For people drawn to deeper perception beneath surface meanings.
Tides of Knowing is a structured body of work on symbolic interpretation, intuitive literacy, and reflective tarot practice, developed through The COMPASS Method™.
The method teaches readers how to perceive relationships, patterns, and meaning beyond memorised interpretations, with decades of tarot and oracle practice behind the work.
40+ years tarot practice · 30 years as a professional journalist · Fourth-generation Matakite (seer) · Founder of The COMPASS Method™
Ways into the work
- Your readings feel close, but something still slips away Explore the Method
- The same card keeps showing up in your readings Explore repeating meanings
- You want to strengthen your intuitive perception directly Try a Tool
- You want to develop your perception through real practice Enter the Practice Space
- You're ready to develop this as a disciplined intuitive skill See the Training
Tides of Knowing is a practical body of work about perception, interpretation, and the disciplined use of intuition through symbolic systems.
It is grounded in tarot and oracle practice, but it is not limited to learning card meanings. Some readers work for themselves. Some read for others. Many do both. What matters is the desire to perceive more clearly, interpret more accurately, and trust what is actually being shown.
This site is not built around collecting endless interpretations.
It is built around learning how to recognise what matters, follow what is relevant, and translate what you perceive into something coherent, grounded, and usable.
Because the deeper value of working with cards is not confined to the reading table.
These skills shape how you read people, how you recognise what is and is not yours to carry, how you restore boundaries, how you make more meaningful space for yourself, and how you navigate life with greater calm, clarity, and self-trust.
What you’ll find here
Tides of Knowing is structured around long-form article series and standalone essays.
The series are designed to help readers deepen their relationship with the cards, with themselves, and with others. They explore the practical foundations of intuitive work: how perception functions, what makes a reading hold together, why meaning alone is often not enough, and how intuitive skill can be strengthened through attention, structure, and practice.
Alongside these are individual articles written when a particular insight needs to be shared. These pieces may respond to something observed in practice, a question that keeps arising, or a deeper truth about intuitive work that deserves its own space.
Together, the content is intended to support both personal development and better guidance for others.
What this work is for
The purpose of this site is simple:
to help you read, reflect, and deepen your intuition in ways that bring more peace, more clarity, and more structure to your life.
For some, that will mean becoming a more grounded and trustworthy reader.
For others, it will mean using the cards as a tool for personal insight, emotional honesty, stronger boundaries, and better decision-making.
In both cases, the aim is the same: to make intuitive knowledge more coherent, more practical, and more fully lived.
About the work
I have spent more than thirty years working with language, perception, and interpretation as a journalist, reader, and educator.
Tides of Knowing grows out of that intersection.
It is the written companion to The Deck Compass and a place for serious, thoughtful exploration of what intuition is, how it works, and how it can be developed into a skill that serves everyday life.
You can read more about my background on the About page.
Stay close to the work
Get new articles and early access
This work develops over time. Join the list to stay close to it.
Join the list →Latest Field Notes
- Welcome to Tides of Knowing Leigh Spencer introduces Tides of Knowing and The Deck Compass, explains how methodology articles differ from this journal, and argues that structure helps intuitive tarot readers stay precise without losing warmth.
- Why I Rarely Start with Yes or No in Tarot Why yes/no tarot questions often compress a situation before the cards can describe it accurately, and how symbolic evidence in the image reveals yes, no, or not clear yet.
- How I Use the Four Knights in Tarot When the Work Needs to Move A personal Field Note on using the four Knights in tarot as focused working energies for motivation, direction, and intuitive decision-making when a project needs movement.
- Where AI Stops Reading A Field Note exploring why AI tarot interpretation often answers the surface question while missing the deeper human tension underneath it.
- The Origin of The COMPASS Method™ Leigh Spencer reflects on how the COMPASS Method emerged over decades of intuitive reading practice, and why attention, not knowledge, became the defining factor in clarity.
- Reading as Relationship, Not Performance When tarot becomes a performance for an audience, intuitive work loses the slack it needs; Leigh Spencer traces consent, repair, and the everyday habits that keep readings relational for clients and for yourself.
- Ethics, Lineage, and the Long View Leigh Spencer situates intuitive tarot in history and whakapapa, defines a modest ethical frame for readers and teachers, and clarifies how public articles and The Deck Compass classroom can share one standard across different containers.
Articles and methodology
Long-form methodology pieces, series, and topics. Browse the full article library
- Why the Feeling That Something Is Missing Never Goes Away Persistent longing that doesn't resolve isn't personal failure – the bhakti traditions call it viraha, a sacred orientation that keeps the soul facing toward what it actually seeks.
- Why So Many People Feel Empty Despite Having Enough Persistent dissatisfaction isn't individual failure – it's a collective condition the Vedic traditions call Kali Yuga, when the structures that once held human longing collapsed in a single generation.
- How to Actually Live with Longing: A Practitioner's Guide Understanding that longing is sacred doesn't make it liveable. This is the practical piece – what works, what doesn't, and how to build a container for the burning.
- Why the Same Tarot Card Keeps Appearing A grounded guide to understanding why the same tarot card keeps appearing, how symbolic repetition works, and how to interpret recurring tarot patterns without fear or fixation.
- Repeating Major Arcana Cards Learn what it means when Major Arcana cards repeat in tarot readings and how recurring archetypes reflect life transitions, symbolic pressure, and psychological themes.