By expanding your tarot vocabulary (juuust a little bit) you will drastically improve your reading quality.
Before going on let’s take a quick pit stop to see how enhancing your use of language can be beneficial to you…And your querent!
Time to take a quick trip back to grade school.
When was the last time you had to use your knowledge of what a verb or adjective is?
How about using a synonym or thesaurus?
We’ll briefly touch base with each of these before we move on.
A QUICK GRAMMAR LESSON
VERB: A word that indicates an action, event, or state. An action word.
ADJECTIVE: A word or phrase naming an attribute of a noun to modify or describe it. A describing word.
SYNONYM: A word or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word or phrase.
THESAURUS: A book of synonyms.
Now that we got that out of the way I will briefly show you how to use these elements in your Tarot readings and why you should.
APPLYING EXPANDED VOCABULARY TO A READING
In the following example you can see that by expanding your tarot vocabulary you can add more depth and intensity to your tarot readings.
Also, by describing both the action (verb) and description(adjective) of a card we can apply our tarot meanings and keywords easily to any situation or spread position.
For example with the Nine of Swords you free associate the word sadness. Its verb form is sad and adjective is saddening.
By identifying both these forms of the word you can use sad to describe the event or state of being sad as well as to describe something as being saddening.
Synonyms can provide additional points of reference and can expand the meaning and relevancy of the card being read.
For another example with the Sun card, you may free associate the word joy.
By identifying the verb of joy (to feel joy) and the adjective( joyful or joyous) you can apply Joy to any position as an action the querent needs to take. This goes the same for offering advice or to describe a situation.
E.g. Advice: You should seek to find the joys of motherhood to improve your outlook on parenting.
Statement: Being a mother is a joyous experience for you.
USING SYNONYMS FOR INTESITY
Using synonyms you can use words that offer a greater intensity.
Therefore, by using a different intensity to define a specific card you will make a bigger impact on whomever you are reading for.
From our first example anguish is a higher intensity word than sad.
If a card shows up in a reading and you free associate sad, you may find that identifying the synonyms of the word changes how relevant or intense the sadness is.
At various intensity, sad becomes: dreary, distressing, depressing, heartbreaking, and mournful.
E.g. Advice: Mourning your pet will help you process these feelings of grief.
Statement: Losing a pet was a heartbreaking experience for you.
When identifying synonyms of the word Joy from our second example you may come up with pleasant, nice, delightful, blissful, and radiant.
E.g. Advice: If you find the joy in your work the outcome of your day may be more pleasant.
Statement: Sarah seemed radiant at her discovery that she got the promotion she wanted.
CONCLUSION
As you can see expanding your tarot vocabulary you can add layers (and more layers!) of meaning and connectivity in your Tarot readings.
You can even use language to vary the intensity of the emotions or situations conveyed though as readings to add dept to any reading.
In this way your readings will become even more relate-able and are sure to impress any querent.
WHAT’S NEXT?
At the heart of a good tarot reading there’s a story, but it doesn’t necessarily begin with Once Upon A Time…Tarot Cards Tell Stores. What’s Yours? Connecting Cards to Tell A Story.
Be sure to take account of your progress in your Tarot journal!
Not only will it provide you with your own personalized card meanings, but you will also see how much you grow as a Tarot Reader over time.
Learn more about Keeping A Tarot Journal. You’ll be glad you did!
Why not try one of the dozens of FREE tarot spreads available in the SelfTarot Tarot Spread Archive?
Not as confident as you would like to be reading tarot? Read Tarot Like Boss in 5 Easy Steps! Plus, exclusive pro tips you won’t find anywhere else!
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Let tarot be your guide.
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