Tarot 101: One Card Readings — The Willow Path Tarot

A one card reading can be a powerful thing. Pulling just one card allows you to be quick and hopefully clear and concise in your reading. At the same time, you can really focus in on that one card and glean a ton of meaning and advice from it. But how do you go about this simple reading? Here is some advice:

Set Your Intention

First off, get clear about why you are drawing the card. Do you have a simple yes or no question? Are you looking for advice on one single situation? Are you just looking for a general advice card for the day ahead? Are you trying to make a decision? Knowing what you are seeking clarity around is crucial to reading the card that you draw. Again, it doesn’t have to be a specific question, it can just be a general advice card, but give that advice some parameters: a topic, area of your life, timeframe, or decision.

Next up comes shuffling the cards. I am in the process of writing another whole post about shuffling if you’re not sure how you want to ruffle those cards up. The major takeaway from that post will be that you can shuffle however you like! The only real criteria that I see is that you shuffle and draw a card in a way that makes you feel intuitively like you’re drawing the right card.

Okay, now that you’ve got your one card, how do you interpret it? I want to take a quick second to inject here and say that this is my process. It is how I like to do it. You may not find it useful or only like some parts of my process. I am sharing here one way to interpret a card, not THE WAY. Got that? So bring your own personality to the process and take or leave what you find helpful here.

First Impression

The first step is to notice my first impression of the card. How do I feel the instant that I see it turned over? Perhaps I’m excited, it looks like a great card. Perhaps I cringe, it looks like a difficult one. Perhaps I draw a blank, I have no idea how this card relates to the situation. Your initial impression of a card can bring big insights, so pay attention to that kneejerk reaction before moving on in your interpretation.

For instance, if you are trying to make a decisions and you pull a card that pushes you in one direction but that makes you realize what you really want to do is go in the other direction. Well, then you might have made your decision, now knowing what you really want in your heart. Just because the tarot says option #1 has the best flow towards it, if you really want option #2, you now have the intuitive knowing that it is your heart’s desire.

After your initial impression, there are two tracks you can go down in interpreting your one card tarot spread. The first is the intuitive route and the second is the logical route. The first impression is definitely more in line with the intuitive route so let me go back and explain the logical route.

Using Logic

Using the little white book that came with your deck, or a book of tarot card meanings that you have on your witch’s resources shelf, is taking the logic route. You can look up the card in the book and read what the meaning is. This can be so helpful when you’re first learning the tarot or when you’re drawing a blank.

Photo by Fiona Murray-deGraaff on Unsplash

Busting out a guidebook doesn’t usually go over as well in a client reading, so you may want to get past this stage before you start asking for money in exchange for your readings. Of course, that isn’t a hard and fast rule, just a preference I have. There are definitely clients who will appreciate that you’re double checking your interpretation with a book. They do want the best reading they can get after all and if that involves you making sure you got all the details out of a card as possible, then go for it.

I still love to bust out my tarot card meaning books, especially the one by Biddy Tarot and the one by Joan Bunning, and read how they interpret the cards. Oftentimes, this leads to me remembering an interpretation I used to use but had forgotten. Or I get a hit of inspiration and figure out what was tickling my intuition about this card.

It can also be useful to use the guidebook that came with a particular deck. Many decks come with their own specific guidebook written by the deck creator. The author can help you interpret the card they created, revealing things within the image that you may not have noticed or understood. Overall, I don’t think it is a bad idea to consult a tarot guidebook if you find it helpful when drawing a blank or when first learning.

After you’ve been reading tarot for a while, you will naturally memorize meaning for the cards. This is simply a function of practice. Then the logical route becomes more of mental activity of remembering the traditional card meanings and using them to interpret the card. You look at the image, remember the keywords you associate with it, and use those to read it.

It is also very helpful to know the basic structure and elements of the deck. I give more weight and precedence to a major arcana card over the minor arcana. I look to see what suite the card is. I look at the number on the card and know what a lower card means versus a higher card. If it is a court card I notice which one and how that might be related to the client. Looking at arcana, suite, and number is logical pattern making and I find these elements can help create a simple narrative for the interpretation.

Using Intuitive

The intuitive route asks you to put aside traditional meanings and interpretations of the card and go more with your gut feeling. How does the card make you feel? What does it remind you? Where were your eyes first draw to the image on the card? What does that part of the card make you feel or think? What intuitive pings or messages do you get when you see the card? What do you just know now that you have this card in front you?

The thing is, most tarot cards have more than one traditional meaning, and people come up with new traditions every day and every deck. The important thing is that the interpretation you make for that card resonates with you on an internal plane. Even if you read all the traditional meanings out of a little white book, you’ll still have to decide what it means to you in this certain situation.

So, use your intuition and allow yourself to feel that tug towards the right words and the right meaning. For me, that tug is a subtle sense of knowing. This can be trained by using it often and learning to trust it. Perhaps your intuition manifests in a different way. You may hear the voices of your guides, angels, or inner knowing. You may see or even smell something that touches you off in the right direction. It might feel like a download or channel from the universe or spirit that guides you in the right direction. I believe that everyone is intuitive, it is just a matter of practicing and training your intuition to work with you.

The final interpretation I make for my one card reading is really a combination of the intuitive and the logical. I synthesize my first impression with my logical knowledge of the traditional card meaning and then add in my intuitive sense of the card. And that’s it! I practice this process every day with a daily draw in the morning. I usually do pull two cards, but you can easily do this practice with just one card. Then, throughout the day, I will check in to see how my interpretation is or is not playing out. I can adjust my reading and understanding of the card if the day goes in a different direction than I originally supposed.

Why don’t you try and do the same? Start a daily practice of drawing one card and see how you learn traditional meanings and develop your intuitive over the course of a month, or better yet, a year. You’ll notice a big change in how comfortable you feel with your deck and with your intuition after you practice using it regularly. Have fun!