When I was writing about the tarot on my writing Substack I felt free, I rejoiced in the enthusiasm of the amateur, the freedom of the random discovery.

Ever since I created a separate Substack, just because they were getting muddled, I started to feel a bit pressured to be more serious, more professional, which my brain dislikes deeply and rejects automatically. So, in a way, the perceived responsibility pushed me away from writing whatever crosses my mind about the tarot …

But then, I realized this is a fake sense of pressure, it is something I create by myself for my own misery. I do love a bit of misery me!

Nobody has any expectations from me, and I don’t need to become yet another didactic person talking about the tarot.

My strength is in my passion and in my own personal view and experience.

I have my own voice, my own view, my own world, so, my Tarotery will be just that, my unique way of dealing with the cards, reading them, seeing them, writing about them.

I love the Tarot, I don’t know why, I just have a passion for it, and despite being a person that becomes really obsessive about something, but then suddenly loses interest, I did not lose interest in the tarot. On the contrary, my passion grew and now I have I don’t know how many tarot decks and books about the tarot.

On every trip we take, I drag my very patient better half to books shops or esoteric shops to check out what I can find.

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I want to share with you all of these wonderful things that I have found and I am lucky to have in my life.

I want to tell you about the strange and wonderful tarot decks I have, about the books I read (in full or partial), I want to share with you my own experience with the tarot.

The internet is full of resources and of guides, you can buy whatever deck you want now online, it is a great time to be a tarot enthusiast, and this is what my Tarotery is about, the enthusiasm and the passion for the Tarot.

The Tarot will not tell you the future, but it will center you, it will support you on your journey and it will keep you company.

It will give your mind space to be creative and it will give you strength by clarifying to yourself the path you want to be on.

The Tarot is not about witches and dark forces, it is about the being projected onto the cards, thus becoming infused with your own personal magic.

I hope you will join me on my travels in the world of the Tarot and that the Tarotery will be a comfortable oasis of quiet and joy.

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Reading and discovering about the Tarot is a very enjoyable pass time for me. It is like when you have to do some work around the house, but you like doing it so much that it is not really a chore, but something that relaxes you and energizes you.

The same with my reading about Tarot, with the difference that I read other people’s work and some books are easier to follow, some are more difficult, some make it more interesting, some are just stating facts and make the process a bit dry.

During this process of learning about the tarot I have started to have favorites among the writers I read from. This post is about them.

I have no interest to write about the books that make it hard to understand, mainly because I did not spend that much time on them. I usually pick my resources after a bit of research, and I have been lucky enough so far to find some really good authors.

I am 100% sure that there are many more out there and I look forward to discovering them, for now I can just speak of some of the ones that I discovered so far.

My top three favorites would be Liz Dean, Barbara Moore and Anthony Louis. Although recently I discovered a French author and deck creator that I quite like, Emanuelle Iger.

But of course I am also looking into the greats Rachel Pollack, Mary K. Greer, Paul Fenton-Smith, Liz Greene. I have browsed Eden Gray and Arthur Edward Waite, looked through Aleister Crowley, and I think I have many more years ahead of enjoying my learning process. A thing wonderful to know.

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The amount of materials and the number of tarot decks out there is absolutely mind boggling. It is a great time to be a wanna-be tarot expert, or how you prefer to title yourself. I have chosen for myself the title of tarot enthusiast.

I am not a reader as I do not do readings, I am not an expert as I have loads more to learn, but for sure I am an enthusiast as I am fascinated by the symbolism, the overlapping of archetypes and the evolution of tarot through the ages.

With a new passion comes a new collection, what else! And this is a tarot decks collection. I have read that there are people that have thousands of decks, I can totally believe that. When visiting Amsterdam I had the chance to visit an esoteric shop that, amongst other things, had an impressive collection of tarot and oracle decks.

While I am not that much into oracle decks, I am fascinated by the tarot ones, and I was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of decks there. They also have some old decks, but sadly I did not have time to make an appointment to see them. On another occasion maybe.

I have started a little collection of my own with decks that caught my eye. As I am fascinated with things being differently than one expects, I fell in love with a Giant Rider-Waite-Smith Deck I had to wait one month for to come from the States. They did not disappoint. They are indeed giant, the quality is very good and they are great for learning as you can see all the details on them.

I like the Rider-Waite-Smith ones the best and most that I have are variations on it, but I also have Liz Greene’s Mythic Tarot, which is a great match for me as I have a keen interest in mythology. I also have the Wonderland Tarot and the Classic Tarot created by Barbara Moore with art by Eugene Smith, which has the most amazing images.

I have some fancy ones, Dali’s and Sola Busca, but just for fun, as I do not see myself ever using them in a reading. It is nice to have them though, they are very special.

