Review by Angelo Nasios
I have known about Biddy Tarot for many years. I
believe it was one of the first websites I came across on
the Internet as a young tarot reader. Run by tarot
reader Brigit Esselmont, Biddy Tarot has developed over
the years to become an excellent resource for readers
looking to expand and grow their tarot knowledge. The Free
card meanings online are highly useful. The Tarot
Guides, Brigit’s eBooks “The Ultimate Guide to Tarot Card
Meanings” has over 330 pages of tarot wisdom!
Brigit’s
newest addition to her lineup of eBooks is her “Tarot
Foundations: 31 Days to Read Tarot with Confidence”. Which goal
is to build your reading confidence by presenting
tarot to the new reader is a clearly structured manner.
As the titles suggest this is a 31-day course into
tarot. This workbook uses a “learn then do” approach,
each day you are presented with a lesson and then an
activity based on the lesson.
The 31-day course is broken
into 5 chapters.
Chapter 1 (Days 1-5) “Getting
Started”, some basic topics are covered. Learning about the
tarot itself is presented, selecting your deck,
cleansing and caring for the deck, investing in a few good
books and keeping your tarot journal. If you are a new
reader and do not have a journal yet, get one and use it
for this workbook and incorporate outside resources
into your journal as you go along with the
course.
Chapter 2 (Days 6-18) “Learning The Tarot Card Meanings”,
Brigit examines an important issue regarding the learning
systems, between rational and intuitive. Many readers
wonder which is better, book meanings (rational) or the
intuitive approach. Brigit covers this topic, she allows you
to try both out and make up your own mind. Each of
the suits is covered in Chapter 2, minors and majors.
However specific card meanings are not taught. The focus
here in the workbook is to introduce you to the general
meaning of each suit as a whole. There is however a
Keyword charts in the appendix of the workbook. For a more
in-depth look at card meanings purchase Brigit’s The
Ultimate Guide to Tarot Card Meanings. Numerology is
another important aspect a new reader should know and is
covered in here. As I mentioned specific meanings are not
provided, however you are presented with the suit’s general
meaning and the a numerological meaning which you later
use in an activity to create keywords based from these
two principles. A useful list of symbols is presented
in this chapter. It is not an extensive list, it is
specific to the cards.
Chapter 3 (Days 19-23) “Deepening
Your Tarot Knowledge”, you learn to create a Tarot card
profile. Which I simply think is perfect for every tarot
reader to have! Brigit give you a blank template in the
appendix for you to print and use to make card profiles for
every card. This is great to put into a tarot journal. I
tried to do something like this in the past but felt
overwhelmed; Brigit makes it looks so simple! Another lesson I
liked in this chapter was creating tarot combinations.
Understanding each card is essential but learning to combine
cards is paramount to a good reading. I am happy this is
included in the workbook.
Chapter 4 (Days 24-29) “Learning
to Read Tarot”, now you are ready to apply the
knowledge you learned into reading the cards. You are walked
through preparing and setting up for a reading, framing a
question, shuffling and laying out the cards. Brigit
provides easy to use three-cards spreads. I am a huge fan
of three card spreads. I think they are great and
good for beginners and experts in tarot. Again a blank
template is provided in the appendix for the Three Card
Spread which I love and may consider using in my own
practice for recording readings and noting them! You learn
to interpret a tarot reading The Biddy Tarot Way© in
four steps. These four steps will give you are orderly
way to approach the reading, step by step.
Chapter 5
(Days 30-31) “Establishing Your Networks”, you are
presented in this chapter helpful links and websites to
connecting with other tarot readers. Continuing your Tarot
education and staying in the loop is important. Tarot is a
dynamic tool and there are many resources out on the
Internet. I strongly suggest you find a group on Facebook,
follow a few tarot blogs and of course watch me on
YouTube for tarot related videos.
Overall I am very pleased with the presentation of this
workbook. Being that it is a self-published work it is
highly professional. I love that is in color and using
the Radiant Rider deck. The lessons are clear and to
the point. It is easy to understand and uses common
language, very little “woo-woo” talk as I say. I feel
confident that if you are a brand new reader who has little
to no knowledge in tarot you will learn much from
this eBook. You will be able to familiarize yourself in
the world of tarot. As for readers who are not so new,
somewhat in the beginning phase the workbook provides
information that you may have skipped over or not know about
from other sources.
Angelo Nasios is a tarot reader, blogger and
YouTube vlogger.
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