What is something that could change your life by giving you the answer to the future? Look no further to tarot cards.

A full deck of Tarot cards consists of 78 cards, 22 Major Arcana, and 56 Minor Arcana cards. These cards give us insights and answers to big, small, future, and past events and questions.

There are many ways to engage with this form of cartomancy. Amanda Oka, a senior at South, explains more in-depth about what she does.

“There are different formats of laying [tarot cards] out, there’s no set way. The general way you would want to do it is past, present, and future. If you draw the first card, it would be the past. another card would be the present and the third card would be the future. But that’s more of a beginner’s type of format,” Oka said.

She stated that the readings can get more complicated and move to a nine-card formation, depending on your expertise.

The procedure for doing a tarot card reading is as follows.

First, she would ask the person asking the questions about their expectations. Oka explains that people expect a lot, want unrealistic answers, and ask too specific of a question.

Then she shuffles the deck for a bit and then the other person shuffles the deck. Next, they’ll split the deck in half, take the bottom part, and put it on top. Finally, Oka will draw the cards.

She will interpret what the cards mean. She takes the general meaning of the card and then connects them by using similar aspects of the cards.

The cards are “not necessarily the same but they’re similar. Like the Death and Devil card, they both relate to the ending of a cycle.”

Amanda got into card reading because of her culture. In Native American culture, Oka’s mother would be considered a medicine woman. When her mom was young, was taught how to read tarot cards. It was something that she always loved to do.”

“I thought it looked pretty cool one day when I saw my mom doing it. I wanted to understand them more because my mom was always playing with tarot cards.”

She wasn’t allowed to play with her mom’s Tarot deck because that would throw off the energy that her mom put into the card. “It would mix with the other person’s energy and it wouldn’t be good and throw off the readings.”

Her deck is from Spencer’s in the mall. The store has a few decks to choose from. There are those with an illustration that is higher priced. 

She stated that you shouldn’t base your life around the card readings. It’s a fun pastime hobby and you don’t have to know the exact meaning of each card. You can look it up if you need to. You can make money off if you want to, but you have to be advanced, having to memorize the meanings of 78 cards. 

After all the readings she’s done in her life, she said of people said it resonated with them.