How a Daily Tarot Reading Practice Connects with Your Intuition
Written by Catherine Starr, Life Coach, Speaker, and Tarot Reader
Catherine Starr is a Life Coach, Speaker, and Tarot Reader, bringing transformative experiences to individuals seeking to design and manifest lives that ignite passion and fulfill purpose. Her ritual-theatre piece, Oracles from the Living Tarot, brings Tarot cards to life, providing community and personal insights. Her commitment to mentoring and guiding others is a cornerstone of her work.
Discover how you can read Tarot cards for yourself. Since I started reading the cards in the 1980s, I’ve heard so many people say that you cannot read for yourself. However, I have been doing daily tarot readings for myself for over thirty years, and I’ve found that not only can I find inspiration and guidance, but I also connect more easily with my intuition. When I started posting my daily tarot readings on social media, other people told me they also resonated with my insights.
How to begin with Tarot
I will guide you in discovering how tarot cards might give you daily insight and open a closer connection with your intuition. From closing a deck, to learning about each card, to finally trusting your intuition to guide you, I will walk you through the ways I created my daily practice of reading tarot cards for myself.
Choosing a Tarot deck
If you already have a favorite deck, great! You are ready to start.
For many tarot aficionados, however, one deck is never enough! Here are some things I look for when deciding to buy a deck. First, though, let me dispel this myth, there is no “rule” that says your first, or your hundredth deck, has to be gifted to you. If I had waited for that, I might never have started my own personal tarot journey! Receiving a tarot deck as a gift is wonderful, but if you see something you like, give yourself this gift.
Many people will advise that your first deck should be a Rider-Waite-Smith (R-W-S) deck, and I would agree that this deck is a great starting point. It will come with a small booklet that gives you simple instructions and meanings for the cards. In fact, most decks come with a book to help you start.
I choose decks based on a few things. The artwork, how I align with a few specific cards, and finally, do the cards speak to me? First, I have to like the artwork. If the pictures distract me from getting to know and understand the card, that is not a good deck for me. Next, I will look at some specific cards that I like and some cards that can be a challenge for me. The cards that I need a strong connection to are the Star, High Priestess, Queen of Wands, and Queen of Swords. If I love the depiction on these cards, I will probably purchase the deck. I will also look at the Judgement and Tower cards for confirmation that these two cards align with my understanding of their deeper meanings. If I do not resonate with these two cards, then it does not matter how beautiful the Star card is, I probably will not get that deck.
Choosing a tarot deck can become its own personal journey of discovery. That is probably why, like many tarot readers, I have several decks to choose from, even though I have my favorite ones for my personal readings.
Getting to know your deck in three steps
I use this three-step process to learn each card in the deck, starting with the Major Arcana. I follow these steps:
1. Getting familiar with your deck
I study and reflect on each card, getting familiar with the imagery of the card and gaining a sense of what it may have to say to me. Every aspect can be meaningful, from colors to types of clothing and even the background scene. One deck that I have, The Path of the Old Ones, includes plants on each card, which have attributes associated with the meaning of the card. Every nuance can bring deeper insight. As I build a rapport with each card, I start tapping into my own intuition and develop a sense of what this card says to me.
2. Reading the deck’s book
Next, I read how the deck’s creator describes each card in the accompanying book. Many of these books will lean heavily on the meanings used for the Rider-Waite-Smith deck. This is one reason this deck is so important. Once you understand these basic meanings, you will have a good foundation for most tarot decks. The differences in the descriptions between your new deck and the R-W-S may be subtle, but could add more depth to your understanding of the specific card you are learning. If your deck is very different from the R-W-S deck, reading the book will be essential to understanding what the deck’s creator had in mind when they developed the deck.
3. Start to read from intuition
Lastly, I put the book away and started to read from my intuition. One of my mentors told his students to throw away the book. I don’t completely follow that advice, but I rarely use the book once I feel I understand this deck, both through the mind of the deck’s creator and my intuition. I trust that ultimately my intuition will “listen” to what the cards have to say to me, and this will guide my understanding of what each card has to say.
How I started my daily practice
I really don’t remember how long ago it was when I first started doing my own daily tarot reading. It may have been when I started to learn the meanings of my first deck, The Mythic Tarot. When I bought this deck, I knew nothing about tarot. I liked the artwork, and it came with a big book. The bonus was the ease of learning the Minor Arcana because each suit told a Greek myth through the cards. Cups tells the love story between Eros and Psyche. Wands tells the adventure of Jason and the Argonauts. Swords captures the essence of Orestes and his curse. Finally, Pentacles is about Daedalus building the labyrinth for King Minos of Crete. The stories surrounding all the cards in this deck gave me a deep understanding of the cards and easy ways to remember their meanings. To assist in my learning, I started pulling one card a day. This was the basis for what is now my daily practice.
