Sometimes you can pull some cards, and you understand each one, more or less, but they don’t quite land as a whole. They sit there in front of you as separate ideas, and this is often the point where we fall back on keywords, guidebook meanings, and interpret each card individually. Which is fine, but it doesn’t feel very fluent.
I’ve been working on a 3-card spread that has really helped me to bring the cards together with a bit more fluency. It was based initially on the idea of “if this, then that” as a way of following a thought through the cards, rather than stopping and starting with each card. It avoids sentences that start: “This card means…”
3 cards – One train of thought
The reading starts with a ‘yes’ card that points to the subject matter of the spread or what you need to know about the question or situation at hand.
The second card is the ‘and’ card, which expands on the ‘yes’ although in my experience, this is sometimes the ‘but’ card. Because often that’s what we do in a conversation when we hear something that we need to know. We say “yes, but…”. This card can show up as resistance, contraction or a simple block to the ‘yes’ card.
And finally comes the ‘so’ card. This is the ‘what next?’ card or sometimes the ‘so what?’ card.
I’ve been using it in my daily readings for a while now, and I’ve noticed that it has shifted the way that I read. It encourages a much more conversational style and produces a much more coherent ‘answer’.
Here’s the framework
Card 1: YES
What is already true? What do I know or need to know? What is present or unavoidable? What is asking to be acknowledged?
Card 2: AND / BUT
What complicates or adds depth? Does this feel like expansion (AND) or contraction (BUT)? Is it supportive or does it bring friction? What shifts the meaning of the YES?
Card 3: SO…/SO WHAT?
What follows from this? What matters now? What is the invitation, action, or perspective shift? So What?
Here’s how the conversation goes
First pass: A quick-fire read of the cards in one sentence … Yes, and so… straight off the top of your head helps to identify the core thread running through the cards, finishing with some direction in the ‘so’.
Second pass: Turn the cards into a deeper conversation, at which point you can draw on card systems and meanings to illustrate and get into the detail of the thought thread.
Prompt: A takeaway thought or actionable challenge that brings the reading to life and focuses on personal choice and possibility.
Here are some real examples
Yes, Wheel of Fortune, and 8 of Pentacles… so Temperance
First pass: Yes, so much may feel chaotic and out of your control right now, and yet you are still expected and required to show up and keep going, so finding some calm, steady practice or focus of activity can help you stay centred while everything around you spins.
The Wheel of Fortune X
8 of Pentacles
Temperance XIV
Second pass: Yes, it can feel as though the world around you is spinning out of control. Things are happening that sit far outside your influence, and sometimes it feels as though the world is on fire while you are still expected to show up every day for work, for family, for friends, for all the ordinary roles and responsibilities of life.
Sometimes that can feel futile or exhausting, just carrying on with the job at hand while the world keeps turning. But the 8 of Pentacles suggests there is actually something grounding in continuing to focus on the work in front of you, whatever that work or that role may be. You can find calm and comfort in small acts of attention, routine, and presence. And you can make a difference.
Temperance reminds us to seek the calm at the centre of it all, like the still point at the centre of the wheel. Practising some balance, some steadiness, some conscious stillness can help us stay grounded and connected to ourselves and others, while so much around us feels uncertain or beyond our sphere of control.
Prompt: What can you focus your energy on today that will help ground you and keep you steady, so that the chaos around you and in the wider world does not pull you completely off centre?
Yes, 2 of Swords, and 6 of Wands… so 6 of Pentacles
First pass: Yes, it’s to come off the fence about something and move forward with confidence and conviction, and belief in the direction you are taking… so you need to make that choice from a place of abundance rather than fear, trusting that there is enough support, enough value, and enough good stuff available to you.
2 of Swords
6 of Wands
6 of Pentacles
Second pass: Yes, this feels like a moment that calls for decisiveness and commitment, and you may have been agonising over something for a while now. The Six of Wands is not hesitant energy. It asks you to choose a direction and stand behind it fully. Part of what gives people confidence in us is not perfection, but confidence and leadership. If you are constantly second-guessing yourself or holding back, other people feel that uncertainty too.
The Six of Pentacles suggests that if anything is holding you back, it may be a scarcity mindset. A fear that there is not enough money, enough security, enough permission, or enough worthiness for you to move forward properly. But this card reminds you that abundance flows through giving and receiving. You do not have to do everything alone. You are allowed to accept support, opportunities, kindness, and generosity, just as much as you are willing to offer them to others.
