My Tarot Reading Doesn't Answer the Question

Have you ever had one of the following experiences?

• You were baking a cake but you ended up with a roasted chicken.

• You were hemming a pair of jeans and, suddenly, they turned into a wedding gown.

• You were putting together a chair and ended up with a library instead.

Probably not!

Tarot of the Witch's Garden, Sasha Graham & Natasa Ilincic

At worst, you've experienced something like trimming your bangs and ending up with three sad hairs too short to do anything with them (Ask me how I know).

Or you were putting together an Ikea shelf and by the end of it there were a few "extra" nuts and bolts.

Maybe you were baking muffins and you ended up with cake instead because you didn't find the molds. Those are things that can happen, but the first three scenarios are quite unlikely. But then, there is a commonly accepted phenomenon in divination, more concretely with tarot readings, and it is that you ask a question, but the reading can be about something else, or the reading "doesn't answer the question". It must be the same arcane magic that happens when you go to the hairdresser's asking for just a trim and you end up with the Columbus chop.

I have a different perspective. If a cake recipe cannot possibly turn into roastbeef, why do we believe that a reading about a whether so and so will call back can turn into a career reading?

I believe that that a reading about a partner ends up unveiling a relationship pattern as it is answered, and you can end up with extra information or with a connection between that relationship and a different area of life.

Or you might end up short of information because you don't know what to make of a few cards.

Or puzzled because there's something there that you don't quite get.

But answering an entirely different question from the one asked, or saying that the tarot reading doesn't answer the question, is, in my opinion (and it may not be an opinion that makes me any friends), a reader's failure more than a characteristic of tarot.

I've heard instances in which a reading that ended up interpreted as something else was accurate. And yet, if you ask me "What time is it?" and I say "It's sunny outside" my information about the weather can be accurate, and it may indeed be sunny outside, but while it may be true, it is not an answer to the question I asked, and I am looking out the window when I should be looking at my watch. And sometimes it may be easier to say that the cards are about something else than to interpret the cards in the context of your question. But, what if you're missing out on valuable information that is also in the reading? Well, I believe that first, our duty as readers is to focus on doing our best to answering the question, then adding any other information that may come up.

What can we do to strengthen our interpretative skills and avoid ending up doing readings about something else?

• Work on developing a round view of each card by making yourself answer multiple questions with the same card, fitting a variety of situations.

  
  

• Try not to consider possibilities that are not related to the question, no matter how good of a storyline the cards would make for a different topic, at least until you have given an answered to what was originally asked.

  
  

  It can be tempting to see a group of cards that matches a different area of life so well and run with that, specially if we can't see how the cards would relate to the question, but resisting that temptation is worth it if you develop your reading skills as a result.

  
  

• Describe your day using cards to fit the different activities and situations that you have encountered throughout your day. This will help you see the cards in different contexts.
  

Sometimes, the best way to work on our tarot skills is through learning how to associate cards to situations, developing greater nuance as we go. What are your thoughts about readings that are about something else? Let me know in the comments.