Behind the Deck
What happens before the first card is turned? A look inside Louise’s tarot practice, the decks she works with and why sometimes the most interesting part of a reading begins before a single card is laid down.
Behind the Deck
What happens before the first card is turned?
There’s a little moment before every reading that I really enjoy.
The cards are there. The question is there. And then I have to decide which deck I’m going to use.
It sounds simple enough.
It isn’t always.
Sometimes I know immediately which deck I want. Other times I’ll look through them and find myself drawn to one particular deck without really knowing why.
It might be the artwork. A colour. The feeling of the cards in my hands. Or simply the fact that one deck keeps catching my eye.
I don’t think there always has to be a complicated explanation for it.
Sometimes you just know.
Every deck has its own personality
One of the things I love about working with different decks is that they don’t all make me look at things in the same way.
The traditional meaning of a card might be familiar, but then you notice the image itself.
Sometimes something that seems completely insignificant suddenly becomes the thing I keep coming back to.
That’s why I don’t like rushing through cards.
For me, the picture is often where the conversation starts.
I might notice something in a card that isn’t part of its traditional meaning at all. A person’s expression, the way they’re standing, something tucked away in the background. Sometimes it’s a tiny detail that catches my attention and makes me look at the card completely differently.
That’s one of the things I love about tarot. You can know a card inside out and still notice something new in it.
They can remind us of something. They can raise a question. They can make us see a situation from an angle we hadn’t considered before.
Sometimes I even find myself disagreeing with the first impression I had of a card.
And that’s okay.
There isn’t always an obvious answer
I think that’s one of the things people sometimes misunderstand about tarot.
You don’t have to look at a card and immediately know exactly what it means.
Sometimes the most useful thing a card can do is make you pause.
For me, a reading is a conversation.
The cards are part of that conversation, but so is the person sitting across from me, their question, their experiences and the things they notice along the way.
There is always another card to turn over.
And quite often, another way of looking at it.
So which deck is the right one?
Honestly?
Sometimes I haven’t got a clue until I pick it up.
And I quite like that.
There is something lovely about not needing to have everything worked out before you begin.
You can be curious.
You can look again.
You can discover something you didn’t expect to find.
Maybe that’s one of the reasons I’ve stayed fascinated by tarot for so long.
There is always another card to turn over.
And quite often, another way of looking at it.
If you have a tarot or oracle deck, do you have a favourite card?
I’d love to know which one it is, and more importantly, why that particular card means something to you.