Tarot Spreads & Exercises for Beginners
As a professional Tarot reader who LOVES to teach folks how to read the Tarot, I get a lot of folks asking me what they can do as a beginner. Less “How to read the Tarot” and more “Now what do I do with it?”
There are so many ways that you can work with the cards! I’m going to teach you some practical tips on getting to use the Tarot cards and different Tarot spreads that you can try that are beginner friendly.
I have a variety of YouTube videos, such as learning “How to read the Tarot intuitively” and “Getting started with the Tarot.” I recommend checking these videos out as believe these will be very helpful to you as a beginner Tarot reader.
Now, you might be wondering what the next step is on your Tarot journey. Questions might be floating around in your mind like…
How do I lay out the Tarot cards?
How many Tarot cards do I pull?
What do I do with them?
That's what I’m going to answer for you.
Daily Draw
The first thing I’m going to suggest that you do is something called a daily draw.
What's a daily draw you ask?
You can do this one of two ways. The first method is to just plop the cards down onto the table and everyday come and pick the top card, placing it at the bottom of the deck at the end of the day.
The second option is to shuffle them every day, the difference with this method is you may get the same card multiple times which is totally fine and sometimes called a stalker card.
This method will give you more of the card that you really need versus the cards in order. Some would argue that the cards in order are also what you really need. The shuffling first method is going to take longer to get through every single card, just based on chance and probability. It is totally up to you to do whatever works best with your brain and creating a routine.
So, what do you do once you pick your Tarot card?
Pick your card of the day. I like to do this in the morning but pick a time that works best for you.
Write it down. Yes, write it down! You can forget them very easily – start a tarot journal. Start it off with “Daily Draw” at the top, write down the date, and what you think it means. It is very important to do. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have any idea what it means. Look at the image on the card intuitively – what do you see? What colors are there and what are they telling you? Look at the suit of the card – what is that telling you? Write it all down. Before you go to bed, look at what you wrote and reflect on your day and how this card could’ve shown up for you. Or how it showed up as something else? Now look up the traditional meaning and and write that underneath.
I've had a lot of success with my first intuitive meanings, meaning more to me than what the actual traditional meaning is. It adds a layer of depth that is personal to your readings - when I read for someone or for myself, it adds more meaning that other readers are not going to get.
Your intuitive readings are really important! Write them down and keep a record of them. It's a really, really, really, great skill to have and it's a good habit to get into doing the daily draw.
I think you'll get a lot out of it.
Tarot Spreads
The second thing to do is a Tarot spread.
I’ll tell you when I first bought my cards, all I wanted to do was some Tarot spreads pretty much straight away. There are a lot of Tarot spreads you can find on Pinterest that you can try to get a handle on things.
I also offer New Moon and Full Moon spreads with ritual worksheets. You're welcome to check them out. They're going to be customised to the energy of the moon too which is always helpful.
Example Readings
When doing a Tarot spread - all you need to do is pull a Tarot card and assign a position to it. That's what a Tarot spread is. Your Tarot spread may be as simple as one card.
ONE CARD TAROT SPREAD
What do I need to know today?
Perhaps you pull the Four of Cups so today you need to know that an opportunity will present itself.
TWO CARD TAROT SPREAD
I have a decision that I want to make. Should I go with A or B? -
Perhaps you pull the King of Swords for option A and the Kind of Wands for option B. Two kings would say that either decision is great, but option A might be the more logical choice and option B is the more passionate one. This spread helps you look at different options and the outcome of multiple possibilities.
THREE CARD TAROT SPREAD
Or you can try a three-card spread, pulling a past, present and future card for yourself or for someone else.
Generally, the card on the left is going to be the past, the middle card is present, and the one on the right-hand side is the future card. For example, perhaps you pull the Page of Wands, Five of Swords and the Judgment card.
So, for this example, Judgment and the Five of Swords, that's a lot of air vibes that I’m getting. Air elements - lots of like communication, messages and that sort of thing. Knowledge and then Page of Wands is totally different, so I might say “it looks like you've gone through a transformation recently and we've changed the way we're going forward.“
Tarot Tips
If a question can be answered with one to three cards it's a good question. You don't need more than that for a question, it is going to just confuse you and add too much to the spread when you’re a beginner.
HOT TIP: You don't always have to use a spread; you can do a free-flow reading!
That is when you just say “Let's just see what's going on right now.” You're not assigning anything to the cards. It is totally up to you.
HOT TIP: You don't have to use tarot cards as divination either.
Writers and creatives can really benefit from diving into the archetypes of the Tarot.
One of my mentorship clients is a poet, and part of their homework is to write a poem for an intuitively chosen card each month.
I’m a writer, and I have literally used my Tarot cards to help me write a book! I even have a Tarot Resource for writers where I give story prompts based on each of the Major Arcana cards! This is the Fool card as an example. Not only is this excellent for boosting your creativity but it also gets you deeper in to the cards too!
(The full PDF is only available for Society Members)
Again, if you’re a writer, you can use the Tarot to figure out what character flaw this character is going to have today? Maybe you pull Temperance, - so this character is too honest, too accepting and too optimistic. That's a flaw in this character and so you write that in.
That’s not a normal flaw people would choose is it! This is how it helps us to get out of a rut, break through writers block and so much more.
There are so many things you can do!
You can't really do it wrong unless you're charging for readings, and you don't know what you're doing.
Having fun is the main thing for beginner Tarot readers!
P.S. Check out my video on the BEST TAROT DECK FOR BEGINNERS
Remember to write it all down, keep your tarot journal so you can reflect and look back on it. The act of writing itself is going to embed those meanings back into your brain much better than if you just try and remember them all.
If you're having trouble connecting to your deck, make sure you pop it under your pillow and give it a cleanse every now and then.
Above all else have fun!
Meet Hana
Hana O’Neill, the Suburban Witch is a professional Tarot & Astrology reader, Intuitive Coach and the host of the Witch Talks podcast.
