Questions to Ask Tarot Cards
The general set: twenty questions that work in an ordinary reading, covering work, money, home, health, family and the things you keep postponing. Start here when nothing in particular has gone wrong and you want a wide look at where you are. If you are weighing a specific choice, the crossroads set under Best Questions to Ask Tarot Cards is narrower and more useful.
The questions
Open any question for the note
What is the one thing I should know about where I am right now?
Why ask it
A good opener because it does not presume a problem. If the answer feels bland, that is usually accurate: most weeks are ordinary, and expecting drama from every reading is how people start forcing interpretations.
What should I put my attention on this month?
Why ask it
A month is long enough to act on and short enough to check. Compare the answer against your calendar afterward, and if none of what you drew showed up, the reading was too abstract to be useful.
What am I close to that I cannot see clearly?
Why ask it
Proximity is the point here. The answer tends to be a person you see daily or a task you do so often you no longer look at it, rather than anything dramatic or hidden.
What is in the way?
Why ask it
Deliberately short so you have to supply the subject yourself. If you cannot say what "it" is before you shuffle, spend the reading on that instead, because you do not yet have a question.
What can I stop carrying?
Why ask it
Note whether the answer is a task, a person, or an opinion of yourself. Tasks you can drop this week. Opinions take longer and are the answer more often than people expect.
What is this stretch of my life trying to teach me?
Why ask it
Only worth asking about a period you can already see the edges of. Asked in the middle of a hard week it produces consolation, which feels good and tells you nothing.
Where is my work actually heading?
Why ask it
The word "actually" is doing the work. It invites the trajectory you can see if you extrapolate rather than the one on your plan, and those two are often different.
What would make my home feel calmer?
Why ask it
Answers here are usually small and physical: one room, one recurring argument, one thing never put away. If you get an answer about moving house, you have skipped several steps.
What is going on with my money that I keep postponing?
Why ask it
The postponement is the subject, not the money. Cards cannot tell you a balance, but they are good at surfacing the letter you have not opened or the subscription you know is still running.
What does my body need me to take seriously?
Why ask it
Treat whatever comes up as a prompt to see a clinician, never as a finding. A reading that leaves you reassured about a symptom you have had for weeks has done you harm rather than good.
What is the state of things between me and the person I am closest to?
Why ask it
Ask about the relationship, not their private feelings. Reading for someone who has not asked gives you conclusions you cannot check and will act on anyway.
Which family pattern am I repeating?
Why ask it
Most people recognize the answer before they finish laying out the cards. The recognition is the value; what follows is slow and does not need another reading.
What am I not saying to someone that I need to say?
Why ask it
If you can already name both the person and the sentence, the reading is not really about clarity, it is about timing. Ask instead what is making you wait.
What creative thing am I overdue to make?
Why ask it
Look for something you have half started rather than a new ambition. Unfinished work sits heavier than unbegun work, which is why the answer is often something already in a drawer.
What am I doing out of habit rather than choice?
Why ask it
Good answers are dull and specific: a standing commitment, a route, a Sunday. If what you draw is grand, narrow the question to a single day of the week and read again.
Where am I giving more than I have?
Why ask it
Expect a defense to arrive with the answer, usually that the person needs it or nobody else will do it. The defense arriving instantly is the strongest signal in the reading.
What would I regret not starting this year?
Why ask it
Regret is a better test than desire because it survives a bad mood. Anything you only want on good days will not make it through November, and the cards will not change that.
What deserves my attention before it becomes urgent?
Why ask it
This is the most practical question on the list and the least satisfying to read, because the answer is normally maintenance: a conversation, a check-up, a document.
What is worth being patient about?
Why ask it
Useful as a counterweight to everything above. If nothing on your list can wait, you are probably treating preference as emergency, and that is worth reading about on its own.
If I only take one thing from this reading, what should it be?
Why ask it
Ask it last and write the answer in one sentence. Anything you cannot compress to a sentence you will not remember by the weekend, however striking the spread looked.
Getting a Usable Reading
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Framing the question
Ask about your own choices, not about outcomes
"What should I weigh before deciding?" gives you something to do. "Will I get the job?" gives you either false relief or a week of dread, and neither changes how you prepare.
One subject per pull
A question that mentions your job and your relationship in the same breath will produce cards you can attach to either. Split it and read twice; the two answers rarely match, which is the interesting part.
Set a horizon
This week, this month, before the end of the year. A question with no timeframe can never be checked, so you never learn whether your readings are any good.
Write down the reading before you interpret it
Cards first, meaning second. Recording the spread as it landed stops the tidy story you build afterward from overwriting what was actually in front of you.
Questions worth avoiding
Anything a professional should answer
Symptoms, contracts, tax, custody. A reading can help you notice that you have been avoiding the appointment, and that is where its usefulness ends.
What is someone else thinking about me
There is no way to check the answer and it will change how you behave toward them anyway. Ask what you would do in either case instead.
The same question twice in one sitting
The second pull answers a different question, which is how much you disliked the first answer. Change the wording to something narrower or stop.
Yes or no on something you have already decided
If you can predict which answer would satisfy you, the reading is a formality. Ask what you are hoping to hear, and read that instead.
Choosing how many cards
One card
Best for the daily and weekly questions, and for anything you want to be able to remember without notes. Also the right size for a question you are anxious about, because it limits how much story you can build.
Three cards
Enough to show tension between two readings of the same situation. Decide what the three positions mean before you deal them, and keep that meaning fixed for the whole sitting.
Larger spreads
Ten or more cards will tell you something about almost any question, which is precisely the problem. Save them for a single broad question a few times a year rather than a weekly habit.