Once I was in a yarn store with a friend. I was teaching her to knit and we were picking out yarn. The yarn she wanted was in a skein not in a ball, so I told her had to wind it into a ball before she started knitting. She asked, “how do you wind it into a ball?” I cannot remember when I learned to wind yarn (or string) into a ball. I cannot remember not knowing. It never occurred to me that someone wouldn’t know how. That happens a lot, when people have known how to do things forever. Shuffling and selecting cards is a lot like that. I tell people to shuffle and draw the cards for the reading. They sometimes look baffled and I realize that they are waiting for instructions,

Tarot shelves at bookstores are filled with beginner level books. Do we really need so many? Aren’t they all essentially the same? I think we do need so many and that they are not essentially the same. First, they all differ in terms of voice and presentation. People learn differently and respond better to some styles of communication than to others. Every author has his or her own voice and way of explaining things. Second, not every tarot reader interprets or reads the cards in the same way. By seeing that there are so many different methods and schools of thought, new readers are encouraged to explore until they find what works for them. This month we will look at eight