Just so you won't think I haven't learnt anything...

Yeah, those readings I did last Wednesday were pretty much a headache, but I did learn something from them. I mean, aside from deciding that I'm not a Fortune Vending Machine, I have found new ways to look at old cards & card combinations, which is something that always amuses me.

How can the same pictures come up in a reading and surprise us by representing something completely different than what we are used to?

This is one of the marvels of card reading, one of the reasons I never grow tired of it.

So, some new combinations I have learnt during my ordeal. Remember that I use the Playing Card Oracles method created by Ana Cortez, so these combinations probably only make sense within this system.

Q♦ + 5♥  – She who is not what she seems - especially someone hiding behind a kind and compromising mask. In fact any court card accompanied by the 5♥ can represent a person who is hiding their true face, so to speak, but it's particularly dangerous when people are pretending to support you when in fact they are not.

9♠ + 5♦  –  While reading, I usually took this combination as 'beware of whom you trust'. But a comment from one of my friends who was in the room brought another aspect of this combination to light: that of someone who is making their life dry by mistrusting everybody. Of course, the context of the reading made this interpretation possible. A third possibility would be when someone is manipulating you into putting your butt on the line, so to speak. But for readings about romance, I found that the second meaning tends to be more common.

K♣ + Q♣ & other court couples  –  This falls in the category of 'things to avoid in future readings'. I have the habit of describing the Court Cards' personalities in readings, especially when a couple of the same suit appears in the spread. While in times it can be useful, I'm beginning to realise that it's a turn off for most sitters because the feedback I usually get is: 'nope, doesn't relate to the person I know at all'. It's an information that gets in the way, because once the sitter feels he cannot identify immediately with what I said, he shuts the rest of the reading off. So from now on, a couple of same suit shall represent a very strong/important partnership, period. I'll only elaborate if the querent feels curious about the Court Cards.

It's a reading, not a workshop  –  I don't know if this happens to anyone else, but my sitters love to ask what is the precise meaning of each card and position and what exactly they represent in relation to the question. Point is: not every card is relevant. Some can give you the answer, while others are there helping to create an atmosphere. And who ever said cards have a precise meaning? But anyway, I decided that I'm done with teaching while reading. If you want to learn then buy the deck/book, invite me over for a tea and we will spend the whole afternoon discussing the cards and satisfying your curiosity. But while reading, instead of bruising my grey matter trying to explain each card as equally relevant, I shall give a quick keyword and move on the the general spread.

I know that that this post might be pretty irrelevant to a lot of readers, due to the parts concerning card combinations. I apologise, as it's not my intention to alienate anyone. But I felt it was important to me to organise the practical lessons I got from last Wednesday's toil, so there you go.

Samuel Hart Reproduction Playing Cards © Naipes Heraclio Fournier

I am not a Zoltar machine!

Wednesday evening. One of my best friends is moving to a new house and she invited the girls to a "good bye" pizza. After a few pieces of wonderful vegetarian pizza and long conversations about love-spirituality-work and everything in between, they all decided they wanted card readings.

Very well. I was rather tired to be honest – unlike some of them, who are on holidays, I have to wake up everyday at 7 am to work. Even my body was achy due to exhaustion but, not wanting to be the one to disappoint the girls, I sat down with my cards and agreed to read for each of them.

Bad idea. Bad idea.

You shouldn't read when you're almost falling flat on your face, but that is not the reason why I considered that night a cartomantic disaster. Nope. The problem is that none of them had actual questions. They all wanted to know about their love lives, of course, but... there was no intention behind their enquiries. In fact, they would copy the question of the last person, because there was nothing they really wanted to know about.

A long time ago I wrote a post about the importance of intention when doing card readings. When you approach the cards with a vague, mildly unimportant question, the cards don't give your their best. They give you equally vague, and sometimes rather unimportant answers.

That's what happened. There I was, sitting on an old mattress and frying my surviving brain cells in a pitiful attempt to give them meaningful readings. My eyeballs were about to pop out of my skull due to an insidious headache that began to spread when I realised the next hour would be dedicated to "wot's comin' up in my love life?" sort of questions. And not only that. When the answer appeared vague, and I was having a bit of a hard time trying to pinpoint exactly which aspect of their love lives the cards were focusing on, I could feel that aura of disappointment growing quite thick around me.

Mea culpa. I shouldn't agree to read when I'm nearly at the melting point in mental fatigue.

When I got home at 2 am, I was so exhausted that my mind actually felt empty. This is serious coming from a person whose mind is usually rushing at 120 mph.

No, don't turn on your (virtual) heels. Not yet. There is a purpose behind this post.

Before I fell into 5 hours of blissful oblivion, I took my poor card out of their bag. They looked dead. I swear to you, I never had the impression that my cards had been drained of all energy. But that night they were. They felt dirty, sticky, utterly old and forlorn. Not that I ever treated my decks like something sacrosanct – I like it when people shuffle the cards, I want them to be used and touched. I don't mind when they get dirty or worn. But they always had that glow... that subtle vibration. It reassured me that despite the cards' well-loved state, spiritually speaking they were clean and brimming with energy.

But not that night. No, they were dead and I felt so sorry for them, and for myself. And I made this promise: I will never read again for people who don't care about it.

The truth is that I felt a bit exploited. I love to look at card reading under a humorous light and no, I don't believe that the fabric of space and time will unravel if the cards are not respected. But divination is what I do and I put a helluva effort into it. And I just realised that when people come and ask for a reading just because they found no better way to waste their time, they end up sucking the marrow from my very bones – and from my very cards.

Why? Because they put no effort in it. They don't care about the answer, they are being entertained. But in spite of my showman antics in real life, I'm not an entertainer when my cards are on the table. I want to give people my best. I want to help them, to give them information so they can climb the stairways to heaven or pick the highway to hell if they fancy it.

Reading cards can be fun, but fun is just part of it. A reading is an exchange. It's not just about me, looking at funny pictures and coming up with marvellous things. If the sitters are not there with me, if they are not invested in their own question, the magic is lost. I can read in a pub packed with people chatting, getting hammered and watching football, as long as the querent is sincerely interested in what we are doing.

The situation was so dire that I did a small cleansing ritual last night for my deck (and I seldom do rituals). I smudged it and put it in a box with kosher salt, and will keep it there until the New Moon. I covered the box with a dark fabric, and now my deck sleeps.

From now on I'll only do readings for people who want to know something. Even if they can't phrase the question properly, as long as they have a yearning for answers or information, they are welcome at my table. As for the folks who think a card reading is a fine way to spend the next 30 minutes as any, I will have to gently decline their request (I don't charge for my readings yet, so I don't think I should feel forced to read).

The management at my work has a sign on their door that says: if you have nothing better to do, then don't do it here. I shall tweak this idea a bit, and make it personal rule of mine: if you don't want to know anything, then don't ask for a reading.