Hello and Welcome to Lua Tarot

Posted on May 11, 2011 by Leah

Lua Tarot is a sister site to Lua Astrology. At the beginning of this year, I started writing a weekly Tarot feature at Lua Astrology as I love Tarot and wanted to include it on my site. As time went on though, I began to realise that with around 28 years of experience in working with the Tarot I had a lot more to say!

But Lua Astrology was originally intended to be devoted to astrology and I had a sense that it wasn’t quite working mixing the two together. I had the idea of setting up a new blog and then froze as I considered all the work on top of my other projects.

Time is limited. I’m writing a book, I have around 6 other books I want to write and on top of that I have an idea for a tarot deck I want to design! Along with my site on Lisbon, well, I really wasn’t sure whether I was making the right decision! Unable to decide, I opted for not thinking about it. My cards however had other ideas…

I read regularly for myself. Sometimes I read daily, at other times it may be every couple of weeks or so. What I notice by working so intimately with my cards is that certain cards move in and out of play.

During this time of confusion the Two of Wands kept popping up. On three occasions it simply threw itself out of the pack. Whilst I could interpret in reference to other situations going on in my life I knew I was missing something.

Then, one day the Two of Wands turned up beside the Moon card. The man’s face in the picture seemed exasperated! My cards gave up on giving me subtle hints and decided to spell it out for me in no uncertain terms.

The Moon in Portuguese is Lua. In the Mythic deck the Two of Wands shows a man holding two burning wands in either hand watched by Chiron who shelters in cave. I realised that I was being guided in the direction of having two sets of inspiration, two equal paths, two avenues of discussion yet they came from one source. Despite my reservations and worrying about time, I knew that Lua Tarot wanted to come out into the light.

So here we are!

You will notice that there are some posts on here which date back quite some time. These were originally posted on Lua Astrology and have been moved along with the kind comments that were made at the time to this blog. I chose to keep their original date of publication for continuity. Some of my visitors may be familiar already with the ‘Message in a Bottle” series I wrote. For new readers, this was a series of three card readings to obtain a message from the universe each week.

I’ve also included the post How I Came to read Tarot in case you would like to know my story

Lua Tarot is dedicated to sharing what I have learned so far along the Tarot road but there is so much more to learn! It is a lifelong journey. I look forward to hearing your thoughts and experiences along the way.

Choosing Your First Tarot Deck

Posted on May 6, 2011 by Leah

Choosing your first tarot deck is rather like choosing a friend. It symbolises a commitment to learn the cards and the mysteries they contain. Later down the line you may deepen the friendship, move on as sometimes friends do, or break it off altogether and choose a new deck. The friendship may be lifelong or for only a season but whatever the time you will have learned something about the world and about yourself.

Initially our new friend is a mystery to us but we like what we see. You seem to share something in common and over time you share more of yourself as they do with you. Gradually you begin to know your friend and they begin to know you. Love, respect and loyalty build bridges between you. You see layer after layer revealed, different aspects of their nature come to the foreground in different situations. You learn to gauge their reactions and guess what their response might be. You learn to know what make’s them laugh, makes them cry and makes them angry. Over time you may have differences of opinion. Sometimes your friend points out things to you that you’d rather they didn’t see. Sometimes your friend wants to help but you don’t want their help, you want to do it your way. Sometimes your friend very gently says “I told you so” then lets you cry in their arms.

My first deck of cards was bought for me by my maternal Grandmother on a holiday to Wales. We were in a souvenir shop and for some reason they were selling a pack of Mlle Lenormand Fortune Telling Cards. I was 14 and fascinated. My Grandmother bought the pack for me and so started my love affair with tarot. Whilst this wasn’t a 78 card tarot deck, these fortune telling cards helped me cut my teeth and start to build the skills necessary to be a tarot reader. I only used them for myself at the time but I started to notice even then that certain cards would show up in certain situations. It both astounded and confused me.

A couple of years later I bought my first set of proper tarot cards. Even though I’d been using my fortune telling cards for a while, I hadn’t read that much on tarot. My immediate family didn’t like my growing interest so I kept quiet about it most of the time and consoled myself with Old Moores Almanac and Misty Magazine for Girls (a comic book of spooky tales)! Consequently I bought the Rider Waite deck as it was the one I had heard of and thought I ‘should’ use.

I hated it.

The cards felt dead in my hands, masculine and angry looking. I found the artwork uninspiring and the general tone of the deck dark and forbidding. The little booklet that came with the pack seemed relentlessly bleak and I felt sure that it didn’t have to be this way. I put them away to find something ‘better’. I eventually gave that pack away to a friend.

