What’s a tarot consultant to do when presented with multiple topics for exploration? Let’s say that a client has booked one hour with you and has mentioned in their responses to your intake questions that they need to know about communication with their intimate partner(s), their choice about whether to continue their job or to move into self-created work, how to balance these with the part-time university course they’re taking, and coping with the stress of juggling all of this. That’s four topics (at least) — eek! — and one hour won’t address all of these individually in a way that’s helpful to the readee.
I see three possible solutions for such a moment:
1. Ask the client to select the topic/intention that they would put at the very top of the list and spend the hour working on it with them. Perhaps ask, “If a magical genie came along and told you that s/he could only apply his/her magic to one of these parts of your life, which one would be the most important one for you to choose?”
2. Suggest multiple sessions, one for each topic/intention plus a summary consultation, so that a thorough exploration of each can take place. These can be booked either a week or a fortnight apart, long enough for integration and homework activities to happen but close enough together so that momentum can be maintained.
3. Read their intake responses and find a theme that the various topics have in common, then design or choose a spread or process that will address this theme. Chances are that the thread that runs through every aspect of life is the real issue that needs to be addressed. Using the tarot encounter to explore the questions behind the underlying theme — whether it’s authority, victimhood, their personal definition of success, fear, an inflated sense of self, or whatever — and to generate doable, concrete actions for the client to perform beyond the session will likely create the most helpful and long-lasting change that’s required.
As you can see, there’s no need for a tarot practitioner to feel overwhelmed when presented with the multi-topic response to “What would be interesting or useful for you to know when we consult the tarot?” You have options and so does the person who’s consulting you.
P.S. This applies to ALL symbolic/intuitive consultants — astrologers, rune casters, intuitive life strategists, goddess stone readers, etc.
———————————————–
Image: Trump XXI, Le Monde, from the Camoin-Jodorowsky version of the Tarot de Marseille.
Evolutionary Tarot & Circle Ways 
