Tahmina

How I came to tarot

Symbols, horoscopes, all that kind of knowledge — it has been around me since I was a child. I just never paid much attention, because in my family it was normal.

What got me into tarot was curiosity about how the cards work: “Tarot is the foundation, it’s ancient, and I wanted to know how it’s put together.” I didn’t plan to make money from it. I wanted to figure it out for myself.

For about a year I couldn’t find a teacher I actually wanted to learn from. I went to one tarot seminar and decided not to study with that teacher. I watched other readers, asked friends where they had learned — and every time something held me back.

Thailand changed that: “I was amazed that in Thailand people read tarot everywhere, out in the open, and it’s completely normal — a very social thing.” After that I stopped putting it off, found my teacher and started learning.

I’ve been practicing tarot for two years.

Why Rider–Waite

“It’s the classic. It’s the most popular deck. It’s the classic and the foundation.” I have a Thoth deck too, but to work with Thoth you need to know Rider–Waite inside out first. So every reading I do is on the classic deck.

What tarot is to me

Not fortune-telling. A system of signs people have used for centuries:

“Tarot is the same kind of sign system people use every day. A red traffic light means you stop and wait for green. People have paid attention to signs like that for centuries because they work. Tarot is the same kind of system — just deeper, and not for everyone.”

A reading shows where you stand and what the situation may bring. How it ends is up to you.

How I work on a reading

First I read your question. Then I tune in: “I clear my mind completely, shut out all the noise. I need to be quiet and still.” I shuffle the deck and say your question out loud.

I draw the cards at random from different parts of the deck — three, four or seven, depending on the spread.

Before reading single cards, I look at the whole picture:

• how many Major Arcana came up. Three of them mean you’re under the pull of forces acting on you right now — a crisis, a pandemic, a war. The Major Arcana always show the overall energy you’re living in;
• lots of Minor Arcana means the situation is fluid and can shift easily;
• whether positive or negative cards win;
• which card jumps out first;
• which element dominates: Wands are fire, Cups water, Swords air, Pentacles earth.

Then I read in layers. First each card on its own — what it says about this question. Then the cards in pairs. Then all of them together: I line up the chain of events, the timeline, and work through the situation.

I write down everything I see as I go. If I have questions along the way, I message you and ask. Then I record the video.

The written summary you get is my own notes on your cards, cleaned up for you.

What I see behind the words

I’m a psychologist. That teaches you to see what sits behind a carefully kept front — the fragile, important thing a person can’t bring themselves to say.

A woman came to me asking, “What’s wrong with me? Why is everything going wrong?” On the surface she was a happy mother who lived for her kids and loved her work. The cards showed something else: she had been grieving for years and living in the past, so she couldn’t move forward or live in the present. All her energy was going backwards, and the happy front was “like rose-tinted glasses she puts on for everyone, to show them she’s fine.”

When I see that in a reading, I ask: What happened? What’s gone on over the last few years? What are you grieving? What keeps pulling you back? Tell me.

Where my limits are

I take any question, but I don’t give medical or legal instructions — I’m not a doctor or a lawyer. If the cards show you should see one, I’ll tell you straight. I won’t tell you whether to have an operation. On a health question I’ll say: go and see a doctor.

I’ll also look at a third person in a reading.

Some topics I can only warn you about. Certain combinations of cards point to danger. If someone asks, “Can I drive to such-and-such a place?” and the cards say no, I’ll tell them: be very careful, maybe put the trip off. If a combination points toward a court case or trouble with the authorities, I’ll say: be careful, stay within the law, don’t do anything illegal — this could end in legal trouble.

I don’t read upside-down cards. Every card has a shadow side even when it lies upright, and I read it as part of the meaning.

Why video, and why within 24 hours

“If I were ordering a reading, I wouldn’t want to get a text. I wouldn’t want to read it. I’d rather watch a video, see the picture, see which cards came up. It’s more interesting. And I take things in better by ear. These days people watch, they don’t read.”

“As a client I wouldn’t order from a reader who said, ‘You’ll have your answer in a week’ — by then it wouldn’t matter to me. When you ask a question, it’s normal to get the answer today. Within 24 hours.”