What happens in a reading
Every reader works a little differently, but most readings follow the same shape. You sit across a table from the reader, usually for half an hour or so, and the whole thing is a conversation.
- You say what is on your mind, as a question or just a subject: work, a relationship, a decision.
- The cards are shuffled, by the reader or by you, and laid out in a pattern called a spread. Each place in the spread has a meaning, such as the situation, what stands in the way, or what might help.
- The reader turns the cards over one at a time, describes each picture and what it traditionally stands for, then how it might connect to what you said.
- You talk back. A reading works best when you say what rings true and what does not.
Where the cards come from
Tarot cards were made in northern Italy in the 15th century for a card game, not for telling fortunes. Some of the oldest that survive were painted for the Visconti and Sforza families of Milan.
Reading them started in France in the 1780s. In 1781 Antoine Court de Gébelin claimed the cards carried the wisdom of ancient Egypt, a claim historians have found nothing to support, and in 1789 a Paris card reader who called himself Etteilla published the first deck made for readings.
Most readers today use the Rider-Waite deck, published in London in 1909 with drawings by the artist Pamela Colman Smith, or a deck based on it. It has 22 major arcana, picture cards such as The Fool, The Lovers and The Star, and 56 minor arcana in four suits: wands, cups, swords and pentacles.
What a reading can and cannot do
A tarot reading cannot tell you what will happen. There is no evidence that the order of shuffled cards carries information about your future, and a good reader will not claim it does.
What it can give you is half an hour to think out loud about something, with a person who listens. Plenty of people find that the picture on a card gives them words for something they had not said yet. Take it in that spirit, and never in place of medical, legal or financial advice.
Oracle cards and other readings
Oracle decks are newer and looser than tarot: each author decides how many cards there are and what they mean, and the deck comes with its own little book. Some readers use both. This page gathers readings of every kind at Portal de Paz; tarot is the one on offer today.
Readings at Portal de Paz
Michelle gives tarot readings in the session room at Portal de Paz, a few steps from the park in Mindo. She describes them as a space for reflection and for listening to your own intuition. Book with her on WhatsApp; her profile has the length and the price.
