Look before you read

Beginners rush to the book. Readers look at the card first. A guide gives you possible meanings; you decide whether they fit this question, this image, this moment. If you start from the book, you will only ever find what the book says.

Use a simple four-step habit every time you draw:

1. Notice. Name one concrete detail: a figure, a gesture, an object, a color, a landscape. In this deck, also notice the organism: what does it do, and to whom?
2. Associate. Say what the detail suggests to you, without judging the thought. Lists and odd leaps are welcome.
3. Connect. Tie the association to a person, a place, a memory, or a situation in your life.
4. Then read. Only now open the guide, and compare its reading with yours. Keep what helps.

In the Rider–Waite–Smith Two of Swords, a blindfolded figure sits with two crossed swords held against her chest; still water lies behind her. One reader notices the blindfold and thinks of refusing to look. Another notices how perfectly balanced the swords are and thinks of concentration so complete that the rest of the world disappears, like a mantis so intent on a fly that it never sees the cat watching it.

Both readings are true to the image. Neither is the meaning. The card becomes a question: what am I attending to, and what have I stopped noticing?