Make it Personal: A Real Life Guide to Tarot: Understanding Your Natural Relationship to Tarot

by Afefe Lana Tyehimba, Jamie Gold

As a Former Journalist turned Certified Tarot Reader and Spiritual Coach, Afefe wrote Make it A Real Life Guide to Tarot to help people seeking answers to life's pressing issues without feeling overwhelmed or afraid. In a post-pandemic world, there's a genuine desire to explore ways to feel connected to our intuition and ability to cope with stress or uncertainty. Interest in metaphysical studies has surged in recent years, and Make it Personal is a great guide for those new to tarot as well as experienced readers looking to grow their skills. Afefe's tarot journey began in the 90s while working as a newspaper reporter in North Carolina. She was assigned to do a story on a quietly kept secret in Cary, NC, an extremely wealthy town whose residents cherished its antebellum roots. There, an African American cemetery with unmarked graves dating back to the 1800s had gone largely ignored but for the efforts of some black families who sought to have the cemetery preserved as a historical site. To aid in that effort, I wrote a story and conducted lots of interviews, including one with an African Yoruba priest who, after the story ran, offered to give Afefe a reading (called an "Ifa divination") that literally changed her life. Afefe recalls shaking in her boots during the reading because as a steadfast Christian at the time, the very mention of things like divination, ancestors, etc., brought cries of heresy among the faithful. But everything she heard during that session with the priest rang true! It was the first time she felt seen as a spiritual seeker who always wondered if there was more to Source than what she'd heard during sermons in pulpits. Fast forward, and over the course of the next two years after the Ifa reading, Afefe underwent a profound change in her spiritual views and practice. She studied texts on many spiritual traditions across the globe and broadened her horizons by visiting the sites of former plantations throughout the South to learn more about African American history and religion. She also visited Hindu temples; attended sweat lodge ceremonies and pow-wows; and African libation and drumming ceremonies -- eventually adopting the spiritual philosophy of "One Source, Many Paths." Written in a down to earth, practical style, Make it Personal will open doors to readers seeking to enrich their a spiritual path by using tarot as a wonderfully relatable tool that facilitates personal growth, healing, and a sense of living with intention, clarity and purpose.

122 pages, Paperback

Published September 15, 2023