Telling secrets about me + tarot

an introduction & welcoming words

“If we want to discover the secrets of tarot, we must expose our own secrets.” - Rachel Pollack, Forest of Souls

Well friends, it seems unavoidable to begin this post with the cliché of saying “I’ve had some new followers lately and I haven’t introduced myself in a while!”

So, hi. It’s possible you’ve known me some time as I’ve been blogging over ten years now (!!!). Or maybe you’ve only recently connected with me on Substack (I migrated here a little over a year ago). Either way… greetings. Here are my secrets.

about me

My name is Carrie Ann and I go by Carrie, I was named after the song Carrie Anne by the Hollies though my parents dropped the E. I was born June 24 1985 which makes me a Cancer Sun (Virgo Moon) and 39 years old. I’ve lived in Utah all my life but my husband is from Michigan so I feel a connection to that area too.

There’s Ben and I on a 12th anniversary trip to Southern Utah this past October. We are childfree and have two cats and two dogs. Here’s the least awkward photo I could find of all four animals.

2023-2024 kicked my ass and I’m still reeling. My mom, one of the people I was closest with on the planet, was diagnosed with a terminal illness with no treatment and no cure (ALS). I lived with her part time this last year helping take care and keep her company. She passed away last July.

My spiritual foundation - much of which I inherited from her - has helped, but the grief/trauma is immense. I’m not the same person I used to be. I’ve lost a lot of my sense of meaning and joy, but I’m open to inviting them back in, in new forms.

I don’t typically talk a lot about my personal life/family online so even though this is pretty basic info it feels odd. So let’s talk about…

me & tarot

The story goes: I had a quarter life crisis in my early twenties. I’d spent all my life up to that point doing what I was ‘supposed’ to do: went to college, got a degree, got a corporate job. Then I was like, wait, so this is just life now? Working all day, then being too tired to do much else besides eat frozen burritos and watch TV?

It turned out I had a lot of pent up creative energy that desperately needed somewhere to go. I can’t remember the exact sequence of events but the following things happened: I completed The Artist’s Way. I did NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). I began studying Carl Jung. And out of nowhere, I got an intuitive hunch to call in sick to work and go buy a tarot deck.

I was on a ROLL. I was TRANSFORMING. I was having A-HAs! And tarot was the glue that connected everything. Tarot mirrored the Jungian concepts I read about. Tarot gave me plot ideas for my novel. Tarot helped me understand myself, where I was stuck, and how to find more freedom and vibrancy in my life.

Me with my first tarot deck circa 2011ish. I miss this person. I know I’ll never quite be her again, but I do hope to reclaim some of the magic and purpose she sensed in this world.

I started my business in 2014 under the moniker Happy Fish Tarot. Ultra big shout out if anyone happens to remember that name. I switched to simply going by my name a year or two later. A few highlights of my tarot career so far:

• 2014-15: I wrote a series on card meanings for the Wild Unknown Tarot which at their peak received over 70,000 views per month.

• 2018: Travelled to Montreal to present at a tarot conference. The keynote speakers were my two top tarot idols, Rachel Pollack (rest in peace) and Mary K Greer, so I got to meet them briefly.

• 2019: Along with my collaborator Annie Ruygt, ran a very successful Kickstarter campaign to fund our indie deck, The Spacious Tarot (we still have some in stock, but it will be going out of print soon).

• 2022: Travelled to Salem, MA to present at another tarot conference!

• 2023: switched from a regular ol’ blog to Substack :)

That’s my baby and I’m proud 🥺

my tarot philosophy

There are as many approaches to tarot as there are tarot readers. That said, Mary K Greer identified four main styles of reading tarot. I expanded on Greer’s initial ideas in a free workshop a couple years ago, but here’s a brief overview:

Analytic: prioritizes systems of interpretations, correspondences and ‘traditional’ card meanings

Therapeutic: a dynamic & collaborative approach which seeks the most personal meaning for yourself or your querent, even if that doesn’t align with a ‘traditional’ meaning

Psychic: primarily prediction based, card meanings come more from intuition than tradition

Magical: aims to find the highest potential in a card and use tarot to transform consciousness

My own style is a blend of therapeutic and magical (with an emphasis that just because something is labeled “therapeutic” that does NOT mean it is equivalent to the support of a credentialed mental health professional).

