KTtarotsolutions.com

The website of Katie-Ellen
Tarot Reader & Writer

Homepage | My Service | Sample Distance Reading | Publicity & Testimonials | Background information - becoming a tarot reader | Contact & Payment Information |
Tarot Service

Click on the link to view:

True Tarot Tales - My Blog

True Tarot Tales - Tarot for help in Travel

Bam-Bam the Bold has recovered, though frail. After some days on a back- to- basics diet she last night devoured with appetite a small piece of ripe avocado.


The Page of Wands did not let us down, making the 330 mile return trip yesterday afternoon, from the Lancashire coast to Tewkesbury services and back.

There was a horrendous jam on the northboud M6 just north of Stafford, the length of two junctions. There had been an accident and someone appeared to be were filming a man and woman sitting in the front of one of the 'accident' cars. They looked reasonably cheerful, but I understand others were hurt, some seriously. Fingers crossed for them. Uruz or Auroch, is the closest rune equivalent for Tarot's Strength card.

I had asked the Tarot if our journey would go smoothly if we left at 1.30.
This was a single card reading and produced the Page of Wands.

I have found before that the Tarot can help with planning journeys.

At Christmas we went down to London for a night. I asked the Tarot to select the departure time that would give the best journey and laid out a row of cards to represent the time slots, from 6.30 in the morning (nooooo, please don't say we have to go at 6.30!) - through to an 'after 9.30' card. Each card reprented a half hour block.

I drew the Ace of Wands in the 7.30 position and it was the only upright card so that was what we went with. Spouse was happy with this as it accorded with his own judgement and preference, so this was serving as an endorsement, and the card did not let us down.

The page yesterday being a shorter trip - maybe that was why we didn't get the Ace. Maybe also because London was a 'discrete' event with a more distinct beginning, middle and end.

If you draw the Moon when planning a journey, you'll know to double check the plans.
Also, I'd suggest pack Tums or similar and electrolyte powders, and maybe beware of salads.

Be paranoid, says the Moon, but here maybe it is trying to help you. I have seen that the Moon can warn of traveller's tum.

I have been asked to consult the cards on behalf of someone who recently did a bit of a daft thing and has a traffic worry involving the Police - aherm. I shall look later and hope for the best for all concerned, as I know them ordinarily to be an asset and indeed ornament to society, rather than the reverse.

It is easy to drive on 'auto-pilot' when deeply pre-occupied - we can arrive and not remember the journey.

For luck in travelling I may also invoke help through the rune symbols or Rad or Raitho (Riding) and the Horse, Ehwaz as a protection for my own travel or other travellers. My police officer brother has one, for his car and his motorbike, and my daughter, on her car's dashboard.
My experience of these is such that I would prefer not to discount them.

'The mind wll trust the body, the body will trust the mind, Then the spirit of a thing can become greater than one thing.'

I don't know who said it, but for me, it says it all.

True Tarot Tales- a hamster 'tale'. Death card to the rescue

The Death card, understandingly has an undesirable 'rep.' and is the least 'PC' of cards to talk about in its original sense.

It has been reinvented to some extent in recent years, rehabilitated with an emphasis upon its power and value as Transition. or Tranformation.
And I agree. Death is not the enemy per se. It is needfuil, it can be 'good,' it can be merciful and liberating. It is part of Life.

But I don't wanna be tranformed quite yet, please and nor do most of my clients.


In my own experience, it's not the worst card as a predictor of human physical death. I personally tend to look out instead for multiple and repeated combinations including the Fool Reversed, Tower, Judgement dignified or reversed, 4 Swords, 6 Swords, Ace Swords Reversed, Strength, Star, Sun reversed.

But it is true that when I have seen the Death card in readings, it HAS sometimes referred to or presaged a physical actual human death. Tackling these discussions in readings requires all our resource and care as other readers will fully appreciate.

That however is another conversation...

This blog is about 'personal' tarot as opposed to my more business-like tarot activities.

Yesterday, with no clients in the afternoon, I was talking with the cards about this and that, with no particular objective, when I pulled the Death card. It related to home and family.

It made sense to me, with my dear father's estate currently going through probate, but I didn't think it was that.

