Tarot Basics & Advanced with Claire
8-week online course (20 hours total)

No prior tarot experience necessary: everyone welcome!

Your instructor, Claire de la Varre, has been reading and teaching tarot for over 30 years. Attendees will receive recordings of all classes. If you already have your own tarot deck feel free to use it. If not, I recommend the Radiant Smith-Rider-Waite deck, which is the deck I use for teaching.

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June 6: Lesson 1 – Overview of Tarot

• What tarot is and isn't

• Brief history of tarot

• Structure of the deck: Major Arcana vs Minor Arcana

• How tarot works psychologically: archetypes, projection, intuition - an access point for potentially therapeutic or healing work.

• Choosing and looking after your deck

• Addressing common fears and misconceptions.

• Practice: How to shuffle, one-card daily draw (no “wrong answers”)

 

June 13: Lesson 2 – The Major Arcana: The Fool's Journey

• The Major Arcana as a map of human experience: card meanings are not entirely fixed - your  interpretation and your (or your client's) reaction to the imagery are important.

• The Fool’s Journey (0–21) as psychological and spiritual development

• Key archetypes (Fool, Magician, High Priestess, Tower, Death, etc.)

• How Major cards differ from Minor cards in readings

• Practice: Personal life-stage reflection using 3 Major cards

 

June 20: Lesson 3 – Minor Arcana Overview​

• Overview of the four suits and their elements

  • Wands – Fire – energy, creativity, purpose

  • Cups – Water – emotions, relationships

  • Swords – Air – thoughts, communication, conflict, pain

  • Pentacles – Earth – work, body, money, stability

• Numbers 1–10 as developmental stages

• Overview of Court cards

• Practice: 7-card Manifestation Spread

 

June 27: Lesson 4 – Suits in Depth

• Wands: drive, ambition, growth, action

• Cups: feelings, attachment, intimacy, emotions, the unconscious

• Swords: thought patterns, communication, truth, illness, conflict

• Pentacles: work, health, money, embodiment, security, tangible things

• Practice: Problem-solving spread using Swords and Pentacles

 

July 11: Lesson 5 – Court Cards

• Pages, Knights, Queens, Kings as stages of mastery

• Courts as:

  • People

  • Aspects of self

  • Energetic roles or responses

• How courts change meaning by suit

• Practice: “Who am I?” personality spread

 

July 18: Lesson 6 – Reversals

Theme: Using reversed cards in readings

• Upright vs reversed meanings

• Reversals as blocked, internalised, or distorted, or rejected energy

• Why use reversed meanings

• How stress shows up across suits

• Practice: Reversed card Celtic Cross

 

July 25: Lesson 7 – Celtic Cross and Relationship Spreads

Theme: Practical and versatile readings

• Celtic Cross is one of the most widely used tarot spreads

• How to do a relationship reading

• Practice in pairs in breakout rooms​

 

August 1: Lesson 8 – Intuition & Integration

Theme: Putting the cards together

• How to ask good questions

• Context, metaphorical, archetypal, and literal meanings

• Storytelling across multiple cards

• Extracting the correct meanings

• Perfect Life Spread

• Reading intentionally and confidently

• Trusting intuition vs memorization

• Reading for self vs others

• Boundaries, consent, and ethical considerations (health, legal, financial questions)

• Developing a personal reading style