Reading one card and three

Lesson 8 of 12 — the Arcana cartomancy guide

The two readings you will do most: a single card read in three layers, and a line of three read as a sentence.

Key points

• One card: read suit, then number, then color, then ask who or what in your life it describes.
• Three cards: read each alone, then read the line left to right as one sentence.
• The middle card is the present, or the action; the other two are read against it.
• Runs of one suit or one color across the line set the subject and the mood.
• If the past and future cards rhyme, the pattern is repeating.

A single card is a complete reading when you read it in layers. Take the Six of Clubs. Clubs: the matter is work or effort. Six: a path, and help along it. Black: effort rather than ease. Together: a way forward that needs work and that you will not walk alone. Then ask the only question that matters: what in my life today is this describing? The card does not know; you do.

Three cards are a sentence. Read each as above, then read them in order: this led to this, which leans toward this. Lay them for time, past, present, future, when you want to understand a situation, and for decision, situation, action, outcome, when you want to act. In both the middle card is the one the others are read against: the honest present, or the stance to take.

Then look at the line as a whole. Two or three cards of one suit name the subject regardless of the question. Two reds and a black, or two blacks and a red, show the mood tipping. A court card in the middle puts a person at the center. And if the first and third cards share a suit and sit close in number, the tradition reads the pattern as repeating: what was is what will be, unless the middle card changes.

Practice

Draw one card each morning for a week and write three words for it: suit, number, color. On the seventh day lay three cards for the week and read the line.