This is a cool reading because it shows that the cards tend to describe a situation and take their time to do so, so that trying to immediately get a yes or no out of them can be problematic and cause mistakes (though making mistakes is part of the human condition, obviously). This is the reason why, talking about the Bolognese tarot, I tend to disregard the yes and no rule of the Death card. It is also the reason why I don’t believe in the yes and no value of playing card colors. To me, that’s just a coin flip, and coin flips don’t work as reliably as actual divination, which is a language.
Here the question was if an unemployed man would get a job.
A career spread. Divination with playing cards.
The first thing I noticed is that the reading ends with a very positive combination of Queen of Diamonds, Eight of Clubs (work) and Six of Hearts (reconciliation/solution/adjustment). This bodes well, but the rest of the spread is more disastrous.
The first row shows that the subject is a thorn in the heart of the person (Two of Spades, Ace of Spades and the Six of Diamonds showing worry). Then we see that every step taken (Two of Clubs) to solve the issue has met with misfortune (Seven of Spades), meaning that the person has probably tried to find a job repeatedly but failed. This explains the very emotional cards in the first row, as well as the fact that the Happiness card (Ten of Hearts) is squeezed between Misfortune (Seven of Spades) and Tears (Eight of Spades). This is a whole unfortunate period unfolding in the person’s life.
There are some cards I am not quite sure about: the Two of Diamonds, Seven of Diamonds, Seven of Clubs. 2♦️ + 7♦️ can be a cheque or paper money, or projects about money. I asked the querent a couple of questions and it didn’t really help. I think a more general reading would be that, quite obviously, the lack of a job has impacted negatively (7♣️) his financial situation.
Then finally we have a woman who is either going to help him find a job or give him a job. If I had to bet I would say this is a female boss, since she shows up as a Diamond and not as a Heart. Either way, the period of misfortune is going to thankfully end.
Here the querent is a friend of mine whose live-in boyfriend is acting aloof toward her. She was afraid that he was either having an affair or he was falling out of love with her, or that she had done something to him (he does have a tendency to keep things in until it’s time to explode).
Divination with playing cards: have I done something to him?
My querent doesn’t come up, so we can exclude that she has done something to him or that his love toward her is an issue. There is also a complete absence of mistresses, so we can immediately rule out that he is cheating, especially since there are no cards indicating sneakiness (like the Ten of Spades or the Jack of Spades). There is a Three of Spades, which might indicate intrigue, but clearly this is not what the spread is driving at, and the Three of Spades can also indicate a ‘knotted’, complex situation that doesn’t flow harmoniously.
His significator comes up in the second line, surrounded by cards that show positive development, so the situation is not permanent. However, the first line is a bit concerning, since we have tears, worry and the complex situation. Note that the worry card (the Six of Diamonds) is hemmed in by the spades, so it gives us a picture of the person being somewhat overwhelmed.
Then we have the two Eights and the Ace of Spades. As I wrote sometime ago, the Ace of Spades is often sterilized as a card of change, but at least in my tradition it shows great grief. The grief here is connected to cards of work and business, so this is the problem. The querent said that he doesn’t know if his temp job is going to be renewed. So that’s the problem.
Finally, to complete the picture, there is the house card with problems (Seven of Clubs) next to it. The steps (Two of Clubs) he takes at home (Ace of Hearts) are problematic, as a consequence of the issues shown in the cards above.
We have a final card, the King of Diamonds. We couldn’t identify him, although we suspect it’s either a colleague or a boss. We don’t know from the cards if his influence is positive or negative. It would require another spread, but it doesn’t matter since my friend’s worry was of a different nature.
If you ever happen to receive a comment from someone whom the cards describe in the following way:
2♠️ – 6♦️ – 2♣️
you can safely flag all their future comments as spam. Their actions (Two of Clubs) presuppose (behind) a volatile and unstable temper (Two of Spades – Six of Diamonds). It is someone who is simply looking for a target to live out their idiosyncrasies depending on the fixation of the moment.
