Yes or no — how a one-card tarot answer works

I get asked, fairly often, why I don’t do the big spreads. Ten cards in a cross, three cards for past, present and future — they look like tarot, and people expect them. The honest answer is that a wide spread gives a wide answer, and nobody comes to my table with a wide question. They come with one thing they need to decide. So I answer that.

The question first

The reading is decided before the deck is cut. A question that can take a yes or a no — “Do I take the offer?”, “Do I get the second opinion now?” — gets a clean answer. A question that cannot — “What does my career hold?” — cannot be answered by anything, cards included.

So the first minutes of a sitting are usually spent sharpening the question. “Should I stay?” becomes “If I stay this year, is it the right decision?” That is a question a card can hold.

The deck

I read from the Rider-Waite deck — the one Pamela Colman Smith drew in 1909, and the one most readers in the world learned on. There is nothing exotic about it, which is the point: the pictures are plain, the meanings are settled, and a person sitting across from me can see the card and follow the reading.

The card

Then one card, drawn from the major arcana. Upright or reversed, it answers the question. Then it says why — and the why is the part you take home.

Four cards turn up more than the rest when a yes-or-no question is on the table, and they are worth knowing before you sit:

The Emperor. Authority and structure. The seat earned, the rule set and kept. When the Emperor comes up, the question is about order — whether the ground is built, and whether you are keeping to the plan.

The Hierophant. Tradition and the proper way. The teacher, the rite, the thing done as it has always been done. It asks whether you are doing this the recognised way, with the people who should be there.

The Hermit. Withdrawal in order to see. The lamp is carried inward before it is carried anywhere else. People dislike this card, and it is usually the kindest one on the table: it says finish the thinking first.

The Tower. Sudden upheaval — what was built on false ground comes down, and afterwards the view is clearer. It is the card people fear most and the one that most often tells them something they already knew.

Why no maybes

Because a maybe is not an answer; it is a way of not being wrong. You sit for twenty minutes, and you should leave with something you can act on, not a mood. If the cards are silent on a thing, I will say that — but I will not dress silence up as a maybe.

On love, money and health

These are the three things people actually bring, so I will say plainly how each is handled.

Love questions are the easiest to sharpen and the hardest to hear. The card does not know whether a person is good for you; it knows whether the thing you are asking about holds. Ask about the decision, not the person.

Money questions are the cleanest — offers, leases, partnerships, dates. Put the month in the question and the answer comes back as plainly as it was asked.

Health questions get an answer about the decision: the second opinion, the timing, the change of routine. Never the diagnosis. That belongs to your doctor, and I will say so before the card is cut.

When the answer opens a longer question

Sometimes a no is not the end of it — the card says no, and the real question is why this keeps being a no. That is a question about a life, not a month, and the kundalī is the better instrument for it. Sachin’s room is next door, and a question often walks from my table to his desk. That is the point of two readers in one house.

Bring the question as narrowly as you can put it. You will leave with a word.