Tarot, but for Millennials (And Those Who Love Them)
What’s the sitch? If you’re looking for a tarot deck that will give you real talk using symbols that are 100% relatable to the chronically online generation, look no further than Millennial Tarot: A Deck and Guidebook for the Journey of Adulting (Because the Struggle is Real) by Scott Bergman.
This deck is perfect for both tarot beginners and experienced readers, whether you’re looking for a full breakdown or a TL;DR of each card. Read on for an excerpt from the guidebook’s introduction, plus full interpretations for 5 cards from the deck.
Millennial Tarot is on sale now wherever you buy books and decks!
The Cheat Sheet
The Millennial Tarot deck is an enchanting take on the traditional Rider-Waite tarot deck. The deck includes seventy-eight cards, with twenty-two major arcana cards and fourteen cards in each of the four suits: Vibes, Feels, Thoughts, and Swag. Each card features the original Rider-Waite name and a Millennial-inspired term, as well as original artwork. This guidebook provides all the info you need to understand the deck and do a tarot reading with it.
It doesn’t have to take you long to learn the cards or remember what they mean—that’s why we gave them Millennial terms—but it’s helpful for us to break down what the suits and the numbers are all about. They create a structure that is cohesive and makes understanding any combination of number and suit simple to grasp.
Major Arcana
These are like the major life events on your Facebook feed: moved cities, started a job, or, these days, got engaged, got married, had a kid, and so on. The major arcana tell the key story of how we move through adulting and the inevitable pitfalls and triumphs that any journeyer will face. In this deck they play on the beautiful and unfortunate stereotypes that bless and plague our Millennial generation.
Minor Arcana
These are more like your Stories on IG. They’re what’s going on in the day-to-day and reflect more minor parts of your life rather than your whole brand. These are the suit cards.
Our lives and sense of self are made up of many different aspects—our passions, emotions, thoughts, and physicality. Each thread involves unique problems, goals, and efforts. On the surface they seem distinct, but how we behave in each arena often pulls from the same underlying trauma and beliefs. When you pull a suit, it’s asking you to focus on one of these aspects of your life for a second. Oftentimes, however, diving into any belief or situation deep enough will reveal truths that apply to every aspect of your life, opening you to insights about your entire world.
Vibes (Wands)
This is what’s showing up in your For You page. It’s what you’re secretly interested in, curious about, reading subreddits about, and going down YouTube rabbit holes for. It’s your niche, that thing that gets you unnaturally excited and people know you for. It’s your vibe. Wands shoot magic, and this is your magic. It’s your ability to emanate what makes you feel passionate and alive so that it may bounce off of and against the world around you and spark change. This is the power and domain of Vibes.
Feels (Cups)
Whether it’s Solo cups for beer pong, to-go Starbucks cups, or wine glasses for rosé all day, cups have one purpose: to hold liquid, which swishes, swirls, fills up, bubbles over, and gets drained, just like emotions do. We call cups Feels, and they refer to just that: our feelings. This looks at the domain of what we’re experiencing in our body and our heart—how we let things in, how we connect emotionally with others, and what feelings flow through us. We’ve got the feels, we lose the feels, we’re feeling it.
Thoughts (Swords)
The cutting edge of a sword has the power to defend, strike down an enemy, deal a self-inflicted wound, or stab a friend in the back. In our age, the keyboard and pen—mightiest of swords—wield words of power and shape our world through reason. Whoever said “Sticks and stones can break our bones, but words can never hurt us” has never watched reality TV or spent time in the comments section. When these words are internal, they are thoughts, and when voiced, they manifest as the DMs, tweets, and memes of our digital communication. Swords therefore become Thoughts, a powerful tool to both liberate us with realization and enslave us with rumination—anxious thoughts, happy thoughts, irrational thoughts, high thoughts, and shower thoughts.
