Meditating with the Tarot – A Unique and Fun Way to Meditate
© Kathleen Meadows, M.A. Certified Psychic and Tarot Grandmaster
The Tarot can be used for meditation, as it can help to focus the mind and promote relaxation.
The themes, symbols and imagery of the Tarot serve beautifully as a meditation tool. The Tarot may act as a spiritual guide to discovering more about your inner self. Visualized meditations tap into the unconscious mind and create spontaneous mental images. The response that we have to these images can be revealing and may bring to light hidden aspects of our personalities. When we connect with this new awareness, it can act as a spur for our future growth and development. It can direct us to a deeper and more meaningful sense of who we are, and what is unfolding in our lives presently.
There are a number of different ways to meditate with the Tarot, such as using the cards for visualization or using them to focus on a particular question or issue.
Meditation works as a conduit connecting us to the pictures on the cards in a direct way. The Tarot serves to develop our intuition. In order to follow this guided meditation, it’s helpful to read the instructions into a tape recorder, and when you’re ready to do this meditation exercise, follow your recorded instructions. Or you might ask a friend to read this guided meditation out loud while you relax and immerse yourself in the process.
I participated in a meditation class guided by an elderly Buddhist. The Buddhist-Guide would suggest a methodology which we would practice as a group together during class, and then at home the following week. I had explored various meditation methodologies laid down in Yoga practice so I wasn’t new to the practice.
Nothing I learned in this class compared to the assistance, and guidance offered by the Tarot particularly in a meditation exercise involving visualization, imagination and insight. The following exercise is one I practice often and recommend to my Tarot students. Many have found this exercise especially helpful in learning the meaning of the cards! Oracle cards, or any other type of pictorial wisdom cards, will also work for this exercise if you don’t own a Tarot deck.
To begin, enter a state of relaxation, drawing upon systems you have learned in the past. Step outside the usual demands of your daily life and sit comfortably and straight inhibiting the inclination to fidget.
Place the card you wish to explore handy. In this state of deep relaxation, let thoughts and plans and problems begin to slide away and breathe deeply.
When meditating with the Tarot, it is important to choose a deck that resonates with you and to focus on your breath.
With eyes closed, focusing on your breath, reach out for the nearby card. Hold it in both hands and feel its energy. Open your eyes and look at your card as if seeing it for the first time. Take in all the details, colour, and characters. Close your eyes again and visualize the card in front of you. Open your eyes and look again. What details did you miss? Now close your eyes again and set down the card. Once more, see it before you. Let the picture become bigger, the size of a large book, then a window, then a doorway.
Imagine the card as a doorway to another world. Step across the doorway and enter that world. Look around in that world, feel the ground, the breezes, smell the air, hear any noises of birds or people or wind.
As you look around, notice the characters from the original picture. They are active now, moving and speaking. You feel drawn to these characters.
As you approach the characters one attracts you more than the others. You feel a special bond with this figure. It feels familial. This warm character asks you to come closer and as you approach this figure, it offers you a special gift. You accept this gift and you give your new friend a gift in return.
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It’s time to go now. Say goodbye to your new-found friend. You glance behind and note the doorway behind you. You step backward through it so that the three-dimensional world is once more on the other side of the doorway. In the reverse order of earlier, the doorway shrinks back to the size of a window. Once again the other reality is now the Tarot card. Upon completing this meditation, sit quietly for a moment. Take a deep breath, and when you release that breath, open your eyes. Write and draw what you experienced throughout this mediation.
Use these questions to guide journaling of your experience,
- What gift did you receive from your ally?
- What gift did you offer your ally in return?
- What words were exchanged between you and your ally?
- What other information did you take in through your five physical senses? For example, did you smell or taste anything? Did you feel a breeze on your skin, or the heat of the sun, or cold of the night? What else could you hear besides the words of your ally?
- What feelings were evoked in you throughout the meditation experience?
- What insights did you have about your present situation, or how you got to this place in your life? I promise you that practicing this exercise every day for 21 days will change your world view, your view of yourself and your life.
