HOW SHOULD THEY BE READ?

However you like, or however you already know how, if you have your own established way of reading cards. I read them as question and answer. I formulate a question out loud, believe me, it is better that way: words give order to thought, and then I choose one or three cards.

A one-card answer helps me understand which energy I need to activate, light, or which energy is acting as an obstacle, shadow, in a given situation. It is a broad answer, one that points in a direction but still leaves it to me to create the narrative.

A three-card answer, on the other hand, is what I use when I want to ask my subconscious for the precise picture of a situation that is escaping me. When I am seeking clarity more than an answer. And usually, I say this from personal experience and from observing other people’s readings, a three-card answer unfolds like this: the first card is a picture of me, or of my emotional state, at the moment I turn to the deck. It often represents what I think of myself, what I want to obtain, or the situation I am in, whether in light or in shadow. The second card is an action that must be taken, a problem that must be solved, or an attitude that must be adopted. The third, instead, is the result I will obtain, or the enemy I will defeat if I take that action, but it may also simply be a warning, or the projection of a possible future. But be careful: only through practice and a deep knowledge of the meaning of the image can one arrive at interpretations that are truly accurate and, I must say, often quite astonishing. Cards can become extraordinary moving mirrors of our subconscious and, for that reason, they can reveal aspects of ourselves and of life that rationally we would never have considered. And if there is a problem, they will point it out, you can be sure of that.

These indications, however, should not be read the way one reads the instruction manual of a washing machine. Anyone who approaches Tarot, whatever deck they are using, must have something of the psychonaut about them, together with a deep knowledge of the symbols they are reading. In short, anyone can read it, but not everyone can read it well. Reading it well is a practice that grows sharper over time, through the study of the archetype, intuition, empathy, and knowledge. That is why I wanted to help the readers with a guide which, though concise, might accompany them toward a good decoding of the card’s meaning. Understanding how the direct answer, or the three cards in sequence, are speaking to them, however, remains the task of the seekers.

I know that one may feel a little alone and lost, especially in the first readings, when one is not yet familiar with the Orishas. People have often pointed out to me that the interpretations I gave of the cards they drew were much clearer and more truthful than the interpretations they gave themselves. That is normal. This interpretive code is the fruit of my own psychological as well as artistic research, and it is natural that I move among these symbols as though they were my home. But, as you will understand, I do not read cards as a profession. I read them as a form of understanding, not as a job, and so I offer neither courses nor services. The only way I could help readers was through a guide, in the hope that with time and practice the day will come when you no longer need it at all.

The online guide is completely free and accessible to everyone. The book, for obvious reasons, is paid.

I believe I have told you everything essential. From here onward, you are in the hands of your own intuition and your own analytical and interpretive abilities. And remember: there is no machine that predicts the future, and a deck of cards does not answer your questions as if it were Google.

Every time you confront the symbol, and that part of yourself that moves the hand without asking the opinion of the conscious mind, you enter an oracular and fluid territory: a waking dream, a hall of mirrors, a current that keeps changing form. The more seriously you use it, the more real that world will seem to you. Not because the cards “know,” but because you will finally know how to listen to your own voice.