Tarot Readings - Intuitive or By-the-Book?

[Queen of Wands]

Sometimes I'll 'get' things that don't really reflect the official meanings of the cards at all... and that's usually the point where the querent goes 'ah!  yes!'.  

My roommate call it the "epiphany face".

[Chausette]

I was curious about how others do their readings.
 
Personally I've never been able to abide by the books verbatim. I am always guided to energies while I am reading the Tarot. There has been multiple times when I begin a Tarot reading and request for a personal item to hold onto or am taken by surprise when I begin seeing things with my third eye that I have no way of knowing.
 
I use the cards mostly as a channel and visual aids.
 
What about you? How do you do your readings?

 
A little of both. I tend to more intuitive readings, but I keep the 'traditional' meanings in mind as well. I also look in the book/online if I have no clue what the heck a card means. But generally I try to be intuitive about it, or use the traditional meanings as a springboard for how I interpret it in this particular reading.

[Kylara]

I was curious about how others do their readings.
 

What about you? How do you do your readings?

 
When I first started (probably only the first couple of times I read cards) I used the book.  My first deck was the Cosmic Tarot, and the little white booklet that came with it is horrible.  Each card gets a sentence or two describing what is physically on the card and then a list of 20 or so words that are supposed to be the meaning.  Not only did I have a very hard time connecting these words (which didn't all relate to each other) to the card, it was very clunky to have to flip through the booklet card by card to see what the meaning was while I was trying to read...and then, by the time I had looked at all the individual cards, I had forgotten half of them, so no way to really do an overall impression.

What I did was sit down with my deck and go through each and every card, and just meditate on it and see what it meant to me.  It took a while, but I was really glad I did it.  After that, I just let the cards speak to me.  Sometimes they speak really loudly and I get impressions right away, and sometimes not so much.

I've spent time 'learning' each deck I have gotten like this since then.

I do also, however, love reading tarot divination systems, ones that tie all the cards into a particular pattern.  The fool's (hero's) journey through the major arcana is pretty nifty, though I am less impressed by the numerological interpretation of the minor cards in relation to their suits (I find this doesn't always match the card image, though it would work really well for reading regular playing cards).

One book that I really liked was the companion book to the Shadowscape tarot deck (my most recent purchase).  I think because the card descriptions were short stories that played directly into the card image.  

The way I figure it, the more I read about tarot meanings, the more information is in my brain to be pulled out when I look at a card.  I don't try to do readings using particular card meanings (except as a learning exercise), but I do notice that sometimes a specific meaning I've read about will come through.  If it does, I go with it, because I am sure it came to mind for a reason.

[Forest Lady]

I was curious about how others do their readings.
 
...
What about you? How do you do your readings?

 
When I first began working with tarot I used a book to become familiar with my deck. It is important to have your own deck because they work with your vibration. Once I became more comfortable with the card meanings, I began to rely more on intuition.

An excellent book to start with is "Tarot: A New Handbook for the Apprentice" by Eileen Connolly.

[Terra]

I was curious about how others do their readings.
 
What about you? How do you do your readings?

 
My readings are more intuitive.  I read the books that come with the decks, then put them in my bookshelf and they don't really come out again.  I think it's essential to become familiar with the archetypes, but in the end, I believe it's what the cards say to you during any given reading -- how they're laid out, the patterns they form, the feelings you as a reader receive, even how one card may be pointing to another, or how several cards contain the same geometry -- not what somebody else said the cards mean.

[Terra]

What I did was sit down with my deck and go through each and every card, and just meditate on it and see what it meant to me.  It took a while, but I was really glad I did it.

 
This is so essential!  I also believe it's important to keep the cards near you for a good long time so you can pick up their energy and they can pick up yours.