Does everyone need a reading?
It reminds me of a furniture manual

A client asked me whether everyone needs a fortune-telling reading. I said not necessarily: some people can put IKEA furniture together without reading the manual. And however detailed the manual is, it won’t build the cabinet for you. Life still needs your own hands.

Some people read every page of the manual first; others dive in, get stuck halfway, and only then go back to find which screw went in the wrong place.

There are many ways to make sense of life, too. Talking with friends, keeping a journal, looking things up, or simply trying something can all help you see your way. If those already work for you, there’s no need to book a reading just because everyone else is.

When it's worth having someone look with you

A few situations come to mind:

• Something keeps coming back to you; you’ve thought about it for a while and still want someone to look at it with you.
• The options are all in front of you, but you don’t know how to rank the things you care about.
• You’ve already decided, and want to put your worries about what comes next into words.

Ask yourself first: what do I most want to understand this time? If you’re only missing a piece of information you could look up, looking it up is often faster. If you need someone to help you sort through your choices, tarot is one option to consider. For how to choose between one-on-one, written and year-ahead readings, see when is a good time for a reading.

The manual won’t build the cabinet for you

I like this comparison partly because of one very practical point: however clear the diagrams, you still have to build the cabinet yourself.

After a reading, you still write that letter yourself, and you still decide how to start that conversation. Thinking it over later, you may decide some advice doesn’t suit you; then let it go. Whether it works has to be checked against your own life.

Of course, life is much more complicated than furniture. There’s no finished picture that fits everyone, and other people’s choices and outside conditions won’t line up the way we’d like. Sometimes you try something, find it doesn’t work, and have to think again. That doesn’t mean you missed a reading or got a step wrong.

No need to treat readings as regular homework

Come and talk when things change, when you have a new question, or when you want to look back over earlier choices. There’s no need to keep asking about the same thing; first see whether what we discussed last time is useful in your life.

If you already know what to do first today, go and do it. The reading table will still be here; you don’t need to come back and check every step.

Common questions