Help with timing!

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 07 Aug 2002, and now archived in the Forum Library.

napaea	07 Aug 2002
I need some help with "timing" in readings. I have been told that Wands represent days, Cups represent weeks, Swords represent months, and Disks years. Ok, i'm fine with that. but then you do a reading and get to the "timing/advice" card and turn over the High Priestess. What do I do now? How do you interpret the court cards and majors into a time scheme? sometimes I've just read what I "felt", but I know nothing of which card is the astrological sign for what (any threads or books on this?) so am sort of lost here. HELP!! (Kiama??)

Starfish	07 Aug 2002
Napaea - I've got my Mary Greer's Tarot for Yourself on my lap and according to it it says: Suits are as you've stated and that the Major Arcana refer to the month indicated by their astrological referent. As an example, Justice (my card ;) - Libra) refers to September 23-October 22. So that would be the time frame. The Court Cards refers to stages of development: Pages are beginnings, Knights are the process itself, Queens indicate maturity and Kings = completion. In the Idiot's Guide to Tarot it states that Pages are days, Knights are weeks, Queens are months and Kings are undetermined. I probably have only succeeded in confusing you more! Blessings - :THERM Starfish

Sorceress_Jade	07 Aug 2002
This is a fantastic question. I'd never heard the above portion even and just assumed that you couldn't get very specific about time. I'd really love to hear some techniques and systems on how to incorporate that aspect into a reading if it's needed.

zorya	07 Aug 2002
i find timing really tricky too! there are so many factors involved. do you keep a journal? study your journal for patterns. how long does it take for your "near future" events to occur? how about your "further future" events? this should give you a broad sense of timing. these are just in general, and not always true, but i find that wands speed things up. then swords, then cups and pentacles tend to be slowest. cards that move, such as the chariot or wheel, will be faster than say, the hanged man. some may use the number value on the majors. but mostly i rely on what i sense.

napaea	07 Aug 2002
Thanks Starfish, I gues another MUST for my library! I hate not knowing what "sign' the cards are, so i better get that book! SorceressJade: I do a Celtic Cross (adaptation of) by Nancy Shavick, where the last 2 cards are TIMING and ADVICE. As I said, if it's an easy card, 3 of wands, I'm ok, but I get freaked when it's a major. I hope other people reply here too, I'm better at reading intuitively than going by the rules!!

Umbrae	07 Aug 2002
Listen to Zorya. Keep a journal. Timing may be different for different people. My timing has changed over the last 8 months. I now have to add one and a half months to my readings. Forget the cards telling you months days weeks and years. Keep a journal, learn your intuition.

Supletion	07 Aug 2002
i must say that the "x stands for years and y stand for months" interpretations are really not to my liking. first because its too firm, and second, because there are too many interpretations different from eachother. does the timing depend on which book you happened to read? for comparison, a guide i've read explained it like this: major arcana cards stand for years, pents and cups stand for years/months as their number (3 of cups - 3 years/months), swords and wands stand for weeks/days as their number, 2's and 7'2 are slower, 5's are quicker, and kings, queens and pages, since each of them represents an astrological sign, stand for the months of their sign. (taken from "The Full Guide for Tarot Reading" by Lia Louis). you can see how different it is from whats written in posts above. thats why i think you cant measure it like that. since tarot (from my point of view, and i must note im new to tarot) are mainly used to analyse the past and present, and not perdicting external events but perdicting things that are directly connected to the querent, exact timing is irrelevant since it mostly depends on the querent himself or herself.

bergmann	07 Aug 2002
This stuff is too vague for timing to be relevant at all. You're lucky to even get something that is in any way similar to the event or mood that the cards indicate.

Umbrae	07 Aug 2002
opin·ion Pronunciation: &-'pin-y&n Function: noun Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French, from Latin opinion-, opinio, from opinari Date: 14th century 1 a : a view, judgment, or appraisal formed in the mind about a particular matter 2 a : belief stronger than impression and less strong than positive knowledge b : a generally held view. fact Pronunciation: 'fakt Function: noun Etymology: Latin factum, from neuter of factus, past participle of facere Date: 15th century 1 : a thing done: as a obsolete : FEAT b : CRIME c archaic : ACTION 2 archaic : PERFORMANCE, DOING 3 : the quality of being actual : ACTUALITY 4 a : something that has actual existence b : an actual occurrence 5 : a piece of information presented as having objective reality - in fact : in truth. Opinion and fact are two distinct things. A blanket statement that about VAGUE, is not relevent to the discussion. It is your opionion that Tarot is Vague. That does not qualify as a factual statement.

napaea	08 Aug 2002
Zorya! Umbrae! Thanks, i DO have a journal, but I guess I never even thought about looking to check the cards I pull and see how they correlate to the passing of time. thank you so much for the helpful hint! i did really well on readings intuitively until i started really learning the meanings of the cards. now i have to try to balance what the card "represents" and what i'm picking up from it psychically. grrrrr....trying to find the balance is what life is all about, isn't it? :)

The Help with timing! thread was originally posted on 07 Aug 2002 in the Talking Tarot board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Talking Tarot, or read more archived threads.