The deck is spread.
The sky is listening.
Draw your cards.
Or .
Shuffle, cut, draw
Choose a spread.
Three of the twenty-four to start with. Or ask a question above and the right one is laid for it instead.
Take one.
The reading.
Past, present, future: the classic three, in a line.
Where it came from, where it is, and where it goes, in that order, left to right. Three cards is enough to see a shape and few enough to hold all at once. It is the spread most readers learn first and the one they keep using.
- 1The past
- 2The present
- 3The future
The positions, and how to read a card in each
- 1The past
- Not the whole past: the part of it still acting on the question. A card here names what the present is made of. If it surprises you, it is usually because the thing it names is over and you have not stopped carrying it.
- 2The present
- The card you are standing on. Read it plainly, before the other two, because both of them are read in relation to it. A calm card here with a hard one on either side means the trouble is not now.
- 3The future
- Where the present goes if nothing changes. That clause is the whole reading: this is a direction, not an appointment, a picture of what the present is already tending toward. If you do not like it, the middle card is where the lever is.
Already laid this one on your own table? Read the cards you pulled, in these positions, with the same engine.
The cards are Pamela Colman Smith's, drawn in 1909. The draw is sealed before you touch the deck, so it can be recomputed by anyone, and nobody including the engine sees a card before you do. Readings here never give dates except the sky's, and never give medical, legal or financial specifics.
How a reading goes · How one is written · Mind, body, spirit · The horseshoe
Twenty-four spreads.
The classics, and a few built for one kind of question. Tap one to lay it.One card, twenty seconds. The habit.
1 cardYes or noOne card, cut first so it can fall either way. Upright leans yes.
1 cardPast, present, futureThe classic three, in a line. Where it came from, where it is, where it goes.
3 cardsThe two of youYou, them, and what is between you.
3 cardsShould I buy itNever about the thing. Always about the hesitation.
3 cardsThis or thatTwo roads, and the thing you are not weighing.
3 cardsIs now the timeTwo cards, and the sky answers the third position itself.
2 cardsWhat am I missingOne card you can see. One tucked behind it.
2 cardsPick one of threeThree options in a row, and the card that decides.
4 cardsMind, body, spiritThree cards for the state you are in, not the thing you are deciding.
3 cardsThe horseshoeSeven cards in an arc. A whole situation without the weight of the ten.
7 cardsThe jobTake it, leave it, or stay where you are. Three cards about the work, not the offer.
3 cardsThe one who leftWhat was there, where they stand now, and what you would be going back to.
3 cardsHow they feel about youHow they see you, what they want from this, and what holds them back. A card cannot read a mind, and this one says so.
3 cardsStay or goThe life if you stay, the life if you go, and the fear under both.
3 cardsWhat to do about itThe oldest three: what is happening, what to do, and where that goes.
3 cardsShadow workWhat you show, what you keep back, why, what that costs, and how to meet it.
5 cardsA dreamWhat the dream shows, what it is asking, and what to carry out of it.
3 cardsThe week aheadSeven cards, one for each day, starting today.
7 cardsThe year aheadTwelve cards, one for each month, laid as the year itself.
12 cardsCeltic CrossThe classic ten, the cross and the staff. For a question with a lot in it.
10 cardsThe housesTwelve cards on the twelve houses, the whole of a life laid as a wheel. For when the question is everything at once.
12 cardsTree of LifeTen cards on the ten sephiroth, from the aim at the top to how it lands. Book T's own map, laid as a spread.
10 cardsThis moonWaxing tonight. What to begin, what is in the way, and the Moon itself.
2 cards