Easy Tarot Lessons!
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Dusty White here with Cathy, and we're on a mission today. Just like I'm the world's first vegetable rights activist (remember kids: (and tell your mom!) "Love your veggies! Don't eat them!"), Cathy and I are the world's first reversals rights activists. Reversed cards are your friends, and here's why. What We're Covering: Reversals Double Your Visual Cues: You're literally getting twice the information for free. Every card has a higher and lower energy, and when you use reversals, the deck just tells you which one it is. You don't have to guess. Reversals Make Readings More Efficient:...
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Dusty White here with Kerri for another quick tarot lesson. This time we're diving into the four twos in the Minor Arcana—and I'm talking about the pip cards, not the High Priestess. Here's the thing: most sources will tell you which element belongs to which suit. Wands are fire, cups are water, swords are air, pentacles are earth. Great. But they don't tell you what flavor of that element you're looking at. That's what we're doing today. What We're Covering: Moving Beyond Kindergarten-Level Tarot: Astrology isn't just for measuring people's personalities. It's a framework we can use to...
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Dusty White here with Kerri for a quick 14-minute dive into something that's going to change how you look at the Aces in your deck. Here's the thing: all four Aces are cardinal. Every single one. And that matters more than you might think. What We're Covering: Why Cardinal Energy Changes Everything: Cardinal energy is compressed, explosive, immediate—like a match flaring up or an auto accident. It all happens at once. The Aces aren't subtle. They kick the door down, do their thing, and that's it. Even when they look friendly and nurturing, they're still telling you what to do. Reading...
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Short small spreads are all the rage these days. While longer, more in-depth spreads are where you build your reputation, change lives, and help serious (repeat) clients solve real-world problems, no one has time for those now! Everyone wants to give short readings, even though you get your biggest tips from expertly executed in-depth sessions that produce real results. SHORT READINGS ARE MORE FUN! (for the reader) So how do we make any money from this? Even more important, how can we give our clients real value in 5 to 15 minutes? After all, we can't compress time (well . . . ...
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The eight of wands is easily one of the more confusing cards in the tarot. The visuals are simplistic: eight sticks are seemingly floating in air, and in the background is a small river and a house. The lack of people or determinable action gives this card something of a generic feel,, and as a result forces too many tarot readers to memorize keywords or key phrases in an attempt to make sense of this when this card comes up in a reading. But it is the simplicity and synchronicity of this image that reveals much of its true meaning. This is what we discuss in today's tarot card meaning...
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The seven of wands shows us a young man standing on a hill that ends in a cliff, and what seem to be stick-wielding assailants are coming at him. He doesn’t have anywhere to go, as he has been backed into a corner. His only choice now is to stand and fight. The 7 of Wands shows us when we are forced into a position, or forced to make a choice. We are under pressure, or we are put upon by others. This is a card of open conflict, but there is not a fight yet — just the threat of implied violence. All too often the threat of implied violence is enough to make most people behave or acquiesce...
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The Six of Wands shows us a hero returning from some kind of victory — or this is celebrating his promotion or raise in status. No matter whether this is earned or if it is stolen valor, this card shows someone riding high in life. This is what it is like to be popular, in demand, and having people cheering you on. This can be a moment in time, like when you receive your diploma at the graduation ceremony for college, or the announcement that you are “employee of the month.” But this can be an event, a circumstance, or an environment. That means that the 6 of Wands as a tarot card...
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The 5 of Wands is a deceptively complex tarot card that deals with the intricacies of social hierarchies and how we all fit in with various groups, don't fit in with others, and what we can expect when we try to manage discordant affairs. While the base art is ridiculously simple, we can glean layers of information from this card by our understanding of sociology and comparing the positions and placements of each participant in this card. The five of Wands shows us a gang of boys on a slight rise, examining each other more than themselves, and seeking either acceptance or validation, but most...
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This card has a split focus, and it shows us three layers of activity. In the first layer we see that we are looking at a stage. The only thing real are the four sticks and the garland that is tied between the outer two of those. While the outer two sticks create a frame, the inner two create a narrow gateway that allow one or two people to pass through at a time. This makes this a checkpoint or a border crossing, but this works on a metaphysical scale just as it would on the physical plane. This could just as easily represent the gateway between the human world of awareness and the...
info_outlineDusty White here with Cathy, and we're on a mission today. Just like I'm the world's first vegetable rights activist (remember kids: (and tell your mom!) "Love your veggies! Don't eat them!"), Cathy and I are the world's first reversals rights activists.
Reversed cards are your friends, and here's why.
What We're Covering:
Reversals Double Your Visual Cues: You're literally getting twice the information for free. Every card has a higher and lower energy, and when you use reversals, the deck just tells you which one it is. You don't have to guess.
Reversals Make Readings More Efficient: Here's the thing: if you're not using reversals, you have to decide for every single card whether it's representing the upright or reversed energy—higher versus lower meaning. That's an extra interpretive step you're doing in your head. With reversals, you skip that step entirely. The card does the work for you. If you're reading a Celtic Cross, that's 10 steps you don't have to take. You can spend that energy feeling into the spread instead.
Reversals Reduce Reader Bias: This is huge. I've read for tens of thousands of people, and I'll admit—sometimes I've twisted an interpretation because I emotionally didn't want something bad to happen to my client. Reversals act like a safeguard against that. It's like scientific processes that guard against subjective bias. The deck makes the upright/reversed decision for you through divine "randomization," not through your wishful thinking.
Real Example - The Magician Reversed: Cathy did a reading for a guy making a big move—new city, new job, everything. All the cards looked great. He was prepared, his mindset was clear, everything was lined up perfectly. Then the outcome card: Magician reversed. If she hadn't been using reversals, she might have read that as "You're making this happen! Everything's great!" But reversed? Something out of his control was going to derail him. Using reversals prevented wishful reinterpretation and prompted deeper investigation with clarifying cards.
Some Cards Get Better Reversed: Three of Swords? I'd much rather see that reversed. All those swords fall out—"I haven't got time for the pain." Ten of Swords? Same thing. Reversed can mean the worst is over, you're recovering, you're getting past it. The Devil, the Tower—these cards can soften when reversed, indicating you dodged a bullet or the intensity is lessening.
But Also: Some Cards Need to Be Negative: Life sucks sometimes. Most people come to us because something's wrong. We can't just have unicorns and rainbows. Cards have to reflect real life. And when a reversal flags a problem—especially in an outcome position—that's when you dig deeper with clarifying cards. That's the mark of a professional: you don't just do three cards and call it done. You investigate.
Practice Exercise: Pull the Four of Wands. Upright: celebration, connection, community, house party. Reversed: disrupted connections, cancelled celebrations, feeling separated. Pull the Ten of Wands. Upright: burden, grind culture, hustle mindset. Reversed: dropping the load, rejecting that whole "sacrifice everything for work" mentality.
Creative Interpretation: Here's a cheat sheet: if you come up with a meaning that makes perfect sense and nobody's done it before, look through your deck and ask, "Does some other card already answer that question?" If not, you're onto something. The Ten of Swords giving the benediction gesture? That could be forgiveness. Reversed? "I want him dead, I want his family dead"—no forgiveness whatsoever.
The point is to allow outside associations to connect with your cards. Look at a card and say, "This makes me think of . . . " and just have fun with it.
Using reversals isn't about cutting corners—it's about letting the universe make decisions instead of you. It's about getting clearer, richer, more honest readings. Worth the time to learn.
Thanks for being here. We'll be back with more soon.
Books mentioned in this podcast:
The Easiest Way to Learn the Tarot—EVER!!
The Easiest Way to Learn Astrology—EVER!!
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