How To Describe a Tarot Card
This is the easiest and fastest way to connect with your cards and understand them instantly. There are five questions that will reveal the heart of any card. No, these aren’t questions to ask the cards when doing a reading. These are questions to ask yourself as you study the card image. When you apply these five questions, you can easily interpret any tarot card from any scenic tarot deck just by looking at the card image. This is one of my most basic techniques for learning to read the cards, and is the foundation of my Quick Start Tarot learning method.
Think of each card, particularly the pips, as a photograph—a snapshot taken of people in action. The court cards may be portraits, but the pips are action shots. The Major Arcana show scenes that function both literally and allegorically. But the pip cards–the Minor Arcana numbered cards–are all about the action.
Learning to see the activity in the Minor Arcana pip cards will evolve your tarot readings from mushy, emotional quagmires into clear, motivating, goal-driven, problem-solving to-do lists.
In order to get there, let’s learn to look at the cards differently. There are five steps to describing a card–the five questions that will help you easily interpret any tarot card. Learning to see a card in all its detail and describe it clearly is the basis for understanding the role the card plays in the reading–what it means in the context of the question, querent, and other cards.
Question 1: Who’s In The Card?
One, who is in the card? What character or characters inhabit the scene? What is their facial expression and body language? How are they dressed? Are they alone or with others? Does a main character stand out?
Question 2: What Are They Doing?
Two, what action is the character taking? What are they doing? Occasionally a card will not have a person present—but if the illustration is scenic, the objects in the card should suggest an action that has already happened outside the frame of the card or that is about to happen. Or the objects themselves might be reminiscent of an action. Read on for an example of what I mean.
Example of Finding the Action
I was teaching a class once in which someone was looking at the 8 of Wands in the Morgan-Greer deck, which shows two sets of four wands at a slant, the downward pointing ends of the wands visible in the image, while the upward pointing ends of the wands were outside the frame of the image. The environment was a grassy field with a river and castle far in the back ground.
I asked the person what was happening in the card.
He said eight sticks were just hanging there.
I said, “Think of this as a comic book frame. What would you say then?”
He quipped, “I’d ask for my money back!”
We all laughed and then I said, “If that was Superman instead of eight sticks, what would you say he was doing?” “Landing,” he replied. Sure, exactly, this image represents something flying in for a landing—something that has been “up in the air” is going to come into play again.
You would get a similar understanding of the card if for instance, you saw the eight sticks as having been thrown or shot from outside the frame of the card and were about to hit a target, also outside the frame of the card. Identifying the immediate image as part of a larger action is key to understanding the meaning of the card.
Quick Start Tarot Kit
Question 3: What is the Environment?
Three, where is the character? Once you find the action in the card, then you can flesh out the details of the environment. Are they indoors or outdoors? Are there other people around? What props and decorations are in the scene? To what degree is the location natural and to what degree does it show the influence of civilization?
Question 4: What Props and Decorations Are In the Scene?
Four, what props and decorations are present? This is your chance to explore all the details in the card. Not every one will have relevance to every question, but when something catches your eye, it’s probably important. Here’s the key to making Question 4 work for you–and this will surprise you!–you don’t have to know what these details, these props, these decorative elements mean. They mean something TO YOU, and that’s all that matters. Remember, the tarot is not trying to one-up you by being smarter than you. The cards want to talk with you, so they’re going to use language that you understand!
Question 5: What is the Mood and Atmosphere?
Five, what is the mood of the scene? Mood and atmosphere can contribute to the emotional feel of the card. Factors that can influence the overall feeling of the scene include the extent of light or darkness, ease or difficulty, clarity or confusion, movement or stability, warmth or coolness, etc.
Use the Five Questions, Clearly Describe the Card, And Get Your Answers!
Character + action + environment + details + mood equals a clear description of the card. This is the basis of the card meaning. Then, by focusing on the action, you can see the story emerge and discover your to-do list so you can reach your goal. When you interpret tarot cards with these five questions, you’ll gain clarity in your readings, rather than sinking into the mushiness of addressing only the emotional mood of the card.
Using the Five Questions to Develop Keywords for Your Deck
In this video of a meetup from June 27, 2020, I demonstrate how to use the Five Questions to develop your own keywords for your deck. I start with with an exploration of whether cards have meaning, and what the difference is between card meanings, card keywords, and card titles. Then I introduce the Five Questions (at 27:33) and we use them to explore a variety of card images. Lots of examples so you can really see this technique in action!
