How to read a card

Look first, then the keywords, then the question the card asks. Four moves and one more, walked on the Fool.

Look first

Before a single keyword, look at the picture. Four moves, in order, and then one more. They are the same for every card in every deck, because they ask about what is drawn, not about what a book says the card means.

The figure

Who or what is in the picture, and what are they doing? On the Isis deck's Fool, Horus the Child, a boy of about seven laughs at the edge of a muddy bank in the Nile Delta, one bare foot already over the water. The Christmas deck's Fool is a dog in a snow coat at a different edge. Same card, same move: the figure first.

What they hold

Hands and shoulders carry the card's objects. The Isis Fool holds a white lotus loose in his left hand; a papyrus stalk over his right shoulder carries a small linen bundle. He leaves with what he can carry.

Where the light is

Find the light source and what it falls on. On the Isis Fool the first sun sits low on the horizon at his right, and one bright star still shows in a sky that runs from deep blue to gold. Dawn, not noon.

The count

The number, and the letter on the Majors. The Fool is 0. The Golden Dawn, a British magical society of the nineteenth century, put him first, with Aleph, a Hebrew letter whose name means ox, and the element air. The number is part of the picture: zero is room.

The one thing people miss

Every card has one. On the Fool: he is not looking at the drop. His eyes are on the sky.

Then the keywords

Only now read the keyword lines. The Fool upright: beginnings, leap, freedom, trust. Reversed: recklessness, no landing, chaos. The keywords name what you have already seen; they do not replace the looking.

Then the question the card asks

Each card ends on a question, never on a forecast. The Fool asks what you would start if the step were all that was asked of you today. A card page tells you what the card means; it never tells you what will happen.

Try it

Open The Fool, The Magician and The Empress. Make the five moves on each before you read a word below the picture. Which move did you skip?