Asking a question worth answering

The question you bring decides more about a reading than any card that turns up. Two people can draw the same ten cards and come away with very different readings, simply because one asked a better question.

Compare these two:

• "Will he come back?"
• "What am I not seeing about this?"

The first asks for a yes or a no about someone else's choice. The second asks for something the cards are good at giving: a fresh angle on your own situation. This lesson is about why, and how to turn the first kind of question into the second.

What goes wrong with "will he come back?"

Three things, mostly.

It hands the decision away. A yes-or-no question asks the cards to settle something. But a reading shows possibilities and directions, not certainties. As Arlene Tognetti puts it, nothing about the tarot is inevitable, and what you do with what the cards show is up to you. A question that wants a verdict sets the reading up to disappoint.

It's about someone else. You can't see inside another person through your own cards, and many readers think it isn't right to try. Kim Huggens notes that some readers decline questions like "Is my partner hiding something?" altogether. Even when you don't go that far, a question about someone else's mind leaves you with nothing to do.

It's already braced for an answer. When you badly want a yes, every card starts to look like one. When you dread a no, every card looks like that. The question has decided how you'll read before you've shuffled.

Four habits of a good question

Joan Bunning gives four guidelines, and they're the best short guide there is.

Accept responsibility. Ask for information, not a decision. Bunning's example: "Should I put my father in a nursing home, or take care of him at home?" asks the cards to decide. "What do I need to know to decide on the best living arrangements for my father?" asks them to help you decide, which is the job they can do.

Find the right level of detail. "How can I improve my work situation?" is too vague. "How can I reorganise my desk so a colleague can find my files?" is too narrow. "How can I improve the way work flows between my colleague and me?" sits between the two.

Focus on yourself. "What's behind my friend's drinking?" is all about the friend. "What role do I play in my friend's drinking?" puts you in the story, where you can actually act.

Stay neutral. Try not to build the answer you want into the wording. "How do I convince them I'm right?" has already decided you are.

Rewording, in practice

Most questions can be turned round with a small change of words:

• "Will he come back?" becomes "What do I need to understand about how this ended?" or "What would help me move on well?"
• "Will I get the job?" becomes "How can I give myself the best chance with this application?"
• "Should I move to the city?" becomes "What should I weigh as I decide whether to move?"

Notice what the rewrites have in common. They're open, so they can't be answered with a yes. They're about you. And they ask for understanding or advice, which a spread full of pictures can give.

Not everyone draws the line in the same place. Tognetti encourages specific questions, even ones with a time frame, such as "How will I get along with my boss over the next six months?" That's fair: a sharp question can focus a reading well. Her other piece of advice is worth keeping too. Make sure you actually want to know the answer before you ask.

Questions that belong elsewhere

Some questions are better taken to someone else. Huggens lists the obvious ones: health and medical worries belong with a doctor, legal trouble with a lawyer or the police, a relationship in crisis perhaps with a counsellor. A reading can help you think about how you feel, but it isn't a diagnosis or a judgement.

And try not to ask the same question again straight away because you didn't like the answer. Bunning suggests waiting until something important in the situation has changed, and digging deeper into the first reading meanwhile. The fourth try at a question is rarely the honest one.

Here

When you ask for a tarot reading here, there's a place for your question or focus, and the reading is shaped by what you write in it. It's worth a minute's thought. Write it the way you'd write it for yourself: about you, open, and at the right level of detail.

What to take from this

• The question shapes the reading more than any single card.
• Ask for understanding, not a verdict. Open questions, about you, at the right level of detail.
• Some questions belong with someone else, and the same question twice in a row rarely helps.

Next, reversed cards: what it means when a card comes out upside down, and whether you need to read it that way at all.