Self Healers' Summer - Week Six: Making Sense of Your Tarot Spreads
and a special gift just as a thank you for joining me here this summer
Welcome to week six of my Substack Series: Self Healers Summer. This is our last week in our challenge to get started with Tarot and use it in a self supportive way. I hope you’ve enjoyed dabbling, have gotten some great journaling sessions out of it, and have realized that you know more answers to your own questions than you thought you did.
Let’s Recap, Shall We?
If you missed any of the posts in this summer series, I’ve set up a link at the top of the page where this series and future posts about tarot can live permanently so you can find them quickly when you want to! You can find all the previous posts in the series there now as well to access anytime.
In week one we broke the deck into two sections: Major and Minor Arcana and we looked at how the Major Arcana cards reflected a journey of inner growth and evolution.
In week two, we dug deeper into the Major Arcana by jumping a few cards ahead in the story to the Hanged Man and discussed the disruptive and often necessary seasons of pause that force us to look for a new perspective as we continue in our inner journey of growth and maturing.
In week three, we celebrated America’s independence day with another Major Arcana card, the Strength Card. I especially loved that reflection on the nature of strength and I hope you did to.
In week four, we pivoted to the Minor Arcana and started to break down the framework those cards are sorted under with suits and courts and numbers (oh my!) Once you understand the basic framework the entire minor arcana starts to make sense which is such a relief since those cards are the bulk of the deck! Ha.
Last week, we did our first spread and we covered what tarot spreads are, how to do them, some traditional and commonly used ones, and I gave you some homework to help you get into the practice of pulling cards for yourself.
Bringing It All Together: How To Read Your Spread as a Sentence
Something that I started doing intuitively that I found useful for my journaling was to read the cards in my spread as a “sentence”. Looking at the cards individually brought a lot of beautiful insights but letting my mind marinate around how they fit together… that was where magic happened.
So I want to close out our time together by showing you what I mean and giving you some things to try to get your mind working creatively in this way.
For the rest of today’s time together, let’s work based on us having a three card spread in front of us where card 1 represents the past, card 2 represents the present, and card 3 represents the future. Just like this:
For today’s example I’m using a digital tarot card generator to give us 3 random card pulls. That way I can show you an example of how I would make sense of a sentence using what came up in a spread for myself during a self-reflective journaling session.
When I used the random card generator online. I got 10 of wands for card 1, high priestess for card 2 and page of cups for card three. I’m going to show you step by step how I’d use this in a journaling session below. First, I’d write down each individual card’s meanings as well as what it meant to me intuitively looking through the lens of the position it was in the pull. I’ll show you…
(Imagine you are in my journal now. This is exactly how I’d write everything down on paper)
Past: 10 of Wands
Present: High Priestess
Future: Page of Cups
Past, 10 of Wands: Burdens, Extra Responsibility, Completion, Taking on Too Much
Carrying too much, knowing I’m bogged down but also knowing it’s only for a season so being willing to do it. 10’s in tarot represent completion so even though it’s been a lot of work, knowing I’m coming to the end of the season of hard. Even at completion though I kept carrying things myself instead of delegating, making the season of hard last longer than it needed to. This can contribute to burnout for me.
Present, High Priestess; Intuitive, Sacred Knowledge, Moving Between Conscious and Unconscious, Spiritual Enlightenment
In a season of focusing on my inner world and what’s contributing to things under the surface. Gaining insights and tapping into my intuition. Stepping into high priestess energy. Releasing the hustle and moving more into ease and flow.
Future, Page of Wands: Creative, New Opportunities, Intuitive hits, Flow
New ideas coming my way, creative inspiration, creative energy is flowing, curiosity and possibility, lean on intuition and what I’ve learned and unlocked in my high priestess era, be open to unexpected surprises!
