Why I Start Every Morning by Pulling Oracle Cards (Even Though I’m A Professional Tarot Reader)

I share regular musings in my private email newsletter. Interested in signing up? Click here.

During the three weeks I took off Instagram for Mercury Retrograde, I fell into a new practice that’s surprised even me: pulling one card from each of three different oracle decks.

I’ve been reading tarot cards for more than twenty years (I think it would be roughly 24 years now), but one thing that most people don’t know about me is I’ve been reading oracle cards for just as long.

I begin by shuffling each deck, and one at a time, I’ll pull a card from each.

I prop them up near wherever I’m spending most of my time each day, and sometimes I even take them with me from room to room, so I can keep them nearby, reminding me of today’s themes and what I would benefit from keeping top of mind. Right now, my three cards of the day are propped up on my bedside table, leaning against a Kleenex box and a pile of books – I like to have them somewhere easy to see.

Oracle cards tend to get a bad rap (and I have totally contributed to that, as a serious and no-nonsense, wildly blunt tarot reader), but I do think there’s a time and place to work with oracles. Tarot is really excellent for responding to specific information, specific life circumstances, and moments of decision, conflict, and crisis. Oracle cards absolutely have their limitations – and I’d argue they actually have far more limitations on when they’re useful than tarot cards do.

In general, I actually do find that oracle cards are less useful for understanding the multifaceted and complex dynamics that many of us will find ourselves in in life. And for knowing whether someone we think is trying to fuck with us is sincere, and what to do about it?

For this, oracle cards are generally useless. If I’m in the midst of a friend breakup I’m not going to go to my oracle cards about it, at least not until things have more or less been resolved and revealed through a tarot reading or two (and some real world action, of course). The four suits of tarot, the major arcana, mild arcana, numerology, reversals, and hundreds of years of history and complex symbolism are incredibly evocative when we need to dive into the vibe and dynamics of a situation. Tarot is perfect for that, and I’ll always consider myself a more tarot-centric person, hands down. Tarot is great for crisis, for conflict.

But, I’m actually not in crisis right now.

I’ve been feeling pretty relaxed, just in the typical grind and ebb and flow of work and school. I don’t need the in-depth and symbolic information from a daily tarot card right now. Whatever I was stressing about over the last month, I’ve done tarot readings on – and I understand what’s gone on, my roles as well as those of others. I understand the dynamics, and I don’t need to keep reading on it.  I have my tarot card of the year, and tarot card for each month, to guide me in my focus and my decisions. I understand the dynamics in other areas of my life, particularly school, business, love, and health. I don’t need more cards on those issues – and actually, pulling too many cards unnecessarily can often be detrimental and lead to confusion.

Starting my day with these oracle card pulls has been a really light, breezy, fun, grounding, optimistic, and thought provoking.

Tarot cards often help us look inward, while oracle cards can help us look outward – and, yes, in a bit of a positive hippie woo woo kind of way. It’s taken me many years to realize that sometimes that vibe is actually exactly what we may need.

The three decks pictured in this essay are thematically linked by their emphasis on cultivating good vibes and spending time diving into self-care.

One deck gives me a very “law of attraction” inspirational phrase – something I’ve likely known for years, or do know still, consciously, but that I don’t always keep front of mind. Another gives me a self-care activity to incorporate into my daily routine. And another provides me with a word to focus on, with an exploration of that word’s potentiality for teaching a lesson printed on the back side of the card. These decks work well together to give me a nice mix of groundedness and lightness, expansion and rooting.

While the vagueness and non-specificity of oracle cards is what makes them terrible for finding out how to strategize around a particular situation (the most common questions I receive from my clients as a tarot reader are around love, marriage, work, moving – whether certain people are trustworthy, whether someone or something is likely to be a good fit, etc), the vagueness is a great way to start any day.

The specificity of a tarot card can sometimes create stress where there wasn’t any, and managing that is something novice and even intermediate tarot readers struggle with for years.

With oracle cards, we generally don’t have that problem. While intuition is relevant here, as always, and comes up during shuffling, with oracle cards, generally what you see is exactly what you get. There’s a word or phrase that is both general and specific, and if it’s an oracle deck, often it will be uplifting.

Oracle decks tend to be more sunny – and if you’re looking to incorporate more awareness of positive thoughts, affirmations, and the law of attraction into your spiritual or magical practice, they can be a great place to start.

I know I mentioned earlier that tarot is great for times of crisis – as a veteran reader, I thrive in moments like that, and am absolutely able to read for myself almost no matter what drama or hardship has befallen me. That being said, I know this isn’t common for everyone, and for some folks it’ll be times of intense crisis that they abandon the tarot, ever afraid of The Tower or The Devil. Sometimes, I know folks can’t always stomach the uncertainty of tarot – will it be a good or bad card? Oracle decks can be a light in the storm for folks like this. I do suggest everyone who reads tarot works on getting over that hump to be able to effectively read in a crisis, but hey – I know that doesn’t happen overnight.

Pulling these cards gives me a perfect, chilled out combination of vagueness and specificity. They’re light, they’re breezy - they give me something to hold onto, but not TOO much to grasp. These oracle cards are as serious as I want them to be. I can meditate on them or reflect on them for five hours, or five minutes. I can explore as many deep meanings here as I like - or I can keep it superficial. Sometimes this shifts throughout the day - and I let it!

If you’re a tarot reader thinking about bringing oracle cards into your daily or weekly routines and rituals, I’d recommend giving it a try.

You may find that a little lightness is exactly what you need.

Wanna expand your spiritual practice?

Check out what courses I currently have on offer.

Can’t find what you’re looking for? Send me an email at sabrinadraws@gmail.com