On the previous page, I spoke about the single card spread, and mentioned three different variations. Two of which came from Your Tarot, Your Way by Barbra Moore.

Let's take a look at the Single Card Spreads with a little more depth. Starting with the Single Card Draw itself.

Before You Begin...

To do this spread effectively, you will need the following:

- A Deck of Tarot Cards

- A Journal to Make Notes

- Time to Practice

Step 1: Divide the Cards

• Take your chosen Tarot Cards, and seperate the Major and Minor Decks. 

The Major Arcana have 22 cards, if you are not certain which is the major and minor, here is a good rule of thumb to go by:

- Major Deck: 22 cards starting with The Fool and ends with The World.

- Minor Deck: 56 cards featuring Ace to King in Cups, Wands, Swords, and Pentacles.

Step 2: Shuffle the Major and Discard the Minor

• Discard the Minor 56 Deck and Shuffle the 22 Major Deck

Shuffling is important for a few reasons:,

- It mixes the cards together to prevent them being in chronological numerical order, this is a purely practical reason, but it is functional and effective.

- Clears the energy from any previous card reading sessions. It is important for the cards to be clear of any influences, as you want a clear channel and a clear reading.

- Gives you time to set an intention and connect with the deck. It is important to connect with the deck, you are looking for an answer either for yourself or another, without an intention or connection, the cards will be aimless, and you'll not get a good result.

Step 3: Preparing to do the Single Card Spread

• Pick a Number between 1 and 21

While there are 22 physical cards in the deck, they are numbered 0 through to 21, so that is The Fool through to The World.

Therefore the first card is always discarded as the fool, and you pick a card between the numbers of 1 and 21 for the purpose of the single card spread.

The following is a demonstration of the Single Card Spread, it is using Llewellyn Classic Tarot, which is part of Your Tarot, Your Way.

In Practice: The Single Card Draw

To begin with the cards have been seperated into their Major and Minor decks, the Major deck has been shuffled.

1. The Fool (Card 0) has been discarded and the number 9 has been chosen.

2. Each card has been counted, until the 9th card is reached. 

3. The 9th card is turned over at this point.

Note: The image of Judgement is from Llewellyn Classic Tarot, which is featured as part of Your Tarot, Your Way.

The last part of single card spreads is 'reading' or interpreting the card itself. There are a few ways in which you can decide to this, if you are just starting out then you can learn from the book which came with the deck itself. 

There is nothing wrong with this in the slightest, the one important thing to keep in mind is that the interpretation is from that authors understanding, you may find another author has a different idea of the cards mean to them.

Sometimes the only way to learn is by collating meaning from different authors and bringing them together. I've had a very interesting upbringing where Tarot is concerned. I'm self taught, and only decided to do Tarot Courses, in later life out of either interest or necessity.

In any case, for the purposes of this practical demonstration of the card reading, I will talk about it from my understanding, and through later posts in Tarot Playtime, I'll aim to introduce you to my understanding of what the cards from both decks mean.

Single Card Reading: Judgement

Judgement can be seen as using the inate gift of discernment that everyone is born with. It is also about trusting in your own judgement and going with what gives you a good feeling or in some cases that bad feeling.

Judgement is about the underlaying feelings of trust in a situation or person, and it is about making a call. No matter how much weighing up the Yin/Yang, Pro/Con, or Good/Bad that is done, and no matter how much logic is applied it will always come down to Judgement.

Therefore, it is time to look at the situation, sit with it and then make that call of Judgement, which in this case is relating to deciding on how best to proceed with the current module in my Teaching Qualification.