I Don’t Get It No. 1: Advice for When Readings Don’t Resonate

Note: This post originally came from my Instagram account (@arcanesenses).

Have you ever experienced pulling cards and nothing seems to make any sense?

I have (and still do sometimes) and that’s normal. Fundamentally, I know the card’s basic “traditional” meanings, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it will always be a meaningful or useful interpretation. No matter how good you are with being a tarot reader, there will be moments where you will draw a blank or nothing seems to resonate in line with a question or situation you are reading for.

That’s why I created an approach for myself to help spark my intuition, which I will be sharing in the following Arcane Lessons posts. Who knows, it might help you with your struggles too!

HOT TIP: Look at the card’s imagery with relaxed eyes and see what stands out.

Focusing on a specific aspect of the image can help you get to an interpretation that might be out of its textbook definition. Here are a few things you can use to excavate a potentially rich interpretation:

• The esoteric symbolism in the cards (i.e. astrological glyphs, magical symbolism, etc.) – more on this on the next advice post.
• A character’s facial expression and body language.
• The pattern a suit creates (for non-illustrated pips).
• Interactions between the images of several cards.
• The colours in a scene and its correspondences.

Jumping into this technique can be overwhelming for a beginner and I see the value in learning the foundations and “meanings” for each card. However, we tend to forget that the imagery holds the information we can use. That’s why we are called readers because we read what’s in the cards.

That’s why we are called readers because we read what’s in the cards.