How I started reading Oracle Cards

 

Oracle cards have been a companion throughout my journey. As well as using them professionally, I have used them as a tool for clarity, self reflection and as part of my daily practice.

The word oracle comes from the latin Orare which means ‘to pray’ or ‘to speak’ and refers to communication from the divine. Oracle cards are a more modern interpretation of tarot cards. They vary greatly from deck to deck, but they don’t tend to have as detailed a structure as the Tarot, which always has 78 cards, divided into four suits: swords, cups, pentacles and wands. Some oracle decks simply share a message on each card. 

USING CARDS AS A DIVINATION TOOL

My first experience of using cards as a divination tool was with the tarot. I was introduced to tarot cards when I was a teenager by my friend Sheila, who was the mother of the children I was babysitting, and I could not get enough of them.

The first time I babysat for Sheila, I remember seeing Louise Hay’s You Can Heal Your Life on her bookshelf, and that was the doorway to our spiritual connection. We both spoke about how much that book had impacted our lives, and then Sheila offered to give me a tarot reading which I absolutely loved!

After that night, each time I babysat, once I put the children to bed, I would spend hours studying the cards and reading the guidebook of The Mythic Tarot. And then when Sheila got home, we would stay up and do readings for each other. I then used the money from my babysitting to buy my own copy of The Mythic Tarot, which I still use today. I have since used various different tarot decks.

MY FIRST ORACLE DECK

In this first year of using tarot cards, I was both fascinated and a little timid about doing readings for other people for fear of saying the wrong thing. Looking back, I can see that I received a lot of my intuition through my feelings, but I did not trust them when I felt them. I lacked the confidence to use my voice and also needed to study the lexicon of the deck some more in order to feel grounded when doing readings.

Sheila, who was in her forties, encouraged me to just keep working with the cards and to trust myself. Sure enough, the more I studied them and worked with them, the more I understood the language of the cards and what each card represented, and the more confident I got.

Years later, my friend Blair gifted me the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot deck, which we studied together and practised by doing readings for each other. In my early twenties, I was then gifted my first oracle deck (an angel oracle) by the mother of one of my friends who had passed away. She gave them to me as she had found comfort in working with the cards, as a way of connecting with her son (my friend). And so I began to do the same.

DEVELOPING MY INTUITIVE SENSES

Through my mid-twenties I then began training in the intuitive arts and refining my ability to do intuitive readings. I found that oracle cards provided a wonderful, grounded structure to begin doing readings professionally. I found I felt more confident to have something physical to organise the intuitive information I received and I found it also gave my clients something to focus on during the readings, which helped them open up.

Having the cards as a physical reading device also gave me confidence to understand and trust the information I received. I also began understanding the different intuitive senses as delivery devices for my soul to speak through me. I then began being able to differentiate between what information was mine and what was someone else’s.

After previously using the card guidebooks as my primary source of information, the more I worked with the cards, I soon began letting each of the cards act as portals for my inner wisdom to flow.

STEPPING OUT OF THE SPIRITUAL CLOSET

By the time I reached my early thirties, I had gathered up the confidence to step out of the spiritual closet and quit my day job in my previous career to focus on my intuitive work and writing full time.

I launched my website and created my first online oracle – The Instant Guidance Oracle – which was made up of the daily intuitive guidance I had received for myself each day on my morning walks. The messages from my Instant Guidance Oracle on my website actually turned into the first writings of my first book Light Is The New Black, which can be used as an oracle due to the short chapter style. You can ask it a question and open it to a random page for an instant hit of guidance.

As someone who is extremely visual and creative, after having had my first two books published, I knew that I was ready to create oracle decks for myself. I then went on to create my first oracle: The Work Your Light Oracle. Two years later I created The Starseed Oracle. And then, The Rose Oracle. As of 2022, The Rose Oracle is my absolute favorite as it’s so rooted in the feminine mysteries and the cycles of nature!

FINDING YOUR OWN UNIQUE WAY OF WORKING WITH THE CARDS

I use cards everyday as part of my spiritual practice. Each morning I do a two-card spread called the Soul Whispers spread to receive clarity on 1) what my soul is calling me to do that day, and 2) a grounded action in the direction of this call. 

Trust that you will find your own unique way of working with cards. No matter where you are on your card reading journey, know that the more you work on your craft, the more of a master you will become and the more your own way of card reading will emerge and bloom.

During COVID, I offered collective readings online and it was then that I really developed my own devotional practice with oracle cards. This practice has deepened so much and become a really powerful tool for me to not only hear my intuition and connect with my guides but to act on this guidance too.

Today, oracle cards are a huge part of my self-care practice and my devotional practice. They are a gateway for me to go direct and receive guidance from the divine. They are also a way for me to offer support to my community, loved ones, and students.

Everyone has their own unique path, and I am curious about what your story is so far with oracle cards. When did you first discover them? How has your relationship with them changed over the years? And right now, how are you being called to use them?

Feel free to take the things that resonate with you as inspiration from myself and others. But above all, always trust how you are being led to work on your craft as a card reader and remember that you truly are the oracle.

Would you like a personalised oracle reading sent to you directly in the mail? I do a limited amount of them each week and send them with a lot of love from Glastonbury. You can order yours here.