to get the big picture

[lliae]

Sometimes I find it hard to get the "big picture" of a reading. I understand the cards but how do they relate to one another, what are they really trying to say?

For about a year, I ran a blog that did free online tarot readings (which has now been deactivated, it was just too much work for lil ol' me) and I found that putting it into a story of sorts helped me a lot. Having a beginning, middle, and end. Even just writing out your thought process helps. Which is what I had to do to make the reading clear to the querent online, why I never thought of doing that for personal readings we just don't know.

Another trick I learned is to look at the cards in abstract (are there a lot of swords? maybe an abundance of pents? wow I've never seen so many fives in one reading!) then start to narrow down on the individual cards and seeing how they fit into the whole scheme of things. Say you got the two of cups, but it was the only cup suit in an entire reading of pents. Instead of "lovers" think of them as business partners, really good ones it seems.

I find that this "start out big then focus in" method also works if you want to do an intuitive reading, but your knowledge of the cards is getting in your way. Focusing on the suit and the number and a symbol that pops out at you can be a handy way to ignore the traditional meanings.

[Xiao Rong]

[moved the post to the general divination forum because I think it applies to more than just Tarot!]

Hey Plant Witch, I agree with pretty much everything you said! I like the way you phrase it -- "Start out big, then focus in". I do something similar in readings where I note any patterns I see, like the number of cards in a particular suit, or maybe they have a lot of court cards. With runes, I always try to do an analysis of which aetts the runes are in (maybe the majority of the runes are in Hagal's aett, or they come from different aetts but tend to fall towards the end of the aett), and some common themes among the runes (some themes I've identified are motion/stillness, ice/fire, male/female, etc.). Often the reading won't make any sense until I start writing it out, a bit like a story, and then it helps the cards/runes fall in place ("Oh, the third card was referencing the conflict in the first one! That makes sense ...").

Great topic!