Yesterday we had a nice reunion with some friends. One of them asked the cards if she has a shot with her dance instructor, whom she’s crushing hard on. These were the cards:
The first thing that jumped at me was that nasty Eight of Spades at the end, which literally says “it will end in tears.” If we take the three angles of the pyramid, they are the Six of Clubs, Nine of Spades and Eight of Spades. Bleak.
My querent’s card falls on the first line, together with the Six, the Ten of Hearts and the Nine of Spades. If we were to read this line as a literal sentence, it would be “Coming from a place of fatigue your happiness there’s not“. In other words, my friend is not just single, but lonely, has been for a while and she’s unhappy about it. This is interesting, because it shows that her crush is more like a compensation mechanism.
Then we come to him, the King of Clubs, who is on a journey (Ten of Clubs) with a loved woman (Queen of Hearts) that leads to a house (Ace of Hearts) of union (Three of Clubs). He is engaged. The final Eight of Spades does not say that he is unhappy about the engagement, but that the engagement brings tears to the querent.
As you may have read in another post, I recently lost my dad. My mother has always been the worrier type, and taking care of him in this last period has exacerbated these traits. I’ve seen her not just depressed, which would be normal, but utterly confused. A couple of days ago, when I discovered my dad’s playing cards, I asked how her mental state would evolve, and if it would improve (I used this picture as header pic of that post):
Will her mental state improve?
There are two points in this spread that immediately jumped at me:
The Two of Diamonds (2♦️) followed by the Four of Spades (4♠️). The Two is a card of communications, especially written, but it is also strongly connected with attitudes, mental states etc. Followed by the Four of Spades, it gives a critical point in her inner life.
The Five of Diamonds (5♦️) squished between Spades. The Five of Diamonds indicates change, transformation, the ability to move on from one state to another. This ability is negated by the surrounding spades.
Clearly she has entered a rather dark tunnel. The following cards offer hope: the Two of Hearts with a Heart court card indicates someone close to us. It could be me, it could be my uncle. The fact that two hearts follow the Spades indicates healing. It may indicate that focusing on the family, especially me, is a source of positivity for her. It could show help from me and my uncle or other close male relatives and friends
The final two cards are the Six of Clubs and the Six of Hearts are interesting. If the 6♣️ hadn’t been present, the three consecutive Hearts would have shown full recovery from the problem. Tbe 6♣️ though, is a card of fatigue, tiredness and of things slowing down, and of problems that seemed solved resurfacing.
Therefore, as may be expected, while the 6♥️ promises improvement, the 6♣️ shows relapses and that scars will remain. I expected no less.
They are the bane of many a reader: Court Cards are seen as difficult to read, in part because they clearly represent people, and so refuse to be banished into the realm of woolly platitudes inhabited by way too many readers, in part because locating them within the querent’s life can be objectively difficult.
In cartomancy with playing cards, however, the inherent signification of the cards can help us: The Queen and King of Clubs are almost always the main protagonists (the querent and his/her significant other), though there may be exceptions. I know of cartomancy systems where the querents are represented by the Heart suit, but this is just semantics.
Then we have the Heart court cards, of which the Jack is a child, a pet or something fresh and immature and small and the Queen and King represent people close to the querent’s heart. This is actually a modern interpretation: traditionally, they would be people sharing the querent’s bloodline, but modern times require modern solutions. I have found that the Heart courts can simply indicate very dear friends. For gay people, usually the significant other is a Heart card of the same sex, although occasionally the cards simply use the Club cards. We need to stay open. The Jack of Clubs can indicate friendship, help, cooperation.
The Diamond suit represents people usually unrelated to the querent, though they can indicate relatives by marriage. More usually, they show colleagues, acquaintances, bosses, rich people or people who have a more neutral or even cold perspective of the querent compared to the Hearts. The Jack of Diamonds usually represents a message.
Finally, Spades show people who are downright inimical to the querent, or who wield power over the querent’s well-being and enforce an objective set of rules, such as the police, doctors, judges, etc. This is especially the case for the King. The Jack can represent enmity, scheming, etc.
All Jacks can indicate children or very young people, though in practice this is more likely with the Jack of Hearts.
