Reading the Room: How to Let Context Guide Your Tarot Interpretations
Great tarot readers don’t just memorize the keywords and frankly intuition isn’t enough either. To be a great tarot reader, you must learn to listen to the context. A great reader knows how to read between the cards and to pick up on subtle nuances that shift a meaning in one direction or another. There are many layers to every single one of the 78 tarot cards and how they interact with other cards, the position they're in, or even the question you’ve asked can change an individual card’s interpretation.
In this post, you’ll learn how to evolve from basic keywords into masterful storytelling by letting context guide you in your readings.
Tarot Is Not Static—It’s Situational
A card never has just one meaning nor is it ever “just” what it says in the guidebook. Its meaning can shift depending on:
The question
The surrounding cards
The mood of the querent
Your own energy, especially if you’re reading for yourself
The phase of life you’re in
Its location in a spread
The tower for example doesn’t mean disaster in every situation. Sometimes it can represent liberation. Sometimes it can mean facing an overdue truth. Or it could simply mean a situation has truly reached the end and there’s going back.
That doesn’t mean the tower is bad. Perhaps it's a sigh of relief to know something is truly over and that you can move on. Or, maybe the tower confirms something you could already sense happening and that gives you a feeling of validation. And perhaps the tower is immediately followed by the sun or the two of cups in which case, it becomes a catalyst for joy or for love.
If you look at a card like the tower and only think of the word “disaster,” then that’s what you’re going to find. But if you open your mind to other possibilities by looking at the context, you will find the tower can be incredibly rich and even powerful.
How to “Read the Room” in a Spread
Start with the question — How you ask a question makes a huge difference. Are you being asked for insight, advice, truth, permission, or validation? Interpreting the queen of wands as advice versus validation might dramatically change the meaning of your reading. As advice, this queen could mean a need for more confidence or to dive deeper into creative energy but as validation, this queen could represent someone else in your life. You might have asked “Who do I have in my life that supports me now?” The queen of wands would then represents qualities to look for in this person.
Check out How to Formulate Better Questions in the Seer’s Guild Vault. Not a guild member? Join here.
Notice tone shifts — It's not just about each card's meaning but how they weave together to tell a short story. What’s the emotional arc of the spread? (e.g., is there tension between Cups and Swords? Does a sudden Wands card change the mood?)
Let’s say you pull:
Queen of Cups — emotionally nurturing, intuitive
Ten of Swords — betrayal, pain, mental exhaustion
Ace of Wands — ignition, excitement, rebirth
There’s emotional whiplash here. The Queen is calm and emotionally sensitive, the Ten is brutal and diminishing, and the Ace is a spark of possibility.
That might tell you:
The client is trying to stay emotionally composed (Queen),
Has been through something devastating (Ten),
But there’s a real opportunity for reclaiming life force (Ace).
This is an emotional arc. There’s tension and release happening here, also softness and pain, and a clear ending and new beginning.
Check out How to Feel the Story Beneath the Spread in the Seer’s Guild Vault to learn how to read emotional arcs and tension in tarot. Not a guild member? Join here.
Pay attention to absence — What suits or archetypes aren’t showing up, and what does that silence mean?
Let’s say you or your client is asking about a relationship.
You pull:
The Emperor
Eight of Pentacles
Three of Wands
Knight of Swords
The World
What’s missing? Cups = emotional connection, vulnerability, love. Even though the client’s question is about romance, there’s no emotional tone in the cards. This could suggest:
The connection is more mental or goal-oriented than emotional
The querent is avoiding emotional vulnerability
They’re asking a heart question from a logic place
That absence is a diagnostic tool. It tells you where the growth edge is.
Your own energy matters — If you’re in a bad mood or feeling unfocused, it can tint how you interpret. Name how you’re feeling clearly before beginning a reading and either clear it energetically to allow for more truth or incorporate it into your reading. Ask yourself how your anger might affect how you see each card? Or just ask the cards to show you what your anger is trying to tell you. You don’t have to avoid your feelings, you just need to acknowledge them and use them as information for a more detailed reading.
A Quick Practice to Try This Week
Shuffle your deck and draw three cards. Interpret the same three cards twice:
First, ask: “What energy is moving through me right now?”
Then, reshuffle and ask: “What energy is blocking me right now?”
Compare your interpretations—see how context reshapes meaning, even with the same cards.
This week, don’t just interpret your cards. Listen to the room.
Read the space.
Feel the rhythm.
Let the story unfold as more than symbols.
Comment with the most surprising contextual insight you’ve ever had—or share how this practice shifted your perspective. And if you’ve done the practice for this week, snap a photo and tag @spiritlement and you might find your image shared in my stories.
