Tarot timing
Reading tarot · 3 min read · updated
Tarot timing means using the cards to answer 'when?': when a job offer will come, when a relationship will change. There are several traditional methods, linking suits to seasons, numbers to days or weeks, and the numbered cards to dates in the zodiac, and they do not agree with each other. Many experienced readers pick one method and keep to it, or set the time frame before they shuffle.
- Question
- When will it happen?
- Common methods
- Suits, numbers, astrology, a time frame set in advance
- Agreement between methods
- Little
- Better question
- What would help this happen, and what is in the way?
- Related
Can tarot tell you when?
It can, but timing is the hardest question to read, and readers do not agree on one method. Below are the four in common use. Whichever you choose, write the date down and look again when it has passed: a tarot journal shows you which method works in your own readings.
Method 1: suits and seasons
Each suit is given a season or a speed. One common scheme:
- Wands: spring, or days. Fire is fast.
- Cups: summer, or weeks.
- Swords: autumn, or months.
- Pentacles: winter, or years. Earth is slow.
Other schemes give Cups to autumn, Swords to winter, or Wands to summer, depending on which element the writer ties to which season. Choose one and keep it.
Method 2: numbers as units
The number on the card counts the units its suit gives: the Three of Wands as three days, the Seven of Pentacles as seven months or years. Court cards and trumps have no clear number in this method and are usually read as 'not yet' or 'it depends on you'.
Method 3: astrology
The Golden Dawn gave each numbered card from Two to Ten a , a ten-day slice of the zodiac. In that system the Two of Wands covers roughly 21 to 30 March, the first decan of Aries, and so on through the year, while the trumps take whole signs and the court cards span parts of two signs. It is the most precise method and the most elaborate, and it is tied to the Golden Dawn's , not to the cards' history. See Tarot and astrology.
Method 4: set the frame first
Many readers skip the systems and fix the time before they shuffle: 'What do I need to know about the next three months?' The cards then describe that period, not a date. It avoids the contradiction between methods and puts the question where tarot is useful: what is going on and what you can do. See How to ask tarot a question.
A better way to ask about time
- Instead of 'When will I find a new job?', ask 'What would move my job search forward this month?'
- Instead of 'When will he call?', ask 'What do I want from this relationship, whether he calls or not?'
- Instead of 'When will things get better?', ask 'What is one thing I can change this week?'
These questions have answers you can act on, and you will know within the time you set whether the reading helped.