How to Read a Card

Here are the five questions I ask of every card that comes up. They work on any card in the deck, including the ones you have never looked up, and together they get you most of the way to a reading before you open a book.

1. Major or Minor?

Is this one of the 22 Major Arcana, or one of the 56 Minors?

A Major is a bigger life theme. Something about who you are becoming, a turning point, a lesson that has been building for a while. A Minor is everyday life: this week's conversation, this month's money, the way you feel about someone right now.

Count them when you lay out a spread, too. A spread full of Majors tells you a lot is on the move at once. A spread of all Minors tells you the answer sits in ordinary days and ordinary choices.

2. Which suit?

Each suit belongs to one of the four elements, and each element is a part of life.

Cups are water: feelings, love, relationships, intuition.

Wands are fire: passion, drive, creativity, action.

Swords are air: thoughts, words, decisions, conflict.

Pentacles are earth: work, money, the body, home, the physical world.

If you know a little astrology, you already know these. The water signs are Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces. Fire is Aries, Leo and Sagittarius. Air is Gemini, Libra and Aquarius. Earth is Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn. The Four Suits page takes each one further.

3. What number?

The Minor cards run from Ace to Ten, and the numbers carry the same meanings in tarot that they carry in numerology. This is where my two practices meet.

Ace: a seed. A new beginning, pure potential.

Two: a choice, a balance, a partnership.

Three: growth, creativity, the first result.

Four: stability and foundations, sometimes to the point of standing still.

Five: disruption. Conflict, loss or struggle, the shake that stops you getting too comfortable.

Six: harmony restored. Generosity, give and take.

Seven: reflection and reassessment. Stopping to look at what you have before you go on.

Eight: effort, movement and mastery.

Nine: nearly there. The fullest expression of the suit, for better or worse.

Ten: completion. The end of one cycle and the start of the next.

Put the number and the suit together and you have most of a Minor card before you look at the picture. Five of Cups: disruption in the feelings, a loss. Eight of Pentacles: effort and mastery in work. Two of Swords: a choice in the mind, a decision being put off. Try it on the next card you pull.

The Major Arcana are numbered too, from 0 for the Fool to 21 for the World, and those numbers work differently. They mark a place along one long road, from the Fool stepping off the cliff to the World dancing at the end of it. The Major Arcana page walks that road with you.

4. Is it a court card?

Pages, Knights, Queens and Kings are the people cards. When one turns up, ask three things. Could this be someone in my life? Could it be an approach I need to take? Could it be a part of me?

Most of the time it is the third one, and most people jump straight to the first. The Court Cards page has more on telling them apart.

5. What does the picture say?

This is the question that matters most, and the one the booklet cannot answer for you.

What catches your eye first? A face, a colour, something small in the background? How does it connect to the question you asked?

Trust that. The detail your eye goes to is the part of the card speaking to you today, and next time you pull the same card it may well be a different detail.

When a card comes up upside down

I read reversed cards. A reversed card still carries its own energy, but something has happened to it: it is blocked, held inside, out of balance or slow to arrive. If you are starting out, learn the cards upright first. The Reversed Cards page has the history, the five ways reversals are read, and how I read them.

The heavy cards

Death, the Tower and the Devil frighten people, and they have no need to.

Death almost never means a death. It is an ending that makes room for something new. The Tower is the structure that had to come down because it was built on something false. The Devil shows you the chain you are wearing, and look closely at the picture: the chains around the two figures are loose enough to lift off.

Every heavy card is a mirror. It shows you something you need to see clearly, and it leaves what you do about it to you.

Put it together

Pull a card now and run the five questions. Major or Minor. Suit. Number. Court card. Picture.

You will find you have said something useful about the card before you have looked anything up. That is reading.

If you would like the cards read against your own chart, my readings are here.