Tarot Elements: Five Readings to Reset Your Life

By Melissa Cynova

Five astonishing tarot readings for untangling life's messiest problems from Melissa Cynova, author of the bestselling book Kitchen Table Tarot

Author Melissa Cynova noticed that clients often turn up for readings with extremely complicated problems. She developed the five readings in Tarot Elements as a program for hitting the reset button on life. Whether you're reading for yourself or for others, this book can help you work with any tarot deck to clarify complex issues, unstick the stuck parts, and move forward to a better place.

The five elements are powerful factors in assessing which areas of life need the most attention. Tarot Elements shows you how to use the elemental structure that shapes tarot to focus on one aspect of a problem at a time and resolve the tangled issues that are holding you back. The earth reading is about home. Air is about mind, fire is about body, water is about heart, and the spirit reading is about your soul and your spiritual practice. With hands-on exercises, sample readings, and fascinating insights, this book invites you to pick up your cards and begin the process of transformation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide
• Release date: Mar 8, 2019
• ISBN: 9780738758466

Melissa Cynova

Melissa Cynova (she/her) has been slinging tarot cards for thirty years. Her first book, Kitchen Table Tarot, won the Independent Publishing Award for Best First Book and COVR Visionary awards. Her second book, Tarot Elements: Five Readings to Reset Your Life, was released in 2019.

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About the Author

When Melissa Cynova was fourteen, a kid in her class gave her a deck of tarot cards for unknown reasons. She’s been reading ever since. In addition to being a prolific tarot reader, she teaches classes at her kitchen table and at tarot conferences. She lives in St. Louis, Missouri, with her husband, Joe, their two amazing kids, two dogs, four black cats, and a tortoise named Phil. When she’s not slinging cards, she’s reading, watching superhero movies, and hanging out with her people. You can find her online at www.melissacynova.com.

Llewellyn Publications

Woodbury, Minnesota

Copyright Information

Tarot Elements: Five Readings to Reset Your Life © 2019 by Melissa Cynova.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Llewellyn Publications, except in the form of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

As the purchaser of this e-book, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. The text may not be otherwise reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, or recorded on any other storage device in any form or by any means.

Any unauthorized usage of the text without express written permission of the publisher is a violation of the author’s copyright and is illegal and punishable by law.

First e-book edition © 2019

E-book ISBN: 9780738758466

Book design: Donna Burch-Brown / Ted Riley

Cover art: Harry Briggs

Cover design: Kevin R. Brown

Interior art: Llewellyn’s Classic Tarot, illustrated by Eugene Smith © 2014. Used with permission from Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd., no further reproduction permitted.

Tarot for Beginners: A Practical Guide to Reading the Cards by Barbara Moore © 2010 Llewellyn Worldwide, Ltd. 2143 Wooddale Drive, Woodbury, MN 55125. All rights reserved, used by permission.

Spread on page 154 © 2012 Beth Maiden. Used with permission.

Llewellyn Publications is an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data (Pending)

ISBN: 978-0-7387-5840-4

Llewellyn Publications does not participate in, endorse, or have any authority or responsibility concerning private business arrangements between our authors and the public.

Any Internet references contained in this work are current at publication time, but the publisher cannot guarantee that a specific reference will continue or be maintained. Please refer to the publisher’s website for links to current author websites.

Llewellyn Publications

Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

2143 Wooddale Drive

Woodbury, MN 55125

www.llewellyn.com

Manufactured in the United States of America

To Sarah Kate Buckles,

who turned her home into a writer’s retreat for me,

helped me breathe, made whole meals for me with only

ingredients in the house (how did you do that?),

and helped me birth this book.

You are the best book doula in the entire world,

and it wouldn’t be here without you.

I love you more than five, Sk8.

Disclaimer

You weren’t born with or handed the tools to deal with life. Sometimes it’s a good idea to see a counselor or therapist who has the training and the tools, and they can help you out. No shame and no blame—just chasing joy.

The information in this book is not a substitute for mental, medical, or financial care from a licensed professional. The publisher and the author assume no liability for any consequences to the reader that may result from the reader’s use of content contained in this publication and recommend common sense when contemplating the practices described in the work.

Contents

Introduction: Can You Fix My Life?

Chapter 1: How Element Readings Work

Chapter 2: How to Read Tarot Cards

Chapter 3: Earth: A Reading to Shelter You

Chapter 4: Air: A Reading to Help You Breathe

Chapter 5: Fire: A Reading to Light the Way

Chapter 6: Water: A Reading to Help You Float

Chapter 7: Spirit: A Reading to Bring You Connection

Chapter 8: Additional Spreads for Clarity

Chapter 9: Self-Care

Conclusion

Appendix: Tarot Card Meanings

Recommended Reading

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Can You Fix

My Life?