Another milestone in defining my approach to tarot:

Earlier I mentioned the Artist’s Way. For those unfamiliar, this is a book/course by Julia Cameron which aims to untangle creative blocks. It is widely revered and I can certainly say it changed my life all those years ago. The book begins with a set of “basic principles” which create a foundation for the lessons that follow.

As I’ve long been an Artist’s Way fangirl, the notion occurred to me many years ago to articulate my own set of basic principles for the way I approach tarot, but I hadn’t gotten around to it yet. Until! A sychronicity came about (which I discussed in a video at the time). In 2021 I read The Inner Sky, an astrology book by Steven Forrest. Forrest describes his approach as “evolutionary astrology.” Evolutionary astrology fuses ancient wisdom with modern humanistic and psychological frameworks.

When I discovered evolutionary astrology, I thought, hmm. Kinda sounds like how I read tarot. I wonder if anyone’s ever used the phrase evolutionary tarot? So I googled it, and lo and behold! I found a wonderful post by James Wells written in 2013 titled ‘Basic Tenets of Evolutionary Tarot’. I very much resonate with James’ philosophy, and I’ll share his tenets, in his words, here:

• The tarot is not a belief system; it is simply a tool.

• All tarot cards are neutral symbols. There are no “good” cards and there are no “bad” cards. The card symbols are enlivened by the questions, processes, templates, life experiences, and understanding that we take to them.

• Neither the cards nor “fate” make things happen; people make things happen.

• Rather than considering a tarot card concept as a noun, it can be helpful to consider it as a verb or process. E.g. Rather than say, “I’m a High Priestess”, one might say, “I’m High Priestessing.”

• Rather than considering a tarot card concept as a blanket statement, it can be helpful to consider it as an open-ended question. E.g. “The Ace of Pentacles says that you’re successful” can become “The Ace of Pentacles asks, ‘What personal definition of success have you cultivated in response to this endeavour?’”

• The tarot practitioner is simply a guide; the person or group who is the subject of the tarot encounter is her/his/its own best expert on her/his/its life. The tarot encounter is a catalyst for her/him/it to tap into this personal expertise.

• The fundamental questions that underlie the tarot encounter include: Who am I? What questions do I carry in this lifetime? What is my full potential as a human being? What script can I write in order to become this? What are my unique qualities and gifts? How can I share these with my community and the world in a life-affirming manner? What do I most need to know or learn at this time?

• The tarot encounter’s primary aim is the intensification of a person’s consciousness or self-awareness. It is an invitation to empowerment.

I am grateful to both Mary K Greer and James Wells for helping me further define how I view and work with the cards.

From here…

I aim to post at least twice a month here on Substack during 2025. I had the same goal for last year but life upheavals and mental health prevented me from quite reaching that aim. The thing is, though, that even when life kicks my ass, tarot is there to support me. Even when the broader world seems like nothing but chaos, fires, tyranny and destruction, tarot is there.

Tarot doesn’t SOLVE these big issues. It doesn’t even always help them make sense. But it helps me survive, truly. It creates space for even a small sense of grounding and connection and that is incredibly useful.

At the beginning of this post I shared a quote from Rachel Pollack about sharing our own secrets in order to understand the secrets of tarot. I believe that’s a lot of what I do here in my posts: I attempt to be honest. Vulnerable even, if I dare to use a buzzword from several years ago. I have strong boundaries, yet I share my personal readings and revelations and even secrets as they relate to the cards.

So, going forward, I’ll be here in your inbox as much as I can! As a subscriber you can expect a mixture of tarot related musings: book reviews, history lessons, spreads and other tarot activities.

So far I haven’t put anything behind a paywall, but I am immensely grateful for those of you who have become paid subscribers. There’s only around 20 of you right now, but that is still honestly amazing to me! It makes a difference not only financially, but in my morale, to know that people value what I share. So thank you for that. I am considering ways I can create bonus posts and special content for paid subscribers this year, while still keeping most posts available to everyone.

I suppose that’s it for now. Much gratitude for your presence and we’ll be in touch again soon.

Carrie