Swag (Pentacles)
Serious coin. The dough. The pentacle symbolizes the tangible and earthly. It’s the material tokens we get from engaging in life’s hustle. It’s what money can buy and everything that makes up our physical world. It’s our body and appearance—our health, our love handles and thigh gap. And it’s our environment and possessions, our crib, whip, job, bank account, sneaker collection, designer handbag, or unnecessarily large collection of crystals. It’s Swag, aka the Stuff We All Get.
Card Deets
Dumpster Fire (The Tower, XVI)
TL;DR: A serious wake-up call
THE SITCH: Yikes. It ain’t good. All your emotional baggage is being thrown to the curb and doused in gasoline. The fumes are noxious and stanky. Some part of your world is burning, and the floodgates have opened. Being a Millennial often feels like surviving a catastrophe… global warming, perhaps. You’ve made it through a few decades of trauma so far—honestly, what’s one more day?
REAL TALK: Once all the toxic waste burns, the fire goes out and you can breathe again. You just lost seemingly everything, and yet here you are, still alive. You are more than your things, relationships, grief, or identity. You exist even if they all go away. The key to starting over is to learn how to recycle so you stop creating so much stinking trash. When you change the behaviors that led you to the initial crisis, you set yourself up for a clearer, cleaner future. There is a fearlessness available in having nothing—because then there is nothing to lose.
REVERSE, REVERSE: Sometimes when you feel safe and stable, it may scare you because you aren’t used to it or don’t think you deserve it. You assume a storm must follow the calm and be on its way. There is a certain adrenaline rush that comes with navigating crisis, and there is satisfaction in overcoming an obstacle. Before you blow up your life and go into full self-sabotage mode, look for a way to create a challenge—but not a problem—for yourself to solve and overcome.
#BigYikes #HotMess #EpicFail #Trainwreck #ShitShow
On Edge (9 of Vibes)
TL;DR: The tipping point
THE SITCH: You’re brimming with feelings of unfulfilled potential as you fear your success may never arrive. Welcome to a critical juncture of your life, when the weight of responsibilities feels heavier than your meditative breathing techniques prepared you for. As you get ready for your big moment, performance anxiety sets in. With feelings of perfectionism, thoughts of quitting, and nervous energy, you’re on the brink of overwhelm.
REAL TALK: This is a moment to look back and celebrate the passion and love you’ve put in so far and to know that the result does not need to define your success. Ironically, doing less, prioritizing, paring things down, and even accepting the possibility of failure can give you the resolve and relief to continue to the best of your abilities at any capacity, which can be the release you need to get it done.
REVERSE, REVERSE: Perhaps a little worry would be useful. You may feel a sense of complacency despite not having reached your goals. Be wary of a lack of urgency or caution lulling you into a false sense of security. Is it complacency or wisdom bringing about your new sense of chill? You may just have new clarity that your previously committed buy-in was the result of a delusional sense of importance—or self-importance. You may see it simply isn’t the end of the world if it isn’t perfect… or if it doesn’t happen at all.
#DontGiveUp #StruggleBus #Perfectionist #HighStandards #RunningOutOfSteam
Engagement Photos (2 of Feels)
TL;DR: Making a choice
THE SITCH: The photos are in, they’re cute AF, and you’ve put them on blast. You made a commitment. You had the talk, put a label on it and became official, got engaged, and tied the knot. You’ve made a choice, a decision, or a commitment to choose to love or, maybe, to part ways. You’re at a juncture where it’s about elevating a relationship to a new level of intimacy—or picking a radically new direction.
REAL TALK: Love can be a choice. And a complicated choice at that—how you choose to love, whether you choose to love, and whether you let love in. Love is a two-way street, a dance of give and take. Ask yourself if you want to enhance or alter the relationship’s direction. To choose is to commit, and doing so permits you to inch deeper into vulnerability with the agreement that you are safer to be vulnerable. Choosing something else is also a commitment to yourself and a new future. Both choices require bravery.
