Reversed Tarot Cards: Relationship Predictions

Excerpted from
The Oracle of Love: How to Use Ordinary Playing Cards to Answer Your Relationship Questions, PredictYour Romantic Future, and Find Your Soul Mate
By Lee Ann Richards

Throughout this book, you'll see constant references to the cards being read Upright and Reversed. These two terms, "Upright" and "Reversed," refer to the position of the card on the table. "Upright" means the hearts on the fare of a Heart card are pointing upward. On the "Reversed" cards, the hearts are pointing downward. In the average deck of household playing cards, it's hard to tell if they're pointing up or down. Therefore, I suggest you mark your deck in some way to determine in which direction the card is pointing. The following are ideas for how to mark your cards.

I should probably mention that I don't believe life is preordained, I believe in free will. Therefore, I trust it's possible to overcome the issues with which we struggle. I believe it's possible to Upright our Reversed cards. In fact, I'm convinced we're obligated to try to. So how do you Upright a Reversed card? You simply ask the Universe to show you what it will take to turn it around and pull a few cards for guidance.

How to Mark the Cards

While playing cards don't look like they have an Upright or Reversed direction, they actually do. The cards contain even and uneven quantities of icons that render them Upright or Reversed.

I suggest that you mark your cards to help you determine their direction. But, you should examine each one closely before you mark it. Here are two ways to mark them:

Clip off the top right corner of each card. * Punch a hole in the top of each card.

Feel free to invent your own way to mark the cards because any method will work.

I also suggest that you write on your cards. I know several readers who collect exotic decks of Tarot cards. The variety of graphic images they see confuses them so they write on their cards. You should write on yours, too, because while you're learning the meanings of the cards your notations will work as a prompt for the card's broader, more elaborate message.

All you have to do to write on your cards is refer to the Cheat Sheet on pages 270-571. Copy the brief one- or two-word descriptions on each card, including the "Yes" and "No" answers. The "Yes" and "No" answers are also found in the final sentence on the final page of each essay about the card.

As you expand your knowledge and experience of card reading, you ought to add notes of your own.

I love seeing cards with words scribbled on them, holes punched in them, and their corners neatly clipped. It means the person who owns the deck really cares about her cards and is using them. It means she wants to comprehend the wisdom of the ancients and will give a great reading.

The Timing

Every client asks, "How long?"

I'd like to tile a mild disclaimer about time. It's a funny issue. "When?" is certainly a vital thing to know, but it's a vague element and difficult to determine. That's because, as spiritual beings, we have the ability to draw people and events closer to us or to push them away. What if a Gypsy fortune-teller were to say "Your true love will cross your path in six days," and you needed to lose ten pounds. Well, you can see how the six-day time span could be a problem. Some psychic part of you would push the encounter out into the future just to give yourself a chance to get to the gym. But, if the Gypsy crone said "Six years," you might find a stretch of time like six years an eternity and pull the guy into your lite sooner. It's hard to be precise when it comes to timing because we have free will.

A timing question is normally asked as a secondary question. First, the client asks a question about her pregnancy, marriage, or in-laws and then she asks "When?"

There are as many different ways to decipher time, as there are readers. I've listed my favorite methods below.

The Gypsies believed the fifty-two cards (minus the Joker) symbolized the fifty-two weeks in a year. Their theory was that each of the four suits correlated to one of the four seasons (spring, summer, autumn, and winter), one of the four weeks in a lunar month, the four parts of a day (morning, midday, evening, and night), and the four stages of life (infancy, adolescence, adulthood, and old age).

Traditionally, the Ace of each suit rules the first week of its corresponding season. Kings rule the second week. Queens rule the third week, Jacks rule the fourth week, Tens rule the fifth week, and so on, with Twos ruling the last week in each season.

The first week of a cartomancy year begins with March 1. The Ace of Diamonds is the first card in the deck so it rules this first week. The 'Two of Spades is the last and lowest card in the deck. Therefore, it rules the last week of the year, which is the week of February 22 to February 28.