Questions to Ask the Tarot
For a reading about one specific decision rather than a general look at your life. The questions work through both options in turn, the price of waiting, and the choice you may have quietly made already. Bring one decision and leave everything else outside. If your question is really about a relationship, or about work and money, this site has a separate list for each.
The questions
Open any question for the note
What is the shape of the year I am in?
Why ask it
A broad opener that sets a frame for everything after it. If the answer is only about one area of your life, that concentration is itself the finding, whether or not you would have named it.
What am I in the middle of that I keep treating as a detour?
Why ask it
Some stretches get labeled temporary for years: the interim job, the short-term apartment, the situation you are between. The label is usually doing something for you, and it is worth asking what.
What decision am I refusing to make?
Why ask it
If more than one thing comes to mind, choose the one you would least like to discuss over dinner. Refusal is rarely about difficulty, it is about not wanting to be the person who chose.
What happens if I choose the safe option?
Why ask it
Read the safe branch first, because it is the one you will drift into without deciding. Expect the answer to be neither disaster nor relief but something more like a flat continuation.
What happens if I choose the other one?
Why ask it
Pull the same number of cards you used for the safe branch, or you will unconsciously give the exciting option more room to look good. Compare the two spreads side by side.
What am I waiting for, and is it coming?
Why ask it
Split it in two and answer both halves. Plenty of people are waiting on something that has quietly already resolved, and nobody told them because nobody knew they were waiting.
What is the cost of waiting another six months?
Why ask it
Waiting feels free because its costs arrive slowly. Try to name something countable: money, a door closing, a person who will have made their own plans by then.
What information am I missing before I can decide?
Why ask it
The best possible answer here is boring and researchable. If the reading points at a fact you could look up in an hour, the deck has done its job by sending you away from it.
Who should I ask?
Why ask it
Look for someone who has actually done the thing rather than someone who will be kind about it. If the name that arrives is someone you already avoid, that reluctance is part of the answer.
What would I tell a friend in this position?
Why ask it
Advice given to a hypothetical stranger is consistently clearer and more decisive than advice we take. Write down what you would say, then notice which part of it you would refuse.
What am I optimizing for that I no longer care about?
Why ask it
Goals outlive their reasons: a salary target set when rent was higher, a plan made for a relationship that ended. The tell is that hitting it recently produced nothing much.
Which door is already closing?
Why ask it
Not every option stays open while you deliberate, and pretending otherwise is the most expensive part of indecision. Ask about a specific option with a real deadline attached.
What have I already decided without admitting it?
Why ask it
Behavior usually leads the announcement by months. Look at what you have stopped investing in, because that is where the decision has already been made.
What would make this easier that I have not tried?
Why ask it
Often something practical and slightly embarrassing to have missed: asking for an extension, saying you need help, doing part of it badly on purpose to get started.
What am I responsible for here, and what am I not?
Why ask it
Taking on other people's choices is a common way to stay stuck, since you cannot resolve what was never yours. Draw the line explicitly before you read further.
Where am I early, and where am I late?
Why ask it
Most people are both at once, and knowing which is which changes what to do next. Being early asks for patience; being late asks for a message you have been putting off.
What is the version of this that I would be proud of in ten years?
Why ask it
Pride is a stricter test than happiness because it survives the outcome going badly. If both options pass, the decision matters less than you think and either will do.
What should I do first thing tomorrow?
Why ask it
Insist on something under an hour. A reading that ends in a project rather than a first action will be reopened next week with nothing having happened in between.
What should I stop?
Why ask it
Easier to act on than anything you add, and it frees the capacity the rest of the reading assumes you have. Expect resistance to arrive with the answer, usually in the form of who would be let down.
What would I need to accept for this to stop hurting?
Why ask it
Ask it last, when the practical work is done. The answer is often a plain fact about someone else's limits, and acceptance here is not approval, only an end to arguing with what is.
Reading Through a Decision
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Setting up the reading
Give each option the same number of cards
Unequal spreads produce a foregone conclusion, because the option with more cards will always have a richer story. Fix the count for both branches before you deal either.
State the decision as a choice between two named things
"Should I be happier" cannot be read. "Stay in this role until spring, or start applying now" can. If you cannot name both branches, that is the reading you need first.
Separate what is knowable from what is not
Notice which of your uncertainties are facts you could find out this week. Send those to research and keep the reading for what you want and what you are avoiding.
Write the outcome down and come back to it
A dated note on what you expected turns a decision reading into something you can learn from, which is the only way to find out whether your interpretations are any good.
Common mistakes
Reading for permission
If you have already chosen and want the cards to agree, you will find agreement. Ask what you are hoping to hear first, and treat that as the honest content of the sitting.
Asking what will happen instead of what to do
Prediction gives you nothing to act on and tends to license passivity. Rephrase every outcome question as a preparation question.
Deciding on the night of the reading
Readings are vivid and vividness passes. Sleep on it and reread your own notes cold in the morning, when the spread is no longer in front of you.
Using a reading where advice is needed
Money, health, immigration status, and legal exposure need someone qualified. A reading can tell you that you have been putting off the appointment, which is worth something, but not the appointment itself.
A decision sitting
Six questions, in order
- 1Name the decision as two specific options, in writing.
- 2Write down which one you are hoping the cards favor.
- 3Read the safe branch, then the other, with equal cards.
- 4Ask what information you are missing and who could supply it.
- 5Ask what you have already decided without admitting it.
- 6End with what to do first thing tomorrow, in under an hour.
When you cannot name the decision yet
- 1Read the year you are in first, and note which area of your life the cards keep returning to.
- 2Ask what you have been calling temporary, then say how many months it has now lasted.
- 3Ask what you are waiting on, and check whether anyone would have told you if it had already resolved.
- 4End there. A decision you cannot yet state in two options is not ready to be read.