(Now is where in my journal I’d start to pull it all together. Watch…)
Reflections: I’m coming out of a season of burden. A lot of struggle. Feeling like it was all on me to handle and carry it all. And whether or not that was true, I ended up carrying all the weight myself knowing that if I just kept pushing I’d get there. But I ended up not accepting support and because of that I ended up burning out. That led me into a season of slow. Letting go of hustle and leaning more into divine feminine of ease and flow. I’ve been spending time reconnecting to my intuition recently and studying and understanding how my unconscious affects me and healing those triggers. I’m currently in my high priestess era. Because of that work I’m doing now to learn how to trust my intuition, I’m allowing space in the future for new ideas to flow and for me to be able to trust myself when one comes in that feels like the right next move. I want to stay open to being happily surprised and curious about potential next right steps. It’s exciting to think about that season being just around the corner! And to step into it knowing better how to balance the masculine and feminine, the hustle and the flow, and how to accept help when I need it and not try to take on all the burdens myself or try to muscle through. That just leads to a disconnection from myself and burnout. I’d rather stay in that flow state where new ideas can come!
(Here’s where reading it like a sentence comes in as we summarize:)
Moral of the story: I went a little too hard in the “I can do it myself” and burned myself out but that led me to here where I’m reconnecting with my intuition and learning how to be more balanced and because of that I can expect new ideas and creativity to start flowing my way soon. I want to set an intention to stay curious and trust my intuition to know the next right step and remember that I can delegate and don’t have to do it all myself.
That is EXACTLY how I’d journal out a spread just like the one above. In fact, I got a lot from that even though it was just a quickly pulled together example and digital card pull. Those cards felt extremely on point to me and was a really lovely little reminder of the work I’ve been doing this summer (in my high priestess era) and a nice little confirmation of what I’ve already been feeling starting which is the page of wands energy. Those new ideas and sparks of creativity.
See? This process can be so impactful without it needing a ton of pomp and circumstance or needing it to look or be a certain way. I didn’t burn sage or lay all my tangible cards out just now and I still got a lot out of that for myself. Let this be a reminder that you don’t need to overthink it. And you can’t fuck it up. ;)
Journal Prompts:
To close out our practice together I want you to do your own version of what I did above. You can use the same three cards I have up there or you can pull your own using your own deck or a random card generator online.
Go one by one and look up the card’s meanings (biddy tarot online is a great resource if you’re doing this digitally or the booklet that came with your deck will work too). Write out the main points that stand out to you then go back and start to weave the reflections together. See what sort of picture forms for you.
Did You Enjoy This Series? Do You Want More?
A few years ago I offered teaching this method via 1:1 calls and I had the most incredible time getting to nerd out in a little bit more depth with each participant. I’ve turned that same 1 hour live class into an evergreen audio program you can buy and listen to anytime! It will be available NEXT WEEK and as a thank you for being a part of this series with me I want to offer my substack readers $10 off using the code SUBSTACK10 at checkout.
The fantastic thing about audio based programs like this is that it will be available to you as a private podcast feed that you’ll be able to access anytime just like you listen to your favorite podcasts. So you won’t have to create an account on some teaching platform or log into a special website. And you’ll be able to listen back anytime you like for a little refresher. I hope you enjoy and it’s my intention that not only do you love it the first time you listen but that it will be a gift that keeps on giving over time as it helps you to create a connection with yourself that fosters deep knowing, self trust, and healing.
Thank you so much for taking this six week challenge with me! I cannot wait to offer you this gift next week. (Stay tuned for more surprises as the announcement rolls out!)
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Becka Robinson’s (she/her) degree is in Psychology. She is a Certified Consulting Hypnotist and is trained in mimetic modalities as a way to facilitate healing from traumas both big and small. She grew up in pentecostal evangelical christianity and even served on staff in ministry before leaving at the age of 22 and has been deconstructing and sharing about it ever since. She is a neurodivergent, late blooming queer, artistpreneur and healer living in Central Florida with her husband and two kids pioneering utilizing RRT for people healing from religious trauma and reclaiming their power and agency. You can read more about her work via her website: www.beckarobinson.com. Thank you for being here.