0:17 you're listening to root lock radio [Music]
0:22 [Music]
0:24 hello and welcome to rootlock radio a
0:26 podcast for uncloaking
0:29 learning and exploring the tarot cards
0:31 my name is weston i live in new york
0:33 city and i'm the founder of rootlock tarot
0:33 tarot
0:36 my practice for reading and teaching the
0:37 tarot cards
0:39 i'm creating this podcast for a couple
0:40 of reasons
0:42 the first is to provide a resource for
0:44 people who are trying to learn the tarot cards
0:45 cards
0:48 in each episode you'll find step-by-step
0:49 instructions that will help you to
0:50 familiarize yourself
0:52 and get proficient at reading tarot
0:54 cards the second reason is to contribute
0:56 to the conversation
0:58 because tarot was malleable and
0:59 ever-evolving the more voices that
1:02 contribute to the conversation about it
1:04 the better in my mind i'd like to add my
1:05 voice to that conversation
1:08 and contribute my ideas about the tarot
1:10 and i'd also like to hear from you
1:12 so if you have any questions comments or
1:14 things you want to talk to me about
1:16 please shoot me an email you can reach
1:17 me at realblocktarot
1:20 gmail.com in this first episode i'll
1:22 give you an idea of the philosophy that
1:24 i use to approach the tarot cards
1:26 if you're someone who's skeptical about
1:28 tarot you might find my philosophy a bit reassuring
1:29 reassuring
1:31 after that we'll get started with our
1:33 first lesson i'll tell you which deck i
1:34 recommend starting with
1:36 how to take a look at the deck for the
1:38 first time and how to do a beginner's spread
1:38 spread
1:40 so that said let's get started with the
1:54 first episode of rootlock radio [Music]
1:59 [Music] [Applause]
2:00 [Applause] [Music]
2:11 [Music] [Applause]
2:14 [Applause] [Music]
2:23 before we start our first lesson i want
2:26 to give you an idea of the philosophy
2:29 i use to approach the tarot cards before
2:30 you really know much about the tarot
2:31 cards you probably
2:34 have some perception of them as a mystical
2:34 mystical
2:37 tool that fortune tellers use to tell
2:39 you things that you don't know and tell
2:40 you what's going to happen to you in the future
2:41 future
2:44 now i recommend setting aside this whole
2:45 idea of
2:48 what's called divination or fortune telling
2:49 telling
2:51 when you first approach the tarot cards
2:52 the main reason for this
2:55 is that most people are skeptical of the
2:57 ability of the tarot cards to
2:59 tell you things that you don't know or
3:00 tell you what's going to happen to you
3:01 sometime in the future
3:03 and in many ways i'm one of those people
3:06 even after using the tarot cards for years
3:07 years
3:08 having worked with the tarot cards for
3:10 this amount of time
3:12 what i've come to realize is that the
3:13 best use of them
3:16 is not so much telling me what's going
3:16 to happen
3:19 or what i don't already know but helping
3:20 me to understand
3:23 the best path for me to take forward
3:25 throughout these episodes we'll talk a
3:27 lot about the imagery the symbols and
3:29 the archetypes that are represented in
3:30 the cards
3:33 what comes with these images symbols and
3:35 archetypes is a lot of wisdom about the
3:36 human experience
3:39 so when you decide to select a card or
3:40 spread of cards
3:43 in the face of a question or a dilemma
3:45 or a choice that you have to make you
3:47 are asking the cards to
3:49 share their wisdom with you so no matter
3:50 what card you
3:52 draw in relation to the situation you're facing
3:53 facing
3:56 you will get some bit of wisdom that
3:57 will help you
4:00 if you try to reframe the situation and
4:01 see it from
4:03 a different side and in a new way and
4:06 hopefully help you to get some clarity
4:07 about what you should do about it now
4:10 there's nothing wrong with enjoying
4:13 the mystical aspect of the tarot cards
4:13 and i
4:15 that's not what i'm trying to get at
4:17 here many times i'll draw a card and be
4:20 quite shocked at how perfectly fitting
4:21 it is
4:23 and especially when i do tarot readings
4:24 for other people
4:26 there's nothing more enjoyable than
4:27 watching people feel
4:31 surprised and delighted at how fitting
4:33 the cards that they're seeing are for
4:35 them in their life so by all means enjoy
4:36 that part of the tarot
4:39 in future episodes i'll revisit all this
4:41 and we'll talk more about divination
4:43 and the mystical aspects of the tarot as
4:45 well as the practical side of it but for
4:47 now i think it's useful to know that
4:49 focusing on divination is not all that
4:51 important as a beginner tarot reader
4:53 so that said let's get started on our
4:55 first lesson [Music]
5:33 [Music]
5:35 so for our first lesson we're going to
5:36 talk about
5:39 which tarot deck to start with there are
5:42 a lot of options if you go to any store that
5:43 that
5:46 offers tarot decks you might see dozens
5:48 if not hundreds of decks
5:49 so it can be a little overwhelming to
5:51 try to figure out where to start
5:53 and for that reason i would like to recommend
5:54 recommend
5:56 the writer weight tarot deck as the
5:57 place to start
6:00 a lot of other decks are inspired by the
6:02 art on the rider weight deck so it's
