I've been working with the Tarot for about eight months now. I was comfortable using runes, but the Tarot was giving me fits. Its only been in the past few months that I've finally had some breakthroughs in being able to "read" rather than having to lookup "meanings" and almost give myself a headache trying to work all of the information together into a coherent message.
That's why I'm posting here ... for those who may be new to Tarot and having trouble. My breakthrough came when I finally let go of worrying about what I was "supposed" to see and simply let the cards speak to me. I've always known I was a little thick and stubborn about some things (read: most things!), <img src="/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" /> but this one took me an unusually long time to learn: just let intuition in and the cards will speak for themselves <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />. And yes, the time spent studying the individual cards themselves along with interpretational books certainly made me more familiar with the traditional readings, but ... that's not always of much help when you move to other decks that use different images and even slightly different configurations of suits (i.e. the Goddess Deck uses Prince and Princess cards instead of the Rider-Waite Pages and Knights) so it can get a little confusing. Also doesn't help worth a darn when you end up with what seems to be conflicting information! Now I spend more time in relaxing and focusing before a spread, rather than so long making notes and trying to impose meaning onto the cards. Now the cards' voices don't get drowned out by the noise of the rusty-geared racket of my own brain. Funny thing is that runes demand that you let go of trying to impose meaning, yet because I got caught in all of the books' instructions ... I forgot what 'reading" really involves <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> Now I look forward to my time with my cards, and I often start my day (and end it, too) by simply pulling a random card to meditate on. It's been fun watching how those draws seem to grow more and more pertinent to my everyday issues.
Note: Once I got past the overwhelming sensation of information-overload, I really found Rachel Pollack's book, "78 Degrees of Wisdom" to be helpful in broading my understanding of the way the cards work together. She's also given me the courage to begin creating my own spreads and using 'mandalas'.
