How to Make a Song-Based Love Tarot Spread

Sometimes you hear a song that really grabs you. It happened to me yesterday. Phosphorescent’s ‘Song for Zula’ popped up in new Spotify playlist and though I had it on as background music while I was working, I had to just stop and listen. Initially, it was the haunting tune that grabbed me more than the words.

It seemed to send me deep into my yearning and to yank it out from where I tucked it for safe-keeping. It unfurled some dusty wings and made me soar. I had to listen again… and again… and a dozen listens later I decided to take a look at the lyrics:

Some say love is a burning thing
That it makes a fiery ring
Oh but I know love as a fading thing
Just as fickle as a feather in a stream
See, honey, I saw love. You see, it came to me
It put its face up to my face so I could see
Yeah then I saw love disfigure me
Into something I am not recognizing

See, the cage, it called. I said, “Come on in”
I will not open myself up this way again
Nor lay my face to the soil, nor my teeth to the sand
I will not lay like this for days now upon end
You will not see me fall, nor see me struggle to stand
To be acknowledge by some touch from his gnarled hands
You see, the cage, it called. I said, “Come on in”
I will not open myself up this way again

You see, the moon is bright in that treetop night
I see the shadows that we cast in the cold, clean light
My feet are gold. My heart is white
And we race out on the desert plains all night
See, honey, I am not some broken thing
I do not lay here in the dark waiting for thee
No my heart is gold. My feet are light
And I am racing out on the desert plains all night

So some say love is a burning thing
That it makes a fiery ring
Oh but I know love as a caging thing
Just a killer come to call from some awful dream
O and all you folks, you come to see
You just stand there in the glass looking at me
But my heart is wild. And my bones are steel
And I could kill you with my bare hands if I was free

Songwriter: Matthew Houck

Published by
Lyrics © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.

One way of making a DIY Love Tarot Spread is to take a song about love that really speaks to you and turn a central theme or two from each verse to a positional meaning. I have highlighted the words I chose to focus on above. This is the spread I created based on ‘Song for Zula’:

1. The Wild Heart (me)
2. The Cage (how I feel caged/trapped in love due to expectations)
3. How I saw love disfigure me in the past (a key lesson in love)
4. The yearning (To be acknowledged by some touch from his gnarled hands)
5. The shadows (fears)
6. The strength that will help me overcome my fears (bones of steel)

Feel free to give this spread a whirl if it speaks to you but do try making your own as well. The reading will be all the more meaningful for you because you will already have a deep emotional connection to the positional meanings.

Blessed Be!

Lisa