- Title: Tarot Life Lessons: Living Wisdom from the Major Arcana
- Author: Julia Gordon-Bramer
- Cover Design: Aaron Davis
- Publisher: Destiny Books
- Published: 18 January 2024
- RRP: £13.83 (Amazon UK) | $20.61 (Amazon US)
- ISBN 13: 978-1644118177
- Reviewer Name: Beth Rees
As someone who enjoys creative writing alongside using the Tarot to draw on specific life moments, I was excited to review Tarot Life Lessons: Living Wisdom from the Major Arcana by Julia Gordon-Bramer. Like many of us, I’ve read several books about the Tarot to gain further guidance but I hadn’t seen one like this which combined personal experience with tarot wisdom. Tarot Life Lessons to me, feels like it is part-memoir, part spiritual guidance and draws on Julia’s 40 years of experience as a professional tarot reader, attributing these experiences to each of the 22 major arcana cards. Using her own stories to illustrate the card interpretations definitely helped to clarify and further cement the information I’ve previously learned into my mind. At times in my own practice, I struggle to see how some of the traditional cards and their meanings (for example ‘The Hierophant’ and ‘Judgement’) can be applied to real life situations, which is why this book helped me greatly.
The book begins with a brief introduction and overview of Tarot but then it’s straight into The Fool and onwards until The World. She also includes a ‘Resources’ list at the back where she shares some of the decks she uses or those she now keeps for admiration purposes only!
The writing is accessible (like you’re talking to a friend), relatable and humorous, with the humanity of the reader and querents brought to life. Equally, she shares poignant stories of grief, struggle and loss which really capture the nature of her clients (all different ages and backgrounds) and their reactions/anticipations of Tarot. Each chapter is about six or seven pages long with a black and white illustration at the start of each section. Other than these, there are no other images or illustrations in the book. Chapters finish with boxed-out pieces of advice to those learning tarot. For example, Buying Your First Tarot Cards corresponds with ‘The Fool’, How Do You Know if You Can Read Tarot? corresponds to ‘The Magician’ and guidance on intuition, card spreads, personalities within the tarot and many more. There’s also an element of myth-busting with questions such as ‘Is Tarot Evil?’ also posed.
With the inclusion of the tips and the straightforward nature of the language, I feel like this book would be great for those just starting out on their tarot journeys. For more experienced readers and those interested in the reading experience of others, it would be a ‘nice-to-read’. This isn’t an instruction manual for how to use the Tarot but is valuable with the mix of personal stories and the spiritual lessons we can learn, not just from the cards, but from others too.
0 Comments