6:03 sort of like
6:06 the mother deck in a lot of ways
6:08 that doesn't mean it's the oldest deck
6:10 um there are other
6:13 tarot decks that date back farther the
6:15 marseille is another classic tarot deck
6:18 that predates the writer weight deck however
6:19 however
6:22 the writer weight deck is unique from
6:26 the ones that predated and that there is artwork
6:26 artwork
6:30 on every single card so
6:32 if you pick up a writer weight deck and
6:34 i recommend that you do
6:35 and you start looking through you'll see
6:37 that there are a couple different kinds
6:39 of cards
6:41 so the first is called major arcana
6:44 cards there are 22 of them
6:46 and they start with zero which is the
6:48 fool and go up to 21
6:50 which is the world now the major arcana cards
6:51 cards
6:55 represent sort of more um archetypal
6:58 and major experiences in life
7:02 and when you lay them out as a set
7:04 and you get to understand what the
7:06 images and the archetypes in those
7:07 images mean
7:11 you start to get the story of a person's
7:13 journey through life through the human experience
7:15 experience
7:19 now the other type of card in the
7:22 tarot deck is the minor arcana cards
7:26 these come in four suits which is cups
7:30 wands swords and pentacles and they
7:33 range from aces to the number 10
7:36 and then there are four court cards the page
7:37 page
7:39 the knight the queen the king so these
7:41 are kind of more like
7:42 the classic playing card deck and
7:44 actually playing cards
7:48 are rooted in the tarot deck
7:52 now each suit represents a particular type
7:52 type
7:56 of energy so just the basic
8:00 way that each card derives its meaning
8:02 is you can think of it as an
8:04 intersection of energy so each card
8:07 is an intersection of energy between the suit
8:08 suit
8:11 so whether it's cups wands swords or pentacles
8:12 pentacles
8:16 and the number right so numerology
8:19 dictates that each number has a specific
8:21 energy of its own
8:23 so when you combine the energy of the
8:25 suit with the energy of the number
8:27 that's where you sort of get the meaning
8:28 of the card
8:31 so someone who's not familiar which you
8:34 may not be with numerology or
8:38 with the elemental energies of water
8:40 fire air in earth it may be difficult
8:42 for you to memorize
8:45 what each card would mean and that's
8:47 exactly why the rider weight deck
8:51 is special and helpful for a beginner
8:52 tarot reader
8:54 because rather than having to memorize
8:55 what ten
8:58 swords means you see an image on the
8:59 card of ten of swords
9:01 that helps you to understand what that
9:03 card means so
9:06 with say the marseille deck the other
9:06 sort of classic
9:09 deck that's what you see on the card you
9:12 see ten swords you see seven pentacles
9:13 you see
9:16 six wands you don't see an image depicting
9:17 depicting
9:19 what that intersection of energy
9:21 actually denotes
9:23 so that's why the rider weight deck is
9:24 particularly helpful
9:27 for beginner tarot readers that said i recommend
9:28 recommend
9:30 starting out with the riderweight tarot
9:33 deck we're going to talk a lot about
9:35 the particular meanings of each of the
9:37 cards and how to learn those meanings
9:37 and how to
9:39 become familiar with the cards but
9:41 there's also something about
9:44 intuition that plays a big part in
9:44 reading tarot
9:47 so no matter how much you try to
9:50 memorize what each card means you should
9:52 still be also relying on your own
9:55 reaction to each card your own what you
9:57 see in each card
9:59 on your own as a first sort of
10:01 preliminary experiment
10:04 and a preliminary attempt to read the tarot
10:05 tarot
10:08 what i recommend doing is sitting down
10:09 and shuffling the deck thoroughly
10:11 you know just just shuffling it as much
10:12 as you can
10:15 making sure it's nice and mixed up
10:16 because if you're buying a brand new
10:18 deck it won't be so
10:20 you know shuffle shuffle shuffle and
10:22 then figure out a way that you want to
10:24 draw the cards out of it so what i do is
10:25 i usually cut the deck
10:28 in half after i've shuffled it so cut
10:29 the deck into two piles
10:32 and then the lower pile is where i draw
10:34 my three cards from so what we're doing
10:36 is we're drawing three cards
10:38 so this is one of the most classic starter
10:39 starter
10:42 spreads okay so past present
10:44 future and then flip them over and see
10:45 what you've drawn
10:47 now if any of them are upside down turn
10:49 them right side up we'll talk about
10:51 reversals which is upside down cards
10:53 later we're not going to do that yet and
10:55 just look at the cards
10:57 um and ask yourself some questions look
10:58 at the images
11:01 on the cards right so what i drew for this
11:02 this
11:05 this experiment is the ten of cups for past
11:06 past
11:10 the six of pentacles for present
11:12 in the major arcana card judgment for future
11:13 future
11:16 so looking at the past card right i see
11:19 uh some figures some people and they
11:20 look very happy
11:23 there's a rainbow up above them with the 10
11:24 10
11:26 cups embedded in it and it looks like a
11:28 very celebratory
11:30 card so i think to myself okay there's