Usually, one court card within a reading is already more than we can tolerate, but sometimes we find that there are ONLY court cards. This is an example of a reading a did yesterday for a man who asked about his relationship:
A marriage-related three-card spread
When more than one court card shows up, it is important to look at the cards between them, as they show the nature of their relationship, or what’s between them.
It is easy to jump to conclusions here: there’s a woman between you two! You have a lover! This could very well be the case, actually, but it is always important to keep in mind that, with so few cards on the table, more than one interpretation is possible. Here are some possibilities:
There could actually be a woman between them. He may have a lover (or, more rarely, she may have a female lover)
It might be a threesome
There could be a woman who interferes but who is not a lover: it could be her mother, her friend, any other person.
There might be a person mediating between them in a positive way
He might know her from work or from a business context, since sometimes, two queens or two kings together can represent a single person, merging the qualities of two suits.
So, how do we know which interpretation applies? Well, first off, we ought never to play Nostradamus: in doubt, we ask. This may sound unimpressive, but our aim is not to impress, but to give accurate information. Still, with experience, we may rule out a couple of possibilities as being less likely:
This is a simple three-card spread. If the querent were in some kind of odd polyamorous arrangement, the cards would not lead off with three court cards, but by telling us the querent is weird. This may sound politically incorrect, but the cards are keyed to a rather traditional view of the world. This doesn’t mean they are a compass of morality: it’s just their language. They highlight the strange and untypical in rather clear ways. Three court cards together aren’t strange enough.
This is a simple three-card reading. If the querent had a hidden lover they would tell us the relationship is in danger, or at least they would highlight the lover by assigning her to the Queen of Spades rather than Diamonds (The Queen of Diamonds can be a lover, but it requires more hints from the surrounding cards). Even the Queen of Spades wouldn’t necessarily be a lover, but at least we’d know she’s trouble.
This is a simple three-card spread. If there were a positive influence mediating between them, the cards would have given her to the suit of Hearts, or they would have omitted the information altogether and told us the querent and his significant other are in a positive phase (the mediator isn’t that important, and a three-card spread only has space for what’s important).
With that in mind, I asked the querent if he knew his girlfriend from work or from a business context, and he denied this. I asked him then if there was a woman causing some issues between them. He smirked and said: “A friend of hers doesn’t like me, she’s trying to break us up.”
Obviously, this spread doesn’t tell us how it’s going to end. It just describes the situation rather than how it will evolve, and more cards should be drawn.
The spread used for this reading is a spread of thirteen cards that I’ve learned from the person who’s teaching me to read the Bologna Tarot, and it is typical of that tradition. It is a small tableau of cards that is generally used to explore a single issue (though nothing forbids you to use it for general readings.)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
There are several traditions varying from town to town. According to one, the cards are to be read in columns only, with one indicating the past, one the present and another one the future. My teacher however reads them primarily in rows, though sometimes columns can be read too, and usually, the central column holds some importance. More often than not, the last card is especially important because it will either contain a general answer or give you an important detail, or determining factor.
Although this spread is especially linked to the Northern Italian tarot tradition, I’ve seen it used with regional playing cards as well, and I don’t think there is any reason why it wouldn’t work with any deck tradition you practice. I will certainly use it with the Sibilla as well, one of these days.
Will She Learn to Love Herself?
The querent in this case is an acquaintance of mine, but the question was not about her, but rather about her sister. The question was “Will she learn to love herself?” and it came with no further detail. This is fine, as often when a querent feels the need to talk there is a risk that they end up feeding me their perspective. So here are the cards that came out:
Will she learn to love herself? Divination with playing cards, thirteen-card spread
Right off the bat, we notice that the significator for the querent (the Queen of Clubs) is present, so since this is a tableau we might as well look at the cards surrounding it. She has the Jack of Hearts, the Queen of Spades and the Eight of Spades above her. These cards could mean a number of things, such as problems with a daughter or problems with an immature woman, or problems in the person’s childhood. Let’s file all this away and move on.
Next to the Queen of Clubs we have the Nine of Clubs and the Six of Clubs, which represent long-term toil and struggle. Clearly, whatever this is, it is not something that is going away soon. But the spread ends with the Nine of Hearts which indicates triumph. There is light at the end of the tunnel.