In the past few years I was given another Rider Waite deck and I have found I have warmed somewhat to some cards. Unlike my first encounter, I can now use the deck if necessary and occasionally use it for a reading when I need razor sharp, no holds barred answers. If I chose one card to symbolise the whole pack however, I think I would choose the King of Swords. That’s how this deck feels to me.

But it’s all personal and that’s the point. We are all unique and we all have different types people and card we get on with. Some people adore the Rider Waite deck and get a great deal out of studying it. In fact, when it comes to the history of the tarot it is a deck you need to become familiar with.

The point here is that when you choose your first deck, take your time – find one that you can make friends with.

There are hundreds of different decks on the market these days and more coming out every year. With the dawning of the internet there are hundreds more designed by enthusiasts but not published. There are tarot decks for every genre and every area of interest you can imagine.

Here are some points to consider when buying your first deck.

Choose artwork you love
Art is subjective and all of us are moved by different things. Go with what you really like. There are black and white decks, decks created from photo’s, decks intricately drawn in coloured pencil, bold vibrant painted decks, digitally created decks, collage decks and cartoon decks. Cards can be realistic, impressionist or completely surreal. What matters is that the style that speaks to you.

Choose a theme of interest
Many decks are themed these days so if you are attracted to a certain mythology or era there is likely to be a deck that will answer that call. There are Byzantiam, Victorian and Arthurian decks, Fairy, Angel and Wiccan decks. There are decks to reflect different cultures such as Egyptian, Greek and African and decks dedicated to cats, vampires and baseball (I’m not kidding!).

Choose a pack with 78 cards
If you wish to study the tarot then you need to buy a tarot set rather than an oracle set. Check that the pack has 78 cards. Decks do vary with how they name the different suits and the Major Arcana but they are all essentially following a pattern of a traditional deck.

Check that there are full illustrations on each card
There are some packs where only the Major Arcana are fully illustrated and the rest of the pack are rather like playing cards. For example on the 5 of Cups you simply have five cups painted. Whilst plenty of people use ordinary playing cards for divination, illustrated cards can help you access the deeper meaning of the tarot and spark clairvoyant insight. Another thing to watch for is ‘helpful’ words printed on the cards like on some beginner decks. These words can be useful to start with but eventually they can get in the way of you developing your own meaning.

Look through the entire deck before buying if you possibly can.
These days it’s easier to find many of the images from your chosen pack online but I would still try and find somewhere where you can physically look through the whole set. Sometimes I’ve seen one card I loved online then discovered the rest of the pack doesn’t do anything for me. This is also the time to find out whether the cards seem to big or too small. I once bought a deck that I liked the look of and found they were almost impossible to shuffle because they were too big for my hands.

Many people will say that you shouldn’t buy your own cards but I think this is just superstition. Of course it is lovely to receive cards as a gift; I have both given and received cards but I have also bought cards for myself too. There’s nothing wrong in giving yourself a gift from time to time

Sometimes a Tarot deck will just shout ‘buy me’ and it may be quite different from what you previously thought you wanted. Sometimes, despite all of the above, the universe guides you to what you need and takes you on a different path. In those moments, trust your gut instincts.

If you choose wisely, you will be richly rewarded with 78 new ‘friends’ to play, learn with and grow with.

I’ve love to hear about your first tarot deck…

How I Came to Read Tarot

Posted on May 6, 2011 by Leah

First posted on Lua Astrology – March 29th 2009

I’ve been thinking about my Grandmother a lot recently. She passed away back in 1987 and for some years after she made her presence felt. Then one day she came to me in a dream and said she was moving on, that there were no words to describe where she was going and I watched her pass into another dimension. Every now and then since that time I’d felt a very subtle presence but the sense was she had other things to do.

Recently however I’ve found myself talking about her more often and a week ago there was a large ‘spark’ in my living room late in the evening. She always used to come gathered in light, spooking my old cat (she never did get on with the feline species!) and offering comfort or advice gently impressed upon my thoughts.

It didn’t feel like a warning, just a comforting reminder. I dug through some old things stored away in boxes and found a poem she had written out by hand that she loved, an old brass bell evoking the smell of brasso and happy memories of helping her clean the brass and silver ornaments. And I found a picture – one that captured a day that marked a turning point in my life. One that I should never have put away.

My Grandmother died when I was 19. Around a year later I visited a psychic fair with my Mother. My Mother didn’t believe in ‘that kind of thing’ and yet held a conflicting thought that it was somehow all connected to ‘evil’. She wasn’t a religious person yet had a deep suspician of my growing interest in all things magical. So it was strange or perhaps understandable that on that day she decided to see a medium. The loss of her Mother had perhaps sparked a willingness to open up.

I spotted a woman straight away – elderly with fierce black hair and penetrating eyes. I was immediately drawn to her. My Mother went to sit with her and I wandered around the rest of the fair, astonished that my Mother had requested a reading. She said nothing about it afterwards but looked shocked and walked away. It was my turn.