So perhaps the real shift here is not simply making the decision, but making it from a different mindset, not from fear, scarcity, or self-protection, but from openness, trust, and the belief that there is enough room for you to succeed too.
Prompt: Where in your life are you hesitating because of fear or scarcity thinking, and what might change if you trusted yourself enough to move forward wholeheartedly?
Don’t have a Tarot deck?
You don’t necessarily need a tarot deck for this one. You could use it as a journaling exercise by simply sitting with the structure itself:
Yes… And / but… So…
What’s true? What else is true? And what follows from that?
… and see where the train of thought takes you.
Or, if you’d prefer to work with cards, you can use my pick 3 cards below. Once the cards are face up, click on them again to explore each one in more depth. Have fun!
We all know that worry is a thief of time and energy
When anxiety takes hold, and we start to spiral, it’s easy to waste mental energy agonizing over the past, and indulge in fearful speculation about the future and how we are bound to fail. We can get so bound up in second guessing ourselves and others’ reactions that we become paralysed. Unable to take action.
What if… you could channel that energy more constructively?
But what if you could take all that energy and channel it into something useful – something within your control – instead of letting the worry consume you?
This post is inspired by an idea shared in James Clear’s recent 3-2-1 newsletter: a weekly mailing in which he shares 3 ideas, 2 quotes, and 1 question to consider each week. This was one of his ideas:
“Take all the energy you spend on…
worrying about the past
worrying about the future
worrying about what others think
worrying about if you might fail
… and channel that energy into one useful action within your control.”
~ James Clear, Author of Atomic Habits
There’s a Tarot spread right there
When I read this I thought:
There’s a 5 card Tarot spread that has just written itself, right there.
In tarot, the number five represents challenge, disruption, and conflict – lending itself nicely to a spread that explores the mental loops that keep us stuck. But five alone can feel a little unbalanced, so I have added a sixth card to restore equilibrium, offering a path forward.
In my spread the first 5 cards are the ‘worry’ cards and the 6th is the positive action card.
Card 1: Worry about the past → Release
What is something from your past that you worry about? What lesson can you take from it, and what can you release?
Card 2: Worry about the future → Trust
What fear about the future is taking up space in your mind? How can you trust yourself to handle the unknown?
Card 3: Fear of Judgment → Reframe
What fear of judgment or external validation is holding you back? How much weight should you really give this? Are those perceived judgments projections of your own inner critic? How can you reframe this?
Card 4: Inner Critic → Compassionate Voice
Speaking of your inner critic… What are they saying? Do you recognise that voice? And what is a more compassionate truth that you can embrace?
Card 5: Fear of Failure → Perspective Shift
Where are you holding yourself back due to fear of failure? How can you shift your perspective on this and accept that failure is just an essential part of growth?
Card 6: Reclaim Energy → Take Action
How can you shift your energy from fear to action? What is within your control right now? And what simple, positive action can you take today to move forward and out of that ‘stuck’ place?
Click on images to enlarge
Listening to the Still Small Voice
Worry often drowns out our inner wisdom.
The final card in this spread represents the word from the Still Small Voice within that knows where your energy is best spent. It’s the voice of self-trust, of intuition, of your deepest knowing.
After pulling your sixth card, sit with it. How does it respond to the worries that came before? What invitation does it offer? Instead of trying to control the uncontrollable, what action, however small it may be, can you take today to move the needle away from anxiety?
This is not a called the “just stop worrying” spread
This spread is not about forcing yourself to “just stop worrying.” That rarely works. Instead, it’s about acknowledging your fears, understanding where they come from, and then choosing to channel that energy into something constructive. This can create a powerful change in perspective. Whatever problems you may be facing are unlikely just to evaporate but even a subtle shift in mindset can positively affect the way that you deals with them.
Tarot gives us a mirror, but ultimately, we are the ones who decide where to direct our focus.
Next time you feel stuck in a cycle of overthinking, pull out your deck, lay down these cards, and ask: Where is my energy best spent? The answer might surprise you.
Don’t have a Tarot deck?
You don’t need a Tarot deck to explore these questions. You can simply simply use them as journalling prompts or click here to pick a card for each question.
I stumbled across an old Tarot Journal from August 2021 and opened it at random on a page with a deck interview of Lacey Bryant’s The Slow Tarot. In terms of artwork, I think that this has got to be one of my all-time favourite decks. I can remember hardly being able to wait for it to arrive from the States – it was a bit of an investment.
There’s only one other deck whose arrival has caused me so much excitement and anticipation and that was the Spacious Tarot by Carrie Mallon and Annie Rugyt.
