Tarot does not have one specific method. It can be read in many different ways, but the inherent protocol of drawing up the cards from a tarot deck to find guidance remains the same. These cards can cast light on many aspects of your life, including your love life.
To do a tarot reading for love, you must set an intention, ask a question, and pick your cards. Each card represents an aspect of your love life: your lover, compatibility, and emotional dynamics. As a beginner, you can start by picking one card and gradually move up to three or more.
While there are many ways to read a tarot card, and people have different approaches, several core principles on which tarot reading is done remain the same throughout. Keep reading to discover these fundamental principles that will help guide you to do a tarot reading for love.
Be Intentional About the Tarot Reading
Before you even begin the tarot reading session, you have to start by setting an intention. This suggests that you are fully present and attentive during the tarot reading session and are not distracted by other thoughts.
Some even go as far as to encourage you to visualize energy showering down on you as you stand firmly grounded, calling out to your guardians, ancestors, and spirits to get started. Anything that will help you feel more present and grounded will help in this process.
It is also strongly recommended and encouraged that all devices, such as phones and iPads, are turned off. In case you do not want to turn them off, try keeping them at a low volume. Even better if you can open a window and take a few deep breaths of the fresh air.
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Draw the Cards From the Tarot Deck
Once you are fully present, you can then ask the question you may have regarding your love life and then, taking a deep breath, draw the cards from the tarot deck. While some tarot readers will insist on drawing three cards, you can begin by drawing one card at a time from the tarot deck and gradually move up to three or more cards over time.
When choosing a card, there are many ways to do this. One commonly practiced method is to spread the cards on the table and select the ones you feel drawn to.
Some even say that these cards emit a vibration when your hands graze over them, and they advise you to choose the one that responds the most to your touch. If you do not feel the vibration, do not worry, you can still pick up the cards based on your gut feeling.
When you draw up the cards, it is essential to reflect on what the cards represent about the question you had asked before you picked up the card. If you pick more than two cards, you may want to look at how the two cards relate to each other and the relationship between the cards that came up. You can also look for elements that are common in the cards that come up.
Understand What the Cards Mean
The meaning of cards you pull from a tarot deck has different meanings and connotations depending on the frequency of the occurring symbols in the cards, what the pictures depict, etc.
Some even examine the numerology given on the cards, any recurring symbols and colors, the conventional meaning of the card, and how it responds to your question when picking the card. The living beings on the card and how they interact with each other also carry deep meanings.
There are many kinds of love tarot cards, and they each have their traditional meaning. Here’s a look at the top 10 such love tarot cards and understand what they traditionally mean:
- The Lovers – If this card comes up, the picture itself is self-explanatory. It shows the connection between two people and represents a deep bond.
- Two of Cups – Traditionally, it is a symbol of monogamy and indicates a strong bond between two people and reflects their commitment to each other.
- Ten of Cups – A large number of cups denotes prosperity, indicating a large and growing family. It also represents deep family values.
- Four of Wands – It is a card representing celebration and a safe passage into a new chapter in life. Often in love readings, this card means a wedding or the transition of a casual relationship into something more serious.
- Ten of Pentacles – It represents stability and a well-established relationship. It could also indicate a marriage or a solid relationship that has weathered the many vicissitudes of life together.
- Ace of Cups – This indicates a new relationship on the horizon.
- Knight of Cups – It represents a knight in shining armor and usually makes an appearance when someone is already courting you.
- The Empress – A symbol of abundance and fertility and represents sensuality and a deeply rooted connection between you and your partner.
- The Emperor – This card reflects a highly dependable partner and the possibility of a long-term relationship.
- The Hierophant – This card represents tradition, so if this card comes up during your tarot reading for love, it means a long-term relationship or even marriage is on the horizon.
The True Love Reading Cards are a new set of reading cards to help you with your love life. Any questions about romance, relationships, and love can be answered with a tarot card reading using these cards.
Various Card Spreads for Your Tarot Reading
There are various card-spreading techniques when you are reading from the tarot cards. While it is recommended that you start with one card as a beginner, you can gradually move on to more elaborate spreads involving three, five, or even seven tarot cards.
Each spread and the cards in each spread have their meaning assigned to them. Depending on the spread, more and more information can be gleaned from this card.
The Simple Three-Card Spread
To test the relationship dynamics between two people, you can do this simple three-card spread. One of the most straightforward tarot cards that read through an even simpler version is picking up just that one card and seeking answers from that card alone.
A three-card setup will give you more information about the relationship and is relatively easy to read. It helps bring out the dynamics between two people in a relationship.
To do the three-card spread:
- Shuffle your cards and focus on your questions.
- Pick the leftmost card and then the rightmost card.
- For the final card, choose one in the center of the deck.
- Lay it in the middle of the earlier two cards.
- The first card is the card about you. It shows your role in the relationship, how you perceive yourself, and what effect that perception has on your relationship.
- The second card is the one that represents your partner and their role in the relationship. It shows how you perceive your partner and how this perception affects the relationship.
- The third one sheds light on the dynamics of your relationship. It elaborates on the characteristics that affect the two partners’ relationship.
