You can read playing cards too: start with the deck at home

My studio's card is a king from a deck of playing cards.

Some people use playing cards for divination too. If you've learned tarot, you can borrow the correspondences between suits and numbers to help remember. But each has its own history and ways of reading, so you can't simply say playing cards are tarot with a few cards missing.

The four suits

• Hearts = Cups: home, love, friends.
• Diamonds = Pentacles: money, work, paperwork.
• Clubs = Wands: plans, career, climbing up.
• Spades = Swords: obstacles, pressure, things to let go of.

Some methods use the ratio of red to black to read the overall mood first. Here it's treated as an observation exercise. You still need to look at each card, and colour alone can't tell you good from bad.

Three face cards

A Jack is a young person, or a piece of news. A Queen is someone who receives, cares, and sees things clearly. A King is someone who decides and takes responsibility. As with tarot court cards, gender doesn't matter.

Two special cards

The Nine of Hearts is called the "wish card" in many places. In this system, the Nine of Spades is often used to talk about worry and pressure. The cards can't tell you anything about someone's health.

Looking at the two together, you can compare how the same number changes between suits.

How to start

1. Take out the jokers and shuffle.
2. Keep one matter in mind and draw three cards: past, present, what comes next.
3. Look at the ratio of red to black first, then the suits, and finally the numbers.
4. Say it in one sentence.

You don't need to memorise all 52 meanings. The study room has a one-line quick reference for each card, and you can practise with an online three-card draw.

A deck has 52 cards,
and a year has exactly 52 weeks.

Common questions