Spring has arrived, and for me the obligatory cold at the change of a season is here too. I’m not great at slowing down but my body has told me I have no choice. I wonder how often I ‘push through’ when my body is speaking to me to ease up?

Somatic healing relates to the body – coming out of the head, the story, the strategies, and returning to the body to listen to what is present. We carry everywhere that we’ve been in the body and over time we can ‘split off’ from this resonator of experience because it feels too painful. The physical sensation of memory becomes the gateway for healing, or as 13th century Sufi poet, Rumi, once said:

“The wound is the place where the Light enters you”

We feel the emotional or physical wound in our body and – when we are ready – from this place we can heal. Perhaps this is why we find it hard to pull cards for ourselves sometimes.

Have you ever pulled cards for yourself and got stuck?

Using the Ground & Rise® approach to working with Tarot we connect to an experience of self in the moment that we turn the card. Let’s step that back a bit – we connect to an experience of self in the moment that we set the intention to pull a card, create the space for it, start to shuffle the deck and tune in to which card we want to choose. 

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I pull a card and I experience something of a shock. Other times it’s a feeling of calm or gratitude. Whether it’s confusion or validation that I feel, there is one further somatic experience I can call in to explore the card deeper – and that is to touch the card; trace the lines with my finger and listen to any words or emotions that enter my being. In this way, no matter how familiar I am with the cards and their ‘meaning’, a new meaning in that present moment appears. My body speaks to me.

Placing the card against my chest I can also breathe into the card, express my gratitude for its guidance, wisdom, medicine and listen out for its message. The intentional experience of being with the Tarot archetype – the history, the human experience, the wisdom of the ancestors – can take me beyond my thinking and into a felt sense of guidance.

More often than not, when I’m pulling cards for myself with a large spread my initial experience is one of slight panic, “I don’t understand what they’re trying to say” echoes around my head. Here’s what I do to get out of this confronting moment.

First, I breathe.

Then I imagine that I am my own client and I trust that the Tarot will speak to me just as they do when I’m with clients.

I start talking (literally) out loud and work my way around the card spread, picking out the interesting pairings, or strong cards and ask myself about them, “What’s happening here?” I have a conversation with myself using the cards as a prompt, trusting that my voice channels the wisdom from the cards and listening out for insights as I do. My body becomes the vessel through which I can connect and ground into the moment.

It is through these somatic practices that we can overcome that fear of not being able to read for ourselves:

1) Trace the lines with your fingers and listen for a word or an emotion. This is the medicine of the card.

2) Hold a card against your chest and breathe into it, ask for guidance and receive the guidance by listening to your body. What does it say?

3) Speak out loud, imagine you are reading for someone else. Ask yourself the questions, get curious with your own answers. Use your voice to be the channel for the guidance and trust that the answers don’t reside in your head, but in your voice.

For many the Tarot is seen only as a tool for connecting to Spirit, to soul, to intuition. But it’s also an experience of connecting to emotion, as carried in the body, and to all the resonant experience of self that you have carried with you all your life. The Tarot is a tool for presence, and because of that it carries with it the capacity to heal somatically as well. 

Join Sam Starr at the next monthly Tarot gathering to support your ongoing connection to the cards