the reader must take time to reflect deeply upon each card. The outcome card stands alone. Serene in both promise and threat. If the outcome card appears frightening, then a reader must look back over the reading for the direction for change which the rest of the reading suggests.
It's always helpful to glance at the bottom card of the deck at the very end of the reading. It's typically a significant comment yet it was not destined to be in the reading proper. It represents another consideration, an afterword, an extension. It surprising how often it turns out to be the most appropriate comment to the client!
For example:
Following a reading for an executive at the Royal York Hotel before being invited to read in their High Tea venue, Kathleen quickly glanced at the bottom card. It was the Mother of Cups which in the deck she was reading (Haindl) was the Venus of Willendorf! As soon as she saw this card, she felt a warm glow all around her and felt that Star confidence that the reading had been a success. Shortly after this reading she was invited to read weekly at the Royal York.
What was even more interesting is when the client was asked about this bottom card,
Kathleen said, "I'm looking at the Mother of Cups. You wouldn't happen to be pregnant would you?"
The client laughed and said no.
A year later she called Kathleen to say that she's pregnant which was a total, joyous surprise but she remembered Kathleen's comment at her reading a year earlier and she wanted another one done right away!
The power of that bottom card can never be overestimated!
Example of Individual Interpretations
Depending on the reader, even the same layout and cards in a reading can be interpreted completely differently. A student doing an imaginary reading for her aunt who had just reunited with an old boyfriend, asked if their relationship would continue to grow or break up again.
Star (Past) Tower (Present) Death (Future)
- One student saw the Star pointing to the power of their physical relationship. Another saw the Star pointing to the woman pouring herself into the relationship.
- One student saw the Tower as a growing awareness in this woman that she depended upon this man more than she thought she did. An acknowledgeable of how not in control she is.
- Another saw it as the ultimate destruction of the relationship.
- Another student said she saw the Tower as representing how they had built a relationship which is now breaking down because something happened. Lightening struck and it's breaking the relationship apart.
- One student saw the Death card as the complete dissolution of this woman's pride and therefore a softening towards him and acceptance of his faults and vulnerability. Another student saw the Death card depicting him on a horse riding out of town and the complete end of the relationship. Another student declared that the things she is finding difficult to let go of in this relationship, in the future she will find easy.
All Tarot readers are unique in personality, gifts and experience. The perfect fit between client and reader will not be the same for everyone. Kathleen is always happy to refer clients to readers she believes will be a better fit for a particular client. Many of her graduate students are wonderful readers and she refers clients to them regularly!
If either the client or reader deems the reading unhelpful or banal to the client then it's important to be honest about this failure to connect. Don't hesitate to be honest and ask!
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Phone Readings with Kathleen
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