I have an idea of doing a ‘deck reviews’ section with the decks that I like. Just a thought.

It is a huge world of tarot out there and it is so wonderful to be part of it, to study it and to learn from it.

It is a great moment in time to be a tarot enthusiast. Yey!

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The One-Card Reading and The Daily Draw are an easy, accessible way of starting to read the tarot and to get used to the cards. They are two different things though.

The One-Card Reading is a one card draw that you can use to clarify a situation or an idea.

The Daily Draw is, usually, a one card draw that enthusiasts and practitioners use as focus for contemplation. The Daily Draw is also recommended when learning the tarot, as it allows students to get familiar with the cards pressure free, to study them for a longer period of time so as to discover their meanings.

Although, both techniques seem simple as they are based on one card, don’t be fooled by their simplicity because they are powerful tools that can support you in your development.

For this post I wanted to pull a card just as an example of Daily Draw, but when I was shuffling the cards my mind wandered to an actual concern in my life and without intending it the Daily Draw became a One-Card Reading, as my mind formulated a question for the cards.

The card that I drew is the Ten of Pentacles.

The Ten of Pentacles is a YES card and in the upright position it is a positive card.

When you are starting out and it is difficult to get to grips with the meaning and symbols of a card it can be useful to have a good meanings book to guide you.

I have The Big Book of Tarot Meanings by Sam Magdaleno. While it does not give you the precise answer it does point you in the right direction. It is nice that in the book meanings are split into categories so it is easy to identify your response area. You have for example: family, love, career, money etc.

If you pulled the Ten of Pentacles and your question was regarding Health, yours or somebody in your circle, then the Ten of Pentacles would show that you are interested in long term health, and as it is a positive card it shows that there is nothing to worry in the long run. Important to mention though that the cards look at the situation right now.

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If tomorrow you started eating a ton of cake each day then the situation would change. So your free will is your free will. You control your path through the macro and micro decisions you take each day. We do not control everything, but many things we do, and those that we can control can make a difference to the big picture.

Some symbols from the Ten of Pentacles:

In the Rider-Waite-Smith cards that I use the pentacles are spread out in the shape of the tree of life. This points to maturity and completeness.

The number 10 again points to completeness, so the Ten of Pentacles shows happy stability, inside and out.

The card shows three generations and pets, so this stability extends beyond the day to day and it becomes trans-generational.

If your use reversed cards and read reversed meanings then the card points to unexpected changes in circumstances.

If you decide to give The One-Card Reading and The Daily Draw a go all the books that I have read recommend you track the cards you draw in your tarot journal and record there your impressions and how it made you feel or think.

I must confess I recently started a tarot journal myself and I track there the cards I draw and what I learn. It has a few other benefits plus it helps the information better stick in my mind.

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I love my tarot, and a side of it which I find extremely fascinating is how it can be whatever you need it to be. It can be a divination tool, it can support self-development, or it can help you navigate the intricacies of day to day life.

And I think we really need that. There are moments when you are all alone with your head buzzing with good or bad things, in urgent need of a way to quiet the mind and restore some order.

Also, sometimes we cannot express what is inside, not even to ourselves, and having a tool that easily connects to our psyche and can give use something to go on, is priceless.

If you have learnt about the tarot is great but if you haven’t it is great also, because the archetypal nature of the tarot makes is open to absolutely everybody interested in using it.

Plus, if you are passionate about something, have a search, there is a chance there might be a deck created around that. There are so many gorgeous decks out there starting from the Rider-Waite-Smith, which makes them easy to recognize and work with.

An amazing book I wholeheartedly recommend is Mary K. Greer’s Tarot for your self, it is an oldie but goodie, an important work that contributed greatly to the way the tarot is perceived and used.

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It is one of the books I study from, as it is that kind of workbook that needs to be taken slowly and understood, it has exercises and prescriptions.

For example, (I opened the book at random, as I wanted to give you a bit of information on the spot about the book.) it has a chapter dedicated to Dealing with Moods, Emotions and Relationships. In this chapter the author provides actual exercises that you can do with pen and paper to support you when facing difficult times.

It opens with an exercise that you can use when your mood is a bit low.

At the end of each chapter there are items suggested for further reading, if you are interested to grow your knowledge about certain techniques or pieces of information.

I think on a certain level I always had a soft spot for the tarot.

I remember when I was a teenager Cosmopolitan put out an edition that had a Major Arcana Cosmopolitan deck. The cards had a lovely matte finish and they depicted Cosmo women for all the cards. The drawings had vibrant colors and amusing images. I loved those cards so much, sadly I do not know what happened to them over the years.

Happily, now, I have other cards I love and enjoy, it is a really good time to have an interest in the tarot as the resources out there abound. Of course this means that there is a lot of noise out there also, but with patience you can sift through it to find the really good resources.

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