Best Tarot Books for Beginners & Everyone

in ,

So, you’re looking for the best tarot books for your beginning or current tarot practice? I’ve created a list of some of my most treasured tarot books in my own practice.

best tarot books for beginners and everyone

I'm gunna start off light and easy here and cover books and resources because this is a question I get asked the most.

Since books, websites and resources are a huge help when getting started with your tarot practice, I want to do this first. This is by no means a super comprehensive list, but a great place to start. You don't need a lot of books on the tarot to learn how to read it. These are books I have read myself, know of through other folks who opinion or publishing I hold in high esteem.

This list is short and sweet, as too much will muddle your mind. Books and resources are great, because they can open you up to new ways of seeing the cards and diving deeper into mythological and historical meaning. That said, the best way to learn the meaning of the cards is so simple: look at the card and notice what you see and feel come up around your situation. There's your meaning.

THE BEST TAROT BOOKS

78 Degrees of Wisdom by Rachel Pollack

The Easiest Way to Learn the Tarot - Ever! by Dusty White

The Pictorial Key to the Tarot by A. E. Waite

The Ultimate Guide to the Rider-Waite Tarot by Johannes Fiebig 

Tarot for Yourself by Mary Greer

21 Ways to Read a Tarot Card by Mary Greer

Holistic Tarot by Benebell Wen

The Game of Saturn by Peter Mark Adams

WEBSITES

Biddy Tarot  

The Tarot Lady 

Little Red Tarot (Queer friendly!) + Alternative Tarot Course! 

The Queer Tarot Project 

Learn Tarot (so simple and wonderful)

The Wild Unknown One by One 

And there y'all have it! Let me know if you have any questions at all, or if there's something very specific you'd like for me to cover around tarot for my next post. 

Arrival of Darkness & The Hibernating Bear

in

Oregon coast.

October started off ridiculously glorious, almost alarmingly glorious, here in my city. Bright warm days, golden sun, sun glasses, crop tops and shorts still an option. Warm weekends spent in debaucherous revelry were snatched away from me too quickly. But, all good and beautiful things do inevitably come to an end.

The rains came alright though, they came just fine. When the rains don't come, or they're late it worries me. Mt. Hood sat all greyish for weeks... and then boom! The next day he was covered in a white blanket. It poured heavy those last few weeks of October and through this early November. A second spring as I like to call it. Everything becomes green again after the dryness of summer, moisture loving plants come back to life...

And then darkness descends. 4pm sunsets, living in a perpetual state of gloaming and artificial light when it's too dark too see in your home. I am exalted in the sun, it gives me a joy I can't describe. But, it's an odd comfort this season and despite my moaning and groaning, I take full advantage of what it has to offer: incubation, hibernation, introspection.

Wildwood and bone reading.

The Bear has been a figure in my dreams, in my divination, in the ashes of burned candles and wax. The mother with her offspring lurks in the forests of my dreamscapes... I stopped for a moment in a book store not too long ago, to take a peek into Ted Andrews book Animal Speak. He wrote of how the female bear goes to her den for the winter, the seed that she carries is nurtured in the darkness and in the spring, she emerges proudly with what she cultivated in incubation. This is what Bear is encouraging me to do, I believe. I listen.

My den is outfitted, my work has presented itself to me and I shall begin. Through dreams, through trance and speaking with spirit. The work never ends and it is always beginning.

Knowing When to Pause.

in

The days have been filled with avoiding the heat. The earth here is parched and the grasses are dying. You can smell the deep tang of the invasive blackberries in the midday sun, mingling with the loam of the forest, heated pine resin and the sweetness of dried grasses. Briar path days are upon us. I've taken pity on my neighbors dehydrated rose bushes (they've moved out and are gone) and am currently watering them. The plants feel glad. I've noticed the black (Br'er) rabbit family and local hares only come out to graze at dawn and dusk, avoiding the heat. It almost feels as if my little area is holding it's breath for a bout of rain, I think it really is.

There's an odd feeling of burn out I've been dealing with. I don't know if it's burn out, per-say. But I feel like disappearing somewhere for a little while, disconnecting from the internet and stopping the flow of communications. That need to isolate yourself and recharge so you can reconnect. It's hard when you have a lot of real life obligations, when you simply can't turn off the internet and you feel that never ending nagging persistence to be super productive, to get shit done and be awesome consistently, nonstop. Realizing when to pause can be difficult. Knowing when you're just not going to be productive anymore can be hard to recognize sometimes.

I feel like the land, dehydrated and longing for a good nourishing rain. The rains will come inevitably, right now it's a matter of digging deep with these roots to tap into the moist soil far below me.

I pulled the Page of Cups this morning. She's descended to the bottom of the ocean, alone. She uses her intuition to guide herself and she finds answers in the scrying bowl. My need for the element of water is apparent in this card. I think a good spiritual bath is in order, a bath at dusk to remove and a bath as the sun rises to bring in that which I desire.