About Me

Hi Folks! I’m Lucy, an academic, activist, writer, and Tarot fangirl. If you want a reading, I usually have a stall at the Love Southsea market in Portsmouth (UK), so do drop by!

I began this blog about a year after I started seriously studying tarot, as a way to track my journey, and to connect with other practitioners and enthusiasts. Despite being a fairly cynical sort, I’ve been fascinated by Tarot all my life, and have regularly sought out readings. I’ve personally always regarded Tarot less as divination, and more as something adjacent to (though not a replacement for) therapy. For me, receiving and giving readings is primarily an opportunity to do some introspection, and discuss issues we’re facing with an insightful individual who’s good at listening and guiding. As a psychologist and a teacher, I think I’m pretty decent at Tarot largely because my training in psychology and education has taught me how to talk to, listen to, and empathise with people. I see Tarot cards primarily as a therapeutic prop to help people talk through their hopes and fears openly, hopefully giving them a bit more clarity on their situation.

I do think there’s a little bit of archetype / collective conciousness “magic” though. 90% therapy, 10% synergy with the universe.

The synergy with the universe solidified for me in the Spring of 2022 when I was in Brighton for my Great Uncle’s funeral. My sister and I decided to take the opportunity to have our Tarot cards read (Brighton being the alternative hub of witchy wonder that it is!) As I was pootling about in said witchy shop in Brighton – enjoying the sound of the water features and the quiet backdrop of the chilled music, inhaling the soothing scent of incense as I waited for my sister to finish her reading – I thought about how agnostics/atheists often devote so little time to spiritual health. My religious friends will spend hours each week quietly thinking and reflecting, plotting through what their needs are, and then putting a request for help out into the universe. Nourishing the part of us that needs stillness and connection. Connection with something bigger, something that both fully encompasses and yet also trasncends our indivual human experiences. This seems like such a healthy practice! But I’ve tried organised religion before and it absolutely isn’t for me (no shade!) I’m too impatient for meditation and I hate jogging. So I made a decision I was going to learn how to read Tarot.

I’ve been spending some time on it each day for 18 months now, and it’s really helping me get some clarity and equilibrium. My magpie brain, honed by years of delicious unfettered rabbitholing in academic research, loves the myriad connections between the Tarot and numerology, astrology, mythology, religion, literature, and legend. And my ADHD hyperfixation and demand for instant gratification has enjoyed sourcing beautiful decks for my wish list, haha. Early on in my journey, I was particularly inspired by this interview with the Tarot reader and social worker Jessica Dore:

‘But tarot as practiced by Dore does not so much provide answers as it generates more questions. “You’re not predicting the future – you’re really just exploring, looking at the images and activating the imagination,” she says. Dore likens drawing cards to yoga: a daily discipline of self-care, containing “profound spiritual data” to be experienced rather than intellectualised. “I came to tarot needing to figure out how to take better care of myself, how to check in with myself, to show up for myself”’.

I started off reading the cards only for myself, but I’ve since read for friends, strangers, and clients. I really enjoy the synergy between reading Tarot and one of my other great loves (and day job!): teaching. When I applied for my Fellowship to the Higher Education Academy, I paraphased Socrates to describe my teaching philosophy: ‘I am the midwife of self-knowledge’. That is exactly how I feel about reading for others. I think of myself as the midwife for the realisation the querent is going through, and offer the same sort of support that midwives do – encouragement, non-judgement, acceptance of the ‘mess’. At the end of the day though, after our long labours, our destiny belongs to us and us alone.