A long-time tarot client asked me for a reading. She’d been going through a really difficult period of time. She’d gotten into a car accident after losing her job. She’d become disabled, and while going through this experience, her marriage ended. She had to find a new place to live that was wheelchair accessible, and then her son went into rehab after overdosing. Oh—and both of her parents died.

All of this happened in six months. Think about that. When she called me, she was in her new home (that she hated), her divorce was pretty much final, and her parents had both been put to rest and their estate finalized. Her son was in rehab, doing well, but damn. She was exhausted—mentally, spiritually, physically, and emotionally. She said she was doing Okay? I guess. You know the way you say that you’re Okay? and your voice goes up at the end? It becomes a question that’s trying to answer itself. It’s the polite thing that you say when you feel like your heart has been run over. You don’t want to overburden your friend with the absolute train wreck your life has become, but you also don’t want to lie. You go to this half-honest, shadowy place and you test out this answer. Okay? really means I can’t breathe. Please help. Unless, you know, you’re too busy, because I know you’ve got a lot going on.

This Okay? is generally followed with a solid I guess because saying that things are okay is such a complete and utter untruth that your whole self wants to fight it in the parking lot after school. I guess turns the presumption that Okay? is even in your wheelhouse into a laughable fantasy.

So we talked for a little bit. Turns out she was not, in fact, okay. She wasn’t even Okay? I guess. She didn’t have a job to distract herself with. She didn’t have a partner to talk to, and her son was unable to help. She had no siblings, and all her friends had briefly vanished. She laughed about this, saying, Every time I called them, something even more terrible happened. They need a break from me.

I asked her what she wanted to ask about, and she said, I don’t know. Everything? Nothing? Can you just fix me? Can you fix my life and hit a reset button or something with the universe? Because I just need one thing to be okay. And right now? Nothing is okay.

I said that I couldn’t fix her life, but that maybe I could give her some tools that she could use to do the heavy work herself. The reading was pretty gentle, and the best/worst card that she got was the Ten of Swords: Hey, sis. Listen. You’re at rock bottom. You’re here. It will literally only go uphill from here. I promise. I promise.

We finished the reading and were saying goodbye when she said it again. It would be great if I could just get, like, a cosmic do-over, you know? New outlook on love, on my stupid house, on my job situation … I remember being disappointed in myself and my cards for not knowing how to answer that. It would be nice. Hell, I’d love to do that for myself sometimes, but that’s not how my readings work.

I kept thinking about her, though.

A few weeks later, I might have hallucinated a tiny bit. No drugs or anything, Dad, I promise! I have a friend named Aidan Wachter who is a talismanic jeweler. He posted a picture of a pentacle that he’d made and said, It’s too small. I couldn’t stop looking at this tiny pentacle. I was tossing the image around in my head and I saw it split apart into pieces, then come back together as a whole. I saw the integration of earth, air, fire, water, and spirit. They all come together to make the pentacle. To make us.

They make us. They’re the bones of who we are.

But they’re buried, right? Our bones are stuck deep, deep beneath self-esteem issues and tragedy and heartbreak and frustration and boredom. You can’t see them. You can’t feel them. So you react to things in a way that is Not-You. You carry around all the detritus and bullshit that people lay on you. You add to it with self-doubt and fear. You carry it and carry it and then you look into the mirror and you’re not sure who you are anymore in your core. My client was suffering from a serious case of Who am I, and how in the hell did I get here?

It is true that our broken parts are what catch the light to make us shine, but it is also true that if there are too many broken parts, we can shatter into bits. I think that we spend a lot of time going around the hurt instead of healing. We shove it to the side and pretend that we’re fine. It’s easy and difficult at the same time. If we compartmentalize our pain, we can tiptoe around it and pretend it never happened. Then, when we least expect it, it frickin’ explodes all over our lives. When we put our broken bits back together, it creates a beautiful mosaic that is us. However, if we put our broken bits together with lies, it’s not going to stay. The cracks will grow and the pain will find us again.

When I ask you during a reading whose sadness you are carrying around and you say you don’t know, there is healing to be done. When you tell me that you know you should get healthy, but you can’t make it worth your time, there is a reason. That reason is not that you’re stupid, incompetent, or lazy. That might have been what you were told, but it’s just not true. We do this thing where we’ll invest countless hours in the problems of a friend and completely ignore our own. Why do we do that? Are we not as valuable as our people?

With all of this swimming around in my head, I called my client. She was surprised and a little weirded out to hear from me, because you don’t often have your tarot reader call you, but she was interested in my idea.

