The Best Questions To Ask Tarot
I am writing a new blog series, Tarot For Beginners, in the goal of demystifying tarot for beginners interested in the tool but not sure exactly where to begin.
Tarot, like many esoteric practices, can be daunting to the eager novice. No matter how keen you are, that initial threshold can be difficult to move past without the right teacher.
Unlike oracle cards, you do need an understanding of tarot’s structure and the major archetypes, as well as the significance of the elements and numbers for you to not feel overwhelmed by 78 keys. Especially if you are not a psychic or intuitive reader.
Yet once you put in the work to understand the cards, and start to recognize their energetic presence in the world, it helps train your ability to stay present. Most importantly in my perspective, working with tarot strengthens your confidence in yourself by unlocking your capacity for non-rational knowledge, as tarot strengthens your intuitive gifts over time.
I work with tarot nearly every day because in this way, it becomes alive - a real practice. Like with any spiritual practice, it is important for practitioners to work with the cards every day. Spirituality is modern-day mysticism - it is about sourcing your own connection to the divine.
In our post-Enlightenment society, we tend to oversimplify and ridicule the esoteric arts. We are skeptical that it’s real or valuable. If it’s not real, it means it’s fake. A lie. And that if it works to help people improve their lives, because it’s not real, it’s a placebo effect. The thing is, the downside to a societal worldview driven by rational knowledge is that it seems there cannot be room for more than one truth to coexist at the same time.
Where I’m coming from at this particular moment in time, tarot is an intuitive tool for tapping into our individual and collective subconscious. Using the language of symbols, it allows us to pull from the depths and the shadows. Much of our consciousness we are not aware of, and tarot helps to draw this out. Tarot shows me, by the grace of the universe, what I feel deep within my bones on a visceral level, even if it may not be as easy to articulate.
Beginning a relationship with tarot involves asking the right questions.
You might be vaguely familiar with tarot as a tool for providing answers about big life changes.
Will I meet the love of my life? Will I get a promotion at work?
Oftentimes, I receive new tarot clients who come when they have just gone through a big life change. Coming to tarot or to a spiritual practice is common when we feel we need more direction in our lives. There is nothing wrong with that. I also have clients who practice and seek out spiritual practitioners for a whim. If there is one thing to remember, your spiritual practice is a source of joy. I don’t just go to my practice when I am angry or sad but when I am happy.
Don’t feel like you can only go to tarot for life and death questions. You can ask tarot big life questions and you can ask tarot just about anything.
Of course, there are caveats. In Holistic Tarot, Benebell Wen talks about inappropriate questions to ask tarot, and these are questions that would necessitate giving legal or medical advice, as there are professionals whose jobs exist in order to fulfill this function.
That being said, it doesn’t mean tarot isn’t conducive for practical matters, or that you can’t ask yes-or-no questions, but that figuring out what question to ask tarot can be difficult.
If you’re coming up blank, here are general questions that you can ask tarot to help you when you’re feeling stuck.
1. Should I do x?/What may happen if I do/don’t do x?/What does x reveal about my current circumstances/values?
In Bali, I ended up reading the cards for my friends (and for all of my teachers!) that I made in my yoga teacher training. I never talked about my tarot practice, but as it happens when you start to follow each other on social media, you start to see what the person is all about. One friend in particular and I bonded over our love of tarot. We asked tarot many questions, and some of them revolved around travel.
I remember one of the cards that came up, I saw 6 of Swords. This card has always struck me as a moving on card, and I interpreted this in a literal manner. My friend gave their honest feedback that it did not resonate with them, and I believe her. But I also noticed she ended up moving from one island to another within a few weeks!
I’ll give a personal example.
When I was contemplating the interview process for a yoga retreat job, I went to my cards. I felt excited. Desperate. Scared. I didn’t know what I was feeling! But I had a conversation with tarot, and a lot of my cards instinctively struck a doom and gloom chord within me. However, I decided to find other interpretations that would better suit my fantasy life.
I didn’t end up going far in the interview process but I still remember 10 of Swords, 9 of Wands, 5 of Cups, and The Fool showing up. I was having an extended conversation with tarot, and I can remember each subsequent spread that those cards came from seemed to mock me. Tarot was speaking!
Why was I panicking about a job I haven’t even received an offer on? Why was my friend set against hearing of one potential outcome?
In my personal example, work and travel had become intertwined. Due to personal life experiences that I had/have barely begun to process, I had a deep longing to travel that I never had, and this potential work opportunity seemed like a practical avenue to pursue this. I was disappointed by what tarot was saying to me but I gained from the archetypes that showed up for me - I gained by digging deeper into the cause of my question.
What is interesting is not so much about the prediction, although that is part of the draw of tarot, but what it reveals about the seeker. When you are asking if you should do something, it tends to reveal where you are at.
2. A decision has been made. What do I do now?
Before I went to Bali, there was logistics to take care of, like setting up time to go to the travel clinic, checking incoming funds and outcoming funds, and having my cards read by my tarot teacher and mentor. I had my cards read on three major areas: What to expect, how to prepare, and how to reap the most out of the experience.
