How to Use Tarot Spreads for Inspiration

We are proud to think of ourselves as creative beings, right? But what do you do when you just don’t feel inspired…

We are creative beings by nature, so when inspired, everything seems easy. Often, when our creativity is gone for one reason or another, we feel “stuck.” Tarot can be used to spark your inspiration and creativity again. One of the first things known for certain about the history of tarot, is that tarot was used in Italy, centuries again to write poetry; which is quite a creative feat! The same creativity can still be sparked using tarot today, let’s see how you can use tarot card spreads to unleash you creativity in any situation.

Representing Different Situations from Life

The major arcana cards depict points in life when we finally learn an important lesson, while the minor arcana cards represent everyday concerns and worries. The court cards tell you more when to par attention to some personal character traits, in either ourselves, or others. And indulging further, the four suits, by definition, cover all aspects of life: material world, which is finances, family, and healthy; emotional aspects, such as our inner feelings and relationships with others; intellect, meaning out rational reasoning, problem solving, and conflicts with other people; and passion, meaning our inner drive, and ability to act upon out intuition.

Each card tells a story

Not only does each card represent a situation in life, the cards of each suit act as a progression. Meaning each card what has happened before a particular situation, and what will come next or where the situation is head. The car spread you use connects the cards together in their progression, allowing a more dynamic and complex story to develop. Often times, a spread will show a point of view that was not considered before; helping unlock you creativity to further interpret the cards and/or situation.

Each Card is Rich with Possible Meanings

The beautiful of tarot cards is that they do not have one fixed meaning. Since the cards describe situations, they can be interpreted in many different ways, depending upon the question or problem at hand, and the other cards in the spread. In addition to representing different situations, the cards also show both positive and negative aspects o the situation it describes.

“Tailor” the Spread to Meet Your Needs

Simply take an existing spread that you like, and appropriate it for the problem. From there, decide which positions, or sub-questions, in the spread will help you. In other words, what aspects of the question or problem are relevant enough to you, so you can pick one card for each to help give you insight. There is no need for you to obsess over how to properly do this, making a custom spread server the purpose of providing inspiration. There is not much difference, just do it I any way you feel at the moment to further your inspiration.

Let’s take a look at an example; we will say you need inspiration for writing a short story where you got stuck. Use tarot for inspiration. Take the person, or a court card, and ask what currently happens with that person in his/her life overall, which would involve the use of a major arcana card. Next, take one or more minor arcana cards for might-be-relevant things that come to mind, for example: current issues in a relationship, or a twist that is about to happen, or maybe an outcomes of some situation.

Let’s say this short story you are writing is about a girl from the country, that tries to find her career in a big city, but the wrong relationship continually holds her back, and gets in her way. You would first pick a card to see what the root of her problem is. If you get the Queen of Swords, that means she is an “ice queen,” in other words she stubbornly tries to deal with everything on a rational basis but in reality disregards her real feelings. Next pick a card to tell you what is a real problem at the moment. If you get Four Pentacles, she already accomplished much but has got more and more obsess about keeping what she has, to such an extent that she isolated herself from everyone without even realizing it.

Then pick a card to see what happened with her love; if you pick the Five of Swords, you then know there is conflict. She may be considering moving to the big city. This card also reveals she has won the conflict but has also gotten hurt when she realized her victory is the same as his defeat, and nothing will be the same from that moment on. From here, you want to pick a card for a twist that is about to happen; if you pick the XVI The Tower, then you will know she great a great deal as a person and some catastrophe will be an influence for her to change her life entirely. This will be a pain course, but her new life will be much more closer to her real self.

As you can see, you can very quickly get a myriad of ideas. You can do the same thing no matter what the field you have gotten stuck in. The cards will always give you plenty of inspiration. They are meant to trigger your subconscious via the beautiful images on the cards, and the rich symbols that trigger association after association in your mind.

Thus, open the connection with your inner creative self!