Everyday Tarot: Unlock Inner Wisdom and Manifest Your Future

317 Pages·2018·7.951 MB·English

by  Brigit Esselmont

Copyright
Copyright © 2018 by Brigit Esselmont
Illustrations copyright © 2017 by Eleanor Grosch
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2018944323
ISBNs: 978-0-7624-9280-0 (hardcover),
978-0-7624-9278-7 (ebook)
E3-20180810-JV-PC
CONTENTS

Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Introduction
1) TAROT + INTUITION
2) A QUICK-START GUIDE TO TAROT
3) TAROT FOR SELF-DISCOVERY
4) MANIFEST YOUR GOALS
5) TAROT FOR DECISION-MAKING
6) TAROT FOR WORK
7) TAROT FOR LOVE + RELATIONSHIPS
8) SACRED RITUALS WITH TAROT
9) CONCLUSION: EVERYDAY TAROT
Gratitude
Appendix
Index
This book is dedicated to YOU. To your soul
essence, your inner wisdom, and your
infinite potential. Anything is possible.

INTRODUCTION
FOUR A.M. IT WAS PITCH BLACK OUTSIDE, AND THE AIR WAS
COLD. I was wide awake.
I was fourteen years old and on a mission to master the art of
ESP, extrasensory perception. So, I lit a candle and stared into the
flame. The minutes ticked past as I stared and stared. Five minutes.
Ten. Twenty. I sat there just waiting for something “extrasensory” to
happen. But all I saw was the flickering flame in front of me.
I opened my tattered ESP book, a hand-me-down from my
mother, and reread the page outlining what I could expect to happen
when I stared at the flame. My third eye would open, the book
promised, and I’d receive infinite wisdom from the Universe. Oh
dear. All I got was a headache and a black spot in front of my eyes.
Candle gazing wasn’t the only thing I tried to increase my psychic
abilities. I made my own Zener ESP cards—five cardboard cards
with different shapes and colors—and did my best to switch on my
supernatural powers to guess what was on each card as they lay
facedown in front of me. But alas, I only got a 20 percent hit rate and
a growing feeling I was not a born psychic.
So, I gave up on ESP and instead focused on all kinds of
spirituality and religion. I learned about Christianity, Buddhism,
Taoism, Hinduism, Judaism, and Islam (thanks to the open-minded
religious education teacher at my Presbyterian school). And I delved
into Wicca, Paganism, and witchcraft (hey, The Craft came out when
I was in high school!). I experimented with spell crafting, meditation,
yoga, prayer, chanting, and more gazing, this time at sacred symbols
like Om and the Flower of Life.
The timing was perfect. My high school years were rocky, dealing
with the usual issues of troubled friendships, nasty bullies, and
broken hearts as I experienced love (and lust) for the first time.
Exploring these different spiritual systems helped to keep me
grounded and open-minded as I discovered new aspects of myself
and how I fit into the world.
In 1997, when I was seventeen, I traveled to Germany as a high
school exchange student. I was keen to become fluent in German
and expand my horizons in a new culture. I went to see a Tarot card
reader before I left, just as a bit of fun, to see what might happen on
this six-month trip. The reader was in an old part of town with a
painted wooden sign out front. I walked up the creaky wooden stairs,
through a purple and gold sheer curtain, and into a small room filled
with crystals, angelic statues, incense smoke, and, of course, Tarot
cards. It was like walking into a movie set, and I wondered if this was
part of the act.
The woman invited me to sit down, then reached out and held my
hands. “What do you want to know, dear?” she asked, her eyes
piercing into my soul, reading every thought I had—or, so I feared. I
explained I was going abroad for six months and wanted to find out
what might happen when I got there. She picked up her well-loved
cards and, closing her eyes, mumbled something to herself then
shuffled. Meanwhile, my heart was racing and my palms were
sweating, as I looked for the nearest exit in case she flew around the
room. The woman opened her eyes and then peeled off the top card
of the deck, laying it down on the table.
“Ooh, the Emperor! You’re going to find love in Germany, doll.
Real love. Not all that high school stuff you’ve been contending with.
Your heart will open in a big way, and you’ll fall madly in love with a
sweetheart.”
For a moment, I was super-excited. Love? That sounded
amazing! But then the doubt and skepticism rushed in. I bet she says
this to everyone. She’s just telling me what I want to hear. This isn’t
real. This is BS.
I walked away from the reading thinking I had just wasted my fifty
bucks on someone who made up whatever her clients yearned to
hear. But there was also a part of me that was hopeful—sneakingly
optimistic that what she had said was right and I would find love.
“Oh, stop dreaming!” my mind kept telling me. So I forgot about the