The medium took my hands and placed them on her crystal ball. She asked me “Who is ‘M’” (saying the full first name) and told me he would be important in my life. This person has now been my best friend for 20 years. We’d known each other a few months by then.

She then smiled at me and calmly said “You will do my job, oh and you must do your music“. My eyes opened wider. Whilst I had a profound interest in all things magical, my goal at that time was to work for the BBC even though music and writing were my passions. I didn’t know what to think yet the truth of what she was saying struck deep into my soul. In truth I had spent most of my university years studying witchcraft rather than the English and Socialogy degree I was supposed to be studying! In those days I sang to myself quietly, never letting anyone hear me; not until I met ‘M’ whose ease at playing infront of another gave me the confidence to come out of my shell.

My hands were under the table by this point and she asked to see the ring I was playing with on my finger. It was my great-grandmother’s wedding ring, worn by my Grandmother and passed down to me. I took it off and gave it to her. I felt the air change, the crackle of spirit in the air.

She knew I sensed it but said nothing.

“There’s a photograph” she said slowly. “A photo taken on a day in Wales. You must always have this photo on display. She watches over you“.

I bit my lip. I knew exactly the photo she was talking about. It had been taken when I was around 14 years old. Nana had taken me on a day trip to Betws-y-Coed and I’d marvelled at being in another country with a whole different language!

The medium frowned then, struggling with something that was unclear.

“I see something else. It’s connected to an owl but I don’t know what it is. It’s something about that day.”

It didn’t make any sense to me. Whilst I remembered our day trip, the details of the day itself were fuzzy. There had been 6 intervening years and many other days out. But I accepted the information. I could relate to the image of the owl. Birds had become messengers to me as they had been to my Grandmother. I stored away the words for future reference. The medium gave me a small glass blue stone and asked me to keep it. Through several moves and 20 years I have managed to keep this stone with me.

Fast forward a couple of years. By this time I had purchased a new set of tarot cards, continued to keep my dream diary and was walking the path of the witch. I was also lost, lonely and seriously depressed. Childhood issues had come to smack me right in the face and I suffered a severe breakdown at the age of 21 as soon as I left university. Having found my singing voice, I got through by busking on the streets of Manchester. I was so poor that I was seriously grateful when people gave me food. My confidence and self-esteem were pretty much on the floor. The light of my life at that time aside from my friend ‘M’ was my dog Luka who went everywhere with me, including busking.

One particularly grey day, a man came over to me and insisted I move. Now I was used to being moved by the police on occassion but this guy wasn’t in uniform and wasn’t very polite either!

Rattled, I refused to move until he shoved his CID badge infront of my nose and told me in no uncertain terms to go away! I went.

Pretty much sick of everything I walked straight to the local job centre and within seconds saw a job. ‘Tarot Readers Wanted’. Twenty minutes later I walked into a job interview complete with guitar and dog! Unphased, the interviewer asked me to read the cards for him. I still remember staring down at the unfamiliar Tarot of the Cat People deck and thinking “I can’t do this!” and suddenly I opened my mouth and said what I could see. Within another 10 minutes I had a full time job.

It was a tarot line of course, the experience of which I will talk more of in another post but I want to bring you back to the fierce medium and the clouded picture of the owl.

Perhaps in honour of the lady who had foreseen my future, I took a wooden owl to work with me on my first day as a kind of talisman. Within a week of working at the Tarot line, I developed a serious crush on one of the readers. Some time later we came to have a brief love affair. He nick-named me ‘owl’ after my talisman. Just before we got together he suddenly saw my face and at the same time heard the call of an owl. The spirit of the bird was truly with me by then.

He had a gift for me one day. I smiled as I took it, a small box wrapped in tissue paper.

“I saw these and thought of you” he said.

Inside was a box of fortune telling cards. Madame Lenormand said the box.

Suddenly everything came flooding back to me.

“Oh my God” I whispered “This is what Nana bought me the day we went to Wales”

Somehow in the midst of time I had forgotten the present she had bought me that day. I was catapulted back to the moment I saw the cards in amongst the Welsh dragons and dolls in a tiny souvenir shop . She bought them for me although professed to not really know why I would want them. I played with them for a while, perhaps a few months or so then forgot about them. I never did find out what happened to them.

I took the cards out of the box and every image came flooding back to me: my quiet attempts at reading my future. My hopes and fears. The picture of the ship on the ocean that over time had become a picture in a book I’d once read. There they were again, in my hands. I smiled and blinked back tears.

“I can’t believe you bought me these” I said to him.

“Of course I had to” he said taking one from me “Look at the back of the cards”

And there on the back of every card was an owl.