Can Tarot Cards Get “Tired”?

“My cards don’t feel like they used to. Can tarot cards get tired?”

Anyone who has spent time with tarot cards understands this painfully well.

There often comes a point when you’ve been using a tarot deck for a while and is slowly starts to lose its edge.

There often comes a point when you’ve been using a tarot deck for a while and it slowly starts to lose its edge. The deck feels … uninspired. The cards which once felt magically prescient suddenly begin to feel consistently meaningless — or just sort of blah.

You try to get the magic back, but it’s just not happening. Is it you? Is it the tarot deck? Is it time to break up?

If this sounds a little like relationship therapy, it’s because it sort of is. Except we’re not talking about a break-up.

There comes a time in many relationships, even some of the most healthy ones, when the concept of space can become important for a little while.

As any good relationship therapist will tell you, don’t assign blame.  I can’t say for sure if the issue is the cards or if it’s the reader, but what I know to be true from decades of experience is that it can be very helpful to bless your cards, wrap them lovingly, and say goodbye to them for a little while.

Are the tarot cards tired? Or are we tired?

I’m not sure if it’s accurate to say the “cards are tired” or if we as readers can just become somewhat desensitized to them after some time. Whatever the case may be, putting tarot cards away for a while can definitely help to re-sensitize us.

From my own experience, this is a great time to go shopping for a new deck and to try working with something else. (Editor’s note: Please disregard that relationship analogy. We’re just talking about new cards here.)

In most cases, when I circle back to a deck a few months later I immediately feel the magic again. I’m never sure though: Were the cards tired? Or was I just tired of the cards somehow?

Either way, a little distance can do wonders.