11:32 something of celebration right
11:34 and i may want to look at the colors too
11:36 so the people in the card are happy
11:38 the colors are bright there's a nice
11:41 blue sky which usually denotes happiness
11:42 there's a rainbow
11:46 so it's a very positive feeling card
11:48 and then for the middle card i have the
11:50 the six of pentacles
11:54 and on this card there's a man holding a
11:57 a scale and he is giving something to
12:00 these two men that are begging to him so
12:02 he's in nicer clothes than they are
12:04 he ostensibly has more money than they do
12:05 do
12:09 and he is sort of giving them something
12:11 it looks like he's feeding or giving
12:13 money to beggars
12:16 um the background of the card is gray
12:19 which is much less happy a gray sky is
12:20 not as happy as a blue sky
12:22 right so this seems to be some sort of
12:25 exchange of goods exchange of
12:28 money and it seems to have something to
12:29 do with you know
12:31 there's the rich and there's the poor
12:32 and then for the future card i have the
12:33 major arcana card
12:36 judgment and there are people standing up
12:37 up
12:39 in what appear to be tombstones they're
12:41 all naked their bodies are blue
12:45 and they're looking up to a a trumpeter
12:47 in the sky an angel with a trumpet and a
12:48 flag in the sky
12:52 and it very much seems like some sort of
12:54 after death thing especially with the
12:55 word judgment
12:57 so looking at those three cards you know
12:59 the the first one is very happy and positive
13:00 positive
13:04 the second one is more negative and has
13:05 a feeling of sort of
13:08 inequality right and then the third one
13:11 has this feeling of sort of a great moment
13:12 moment
13:14 of judgment and it kind of feels like
13:16 after death
13:18 right so so there's something a little
13:21 bit morbid into me about it their blue bodies
13:22 bodies
13:24 their naked bodies standing up in these
13:26 graves but also something just sort of
13:29 faded with the the trumpeting angel um
13:31 so i might think to myself well
13:34 in the past this situation was very
13:36 happy and celebratory and simple and positive
13:37 positive
13:39 the blue sky the celebrating family the
13:42 red the rainbow the dancing kids
13:44 in the present maybe there's some sort
13:45 of transition happening
13:48 having to do with work or money or
13:51 possessions and then in the future
13:54 somehow i'm gonna be called to my fate
13:55 so even though
13:57 this maybe is some sort of death experience
13:58 experience
14:00 right these people in the in the graves
14:02 have died
14:04 maybe it's some sort of big transition
14:05 right death usually represents a
14:07 transition not physical death
14:10 through this transition from happiness
14:12 to a more inequal
14:15 scenario i will be called to something greater
14:16 greater
14:18 okay so that's that's what i see in
14:20 these three cards
14:23 so even without knowing what the cards
14:24 actually mean
14:26 and knowing what other people would say
14:27 that the cards mean
14:30 i'm able to look at them and sort of by
14:31 looking at
14:33 what the figures in the cards are doing
14:36 just my emotional reaction to the people
14:37 in the cards
14:40 the colors that i see in the cards i'm
14:41 able to see
14:43 sort of a story unfolding before me so
14:45 that it really is
14:47 the most basic skill in tarot reading and
14:48 and
14:50 um i recommend when you get your first deck
14:51 deck
14:54 that you do this exercise as well
14:56 and just push yourself to try to
14:58 understand what the cards mean
15:01 even without looking them up or trying
15:02 to figure out
15:04 what someone else would say they mean
15:11 [Music]
15:14 so to recap this first tarot lesson i
15:16 recommend that you buy
15:19 a copy of the writer weight tarot deck
15:21 and take a look at it and understand the
15:24 major and minor arcana cards
15:27 and also understand the four suits the cups
15:28 cups
15:30 the wands the swords and the pentacles
15:32 and understand that each card
15:35 is an intersection of its suit and its number
15:36 number
15:39 and then shuffle the cards and draw a past
15:40 past
15:43 present and future tarot spread
15:45 and then take a look at that and assess
15:46 what you see
15:48 without looking up what the cards mean
15:50 this will give you an idea of the
15:52 intuitive nature of tarot reading
15:55 and help you to get started on building
15:56 your own relationship
16:08 with the tarot cards [Music]
16:20 [Music] so
16:22 so [Music]
16:25 [Music]
16:27 root lock radio is a podcast for
16:29 uncloaking learning
16:31 and exploring the tarot cards it's
16:32 written and produced by me
16:35 westin the intro music for today's show
16:38 was provided by shenandoah davis
16:39 you can find her information in the show
16:42 notes she's also got a new album coming
16:43 out so please
16:45 check her out the music you're hearing
16:46 now is provided by jere
16:48 you can find the link to her band camp
16:50 in the show notes as well and listen to
16:52 her radio show on brooklyn radio it's
16:53 called the ice cream and cake show
16:55 thank you so much for listening and i
16:57 hope you'll join us next time for root
17:05 lock radio [Music]
17:12 [Music] you