I couldn’t do without either of these decks… for quite different reasons.
Anyway, enough preamble, here’s the ‘interview’ from my journal.
What is the most important thing that I need to know about this deck?
What is the overriding characteristic? What energy will The Slow Tarot bring?
The Hermit IX
The Slow Tarot is a deck for quiet contemplation. A deck for myself, to withdraw with and probably not for reading for others (not to start off with anyway). For soul-searching and finding the answers within.
This deck has the potential to light the way and guide me through some of life’s big questions, perhaps the dark times when things do not seem clear.
This deck brings a serious energy and is perhaps not for life’s more mundane matters.
Observation in hindsight
This has turned out to be quite true. I certainly don’t approach The Slow Tarot with any issues or questions that I’m not prepared to hear the truth about. I don’t tend to use it for daily readings, but rather for a different perspective or for illumination on cards that I pull from other decks.
It’s also true that I don’t use it to read for others. Some of the images are challenging (disturbing even) and unorthodox.
The Slow Tarot, by Lacey Bryant – The Hermit & 8 of Cups
What is the most important thing that this deck will teach me over time?
I was doing a Google image search for the 5 of Swords when I first came across The Slow Tarot. That card called me so strongly to track down and invest in this deck, I know it holds important lessons for me.
8 of Cups
The Slow Tarot will help me to recognise when things are not working and to know when it is time to walk away. When to take a new path. When to surrender and let go of outcomes I’d become emotionally attached to. And to be humble and grateful for the lessons I learn on the way.
Observation in hindsight
A work in progress. Because I do like to hang on to the bitter end – either out of eternal optimism or mental/emotional paralysis. I’ve learned in the past the hard way the consequences of ‘staying too long at the fair’.
Interesting that the 8 of Cups is associated with Saturn in Pisces. Saturn is the taskmaster, the disciplinarian, and the bringer of hard but necessary lessons in life.
Another thought that I have in hindsight is that The Slow Tarot is an important part of my Tarot journey – it can be a guide for me on this path.
What is this deck’s greatest strength?
If this deck had a gift or a talent what would that be?
The High Priestess II
This is a strongly intuitive deck that will work with me on a subconscious level.
Some of the art in The Slow Tarot tells (to me) a very different story to the traditional cards of the RWS.
The strength of this deck is that it will allow me to develop my intuition and explore my own wisdom through these extraordinary images.
Observation in hindsight
The High Priestess seems to reinforce the thought that this deck for me is one for personal intuitive development and not one for reading for others. I have used it a lot on this site to illustrate my own personal meanings for the Tarot cards which in turn has been a journey of discovery for me by allowing me to express my own ‘knowing’ about the cards and the wisdom they hold.
The Slow Tarot, by Lacey Bryant – The Hight Priestess & 8 of Coins
What are the limitations of this deck?
What is this deck not for?
8 of Coins
Mastery and transformation will take time, dedication and patience*. To get the benefits from this deck it will not be a quick study. And it is not for light-hearted, everyday readings.
Observation in hindsight
* I would also add humility and surrender to that list.
If I don’t immediately get the message from this deck, I need to trust the process, my inner voice, and trust the words that come.
The Sun in Virgo also suggests that the more attention I give this deck to more I will experience of its strength rather than its limits.
What do I bring to this collaboration?
How should I turn up and how can I learn best from studying and reading The Slow Tarot?
5 of Swords
THIS WAS THE CARD! As mentioned above, I bought the deck for this card. I saw it and I knew I had to see the rest. I loved this version of the 5 of Swords so much because it seemed to switch up the usual dynamic of victim/s and perpetrator that we see in traditional decks.
For me, this is the card of ‘do not trespass’. It is a card about boundaries. I need to know my limits and boundaries with this deck and also to use it when I feel my boundaries are in question.
Observation in hindsight
Looking back on this I suspect that I meant that I shouldn’t be trivial or frivolous in my consultations with The Slow Tarot. Show restraint and respect. It seems to reiterate the idea that I should only ask for the truth when I can handle the truth.
This has definitely come to represent a ‘don’t f*uck with me’ card since I started working with this deck.
The Slow Tarot, by Lacey Bryant – 5 & 6 of Swords
Where will it take me?
What is the potential in this relationship?
6 of Swords
The potential is to travel through hard times to more peaceful shores. The Slow Tarot is a deck to turn to when life is hard; when I need to face darkness (within or without). This deck offers safe passage through stormy waters if I’m prepared to take the trip.
The Slow Tarot will not sugar-coat the truth.
