I’m a huge fan of T. Susan Chang’s work. I loved Tarot Correspondences, which I’ve reviewed before here, have and cherish my copy of Tarot Deciphered, co-authored with M. M. Meleen, creator of the Rosetta Tarot and Tabula Mundi Tarot, two of my all-time favorite decks, ever.

So I’m thrilled about the opportunity to review Chang’s latest book, The Living Tarot published by Llewellyn Books. Unlike her previous publications, The Living Tarot is written with the beginner in mind, and more pertinently, how the modern reader can find personal, everyday meanings to the 78 cards.

This is a workbook that will guide you on how to write your own handbook of card meanings. Instead of memorizing pre-determined meanings for the cards, learn to feel the animated and ever-changing pulse of the tarot. Concretize its abstract concepts into actual everyday life experiences.

One of my favorite takeaways from Chang is her insight that learning tarot is like learning a language. Your first modules into learning a new language is to get the basics down, and maybe that means your vocabulary and what you’re able to communicate is limited. So you converse every day and gradually you become comfortable communicating and picking up the subtleties. You realize there is culture behind vocabulary.

The Living Tarot is keyed to the RWS, though the principles it teaches can be applied to learning any fully illustrated tarot deck.

You start off by considering tarot card meaning in layers, and not as some immutable single ascribed definition. And specifically, think of it in five key layers:

1. Visual: What you see is what you get. Tell the story that the illustration depicts.
2. Mood: What feeling you do you in response to seeing this card? What’s the mood of the composition?
3. Other People: Maybe the card isn’t depicting something happening to you, but rather, is depicting something happening to other people that’s going to come adjacent to you.
4. Body Language: Read the body language of the figures depicted on the cards. In fact, get into that body posture yourself. What do you feel within your body when you “get into character”?
5. Content: Consider esoteric correspondences. Look for connections with your cards through observations of synchronicities.

Okay great, but what does it all mean, you might be asking. The book anticipates your question. Chang recommends approaching this in two broad categories. Either the cards are descriptive and therefore predicting something or the cards are prescriptive and therefore offering advice on how to navigate an active predicament. So when you pull a card or are trying to read a spread, ask yourself: is this descriptive or prescriptive? Or what aspects of what the cards are conveying to you are descriptive vs. what aspects are being prescriptive?

The book itself is a workbook for you to fill in, not unlike Mary K. Greer’s Tarot for Your Self, and I strongly recommend that you do, to work through it cover to cover, writing in your responses, at least once.

Or lift the key concepts found in this book, replicate it in a tarot journal, and apply the prompts to a new tarot deck you’re trying to learn. Many of these journaling prompts make great exercises for getting to know a new deck, and these are the prompts I see myself integrating into my own practice going forward.

One of my favorite assignments from the book is Assignment 4.1, Major Arcana: Proverbs. You spread out the 22 Majors so all of them are in clear view, then read through the pages of proverbs provided in the book. Match each Major Key to the proverb you think it best expresses. By the way, this is an especially fun exercise to try with any tarot. In fact, the exercise deepens your appreciation for what the artist of that deck is conveying– and valuing– in each of the 22 Majors.

A similar assignment is provided for the Minors, but instead of proverbs, match each Minor Arcanum to a quotation from an actual historical figure.

When we start reflecting upon whether the tarot is revealing what is already fated and predetermined vs. whether the tarot guides us on how to exercise free will, and in that unanswerable philosophical questioning of fate vs. free will, Chang offers a nugget of wisdom: It is constructive to use your illusion of free will to deal with your illusion of fate.

Oh, and totes random, but loving the fictional names for the hypotheticals– Aleister, Pam, Arthur, Freida, McGregor, Moina! Love it!

Interspersed throughout the workbook, Chang shares how tarot came into her life, how she connects the cards to everyday life, and the ways she found community through the tarot. The Living Tarot gives actionable guidance on how to bring tarot to life for yourself, and to optimize its practical applications.

These exercises will ask you to think about how to sit in a seat of confidence with how you interpret the cards, eventually how you’ll read for others, your tarot philosophy, and lead you to deepen your work with the tarot through ritual and magic.

The Living Tarot is a great beginner’s workbook if you’re new to tarot, or to gift to someone who is starting out their journey with the cards. And yet it’s also a great refresher for intermediate and advanced tarotists.

FTC Disclosure: In accordance with Title 16 of the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations Part 255, “Guides Concerning Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising,” I received this book from the publisher for prospective review. Everything I’ve said here is sincere and accurately reflects my opinion of the book.