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Hello and Welcome to Your Giddy Aunt’s Website... Thanks for stopping by!

I first discovered Tarot when I was training to be a psychotherapist, and it was something I only ever used to help me when I got stuck in my process.

I would pull a card, or do a reading for myself, and reflect on how that related to my inner landscape.

Sometimes one card could keep me going for weeks or months. I still see Tarot primarily this way, as a useful tool for personal and spiritual development.

Tarot is Intriguing, Fascinating, Complex & Mysterious

Tarot is intriguing, fascinating, complex and mysterious. It is ancient, with origins dating back well over 500 years.

It is constantly being re-invented and re-created by deck designers, and thus it is endlessly new.

In fact it is so popular at the moment, and has been re-re-created and re-re-designed so many times that it could make anyone feel giddy -

including me!

When I first encountered Tarot in the early 2000s, it was still a relatively niche practice. I bought my first Tarot deck from a major London book shop.

It was sitting on a single, dusty shelf labelled “Spiritual” which was wedged between extensive shelves called “Religion”, “World Religions”, “Buddhism”, “Christianity” and so on.

There were only about 5 or 6 decks to choose from with maybe a couple of books, and it all had the embarrassed appearance of something the book shop didn’t take seriously and was secretly hoping you would overlook.

Tarot was like that elderly, slightly eccentric but mainly harmless aunty who sat quietly in the corner at family gatherings.

The strange old lady not saying much unless you asked her, when she uttered something cryptic that turned out to be quite insightful a couple of years later if you ever thought about it again.

The aunty in the old-fashioned clothes that most of the family barely noticed, and those that did whispered suspiciously about her conversations with the spirits, wondering if she really believed in her own bizarre ideas.

How times have changed!

Nowadays, there are many hundreds (possibly thousands) of Tarot decks to choose from, on any theme imaginable, and there are myriads of readily available books which one can easily find in shops and online.

Tarot has gone mainstream. YouTube has developed a whole “TarotTube” of its own, with deck and book reviews, commentary, readings, how-to’s, deck hauls and unboxings, deck collections and deck de-clutters, to name but a few typical subjects.

But if I had to describe Tarot now as a family member, who would it be? What has it become?

Is Tarot the brash, over-confident teenager, who claims to know everything and have all the answers? Or the brash teenager’s sulky friend, the gothy one with jet black dyed hair dressed all in shades of black?

Is Tarot the wise old Professor holding court in the centre of the room, who spent years studying Western Esotericism? Or the affectionate Earth Mother clucking over everyone else, dispensing tea and comfort?

Is Tarot your nomadic and free-spirited friend, who is making a brief stopover between festivals and on their way to Stonehenge for the solstice? Or that tricksy cousin who tells amazing stories but you never quite trusted?

Today, Tarot could be any of these characters, or more, but it leaves you wondering …. whatever became of your old aunty quietly minding her own business in the corner, observing everything but saying very little unless asked?

We thought she was The Fool in the family, but maybe she was The High Priestess all along. The keeper of secrets that we just didn’t recognise.

I had my first deck and only for almost 20 years, I still have it and still love it. I didn’t think I needed any other deck….

until 2020, when lockdown left me with too much time on my hands and I explored TarotTube for the first time.

Oh My Giddy Aunt!

I felt like Alice disappearing down a rabbit hole, or Lucy from The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, innocently opening a wardrobe door and finding herself in an unknown yet enchanting land where she didn’t know the rules and it’s hard to tell friend from foe.

Tarot - Land, where one can be beguiled and fall under a spell like Edmund, or where one can after many trials and tribulations come to the Deep Truth.

I Admit That Discovering TarotTube Was Really Overwhelming...

I thought I knew Tarot, but it turns out I didn’t. Or to be more accurate, I began to worry that I didn’t know Tarot at all and never had, because the immense variety of Tarot interpretations and all the voices competing for space on it got me thinking that one deck wasn’t enough, and that I didn’t know enough.

Since then, over the last 4 years, I have rediscovered Tarot and explored it in new ways. I have devoured thousands of hours of TarotTube videos, until I felt I could discern the insightful and informative voices from all the chatter.

I went on a major historical journey to try and find the ancestors of my favourite aunty, and understand how and where Tarot started - a journey that can never be fully complete as the answers are somewhere in the mists of time.

I have read as widely as I could about Tarot, and gradually formed my own opinions from the often contradictory theories of many authors. Most of all (and despite myself!) I bought and studied a wide range of Tarot decks, and began to read Tarot not just for myself but for others.

Over the last 4 years, the question that got me started on all this still remains: Whatever happened to Tarot?

And why? Most importantly….Why now?

What is going on in our culture that caused Tarot to explode into the huge phenomenon it is today?

And where on Earth is it headed if it carries on like this?

Much has been gained by Tarot’s relatively sudden rise to fame, but perhaps some things are in danger of being lost. Ironically, Tarot had remained in the shadows for centuries, known only to a few initiates or those with “the sight”. It has come out of the Shadows, but when the light is too bright it is paradoxically just as difficult to see what is really going on.

Many things remain hidden in plain sight when the space is overcrowded.

I started Your Giddy Aunt to explore some of these questions out loud, to try and stop my own head spinning with it all.

I am going to reflect on all things Tarot.

It is my hope that my experience both in life generally and specifically with Tarot will connect with yours, and together we can ask questions, think about old ideas, and come up with new ideas of our own.