Tarot: A Life Guided by the Cards by Maddy Elruna

Introduction

I haven’t written a post about a tarot book, (you’ll find others here), for a while but that isn’t because I haven’t been reading them. I love reading tarot books and tarot guidebooks. They always add something to my understanding or remind me of something I have forgotten over the years. Tarot: A Life Guided by the Cards is a great book. Author, Maddy Elruna, writes about the book, “I aimed to create a practical “how to” book, but with my life story and real life spreads through out the book – a story to bring the cards to life,” and she succeeded. Focused on the RWS tarot, this book is great for beginners, but it has something to offer everyone.

About the Book

It offers some great tips and some interesting ways to view the tarot. For example in regards to the tarot suits she suggests:

A good way to think about the four suits can be illustrated using the process of having a drink:

• Wands: A sudden impulse; a desire for a drink. You know you are thirsty.
• Cups: Imagining drinking; considering what it feels like.
• Swords: Logically deciding what to drink, deciding if you will follow through with your plan.
• Pentacles: Making your drink and then drinking it.

It’s such a clear way to express the basic idea of the suits and one that I believe beginners would find easy to remember. This is what Maddy Elruna does really well. She expresses the tarot in ways that people can relate to. Another thing she does is suggest questions to consider when cards from each suit appear in a reading. For example, for water (cups), “How do I feel about this? Do I need to stop dreaming and start planning and doing? are two such questions. Together this helps to demystify the tarot and make it feel more accessible.

Each card is covered in detail in Tarot: A Life Guided by the Cards. For the Major and Minor Arcana she describes the image as it appears on the RWS cards; provides keywords which she calls “Associations”; suggests advice and a warning followed by a question. Then she provides a relatively detailed discussion of the symbolism within the card. She concludes each card with an “In a reading” section which, for the Major Arcana only, includes “The negative side for the card.” There is a lot of information to digest but it is presented in a beginner-friendly manner that doesn’t feel overwhelming.

To show how the Court card information is presented, I’ll use the King of Wands as an example. There is an overall keyword, “visionary”, followed by an expanded explanation that ends with “When you see the King of Wands: Trust in your vision and yourself; Watch out for obsessive behaviours.” Next are sections titled, “Event”, “Symbolism”, and “Key Phrases”.

To bring the Court cards to life she gives examples of well known characters that she feels represent the card’s energy. She likens the King of Wands to Sherlock Holmes. “Brilliant, but not really emotionally engaged with people, so can be quite manipulative.” Even if you don’t agree, you can choose someone you believe is more appropriate. What it does do is connect them to people, and behaviours and personalities.

To date, I have been working with tarot for 25 years and yet I still made many, many annotations and highlighted many passages as I read this book. Fortunately I read it on a Kindle because I doubt my notes would have been legible otherwise. But reading format aside, what this tells me is that I found a lot of interesting information in Tarot: A Life Guided by the Cards.

Much of what I really liked though is the way the information is presented. Tarot: A Life Guided by the Cards is a very personal book. The book is a compilation of Maddy Elruna’s teaching notes interwoven with her experiences as a teacher and a reader, her reflections on her own original notes, and her personal story. The additional notes are printed in italics allowing you to see how her understanding has grown and developed. Sometimes her personal story is belaboured but that adds believability. Just because we know what to do doesn’t mean it is easy to do and just like physical wounds, emotional and spiritual wounds take time to heal.

Overall, some things I found a stretch, but I accept we all interpret cards through our own lens and our intuition picks up and translates various symbols and overall imagery differently. Because she so bravely shares aspects of her personal life throughout the book it is understandable why she reads certain cards in the way she does. For example, she provides the standard meanings for the Two of Cups but then heavily promotes the idea to be wary of this card. Whether intentional or not I understand this.

Due to my approach to tarot I generally see this cards as a call to connect to, or your connection with, your Higher Self, your guides and so on. I really appreciate the completely different approaches though because it adds to the story of the card for me.

Although our overall philosophy of tarot is the same:

Rather than prediction, I believe the greatest gift Tarot has to offer us is an honest reflection of the balance within us, allowing us to consciously create our best life.

Maddy Elruna

The final aspect of this book that I want to make note of is that I love her suggestions on how to integrate tarot into, and with, your daily life. For example she suggests flicking through your deck with the cards face up and selecting the cards that reflect your day. Doing so allows you to build up your own stories around the individual cards and see how they work together. She offers several suggestions along this same vein.

About the Author

Maddy Elruna is a tarot card reader and Norse shaman with twenty years experience. This is her first book.

The Tarot: A Life Guided by the Cards Contents

• Introduction
• Section One – My Tarot Journey
• Section Two – Tarot Basics
  • So as a complete beginner, how do I start?
  • What does “psychic” really mean?
• Section Three – The Court Cards
• Section Four – The Major Arcana
• Section Five – The Minor Arcana
• Section Six – Tarot Spreads
  • Different types of Tarot spreads and how to do them
• Section Seven – Your Personal Tarot Journey
• Section Eight – It’s Complicated
• Section Nine – Bibliography and Glossary

Conclusion

Written by someone with extensive tarot knowledge and experience, Tarot: A Life Guided by the Cards is a well put together, open and honest book. The questions she poses add a workbook element, but that is not to say this is a tarot workbook. It is a comprehensive beginner’s guide to the RWS tarot compatible with any RWS-based deck. The material included and Maddy Elruna’s approach make it a worthwhile addition to any tarot book collection. As I said at the outset, I believe it has something to offer anyone interested in tarot – beginner or advanced.

Publishing Details

Published by:

Matador in 2022

Pages:

Paperback is 408pp but I have the Kindle version which is 331pp

Website:

Maddy Elruna

(Card illustrations taken from Smith-Waite Tarot Deck Borderless Edition published by US Games Inc (2017))