During my “I don’t need no stinkin’ spreads” phase, I threw cards down in a long line or in several shorter lines in rows. I looked at the cards and often had no idea of how to start interpreting the reading. If any of you do practice this and can either explain or point me in the right direction, I’d appreciate it. I still want to try, but for now, I get too locked up to make any progress. But there is something about a spread with few positional meanings or just general guidelines for interpreting that I have been enjoying lately. For most of my reading career, I’ve spent most of my time on the many possible meanings of a card. Going very deeply into a card is an amazing

Who was it that waxed pithily about consistency and hobgoblins and small minds? Well, I’m sure someone else came up with a snappy comeback about inconsistency and flightiness. In my twenty years of playing with tarot, I cannot claim any sort of consistency in any area. Not one. And that includes my practices regarding spreads. I started off, as a mentioned previously, of collecting and using any published spread I could find. Then I spent many happy years creating new spreads for each and every question. There was the short-lived and non-productive “I don’t need no stinkin spreads!” phase, where I just tossed cards on the table and stared at them. For a while I detested the

Welcome to April! This month, we’ll move on to something fresh and new. Instead of looking at the cards, we’ll focus on how we use the cards. That’s a long way of saying: April is Spreads Month! But just one last note about the Hierophant. Studying a card from various decks is a fun and interesting way to delve deeper into an archetype. My friend, Helen, did just that and her month-long study culminated in a fascinating meditation that she wrote about here. I’ve always loved spreads at least as much as I love the cards themselves. From the very beginning of my tarot journey, I collected every spread I could and jumped for joy whenever I found a book with many spreads. One of

The other day I mentioned that I often thought of the Hierophant as the Teacher. Perhaps one of the many reasons I love The Gaian Tarot so much is that it names and depicts Arcana V as The Teacher. The creator, Joanna Powell Colbert, says that this card is the Humble Teacher, as in a Holy Fool or Crazy Saint. The emphasis here is (as it was in the Fey Tarot's Hierophant) less about tradition or formal education and more about wisdom, teaching, and learning. Taking The Hierophant in this direction raises questions about the importance of tradition (is it important?), about the role tradition should or shouldn’t play in teaching or education. Is Arcana V still Arcana V as The