Hello, and welcome to El Tarocchi! This little corner of the web is occupied by yours truly. My name is El, and I’m a long-time tarot reader from the Philippines who only recently started offering professional readings.
In this space, you can learn about the kinds of tarot readings I offer, and quickly book a reading by filling out a request form. Aside from that, you’ll find information about me, and (eventually!) more information about tarot and tips on getting started as a tarot reader.
For my first blog post, I’d like to share a bit more about myself and my own tarot journey. Hopefully those of you who are interested in tarot will find some relatable (or dare I say inspiring) tidbits to encourage you to pursue your own path.
Long, Long Ago…
…there was a teenager named El, who happened to watch The Vision of Escaflowne with her high school friends. This anime series’ protagonist was a young girl named Hitomi, a track-and-field athlete and psychic whose preferred tools were a tarot deck and a pendulum.
This is where it all began. While Hitomi’s pendulum played a much larger role in the grander scheme of things, there was just something fascinating about those cards. One of my friends bought a deck and allowed me to borrow it for a few days. I didn’t get to do a reading with it, but flipping through the cards and looking at the symbols drew me into tarot even further.
Sometime within 2004-2005, I bought my first magic-related book (Where to Park Your Broomstick: A Teen’s Guide to Witchcraft by Lauren Manoy) and my first tarot deck (The Original Rider-Waite Smith Tarot), and started learning how to read on my own.
I think I got into reading for other people sooner than most people I know who were just starting out. Gaining clarity and insights from reading for myself was amazing, and I wanted my friends to experience it, too. So I was quite happy reading for my friends, who were also quite happy being my first guinea pigs querents. I started reading for strangers sooner than expected, too—my first time was randomly doing a reading for a friend of a friend (who I just met that day) at our university cafeteria.
I never really even thought about asking for payment for most of the years I’ve been reading, but I would always say that I wouldn’t say no to free coffee or free food. Priorities, right?
And Here We Are Now
So around 2018-2019, I actually considered quitting tarot altogether. To knock some sense into myself and give tarot “one last try”, I created my @eltarocchi Instagram account in December 2019 and hopped right onto a daily tarot reading challenge. My love for tarot (and the very supportive tarot IG community) gradually pushed all thoughts of quitting out of my head, and here we are!
It’s never really been a secret that I read tarot, but I’ve never gone so far as to create an Instagram account and a website devoted entirely to it. It’s been a very interesting journey thus far, and I’m looking forward to keeping at it! I hope y’all stick around as I navigate my way through this and share my learnings along the way.