Fool’s Journey: Getting By With a Little Help from Your (Tarot) Friends

Header by Rory Midhani

Header by Rory Midhani

There are so many ways to learn and grow as a tarot reader, but my number one resource for developing my tarot knowledge is other learners, via the online tarot community. Blogs, forums, social media — the ideas people are sharing out there are truly amazing.

Sure, I write this column and I love helping you all connect with your cards, but in no way do I consider myself a “tarot expert.” In fact, I don’t believe there is such a thing. Tarot is something that you learn by picking up your cards and working with them, and every time you do this, you learn and grow a little (or sometimes a lot) more.

Whether you’ve just shuffled your first ever deck or you’ve been reading tarot for twenty years, you understand the cards in your hands in a different way to anyone else. That means you have knowledge, experience and expertise that is totally unique to you… and that’s knowledge that’s worth sharing.

Fortunately, plenty of queer folks out there blog with their cards, sharing their learning with the whole community. Below are some of my favourites.

Firstly, you should know about…

The Alternative Tarot Network!

I launched my own online tarot community two weeks ago, and it’s blowing my mind. It’s a simple old-skool discussion site and social network, with forums for talking about different decks, spreads, readings, a load of other awesome topics. There’s also a queer tarot forum for LGBTQ folks to talk about queering up their cards, a deck swap and a reading exchange.

Yeah, my cat's there too.

Oh yeah, my cat’s there too.

Since launching, I’ve seen some amazing discussions take place, with people sharing all kinds of questions and ideas about tarot I’d never even considered, and it’s quickly become this incredible learning resource.

Since the network is so new, it’s not yet open to the general public and you’ll need a special code to get in. Autostraddlers can use the code QUEERTAROT to join any time until the end of the day on Friday 12th June!

Here are ten more queer-friendly online communities and blogs that have taught me loads about tarot, written by people at different stages in their tarot journey.

Dark moon reading

COM|PASSionate REVOLT’s Tarot Tuesdays

Healer Kate Gugiu’s weekly tarot column on this radical wellbeing blog.

Restless Tarot (Tumblr)

A trans guy’s musings on tarot, meditation and life.

Worts + Cunning

Alexis J Cunningfolk is a queer herbalist and tarot reader who shares spreads and card musings as well as posts on other magikal topics.

Dakota Hendrix

Dakota’s YouTube channel on tarot, witchiness and magic is funny, friendly, and camp as anything.

The Tarot Parlour

Sarah’s throughful personal tarot blogularly features The Collective Tarot, and she offers readings too.

Photo 26-05-2015 15 59 37

Queering the Tarot

Cassandra Snow writes this brilliant guest series on my blog, which takes a single card each time and looks at LGBTQ specific interpretations.

Coffee and Tarot

Straddler Potter’s lively tarot Tumblr.

The Queer Tarot Project

A collaborative art project where participants submit personal stories of how a single tarot card represents a key event in their journey.

Photo 18-04-2015 20 08 42

And a little astrology…

Chani Nicholas

Chani is the most articulate astrologer out there. She shares weekly horoscopes which really help you to understand the influences of all that planetary action, and monthly posts which explain the changing energy of the moon.

Astro DIY

LGBTQ youth organiser Tabby Besley writes this step-by-step series in untangling your astrological birth chart and getting to grips with the fundamental ideas of astrology.

reading

Tabby covers the important topics.

And these are incredible blogs about radical wellbeing for queer folks.

Brownstargirl Tarot

Leah Lakshmi is a community healer, activist and tarot reader who writes about social justice in queer, trans and disabled POC communities.

Midnight Apothecary

I wish Dori Midnight would blog more often! She is a folk healer, community herbalist and ordained minister who writes on collective liberation, ancestry and folk magic.

You can also find a whole load more woo-woo resources, blogs and stores at witchyqueers.com 


All of these sites teach me something new when I visit, and most of these writers I’ve ended up connecting with by email or social media. Whether they’re tarot beginners or long-time readers, they’re all putting a lot of amazing tarot wisdom out there for all of us to learn from.

What about you? Do you write a tarot blog or have a favourite to share? Let us know in the comments.

Before you go! Autostraddle runs on the reader support of our AF+ Members. If this article meant something to you today — if it informed you or made you smile or feel seen, will you consider joining AF and supporting the people who make this queer media site possible?

Join AF+!

Beth

Beth Maiden is a tarot reader and writer based in Machynlleth, mid-Wales. She has two cats, a hot builder girlfriend, far too many tarot decks and not enough coffee cups. She's really into bread, the colour red, camping and brand new notebooks. She'd love to cut your hair, read your cards or hang out with you on her blog, Little Red Tarot!

Beth has written 111 articles for us.

14 Comments

  1. Thanks for this great list of resources! I’ll attest that joining the Alternative Tarot Network can be a great way for someone who (like me) is new to tarot find people, resources, and ideas. Also, it looks like your description of Chani Nicholas’s work here lost the end of a sentence . . .

  2. Ha, I’m on the cusp of working on a tarot RP blog, based on a cosplay character I debuted a couple of weeks ago that was super popular!

  3. My heart grew two sizes bigger when I saw the link to my tumblr!

    <3

    Also I may have flailed a bit. thank you!

    • The Radiant Rider-Waite-Smith. I actually connected with a woman through my city’s queer exchange Facebook group who just offered to give me an old, but pristine, deck. I wasn’t ready to commit money to a specific deck but have lots of dreams about beautiful decks from reading here and on littleredtarot – btw just joined! :) Thanks for inspiring this skeptic to think about tarot differently.

  4. Thanks for the shout out Beth! you’ve compiled a great list. I’m looking forward to checking out all these awesome folks.

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