Our hamster, Bam-Bam the Bold, Beautiful and occasionally Bad (a toe nipper in her youth) had a mystery bout of illness two weeks ago, and we thought she was going. Hankies at the ready, spritzing the air with Rescue Remedy we sat holding her for three hours. Then the little personage decided she was better and tried to scramble off and was bright as a button next day, trying to climb the wine rack (that's my girl) and chomping my Gombrich's History of Art on the lowest book shelf.(Hard back, naturally)

We were delighted of course, but puzzled. She is the tenth hamster I have kept and I'd never seen this miraculous recovery. The little things don't tend to 'do' illness.
I felt she might have sustained an injury, somersaulting on the sofa the previous night. She had had a soft landing but at 18 months old, she might have cracked a rib, say. because her breathing was laboured and still is.

So, seeing the Death card yesterday I headed straight upstairs to the hamster palace and found her in obvious distress, stumbling restlessly about. Being sexist, as animals often are (lol) I knew she preferred my husband's smell, I mean, SCENT, and fetched his pyjama top to hold her cuddled in.

I held her two hours and she slept, and later in the evening was sufficiently recovered to eat a small square of very well done brown toast with acacia honey (good for a rodent with diarrhea if you ever have that problem) though she refused the cooled chamomile tea, and I don't blame her. I hate it myself, but I was thinking of stress relief.

I am waiting for a phone call from the vet but don't imagine there will be much to be done that I would want done to her at her age. I wonder if she has a hernia of her diaphragm. When it pops out, she struggles to breathe and becomes prostrated. When it pops back in she is almost herself again. That 3 of swords from the other night is still there so that's a possibility if not a cracked rib.
We will see. She is in her nest box and looking at her just now in the cards I got the Knight of Cups so I hope her sleep is comfortable.

She's getting ready to go, but I am grateful to the Tarot and let's not forget the Angel of Death : ) for the forewarning, and sending me upstairs when she was having a bad moment and needed company.

For tomorrow, the Wheel of Fortune. Well, I know what that's about! Driving down to Strensham services to hand over a new car to senior daughter, who works at a vets in Devon. I say new, I mean newer. Hers failed its MOT. But the Wheels' not reversed and with the M6 and M5 on the cards - that's a bit of good news.

True Tarot Tales 4

Yesterday I drew the 3 of Swords and looked forward, without much enthusiasm as you can imagine, for any sign of its manifestation throughout the day.

We know of its associations with break-ups, rifts and heart and chest problems - to this we can add a sleepless night with tummy upsets.

I had personally linked it with a minor heart problem which just needs a little watching. But yesterday was a good day and I had gone to bed thankful for no sign of the card's sweet joys.

Then it got me- at 3 in the morning. A sharp bout of tummy pains was the start, and it marked the end of sleep for the night.

The 6 of Wands Reversed has been central in two recent readings for others. This card of riding high, has in in these recent instances of its reversal flagged up:

- loss of career owing to a lady's life threatening illness, and fear of the ultimate 'defeat.'

Though death is not a defeat, in some circumstances it would be natural to view it as such - eg as in this lady's case, with growing children.

- it also announced the loss of the diamond ring detailed in earlier blogs. I couldn't work it out - but the clue was the Ace of Pentacles Reversed (lost ring) associated with it in the problem position.
Why didn't the Tarot make THIS the central issue card?

Maybe I was not on form or maybe an explanation lay in the finding of the ring later that afternoon. The 6 of Wands reversed, reviewed with hindsight (not much help in the reading!) told a story of 'when the horse has been and gone, then there will be a victory connected to the Ace of Pentacles Reversed.

The 'horse' would have been the step ladder required to access the lost ring so that its absence/its not yet having been used was the cause of the 'defeat' - inability to find the ring.

Make it easy, Tarot, why don't you? I am sure all we Tarot readers customise our cards through use. Study is essential - but there are always gaps to leap in a face to face situation, and the Tarot continues to teach me new things with every reading.

True Tarot Tales 3

I'm going to see my rheumatologist later. I've drawn the 3 of Swords - booo- so he may have a bit of a grizzle about heart and BP - it's to be expected, a by-product of long standing systemic inflammation, but we're on the case. I prefer not to alarm myself.

Here's a poem I once won a tenner for in a competition in the Literary Review magazine.
The theme was AWE and I thought, what an AWFUL word. Unwieldy in the mouth, what can one do with that? I see Liz is also very interested in words and for Charles, this will be very much his department.
AWE...I couldn't get my mind off it, and came up with this bit of doggerel.

Compute Awe

God at Pearly Gates dot com
Designed a World in RAM and ROM
The Programme's called 'Till Kingdom Come.'

No virus has quite crashed it yet
Devised by Devil at Hell dot Net
Old Nick the Hacker means to win.
So far he's failed, we're still plugged in.
And hear the Godcomputer hummmm
The Universal Sound of Ommmm.

