Last nights readings

One of my best friends that I hadn't seen much in awhile came over with a new girlfriend of hers for a few hours to hang out. Carmen had told her new friend about me learning to read tarot and she was very interested in having me read for her. Well, with the practice I've been getting on Aeclectic Forum and just finding a new sense of letting go of insecurities, I agreed. I decided that I would read intuitively and not look anything up or rely on the crutch of a book to tell me what the cards were saying. It went great and it was a lot of fun! I was a little nervous sometimes, but it came much easier to me than it has before and the cards that came out for both of them were VERY interesting to me.

In particular, this girl had more major arcana cards come out than I think I have seen except in a few rare readings for myself. We did just a basic easy 5 card spread, but we were enjoying it so much, we ended up pulling 3 cards to expand on each position. In the Unexpected position, she originally had the Devil. When we expanded on that, The High Priestess, Magician and Hierophant came out in that order... Eeeek! :) I was a little shocked and flabbergasted about how to even interpret such a thing at first. And I know the cards were shuffled well, as I had shuffled them probably 20-25 times during our conversation just to keep my hands busy and put some of my energy into the cards. This is a new deck and I have spent a lot of time just handling them and shuffling them over the past few days.

So, here's what I ended up with as my interpretation: the unexpected is temptation and a need to fairly weigh options and opportunities that come up unexpectedly for you, don't just jump at an opportunity before weighing the outcomes and if you're being "tempted" to go down a path you know is not right for you. With the expanded cards, I felt like that a lot of the temptations or choices that will be coming up will be in the area of religion, spirituality and education in the manner of being faced with honestly looking at traditions and structures as they pertain to spirituality. With the High Priestess and Magician back to back, we talked about the importance of intuition and listening to it, as well as using the tools at your disposal and mastery of those tools (4 suits/4 elements/Body-Mind-Spirit) in conjunction with connection to Spirit and intuition to make good choices when faced with temptation.

She also had a lot of other cards that pointed to weighing options, looking at all sides, making choices, etc... She had the Temperance, Justice, Judgement, Chariot, and several more that fit in this line of reasoning. Interesting how the cards in different areas/positions related and connected though, that was something that was easier for me to pick up on last night. And for her outcome card, The Hanged Man. I really related this to the fact that as she is able to weigh and make decisions and choices in her path, when she is able to truly discern the path for her and overcome the Hierophant, she will find fulfillment and contentment with her path, even though it goes against social norm and cultural expectations, and that regardless of the approval or disapproval, she will be at peace with her decisions.

So, all in all it was a challenging reading, but very exciting and fun for us all. She definitely agreed with what I was presenting and added in some interesting comments of her own about connections she could see. She commented that many of these cards had come out for her recently in some other readings and that they made sense in their places as they were.

Please feel free to comment and let me know how you think I did. This is a learning experience for me and I'm always being challenged and pushed outside of my comfort zone, but thats where the richest experiences lay!