Reader's notes
About the cards, and about the things
still on your mind after the reading.
Brand imageFeatured / From the reading table
When a reading ends you may feel a little lighter. But the thing you came with is still there. This piece asks: what comes after that hour?
Read this pieceEssays
Sometimes it starts from a card,
sometimes from wanting to ask one more question.
At the market, people hit a small snag before drawing a single card: they’d forgotten how to write some characters. From a question card to the action note that covers it.
AI says its charts are 100% accurate. I still see them go wrong. When AI helps, and when a human reader does.
After UFO footage was released, does fortune telling still mean anything? I put the question to Claude and Gemini.
The Six of Cups brings back the past, but missing someone, meeting again and getting back together differ. On where love questions get read too fast.
How to explain my view clearly in a reading, while leaving room for you to disagree.
The paper, edges and sound of a deck of playing cards being shuffled, and the King of Spades the studio drew. About something you hold in your hands every day.
Wondering whether there's someone better? Don't blame yourself yet. The Eight of Cups on reasons to stay or leave, and the conversations no card can replace.
Describing your present and predicting the future are two different things. What I care about is whether a reading is clear and helps you think a little further.
Before a reading
How to ask, how to choose a reading: start with the piece you need.
How to compare two offers, and questions more useful than "will I get it?"
A tarot deck has 78 cards. A reading puts your question, the cards' positions and the pictures on them together.
Prices for one-on-one, written and year-ahead readings, side by side.
Asking "should I" and "will it", and using three cards to see which way things lean.
Your question doesn't need to be elegant, just clear. Ask about what you care about most, then add the timeframe, the options and the details you want to know.
You don’t need to arrive fully prepared: ask what you want to ask, ask again if something’s unclear, and disagree if you do. Four things I’d like to say before we turn the cards.
Deep Focus looks at one question, Vision Compass at goals and how to reach them, Year Ahead at the coming year. Written out, no meeting needed, English available.
Some people put IKEA furniture together without reading the manual. However detailed the manual, you still build the cabinet yourself.
If you keep going round in circles about something, try a one-on-one or written reading. For the overall picture of the coming year, choose a year-ahead reading.
Year-ahead readings are delivered in writing. NT$1,800 covers the year; NT$4,200 adds a reading for each month.
Reading the cards
Start from the picture, the question and the position.
And keep the parts you disagree with or aren't sure about.
Birth month + birth day + the year, reduced to 22 or below. With an online calculator and the year themes for all 22 Major Arcana.
New beginnings, the unknown, trying things. Upright, reversed, love and work.
Momentum, direction and will. Upright, reversed, love and work.
The Lovers often comes up in love questions, and it's also often about choices and values.
Balance, pace and slow mixing: how to read it in love and work.
Turning points, getting back together and second chances: first look at why it ended last time.
A standard tarot deck has 22 Major and 56 Minor Arcana. Look at the pictures and learn the suits first, then each card's meaning bit by bit. No need to cram.
A reversed card doesn't always mean the opposite. Blocked, not yet visible, too much or too little, leaving, truly reversed: five readings and how to choose one.
The 16 court cards don't have to be a particular person. Use rank, suit and the figure's actions to see which attitude or approach a card brings to your question.
Draw a card, note what you see, and look back at it in the evening. Keep the ones that didn't match too.
Don't let the names scare you. Death often means an ending or change; The Tower reversed, a problem left too long. Read them with the other cards and your question.
The Eight of Wands reversed often means delays, rescheduling or crossed wires. Still waiting for a reply? Don't assume they won't answer; see where it's held up.
The Nine of Swords shows someone sitting up at night, face in their hands. In a reading, I first help you separate what has happened from what you still fear.
Ten of Swords, Eight of Pentacles reversed, Ace of Pentacles reversed: cards for talking about effort and unmet hopes. Whether to go on depends on real conditions.
Line up the four cards of the same number and look for what's similar and what's different. Numbers help you remember, but in the end you come back to the picture.
From the Fool to the World, try linking the 22 Major Arcana into a story. It's one way to remember and understand them. Life doesn't follow the numbers.
You don't have to read all ten cards in one go. Practise the present and the obstacle first, then see how the other positions affect them.
Ask the same question every day and the readings start to sound alike. Here's a week of practice; pick a few days and try different ways of asking.
Just starting, going deeper, more spreads, a new deck, or the history: a few books for each is enough. Full notes on every book are in the study room guide.
Tarot started as a card game, and the divination readings we know came later. From early hand-painted cards to the Rider-Waite deck, see how the images changed.
Marseille tarot pip cards usually have no Rider-Waite style scenes. Practise another way of seeing: number, suit, arrangement and where the figures look.
Use playing cards to practise reading suits, numbers and combinations. Explains the correspondences this unit uses, and why they can't simply be equated with tarot.
Practise reading Death and The Devil together through a hypothetical brand expansion. This is an example reading, not a client record.
Monthly archive
Each forecast stays under its original month. Months that weren't collected aren't written up later.
Collective forecasts are written for many people, so skip the parts that don't fit.
I look at the month's astrology and draw cards for each of the twelve signs. Forecasts go up on Threads early each month (in Chinese); the collective one is here.
A monthly forecast is written for many people. If what it describes doesn't match your life, skip it. There's no need to force it to fit.
Your rising sign is the sign on the eastern horizon when you were born. To find it you need your birth date, time and place; the more exact the time, the better.