Creation real and unpretending
With countless files and files still pending
From here to nebula most far
From single cell to giant star
And all a Life from birth to death
And in-between its every breath

Our highest inspiration
And spirit's destination
The ROM, His Universal Laws
The Ram means chances, choices, flaws
And Life that cannot be destroyed
Its bits and bytes just redeployed
In awe we stand
In hope we pray
The Programme runs till Judgement Day.

I also drew The King Of Wands as a card for today. It made me post this blog as for me, amongst his other meanings, he means writing and Aries, a Wands month, always like us to get on with it.

Tarot Tales - update on the missing ring from True Tarot Tales 2

The lady left at 12.30 and I cooked lunch.
I did not 'know' whether she would find it.
The story told in the cards had been so odd, almost as if the ring had been in another dimension. The Death card when asking for its location, and the Nine of swords, for grieving.

But I didn't have long to wait.
She rang at 2.55 to tell me she had found her lost ring, after a year of searching.
She had gone home, thought what I had said about the Death card and the sitting room - and, though telling herself it couldn't be possible, how could it have got up there, she fetched a step ladder and found the ring on top of the wall unit in the sitting room.

It was beside the jar in which she keeps her husband's ashes.
On the hearth nearby was a vase containing white roses, as seen on Death's banner in the Death card.


I am in awe.
How strange the Universe is and its workings.

True Tarot Tales 2 -18 Apr

Last Monday my 14 year old daughter had lost her mobile phone. She had lost it the Thursday before.
'Ask the Tarot,' she said. 'I can't think where else to look.'

I wasn't in the mood just then, following an intense reading for a lovely lady wrestling with a serious illness.
''Not before I've had a cup of tea,' I said, 'and a few minutes peace and quiet, and the Tarot wants a cup, too.'


Ten minutes and a cup of tea later, one for me, one for the Tarot, the first question was, is the phone in the house?
Three cards out of three drawn upright indicated that yes, it was (thank goodness for that!)
Madam thought it might be somewhere in her bedroom.

'Is it?' I asked the Tarot, and laid out another train track of 3 cards (vertically, though I am sure it doesn't really matter)

Yes, the cards said - all three cards were upright again.
Thank you, Tarot and can you tell me where she needs to look?
I drew the Magician Reversed.
Help, was one thought.
Her phone has been nicked.
No, it's all right was the next thought. It isn't saying that.
The Magician's finger appeared to be pointing undeneath something.
A table, or if we were talkiing about her bedroom, a bed, maybe a drawer unit.

Looking at the red and white flowers on the card, I thought of her new curtains. They weren't red and white but they did have pink metallic stylised flowers. (The Tarot can't cover all the possibilities. Let's be reasonable about this.)

'Look down the back of the bed, beneath the window ledge,' I said, and she ran upstairs and found the phone beneath the radiator below the curtained window, underneath the bed. I nearly fell off my wheels.

I've used the Tarot for practical dowsing before, and with success. Last week I found same daughter's lost boots, they were on the landing under clean laundry awaiting distribution to respective bedrooms (do it now, thank you!) and the Tarot, while it was at it, told her off by showing her the Fool reversed (quite right too, for being a lazy lummock and not looking hard enough)
But why can't it always be this easy?

In my own home it's easier making practical connections, linking spots in the house with the imagery in the cards, I suppose.

This morning's client wanted help in finding a lost diamond ring, and dowsing/remote viewing is not part of my professional service. It's an interest, sometimes used 'in-house' on personal matters. i explained this to my guest but she asked me to have a go anyway. The ring had been missing nearly a year and the loss was preying on her mind.

Tarot said it was still in her flat, using the approach mentioned above, but I haven't been in her flat and couldn't 'see it'.

Not having my quartz pendulum handy, I removed and used my neck chain with pendant as a pendulum that would give yes and nos to try and pin down an answer shutting out all the other impressions coming to me from the cards.
Bedroom? No. Kitchen? No. And so on. It selected the sitting room as the place to look, the pendulum swishing around clockwise and with increasing vigour. The appearance of the Death card was a puzzle. All I could think was that the lost ring was somehow in the keeping of the lady's husband, who died three years ago. Possibly it had got put with some possession of his.

My client was adamant it wouldn't be in the sitting room, she was so clear about it that she hadn't looked there. She was sure it must be in the bedroom. She remembered dropping it.
(I had drawn the 9 of Wands earlier, which can warn of thinking in a rut. Well, we all do it sometimes.)
Justice reversed suggested logic would not come into the finding of the ring.
If found it would come to her 'out of the blue' just where to look.
I'll let you know if she finds it.


