From Curiosity to Spiritual Awakening: My Tarot Journey

My love affair with astrology introduced me to the world of tarot back in December 2020. Like many people during the pandemic, I joined the app Clubhouse and found myself participating in rooms where I could learn more about astrology. These discussions also exposed me to other spiritual & esoteric topics like meditation & mindfulness, crystal healing, tarot, ancestral veneration, psychic/intuitive abilities, and more. One day, I joined a room where people were offering individual tarot readings to listeners and by this time I was super curious so I had to sign up! 

The first reading I received kickstarted an awakening for me. Not only was I encouraged to get my own deck, but I also received profound guidance from my ancestors, reaffirming my belief in my intuitive abilities and offering me tips on how to nurture them. By MLK weekend in January 2021, I was all in. I headed to a local spiritual shop and walked out with my very first tarot deck and a ‘baby spiritualist starter pack’ – a set of crystals, smudge sticks, incense, an abalone shell, a pendulum, reference books, the works! I was so excited to dive in, I wanted to get my hands on everything I thought I needed at once. [And no – contrary to popular belief, you do not have to be gifted your first tarot deck by someone else! If you are drawn to get a deck for yourself, do it!]

The shop was out of stock of the original Rider-Waite-Smith (RWS for short) tarot deck, so I was drawn to the Motherpeace deck instead. I knew that most decks are based on the RWS framework, so I figured it couldn’t do any harm to use a different deck to start getting my feet wet. I spent hours reading for myself every day, especially on new & full moons to get clarity & guidance on the intentions I needed to set or the energy I needed to release for the next few weeks. 

The more time I spent reading, the more I wanted a more streamlined learning experience and most tarot resources referenced the RWS deck. While I appreciated my Motherpeace deck, I wanted to strengthen my foundation with the traditional tarot symbolism, keywords, and meanings, so I got my first RWS deck to build up my knowledge. Once I got more practice with RWS, I started to read for my friends & family to strengthen my skills, testing how accurate my readings were and what insights I could share with people other than myself. 

I suddenly began to notice tarot-related imagery & symbolisms everywhere! I’ve always been into anime, and in my favorite, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, there’s an arc (Stardust Crusaders) where each of the characters’ stands (special abilities) were named after a card in the Major Arcana. You can imagine how elated I was to have two of my loves combined! 

As my tarot journey continued, I was drawn to more divination/cartomancy methods, and my next fixation was with oracle cards. I felt that they offered another layer of insight to my readings, so I would use them as companions or “Major Arcana”-type cards to help me paint the picture of the story even more. There was a period when I was practically addicted to buying new oracle decks – literally every time I visited a spiritual shop, I would get a new deck, and I was always searching for new decks online too! 

To take my skills to the next level, I eventually joined a tarot community and took a course to get more experience reading for strangers where I couldn’t rely on background information like I could with family & friends whose lives, experiences, & circumstances I was familiar with. I had so much fun in that class! It was nice to have the opportunity to grow my skills with other tarot beginners and to see how much we’d grown from the beginning to the end. I received feedback that the readings I gave resonated and were accurate and I couldn’t have been more excited! I gained even more confidence in my abilities and couldn’t wait to continue to develop them further.

Since then, I created a tarot database to help me strengthen my relationship with the cards even more. I wanted to get better at recognizing the symbolism & numerology of the cards and associating keywords with them. I spent weeks studying each card & logging my insights Airtable which has become an invaluable tool for me. The simple practice of studying like this extremely reinforced my ability to recognize the card meanings without any guide or reference book. I still use the database, of course – I just use it more for confirmation now than anything else. 

Recently, I decided to offer free readings in exchange for honest reviews and feedback. While I was confident in my skills beforehand, I was blown away by the results! People shared that my readings touched on things they hadn’t even mentioned, reinforced their confidence & ability to advocate for themselves, gave them direction & confirmed that they were on the right path, and strengthened them to release & move on from things that didn’t serve them anymore. I’m passionate about helping people find clarity, so this was super rewarding to me in more ways than one – not only did it allow me to help people, but it also confirmed for me that I’m on the right path and intensified my confidence in my abilities even more. 

That’s when it truly hit me: tarot isn’t just a hobby for me; it’s a powerful tool for insight and guidance that I’m meant to share with others. As I continue to grow and develop my practice, my passion for tarot only deepens. Each reading I do not only offers my clients valuable insights, but also strengthens my own connection to the cards and the intuitive gifts I’ve been nurturing. It’s a journey of continuous learning and exploration, one where I get to help others find clarity and alignment in their own lives, just as tarot has done for me.

Every reading is a reminder of how empowering it can be to trust our intuition and embrace the tools that resonate with us. As I look ahead, I’m excited to see where this journey takes me and how I can continue to use tarot to inspire, empower, and guide those who are seeking more meaning and understanding in their lives. My hope is that through my readings, others can tap into their own intuitive power and uncover the answers that have been within them all along. After all, the cards are simply a mirror, reflecting the insights and truths we already hold within ourselves.