Techniques to Try When You Don't Get It!

I don't get it!

At one time or another, all of us who use the tarot have had this phrase run through our minds. We look at the cards laid out before us and instead of enlightenment, we feel more confused than ever.  What is that card doing there? I don't get it!

Early on in  my tarot practice, my initial impulse was to be dismissive and self-blaming ... I must have done something wrong, that doesn't make sense, I'll do it over. This, as you can imagine, was not an effective approach and did more harm than good. I even stopped doing readings altogether for a time, because I could not seem to "get it right."

I was only reading for myself at that phase, so there was no opportunity for dialog. If you are having a reading done for you, a good reader will find ways to draw you out and direct your examination of the spread or any particularly confusing card until you find an aspect that fits or resonnates. But when you are reading for yourself, it can sometimes be a little difficult to see the forest for the trees. The temptation can be enormous to ask, ask, ask again. We'll draw more cards, or we'll start over at the very beginning. We'll look up interpretations in a series of different references, searching for meaning. Some of us might switch to a different deck or even a different system of divination.

Nothing is really wrong with any of these approaches on their face. Foruntately the tarot seems to be much more forgiving of self-generated confusion than the I Ching, which I once badgered with the same question over and over and over again only to get the same hexigram over and over and over again, finally with a moving line that stated tersely "Action without thought brings about the evil of bewilderment." But the I Ching's comment is relevant here and that is precisely what we must guard against: action without thought.

Try these techniques whenever you get a card  or even a whole reading that you can't seem to make sense of:

1. Percolate. I stop looking at the card or spread, stop thinking actively about what it means, but set my mind to let it come into consciousness at any time, then go about the rest of my day. I find that as I relax my focus on the confusion and let go of my need to make things "fit," the space is created for different meanings and connections to float to the surface. That happened to me just this week, when my understanding of a card I'd been trying to interpret in the vein of "steeped in nostalgia" or "trapped in the past" slowly evolved to become "we've been through this before" and "familiar territory."

2. Associate. Again, I let go of what things "mean" and just let myself notice things. Colors, images, feelings I have about the card or cards, patterns. I don't fixate on these things, I just notice what I notice. Is there a coherent pattern? Does any one thing have more resonnance for you than the others? Do all things seem to come to your attention equally? Sometimes the way a card or a spread makes you react to it IS the meaning.

3. Wait. If all else has failed and you still just don't get it, it may be that the tarot is referring to something outside your immediate frame of reference--something you don't know, something hidden, or something that is yet to happen. I can't count the number of times over the past 28 years that I've suddenly been taken aback even six months after the fact, and thought "So THAT'S what that meant--now it makes sense!"

Remember, the tarot can only show us what we are ready to see. Most importantly, when you come up with a card or a spread that you don't understand, avoid blame and criticism, especially self-criticism. Openness and patience will yield leaps in understanding.