REVERSE, REVERSE: Perhaps there is a relationship that feels imbalanced, or you know you need to make a choice but are stalling. It may be time for a heart-to-heart to check in with how each of you are feeling. Address your fears, doubts, and hopes honestly with your partner. You have the power to redefine the terms of your relationship, to make it more authentic and fulfilling through the wondrous powers of communication.
#FacebookOfficial #PuttingALabelOnIt #PutARingOnIt #CuffingSeason #FearOfCommitment #ColdFeet
Self-Care (4 of Thoughts)
TL;DR: Manifesting results
THE SITCH: Treat yo-self, all day errday. Do your skincare routine, hit the gym, open that meditation app. It’s about time for “me” time. Take a mental health day—or at least a power nap. Allow yourself some introspection and, even more so, a little peace and quiet away from social media, overbearing family, kids, or the busy city. It’s a moment of self-love, so recharge your batteries, because the only turbulence you need right now is from your vibrator.
REAL TALK: Take care of your body, and your body will take care of you. Tranquility and equanimity stem from stillness, but it doesn’t happen overnight. It comes from consistency and steadiness, not haphazard impulsivity. Regular practices of healing, praying, meditating, and resting are crucial. When chaos flares up, sometimes our self-care is the first to go. Set up systems of daily reminders to ease the friction and make it easier to prioritize your well-being. Simple routines like cleaning your face and moisturizing twice a day will always out-glow occasional grand gestures like a monthly face mask. Build a daily habit of care, and it will be your protector.
REVERSE, REVERSE: No need to overdo it. A spa day is a delightful treat but a hobby of luxurious treatments may be overindulgence. A simple nightly face wash sounds swell, but a twelve-step skincare routine—well, that’s a part-time job and may be less about beneficial self-maintenance than about chasing an unattainable beauty ideal. It’s all good to indulge as long as you recognize it for what it is and keep a healthy balance.
#MentalHealthDay #MeTime #SelfCareSunday #TreatYoSelf #WellnessRoutine
Imposter Syndrome (8 of Swag)
TL;DR: Marinating in it
THE SITCH: They say to fake it ’til you make it, but you’re afraid you’ll get found out. You avoid eye contact in the office halls, timidly speak up in meetings, and are baffled at how confidently your colleagues spew nonsense ideas. How can they be so wrong yet so confident? Riddled with self-doubt, you are nervous about being seen as a fraud. To bolster your confidence and know-how, you take online courses, read articles, and seek mentorship. Gradually, the student becomes the teacher, the intern becomes the manager, and you gain the courage to take charge and be a boss.
REAL TALK: Growth comes from expanding your area of mastery, inch by inch, skill by skill, awkward situation after awkward situation. Finding mentorship where you feel uncomfortable can, in itself, be an uncomfortable thing to do. To let someone help you requires the vulnerability to allow the other person to see your honest skills and watch you mess up. You may come across as inexperienced at times. In this way, feeling like a failure or novice can actually be a sign that you’re rightfully tackling something new and not pretending to know it. Balance is key—avoid being overly self-critical or excessively confident. When you’re honest about your current abilities, you can more clearly see where there’s room for improvement.
REVERSE, REVERSE: Sometimes those who appear most confident are actually the least informed. When you don’t know what you don’t know, you also don’t realize when you should zip your mouth because there are actual experts in the room. You may be overconfident about a skill, coasting on past successes, or believing you’ve already learned all you need to know. This can lead to stagnation and a lack of growth. It’s crucial to maintain a beginner’s mindset and to celebrate the effort you put in rather than the results and corresponding validation.
#GrowthMindset #LearningCurve #AlwaysBeLearning #Mentor #FakeItTillYouMakeIt
Dive Deeper
Evoking imagery of avocados, student loans, side hustles, and other symbols of the millennial condition, this complete deck of 78 tarot cards and accompanying guidebook are a playful yet powerful tool for millennial mystics and those who love them.
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Millennial Tarot
$25.00
$31.00 CAD
