Thank you, I'll be here all week.

I don’t own a pair of tap shoes. No lady of sound mind would ever let me try to saw her in half. And I definitely can’t sing, as my long-suffering dachshund, Millie, can attest. In short, I’m not much of a performer. And that’s true when it comes to tarot, too.

Many people come to tarot expecting a performance, though. They’ve been led to believe the reader will give pronouncements, make predictions, or issue warnings. That’s not how I approach it. I can’t channel something extraordinary on demand. I do have a superpower, though. It’s listening. Although you’ll never see a Marvel movie about that. (“Ear Man to the rescue!!” hmmm...doesn’t quite work.)

I see tarot as a conversation; one that begins with the cards, the ideas they introduce, the themes they point to, and the questions they raise. From there, it’s about me and the querent talking it through so that things click and he or she finds a path forward.

Conversation lays fertile ground for intuition to grow, and that intuition can show up in many different ways. Sometimes I get a strong “hit” on what a card means to convey. Sometimes it’s a more subtle feeling of “just knowing.” But most of the time my intuition arrives when I’m listening, noticing when something important comes up (an idea spoken, a gesture made, an expression seen). It’s my role to recognize these things for what they are—something asking for attention—and to help the querent explore them in ways that lead to insight or fresh perspective. Tarot isn’t meant to deliver certainty. It’s meant to help you think more deeply.

Some people are surprised to hear all this. It’s that whole Hollywood version I talked about in the previous post. But once they get it, they relax. Tarot is a lot less foreign or mysterious when you think of it in the terms I’ve been describing. When people loosen up, things really begin to flow. A card will spark a memory the querent hadn't thought about in years. Or a simple question causes them to say, "Oh wow. I think I know what this is about." They go from expecting life-altering predictions to feeling deep resonance, and you can see this mental shift change them physically. The tension melts off them as they reframe the reading. I love witnessing this.

It’s simple, really. It’s not like the cards have one correct meaning and it’s my job to remember the keywords that trigger that meaning. I think we can all agree that people are more complicated than rote keywords. It’s that the cards are more like a doorway we step through that leads to the true destination: a conversation.

This is why technology can never replace a tarot reading. Computers are remarkably good at organizing information, finding patterns, and creating foundations. I use them for these and other slogs all the time. But they can’t articulate the questions someone hasn't found the courage or the words to ask. They can’t recognize when the question someone asked at the beginning of the reading isn't the one they really came to explore.

It’s in these nuanced exchanges where tarot does its best work. Not by predicting a future that's already been written, or by revealing secret knowledge hidden somewhere in the universe. But by creating a conversation honest enough that people hear and see themselves more clearly.