The Five-Card Spread
The reading of this spread is similar to the three-card reading above. It provides you with more details about your relationship, how it has developed over time, and what the future holds for you. This reading draws one from the extreme left and one from the right, followed by three in the middle.
The first card shows your role in the relationship, the second reflects on your partner’s role, and the third shows the relationship’s past foundation. The fourth and fifth cards offer your relationship’s present and future.
Compatibility Tarot Spread
As the name suggests, the compatibility tarot spread is a yardstick to measure the compatibility between the two partners, focusing on the causes of contention and harmony.
The cards shed light on your and your partner’s role in the relationship and the various factors that will affect the relationship’s harmony. This spread calls for seven cards, each bringing out the causes of contention, similarities, and emotional, physical, and mental compatibility in the relationship.
Keep It Simple and Start Small
You can also start with a single card, even though reading spreads ask for three or more cards. You are under no pressure to conduct elaborate studies right off the bat. Start with one card and then gradually progress as you deem fit.
Many tarot card readers would agree that although tarot card reading seems complicated, it can be simple. And there are many different ways in which tarot card readings can be done, so it is okay to start small with a single card.
Know What Kind of Relationship Reading You Want
This is perhaps the first key step once you have grounded yourself. You must know what you seek and if your questions are ready. It could be anything related to the current state of your relationship or its future. Finding out more about your relationship requires the same number of cards and can be a strong indicator of where you are headed.
If you are feeling a strain in your relationship and want to understand more about the forces pulling you apart, then a tarot card reading for love is where you can seek answers. If, for instance, you would like to do a tarot card reading to know where your relationship is headed, then by doing a three-card reading, you can figure out the relationship’s trajectory.
In this video, you can participate in a tarot reading session to understand your partner’s current thoughts and feelings:
Take Time to Ground Yourself In Between Sessions
Ground yourself every time you transition from one tarot card reading session to the next. As you move from one set of questions to the next, your mind may still linger on the findings of the previous tarot cards, which may hinder you from concentrating fully on the next set of questions. This is especially needed if you are constantly worried and anxious about your relationship, as it will impact your tarot reading session.
Pulling cards with a ton of anxiety in mind will manifest itself in the cards you pull out from the deck. Sometimes, this negativity may get projected not just on the card deck but also on your partner, which can only aggravate things between you and your partner.
It is recommended not to read cards when you feel stressed. Instead, give yourself some time and let the wave of anxiety ebb. It is okay, even if it takes a day or two for this to happen. Sometimes going for a long walk, listening to mellow music online, or even taking a long, hot shower helps. You can also try yoga and meditation to feel more grounded and less anxious.
Only after you have grounded yourself should you start with the reading. This will make you feel more mindful as you shuffle the cards and choose your reading cards. It is better to clear the deck if you have been doing many tarot card readings. First, empty the previous sessions’ energy and restack the deck anew. To do this:
- Let all the cards fall on the ground.
- Go about mixing them as a child would.
- Gather them all together in a fresh deck.
This is especially helpful when you have experienced a tough time in the recent past or are stuck in a cycle you want to come out of. To make the cleansing ritual more effective, wait till the new moon to reshuffle your deck.
Another way to clear out the energy from the deck of cards is to leave it by the window sill at night.
- Reshuffle the cards and then spread them out on a clear moonlit night by your window sill.
- Let the cards stay there till morning. This will remove any negative energy from the past reading sessions from the cards.
- The following day, shuffle the cards as you normally would, and your cards are ready for the next batch of tarot reading.
Avoid Pulling More Than Three Cards at a Time
Even though you have a five-card spread and seven cards spread, as seen earlier, when you pull the cards out, avoid pulling out more than three cards simultaneously. In a tarot reading, the spirits cannot get the message across to us crisply and clearly if we clutter the message by pulling multiple cards simultaneously. Pulling out one card at a time is advised for more compelling reading.
It is also important to remember not to reshuffle the card if you have a second question about the same subject, the relationship. You can pull more cards from the same deck for any continuing questions.
If you do not get a clear answer the first time, you have pulled the card and sat with it for some time. The card is usually right. You need some more time to grasp what the card is trying to tell you fully.
Remember That You Are Not a Victim of Fate
While all this makes you feel like everything that happens to you is fate, no matter what you do, you cannot change what fate has decided for you. However, this is a skewed way of looking at fate because fate also brings us a lot of good things. We are not the victims of our fate.
No matter how harsh, every reading tries to tell you something, a lesson hidden in its depths for you to decipher and act upon. Think of the tarot reading for love as the guiding force that will look after your relationships and steer you away from harm and futility.
Final Thoughts
Tarot readings are a way to gain insight and guidance on a particular topic or question. In a tarot reading for love, the cards can provide information about your romantic partner, compatibility, and emotional dynamics.
To do a tarot reading for love, it is important to set an intention and ask a specific question before drawing cards from the tarot deck. The number of cards drawn can vary, but it is common to start with one card and gradually increase to three or more.
Some practitioners choose cards based on intuition or a feeling of vibration. In contrast, others may look for elements that repeatedly appear or consider the traditional meanings of the cards. The meaning of the cards can be interpreted in various ways, including through symbols, colors, numerology, and the interactions depicted in the cards.