Stillness and meditative practice
To prepare for doing a reading, I start by taking a few deep, slow breaths and relaxing my body. I ground myself by placing my feet solidly on the floor and ensuring my back is fully supported. I clear my mind so I can tap into my intuition. I ask a simple question, for example, “What do I need to know for today?” Then, I shuffle or mix the cards and pull either one card or three, depending on the reading I want to do.
One-card readings
A one-card reading is an easy way to learn a deck. For a personal reading, it can provide a focus for the day, inspiration, or guidance. For instance, if I draw the Moon, I might check the calendar to see what phase the Moon is in, whether it’s waxing, full, waning, or dark. That can provide me with insight into how to work with the energy of the Moon during the day. If I pull the Fool, I may ask myself, "Is there something I can begin today, or am I embarking on a journey?" If you are in a calm and relaxed state, your intuition will start to guide you to discover why this card is so important to you on this day. I usually write what comes to me. The next morning, I review my notes to see if there was any correlation, including anything that may have come through my dreams. By reviewing your readings, you start to build more confidence in your interpretations as you notice correlations between your readings and events in your daily life.
Expanding to three-card readings
As I learned more about the cards, I started using three cards for my daily readings. When using multiple cards, it is good to identify how each card relates to the question that is asked. Here are two examples of three-card readings.
Past, present, future
Using Past, Present, Future as card placement identification is one of the easiest three-card spreads. The first card connects to past energy, the second card anchors the energy to the present, and the third card indicates what changes you will experience if you use the information from the first two cards to guide you at some point during the day. This works really well when making a decision or being prepared for something unexpected to happen.
Situation, challenge, advice
Another example of a three-card spread is to identify the first card as the situation, the second as the challenge you may face, and the third as advice on how to proceed during the situation. With this one, you really need to look at how the cards connect and how they are different. For me, I start by trying to understand what the common thread is among these cards. From there, I weave a story with these cards.
There are a number of combinations you can create for identifying the cards in a three-card spread. You can decide what makes sense to you and how you want to identify the card placements to best answer your question.
Learning to weave a story
The key to why a three-card spread can be so powerful is that you can start to weave a story with these cards to give you a bigger picture of the message they are providing. I rarely give specific identification to the card placement anymore. After asking my first question and pulling three cards, I ask another, “How are these cards speaking to each other, and what is the message for me?” Here is an example of what I did for a recent reading. Using my favorite deck, which has some differences from traditional decks, I drew these cards: Nine of Staves (Wands), Tramp (Fool), and Six of Blades (Swords). Here is my interpretation, “There are times when we are frozen with fear, when the obstacle or barrier is too much to face. Sometimes, if we just take a breath, we might notice we have the help to cross this challenge. Get a clear vision of where you want to go and start reaching for your dream. And don’t worry if your dream runs against what others tell you. This is your dream, your sacred quest. There is a special sense of freedom when you finally decide to walk your own path.”[1]
Learning to see how the three cards relate to each other can be a challenge some days, but if you have built a relationship with your cards and trust your intuition, this provides a powerful tool to help guide you and others.
Using my daily tarot reading practice
I find my meditative practice of doing a daily tarot reading is very important to me because it gives me inspiration and guidance for the day. When I start my day by connecting with my intuition, I find it easier to stay connected throughout the day.
Over three years ago, I started posting my daily readings online so that I could keep track and see how I was connecting with the other events outside myself. What started happening was that other people resonated with my readings in their own lives. My readings occasionally reflect astrology readings. I keep saying that I am only reading for myself, but it is gratifying to know that others find value in what I do, and I am able to connect to the collective consciousness.
I hope this inspires you to try a daily meditation practice to read your tarot cards. Follow me on Instagram, where I post my daily readings. If you start your own practice, you can compare your readings to mine! If you want to go deeper into the cards, join my Skool community, Oracles from the Living Tarot, for weekly chats and discussions about the cards.
Read more from Catherine Starr,
Catherine Starr, Life Coach, Speaker, and Tarot Reader
Catherine Starr is a life coach, spiritual leader, hypnotist, speaker, tarot reader, and creatrix of Oracles from the Living Tarot. She has been developing transformative experiences for over three decades. Catherine is the creative force behind the ritual-theatre play, “Oracles from the Living Tarot,” a groundbreaking production that has captivated audiences worldwide since its inception in 1998. This immersive experience is still performed annually around the world, including nine countries, and online during COVID. This production brings Tarot cards to life to give a reading for a community. Those who have embodied a card describe interesting personal experiences and transformation, while audience members have received insight and inspiration from their interaction with the Living Tarot cards. She has served in several interfaith organizations and is a Global Trustee for the United Religions Initiative.
References:
[1] The Ced Deck, January 8, 2026