She left with advice to focus on the sitting room and look for a physical association with her husband, and with a small Tiger's Eye, chosen for luck in looking. I wondered whether there might be a white rose nearby, because of the card.

Check out dowsing on Google and UK Dowsing Associations and Societies if you've ever wondered if you have oil in your back garden, or want to know more about it in general.
Now where the beep did I leave my cup of tea?

True Tarot Tales 17 Apr

This morning's reading was for a lady who'd been before, about a year ago, but I didn't remember what we had talked about- or not consciously, anyway.

When I'm reading for others I usually use the Universal Waite.
I've met Tarot readers who ask what decks you use, then sniff or even tut if the answer is a Rider Waite . What works- works. What helps, helps, and that's for our clients/querents to say.

So many decks to choose from now...
I like pigs. It's a shame about bacon sarnies.
One of my sisters used to work on a pig farm and the boar crept up and ate the back of her welly off one day while she was feeding the piglets.
One of the sows always stood up to bark like a dog at the tractor as it drove through the farmyard past her pen, because it had nearly run her over once when she'd got loose.
Maybe a Pinky and Perky tarot....

I have various decks but find the Waites inclusive. Clients who don't know the Tarot at all can still respond with their own intuition to the images and be active participants, if they like.
I'll agree the Thoth is more elegant and beautiful but the Rider Waite is an accessible picture book with the archetypes so many of us know at first glance.
I have a Golden Tarot deck and a Renaissance Tarot and a Tarot de Marseilles and a Botticelli deck.
(Blame this selection on Art History interests in days long gone- my first job was in a museum and I was mistaken for an exhibit in the costume display. Yikes.)
Yes, the Botticelli is lavish and was a lovely gift but I can't stick its Knight of Pentacles, trotting through the woods with his sneaky little face. I won't deal it. The Knight of Pentacles is no sneak!


The key issue card this morning was The Page of Cups reversed. When I checked this against the foundation card, which was the Ace of swords Reversed, and the free floating 'comment' space in the spread, which was the Ace of Cups reversed, then looked at the Problem card, which was the Tower, I saw - oh whoops- we were looking at an acrimonious relationship breakdown, with loss of money, possibly of home etc. I also felt a child involved was feeling upset about the split.

Coming up imminently, we had the 4 of Pentacles reversed. This told me that news was coming up very soon re: the house and other material considerations, and my client said she and her partner were going to be meeting on Monday to discuss the mortgage.

The 2 of Swords in the destination/outcome position indicated change and progress with a clearer view to the best wat forward, but not dramatic improvement yet. It would be by stages but starting soon.
The card might have indicated a breakdown in truce but there was no truce, and additional cards laid on top were Justice and the 9 of Cups - glad to see these for her.

We talked at length about the relationship. The Tarot said that the man had left because he felt unappreciated, though he went to work, came home at night, helped pay the bills and played with the children, who were not his own. He had seen himself as The Emperor and had felt hurt and overlooked. He needed to be appreciated as The Emperor for his sense of dignity and maybe better relations to be restored.
They also worked in the same place and she was senior to him, besides having chief say at home, which she freely agreed was the case.

To get what she needed from the meeting, the Tarot suggested she adopt the tactics of
The King of Wands (and she was a Sagittarius and so was her partner) friendly but not intense, focussed on good communication as an objective in its own right, and on the problem of the property.
If she could maintain Justice, the Tarot said, a friendly objectivity because it was a problem for him too -the result might well be the 2 of Wands - agreement about the property or even a renewal of the relationship- and possibly even the 9 of Cups.
This was a hard thing for her to try and take on board because she had been so upset, but it wasn't about right and wrong, only communication styles.

At the end of the reading, she reminded me of the earlier reading a year before. The Tarot had suggested a holiday and said there was life in their relationship still. They had gone to Greece and had a good time, and now this morning the Tarot showed the 3 of Wands twice, so it remains to be seen whether a journey might help again...because one is in the offing.

This lady was an independent minded person, who had become used to looking after herself and the children. Her challenge as the Tarot saw it, was to learn to make space again, for a man in her life who wished to contribute.
The partner had worried about not being up to scratch in her presence (the 9 of Pentacles reversed)
She needed to slow down a little for others (Knight of Wands reversed) and rein in a tendency to impulse just a little more.

She said it was spot on and she chose a citrine to take away for luck. Hope it works out. Fingers crossed...and for him too.