What if we broke down her life into these elements? What if we did five readings, one for each part of her life? What if we used these readings to look specifically into what her frustrations were? Where are the supports in her life? What resources were out there for her? We talked about it for a bit, and she agreed to be my guinea pig. Brave woman. What I taught my client who lost so much is what I’m going to teach you.

I designed a reading for each element based on its alchemical symbol. I created a kit to use in an exercise designed to help her start the process of making change. I compiled community and online resources for continuing the change. I wanted to get to the heart of the problems. Not Why can’t I find a partner? but What can I fix in me emotionally that will lead me to being happy without a partner? Not Why can’t I lose weight when I want to? but How can I see myself as worthy of good health? When I was ready, we started with earth, talking about her home and how unhappy she was. After we figured that issue out, we moved on to air and took a good look at her mind and how tired she was of being at home. Fire addressed her physical self, and water her emotions. We finished with the spirit reading and helped her find a spiritual practice that resonated.

I did not fix her. This is so important. I cannot fix people that I didn’t break. She fixed herself. I gave her the tools she needed—that’s my job as a tarot reader. I’m the guide, but all the hard work starts with the client.

This program is a reset button for your life. For your heart, mind, body, soul, spirit, and home. This is not a replacement for counseling or meds if you need them. Tarot readings are excellent for helping you figure out what’s next, and sometimes the next step is therapy. This is not a bandage for a gaping wound; this is essentially a New Age self-help book. We’re going to talk about each part of your life and figure out what is helping you, what is hurting you, and which tools you have available to help you move forward to your most authentic self.

That’s what it’s all about, right? Living an honest, uncluttered life in which you can breathe freely, stand tall, and roll with the punches. Part of living, though, is picking up damaging habits, other people’s opinions, and misinformation. Tarot Elements will help you sort through the detritus of living and pull away those things that don’t serve you. We’ll get to the root of the problem.

These readings and this journey can be intimidating. It can be full of tears and longing and wondering if your reset button is stuck or lost or broken. That’s where I come in. We’re going to do this together. We’re going to walk through the scary stuff to the other side, and take a deep breath, and wipe our eyes, and realize that the way forward might still be hard, but it will be good. And we’ll be carrying less baggage, so our steps will be lighter.

Each element reading process will follow this formula:

Description of the element

Story to illustrate what happens when that element goes bajiggedy, using examples from my awesome yet intense life

Tarot reading to help you make sense of the element in your life

Two sample readings to use as examples

Your homework

Resources and additional tarot spreads to help you bring it on home

Let’s do it.

XO,

Melissa

[contents]

Chapter 1

How Element

Readings Work

I tried to keep the structure of each reading very basic. These spreads are based on the alchemical signs for each element. I found that this simplicity worked beautifully with the particular elements. For water, for example, there are three things/cards that can get in your way. In my readings, I find that it’s seldom just one thing in our history that keeps us from being emotionally healthy. In the air reading, you have one thing to hold on to. One focus. What is your truest, most honest desire. Can you rely on your skills, your degree, your mental acuity? What is that thing that will open the door to the rest of your satisfaction with work and with exercising your mind?

What Are We Asking?

Each reading, except for spirit, has the same three questions in different card configurations. When you aren’t sure where to go or what to do, you want to start with the basics:

What can you hold on to?

What can pull you forward?

What gets in your way?

These three questions will help you find your reset button.

What Can You Hold On To?

What are the things in your life—in relation to heart, body, mind, home, and soul—that are currently supporting you or are things that you can begin to lean on. These are people, organizations, or spiritual beliefs that are already in your life that you can rely on. Sometimes it’s as simple as faith. Sometimes it’s reaching out to people you really don’t want to reach out to.

For example, in the fire reading, you get the Three of Pentacles and the Queen of Wands in this position. You can hold on to your crew—the Three of Pentacles talks about teamwork. You can reach out to your support system, or if you haven’t got a great one in regard to health, to a gym or a physician. Reach for someone or something that is very near to you that will be easy to hold. The Queen of Wands tells us that you have confidence and motivation. She’s the kick-start that you’ve already got in your life. She shows up to remind you that you can do hard things and tells you to get out of your own way.

What Can Pull You Forward?

Think about the tools that can unstick you from a place of stasis. What are the resources that you have access to that will move you out of this spot? These don’t have to cost a lot of money or take a lot of time to find. You can ask friends, colleagues, and family members for assistance. The thing that can unstick you might already in your possession. That thing might also be a change of mind or heart.

In the air reading, cards 4, 5, and 6 ask this question. What are the things that can move you away from that boring job? What do you need to finish that degree? If you pull the Fool, the King of Swords, and the Three of Cups, you would see that you need to take a chance (Fool), that you need to talk to someone who is in charge (King of Swords), such as a headhunter or someone one step up from your current boss, and that you can find answers