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.
Shadow work: what you show, what you keep back, and what that costs.
Five cards for the part of yourself you do not put on the table. What you show on the left, what you keep back on the right, and between them why it went into the dark, what keeping it there costs you, and how to meet it. Nothing here is a diagnosis and nothing here is a verdict: the cards name the shape, and you say whether it is true.
- 1What you show
- 2What you keep back
- 3Why it went into the dark
- 4What it costs you
- 5How to meet it
The positions, and how to read a card in each
- 1What you show
- The face you bring to the room. It is not a lie; it is a choice, made so long ago it no longer feels like one, and the card describes it without judging it.
- 2What you keep back
- The part held out of sight, laid opposite the first so the two can be read as a pair. It is often the more capable of the two. Shadow is not the same as bad.
- 3Why it went into the dark
- The reason, which is usually a reasonable one from a long time ago. This is the middle of the mirror and the hardest card to look at; read it slowly.
- 4What it costs you
- What the hiding takes, day to day: energy, honesty, a relationship that never gets the whole person. This card is why the question was worth asking.
- 5How to meet it
- Not how to fix it. How to stand in front of it, which is the only thing shadow work actually asks. A gentle card here is the reading being kind on purpose; a hard one is it being honest.
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 · What am I missing · A dream
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