Tarot: Your Everyday Guide

A tarot book with lengthy interpretations and suggested meanings for each tarot card, and focusing on the more practical, everyday aspects of life.

By Janina Renee · Book · Published by Llewellyn



Review by Solandia

Tarot: Your Everyday Guide is a very practical companion to a deck of tarot cards. It answers questions in a down to earth and helpful way, offering real-life examples and parallels to assist in illustrating the meaning and advice of the card.

The introduction to the book gives a clue to author's tarot inclinations and method of teaching. As part of the practical, no-nonsense approach the book takes, the author allays concerns early in the book about 'predicting the future' and offers advice on using the cards ethically and fairly.

The Everyday Guide's preliminary section focuses on reading the cards and on giving advice. Lengthy explanations cover how to structure a question to receive the most focused and helpful answer; how to lay out the cards; general guidelines on how to ask the cards for advice; more information on court cards, reversed cards and gendered cards; plus sample advice readings with detailed scenarios, layouts and potential meanings in keeping with the situation.

The book's main section, the card guide, is ordered with the major arcana first, then the minor arcana suits of pentacles, wands, cups and swords. Unusually for tarot books, equal space and attention is given to both major and minor arcana cards.

Each of the seventy-eight tarot archetypes are accompanied by black and white pictures of three cards from different Llewellyn tarot decks and explanatory text which is one to one and a half pages long.

No keywords or stock phrases have been used in this book - the card explanation usually includes a description of the traditional card symbols and meanings, then moves on to the more specific wisdom of the card in an advice context. Renee breaks the information up to apply to several situations, such as work, love, creativity and general advice. The final paragraph is a short section covering reversed meanings for the card. Given the proportion of text given to upright and reversed cards, this book would be more helpful for readers who rarely use their cards reversed.

Tarot: Your Everyday Guide is an excellent addition to the tarot reference library. Not broad enough in content to be the only tarot manual on a bookshelf, it is very useful for action- or advice-oriented, everyday questions. (Not everyone is after tarot meditations, astrological and numerological correspondences or deep spiritual insights.) And although it may not be fully suited to absolute beginners due to the sheer amount of advice and options offered in a single reading, it is perfect for the intermediate tarot reader.

Kate Hill is the owner, founder and editor of Aeclectic Tarot, and has reviewed more than 200 decks over the years.



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