Observation in hindsight
There is definitely a journey to be taken with The Slow Tarot if I put in the work and allow the time for that path to unfold.
Mercury in Aquarius suggests this deck may push my mental boundaries, a journey to expand my mind and consciousness.
A serious deck for serious questions and intentions. It will challenge me mentally while taking me on a path of intuitive development and self-discovery.
Update
The long-awaited fourth printing of The Slow Tarot deck by @laceybryantart is now available from the Modern Eden Gallery The deck includes two versions of The World in addition to the Atonement card, back by popular demand.
As usual I’m late out of the gate in 2024 with any kind of post for the New Year, and I’m OK with that.
I have never been one for setting resolutions and making those first weeks of a new year harder than they need to be. Goodness knows I need to be kind to myself in January in order to get through February by which time spring and more daylight are just around the corner. I feel myself leaning into rest and restoration after all the end of year activity.
And now we are well into 2024 I find myself looking forward and have put together a spread for the year ahead.
2024: A Strength Year
According to numerology, and the Rider Waite system for ordering the Major Arcana*, the Tarot card for this year is Strength, which is numbered 8 in the Major Arcana (2 + 0+ 2 + 4 = 8).
So, I have designed a spread for Strength inspired by the Tarot 8s and related cards of the Major Arcana
Of course, this spread is not just for this year or for the New Year. This could be for anyone facing a situation where they need to draw on the reserves of strength and compassion. It would also be a good spread for anyone who has Strength VIII as their Birth or Soul card.
*Those who follow a different, more traditional system (reading Tarot de Marseille or the Thoth deck) place Justice at number 8 and Strength at 11. This distinction is a big topic which is much discussed all over the internet of Tarot so I won’t expand on it here.
I personally, prefer the RWS system with Strength at number 8. It makes sense to me to see Leo (ruler of Strength) in the sequence before Virgo (ruler of The Hermit) and Libra (ruler of Justice). Justice at 11 also makes sense to me as an odd rather than even number because the modern ‘justice system’ requires the scales to tip one way or the other in order to function.
That said, when using Thoth or Thoth-based decks, I will read them as the deck creator intended and swap the Strength Justice order.
So far I’ve been easing myself in, but now we’re 7 days into 2023 it seems appropriate to take up the reins and get things moving with a spread for the New Year.
According to Tarot numerology, 2023 is a Chariot year. This is based on the following simple calculation.
2+0+2+3+=7 the key number for The Chariot VII ~ the 7th card of the Major Arcana.
The inspiration for the spread
This Chariot spread for seeing in the new year of 2023 is based on Angeles Arrien’s discussion of the nine natural Tarot Constellations in The Tarot Handbook.
Each constellation is made up of a cluster of related symbols/cards that centre around a specific ruler from the Major Arcana, and holds a certain shape or archetypal matrix.
The Chariot Constellation forms a spiral shape symbolising growth and evolution. And the related cards are all linked by the number seven:
The Chariot VII, the four 7s of the Tarot deck and The Tower XVI (key number 16 – 1+6=7)
These six cards form the basis of the spread and the questions that arise.
Draw from the Major Arcana only for positions 1 & 6. Cards 2, 3, 4 & 5 can be drawn from the remainder of the full deck. You can use two decks for this spread if that works for you ~ one for the two Major cards and a second deck for the rest.
Lay the cards out as shown drawing only from the Major Arcana for the 1st and 6th positions
The Chariot Constellation Spread
Focus of the spread
1. Where is the potential for change & personal growth this year?* Inspired by the Chariot as the ruler of the Tarot 7s and a symbol of movement, change and growth
Three Challenges
2. What patterns & behaviours might distract you from embracing & harnessing that change? Inspired by 7 Cups as the card inviting you to examine how you indulge your patterns and behaviour to avoid or resist change… how you divert, deflect or distract.
3. In what ways might you be sabotaging your growth & development? Inspired by 7 of Swords as the card of trickery and sabotage.
4. What fears or limiting beliefs are holding you back from taking action? Inspired by 7 of Pentacles as the card of failure due to lack of effort or fear of failure itself.
One gift
5. How can you overcome your blocks and resistance to change? Inspired by 7 of Wands as the card of persistence, valour, overcoming obstacles and standing up for your beliefs and values.
Potential outcome
6. What might transformation look like for you this year? Where will it take you? Inspired by the Tower as a symbol of change and the internal growth or transformation that comes with it.
If you’d like to book a reading with me using this spread or one that has been specifically tailored for you get in touch here.