Having my tarot cards read right before my big trip was essential to the success of my travels. Prior to my cards being written, I was falling more in love with the fantasy of being a hermit. I had purchased all the course reading materials and planned in September to focus on longform writing. Yes. It was my subversive fantasy to imagine myself reading and writing for days on end.
When I got my cards read, I received 2 of Cups. 10 of Cups. The Devil. These were some of my more prominent cards based on the three areas.
I was receiving messages about 2 of Cups as autonomy and being together. 10 of Cups in terms of opening up to harmony and The Devil to claim my agency and to liberate myself as a Leo Rising (with Chiron in Leo, oof!) to have the freedom to unbind myself. To be spontaneous.
After this powerful session, I reflected and journaled and allowed myself to ease up. I didn’t end up having my hermit time. In fact, I was only by myself for 5 days out of the 8 weeks I was in Bali. I ended up spending my time outside of my training with my dear friend and travel companion. Although I did not write or read as much as I anticipated, I journaled more and I practiced yoga and tarot more. I go through my previous journals and see the richness therein.
The main message of being spontaneous I took to heart so much that I was known among my cohort for never saying no to something! I went to waterfalls, a secret temple party, a vocalization workshop, and so much more that I would not have experienced if I felt I needed to stay at home.
3. How do I navigate this ongoing situation?
You’re currently in a situation and you’d like to change, but you’re not sure what. A situation can also be a state of consciousness.
This year, I did a lot of personal work around my rage, friendship, and accountability. Sifting through my developmental years, understanding my communication style, feeling into my body’s physiological responses, and relying upon conversations with my tarot cards.
I wanted to know when it would get better. Was I going to continue to repeat the same patterns that kept me staying small? What was it all about? How could I remember who I am?
I was also experimenting with tarot spreads, shadows, and chakras. During one of these experiments, I was using Emma Zhang’s Dream Vision Tarot, and in my chakra spread about my general vibe, I was struck by the Knight of Cups, so much so that I began to sleep with this archetype underneath my pillow.
Talismans are objects that are made to have a specific energy and oftentimes it is about protection but not always. The Knight of Cups became a talisman of sorts for me. It came to me in a reading and I felt the energy of the Knight calling to me.
I wanted to move to love. I wanted to move to forgiveness. I wanted to move forward. I saw this Knight of Cups open for love because she has been buried by its opposite. She no longer wanted this for herself, and was willing to go to great distances with a pure heart, to find love aligned to their ideals about the world.
This was a key healing moment for me this year. The Knight of Cups helped anchor me when I forgot who I was. In an ongoing but murky situation, the Knight of Cups reminded me the love that I want to receive and to give is not an ideal but real.
4. How do I relate to one another?
This gets into the ethics of whether or not to read for third-parties without their consent. If you’re not sure what this means, it means reading about someone who is not with you and/or without their consent. For the purpose of this blog post, I will say that we are social creatures. We know ourselves through others. And that we will see people, past, present, and future, show up in our cards. It’s natural to want to know how we can have better relationships with ourselves and with others, because we need community.
One of my daily tarot pulls in Bali, I pulled the 3 of Cups and The Devil from the borderless Smith-Waite. My body kept the score, and my nervous system went ping! Okay, I’m being dramatic for the thrill of it. After my mind went through worst-case scenarios, it ahelped me to stay centred. Whatever arises, the symbols that show up are asking, how do you feel about me today?
Is there resistance or acceptance within me to what that symbol offers? It can be a rhetorical or literal offering. We know that there is a difference between receiving the message and interpreting it are two different things.
And that morning, I saw conflict among the friends that I made in teacher training. That was the worst case scenario for me. It was nearing the end of our training together where we were buckling down to finish our exams.
In fact, what happened was a powerful affirmation of how I have changed when it comes to friendships. I realized I was able to free myself from the shackles of respectability and deference to authority figures that, in the past, prevented me from standing up for my friends. I was able to see that someone in power, although they had been hurt, that that did not mean I had to be loyal to them at the expense of my friends.
This transmission was so powerful for me, as I started to unravel how I fawned over authority figures, that I had fallen into this behaviour without realizing it on a conscious level, but feeling unsettled on an unconscious one. I was able to retrieve this part of myself, to shed light onto this blind spot of me through tarot.
Key Takeaways: What Does The Question You Ask Tarot Reveal About You?
I hope that my personal experiences with tarot, reading for myself and others and receiving readings, have helped you understand what general questions to ask tarot.
I also hope that you saw that I didn’t always have a specific question but that I ended up receiving what I needed. It’s also okay to pull cards without any question in mind. In fact, just having a conversation with tarot has been deeply healing for me when my nervous system is unsettled and I become overcome with emotions.
It does take time to have a relationship with tarot but it’s incredibly rewarding for anyone that wants to know more about themselves - all the parts of themselves- more intimately in an empowering fashion.
Written By: Irene Lo