Technically, we already have our answer: the querent’s sister will struggle with self-love a long time, but she will improve. But the cards tell us more. Let’s turn to the first row, where we find the Queen of Hearts hemmed in by Spades. There is some kind of blockage or problem (Four of Spades) that causes the shedding of tears (Eight of Spades) relating to a woman (the Queen of Hearts).
Usually, the Queen of Hearts is either a relative or someone with our best interest at heart. In this case, though, she is strongly afflicted by the Spades. So I asked the querent if the issue relates to the sister’s poor relationship with her mother or another female figure close to her that impacted her self-love negatively. The querent confirmed that their mother was a raging alcoholic who worked overtime to tear them down when they were little. Note how the cards highlight the cause of the sister’s suffering by placing it right on top of the spread!
Right underneath we have the Queen of Spades, the Four of Clubs and the Five of Diamonds. This line was a little cryptic, and I must confess I did rely a little bit on my intuition, but the interpretation was still logical. There is a woman of spades who is saying words (Four of Clubs) that cause change (Five of Diamonds). Who is this woman? Usually the Spade suit is problematic, but it can also indicate certain professional figures (doctors, military figures, judges, etc.) It stood to reason that this figure could be a female therapist that is helping the sister. I asked and the querent confirmed to me that the sister is seeing a female psychologist who “means business but is very competent” (Spades).
The line just above the querent contains the Jack of Hearts, the Six of Hearts and the Three of Spades. This time I felt confident interpreting the Jack of Hearts as the sister’s “inner child” or, to avoid woo woo terminology, it represents the issues accumulated since childhood. The Six of Hearts talks about healing, and the Three of Spades indicates intrigue, but also in the metaphorical sense of a knot, something that needs to be unravelled or clarified. For the time being, therefore, the sister’s issue will persist, but the final Nine of Hearts is promising.
One cool thing about moving to our new place is that we now live much closer to the countryside. Although there are a couple of major cities around us, our district is basically a cluster of small pictoresque old German villages close to the woods. This is a very good place for a magic practitioner to settle down.
I also discovered that there is a small lake or large pond (depending on who you ask) nearby. It’s been my experience that old water places, just like old caves, tend to be stably inhabited by spirits. In fact, in a subtle way, these spirits *are* the place they inhabit.
Before visiting the place I drew three cards to investigate, and these cards came up:
A water spirit – Cartomancy with playing cards
Obviously, the first thing to take note of is the presence of the Queen of Hearts, which is a motherly figure or a positive female entity. This is confirmed by the Eight of Hearts which can represent a water place, so in the context of an esoteric / magical reading it would represent a female entity of a broadly positive nature tied to water. The Ace of Clubs represents power, dominion, rulership. It indicates that the spirit has power over the place, so while she is positive, she is not the airy-fairy pushover type.
After doing the reading, I started researching local folklore. If you know of any such place near where you live, it may be wise to research local legends, as they often contain romanticized but accurate hints about the nature of the spirit.
What I discovered is that there is a medieval legend tied to the place, according to which a mother (!!!) once brought a local duke a basket of vegetables, in exchange for having a new irrigation system dug near where she lived. This irrigation system became the pond. There is no narrative reason why she should be characterized as a mother. Her being a mother serves no purpose in the legend, which makes it a very important hint in understanding the spirit: she is essentially motherly.
“But” you may be wondering “this is an artificial pond, how can it be magical?”
We must not draw strict boundaries between the world of humans and that of the great powers of nature. What we know from the legend is that a water spirit wanted to establish herself in this place and convinced the humans around her to cooperate by being motherly and nurturing toward them, and the humans were intelligent enough to accept her offer. There is nothing strange about this: in actuality, humans cooperate with nature all the time.
Note how the reading hints at a spirit that is positive (Queen of Hearts) but not submissive (Ace of Clubs). Had she been a difficult spirit she could have simply flooded the zone. There is altogether too much mischaracterization of water in the spiritual and magical community as something weak, vague and mystical. Water can be devastatingly powerful, so it is a good thing our local water spirit is a positive member of the community.
