From cards to a story

A list of ten card meanings is not a reading. A reading is what happens when those ten things become one story, about one situation, that you can say out loud in a minute or two.

Joan Bunning calls this creating the story, and calls it the most exciting and creative part of reading tarot. It's also the part most beginners find hardest, so this lesson takes it slowly, using the Celtic Cross from three lessons ago.

The spread again

Robin has worked in the same office for nine years and is thinking of retraining. Their question: "What do I need to understand about leaving my job to retrain?"

In order, the cards are: the Eight of Cups in the Present, crossed by the Four of Pentacles as the Challenge. The Ten of Pentacles is the Foundation, and the Four of Cups the Recent Past. The Star is the Crown, and the Page of Pentacles the Near Future. Up the staff: the Two of Wands as Your Self, the King of Pentacles as External Influences, the Eight of Swords as Hopes and Fears, and the Three of Pentacles as the Outcome.

First, look at the whole

Before reading any single card, step back. Yoav Ben-Dov makes this the first move of every reading: grasp the whole picture before the details, because a card that seems to give the answer straight away can look quite different once you see what surrounds it. Anthony Louis likewise gets an overall feel for a spread before examining the cards one by one.

Some quick things to count:

• Suits. Five Pentacles, two Cups, one Swords, one Wands. This is a practical matter, about work, money and security, as you'd expect.
• Where the suits sit. Both Cups are in the Present and the Recent Past. Feelings started this: boredom, and the sense of something no longer feeding them. Everything ahead is Pentacles: the answer will be practical.
• Majors. Only one, The Star, and it sits in the Crown. The biggest theme here is hope, not the job itself.
• Reversals. None. Nothing is blocked or waning; every card reads at full strength.

Already, before a single card has been interpreted in detail, the outline is there.

Then, pair the positions

The Celtic Cross was built to be read in pairs. Bunning lists many, and a few do most of the work:

• The Present and the Challenge. The Eight of Cups walks away; the Four of Pentacles holds on. That's the knot at the heart of the question: wanting to leave, and needing to feel safe.
• The Foundation and the Recent Past. The Ten of Pentacles explains the grip: a family where security meant a great deal. The Four of Cups shows what that grip has cost lately: months of flatness.
• External Influences and the Challenge. The King of Pentacles echoes the Four and the Ten. The voice saying "be sensible" may come from someone around Robin, or may simply be the family habit, carried inside.
• The Near Future and the Outcome. The Page of Pentacles, a student studying a single coin, grows into the Three of Pentacles, a craftsman whose work others value. Learning leads to skill. That's the road.
• The Crown and the Outcome. Bunning suggests always comparing these two. The Star is the best that could come of this; the Three of Pentacles is where things are heading now. They agree. Hope, put to work.
• Hopes and Fears. The Eight of Swords holds the fear of being trapped, whether by staying or by failing. And the picture itself says the way out exists.

Find the thread

Now try to say the whole reading in a sentence or two. Bunning calls this the summary statement: the answer to your question, in your own words.

For Robin, it might be: "You've already outgrown this job. What holds you is an old habit of safety, not a lack of ability. The way forward is to become a beginner again, and the cards point towards skilled work that others value, and towards getting your hope back."

That's the reading. Everything else is supporting detail.

Say it out loud

Bunning's strongest advice is to tell the story aloud, and spontaneously. Writing is too slow, she says, and just thinking it is too vague. Once you've looked at the cards, let the analysis go and start talking. If you lose the thread, pause and start again. If a card stays stubbornly unclear, say its name a few times and wait to see what comes. Some readings flow; others arrive in fragments, and a partial understanding may be all you need.

If talking to yourself feels strange, try a game Kim Huggens suggests. Draw five to seven cards and tell a story, one card per chapter, starting with "Once upon a time" and ending with "and they lived happily ever after", or not. It doesn't need to be about you. It trains exactly the muscle a reading uses: getting from one picture to the next.

Then use it

Bunning adds one last step that many readers forget: decide on one or two things you'll actually do because of the reading, and write them down. For Robin, that might be finding out about a course, or having one honest conversation with the person the King of Pentacles brought to mind. A reading only helps if it reaches your life.

What to take from this

• Look at the whole first. Count suits, Majors and reversals before reading any card on its own.
• Read in pairs. The positions talk to each other, especially the Crown and the Outcome.
• Find one thread, and say it aloud. A sentence or two that answers the question, then one thing to do about it.

Next, the other way to read: the Marseille deck, and the numbered card with no picture.