Liz Worth ~ Tarot + Astrology

How are you? October was a big month for me. After the stillness of the last few years, this autumn has felt like life has really come roaring back in so many ways.

I had the opportunity to read tarot at some great Halloween parties, and also at the closing party of Likely General, a shop where I read every Sunday for two years. I loved having that residency and loved part of the community that had grown around that store.

Likely General closed its doors at the end of October, and I’m glad I could be there one last time to offer a few tarot readings as we all said goodbye to the space.

One of the things I found myself reiterating throughout my readings in October was that we have choices in life.

Whenever I read at events, I know I am going to have some nervous sitters on my hands. People are often curious about tarot. When they see a tarot reader in the corner at a party, they might decide that today’s the day they’re going to finally give tarot a try.

But...

I’ve been knee-deep in one-on-one readings this month and it’s been a wonderful state to be in.

Reading tarot isn’t always easy, though: It takes a lot of concentration and care. Readers see and hear a lot. We help to move energy in people’s lives. It takes a lot of time to sit with it all, but there is also great gratitude that comes with this path.

One of the things I have come to learn through my work is that tarot isn’t always pushing you towards a big change.

Often, clients come in for readings expecting to hear that something major is about to occur. Or that they have some kind of big opportunity on the horizon.

And there’s nothing wrong with wanting change, or working towards it, especially if you feel like you’re ready for a new experience in your life.

But sometimes we have to remember that things might be OK just as they are right now.

Our lives all go through different seasons. Sometimes there are seasons of change, and others of...

Whew! Is it just me, or is time flying by?

Sometimes I can’t believe how fast time is going. I’ve been noticing that lot of people are going through some major periods of re-evaluation in their lives.

There’s a lot of change in the air as many of us are rethinking what’s most important and looking at  what to de-prioritize in order to have more time for our families, friends, and ourselves.

Are you going through a big change right now?

When things are busy and hectic, and you’re feeling a bit (or a lot) unclear about what it’s all leading to, it can help to pull out your tarot cards and give yourself some space to reflect.

Instead of asking a predictive question, which can muddy the waters of the present even more, ask something like, “What can I do to stay true to myself right now?”

When you’re feeling pulled in a lot of different directions, it can help to come back to the here and now rather than getting lost in thoughts...

“What does this card mean?”

If you read tarot, chances are you’ve asked this question more than once along your path.

But one thing I’ve started to discourage tarot students from asking is that very question:

“What does this card mean?”

Why?

Because if figuring out a card meaning was the only thing standing between you and your tarot reading, you wouldn’t even have to ask that question.

Card meanings are everywhere. You can Google any tarot card and come up with all kinds of answers.

Or you can get a guidebook and look it up.

Or you can watch any number of videos on social media where people talk about their understandings of various tarot cards.

When someone asks what a card means, the problem isn’t that they can’t find that out on their own. Quite often, students who ask this question have already done their own studying. They already know something about the card they’re wondering about.

The problem is that the card...

One of the most common questions I get asked in my tarot classes is, “Should I be pulling a card a day for practice?”

I don’t assign daily draws and sometimes that makes people nervous. The practice has become so common that a lot of newer readers are under the impression that it’s a universal habit.

This isn’t to say I’m against daily draws entirely. I, too, was given the advice to pull one card a day, and did for a good long time when I was first learning tarot. I still have journals that I kept from that period, where I would record my daily card and the thoughts and ideas it inspired within me.

But I also came to see tarot differently as time went on. Which is what happens when you do tarot over a long stretch of time. Your relationship to it changes. You start to see new angles to it. And sometimes your old ways of doing things no longer fit the way they used to.

One of the biggest shifts for me came when I stopped looking at my tarot deck as...

What is the hardest question you’ve had to answer as a tarot reader?

In the time that I’ve been reading for other people, I’ve had my fair share of difficult questions.

Difficult, of course, is subjective.

Some people find questions like, “Is my ex coming back?” challenging because they are yes or no questions with an emotional charge to them.

Others find predictive questions difficult because their tarot reading style is less focused on the future and more on the present.

Tarot readers are always defining the boundaries of their work, and determining the best ways they can use tarot.

When I was starting out as a professional reader, there was a common piece of advice out there to turn down readings that didn’t feel like a good fit for your work.

There have only been a few times that I’ve turned people down, however. Sometimes, clients will come for tarot readings needing a type of support that just isn’t possible through tarot. Or,...

How do you know you’re ready to read tarot for others?

How do you know you’re ready to start charging for your readings?

How do you know you’re ready to accept that invitation to read at your friend’s party, or to give a talk about tarot at your local bookstore?

These are all questions that you will likely have about tarot at some point in your journey. When I started learning tarot, I knew I wanted to be able to read for other people. I didn’t know right away that this was something I wanted to do professionally (that came later), but I did want to be able to give readings that were intuitive, insightful, and accurate.

Knowing where you want to go with tarot, even in the short-term, is important, because it gives you a goal to work towards. When you know what you’re aiming for, you can focus your studies and practices in a way that will build towards that result.

But what often happens along the way is that it can be hard to know when...

A lot of people ask me how I transitioned into professional tarot reading.

Everyone gets here in their own way. For me, the leap happened in 2015 when I was working at a national non-profit.

My five-year work anniversary was coming up later that year. A few of my co-workers had already celebrated similar work milestones that year. We had stood around a grim boardroom with slices of cake sitting precariously on paper plates.

All year, I kept thinking to myself, “I really don’t want to be working here by the time my five-year party rolls around.”

I was burned out and disillusioned, and I knew that I had to get out.

I’d been doing tarot part-time on the side, reading at parties and taking on private clients when I had time. I felt strongly that tarot was something I was supposed to be doing, and I wanted to make more space in my life to offer more readings to more people.

The only problem was that my day job took so much out of me that I had no idea how I would...

When you start reading tarot for other people, you quickly realize that a lot of questions people have revolve around the same few categories:

Work.

Relationships.

Money and security.

Focus and contentment.

And just as often, we can find ourselves asking variations of these same questions when we’re reading on our own.

It’s something that I’ve been asked about a lot over the last few years:

“How can I take my readings deeper? What else should I be asking about?”

And, “What can I do to get my querents thinking differently, too?”

I used to feel the same way.

But I’ve come to appreciate these “mundane” questions, and I encourage you to try to, too.

Because one thing I have come to realize is that these questions are what life is about: No matter what it is we are trying to achieve in our personal lives, many of us share common fears and desires at the end of the day.

Everyone wants to feel love, and be loved.

Everyone needs a...

Before I get into this week’s newsletter, let’s take a moment to check in:

How are you doing?

There is such a whirlwind of energy in the collective right now that it’s been feeling hard, for me at least, to pinpoint where a lot of us are at. It seems many of us are cycling through contradictory bursts of feelings and thoughts moment by moment: Optimistic one minute, worried the next.

Life feels brimming with possibility in so many ways. As people return back to more in-person events and community gatherings and travel plans, there is a sense of gaining momentum. And when there are things to look forward to, life feels OK. Even if the days in between aren’t always easy, anticipation of good things to come is a strong remedy.

But as the pace of life is picking up for many, there are so many stressors, too. I won’t list them all: We are all capable of naming our own worries and fears.

But I wanted to check in. To say hello. To let you know that I am a real...