"further determined by the surrounding cards"......

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 27 Dec 2004, and now archived in the Forum Library.

Pook	27 Dec 2004
I have read a lot of threads here where people, including me, have asked questions about how a certain card relates to a specific circumstance, and almost always, there is someone who chimes in with something like "but I could tell more if I knew what the other cards around it were....." I do understand that this is a valid point, that the cards combine and mingle and flow together into a single story or point to be made, but it is sometimes disturbing to me that people always have to know what other cards there are in the reading to help determine what that one particular one means. What are the odds that that one card is meant to stand alone with its own expression? Is it possible that when 'reading' the cards, we get too in depth and miss the simple points that the individual cards have to determine? And what of the other cards? Do they not have thier own points based solely on thier own attributes without the influence of another? I guess my big question is....is there a way to determine if a card can and should be read on its own in a reading without the context of the rest of the cards getting involved? Anyone have any opinions?

jmd	27 Dec 2004
Possibly

Pook	27 Dec 2004
LOL jmd...:joke:

wandking	27 Dec 2004
Pook asks, "is there a way to determine if a card can and should be read on its own in a reading without the context of the rest of the cards getting involved?" I lean toward a viewpoint that EVERY card should not only be analyzed as an individual but also evaluated in relation to other cards. In a sense, instead of perceiving this as an either/or proposition, I approach it as an and/both situation. There are many combinations in Tarot that actually change the meaning of specific cards. For example I believe that a card, which generally shows illusion, The Moon, takes on some very positive meanings when it appears in the same spread with The High Priestess or The Star. Another example of a combo meaning occurs when The Empress combines in a spread with the Ace of Wands, the Page of Cups and the Page of Wands. I've seen that combo only a few times in my expirience and each time it corectly indicated pregnancy.

contrascarpe	27 Dec 2004
I guess it depends on one's reading styles. I learned tarot the old-fashioned way .... via the Celtic Cross. Each position can be read independently or in conjunction with the surrounding cards. That being said, I can't remember the last time I used this spread. In fact, I highly doubt I will use it again. As my style develops, I find that I use more of a "story" approach. In this way, each card is highly dependent to the cards which surround it. Sometimes a single card stands out as a message card, but I find the other cards around it help define that card to bring out the story. I probably haven't answered your question. I guess I feel that one card in a group can be dominant, and that is pretty similar to what you are talking about. But for me, in order to get the whole story, you need to look at all the cards. Dan

raeanne	28 Dec 2004
Hi all, For me the cards need to be read in context with the other cards because there are many shades of meaning. To give someone all the possible meanings of card is, IMO, a bit over the top. I like to think of a tarot reading as a story. If someone were to ask the meaning of a word, say the word "ball", I could say that it is a child's toy that is spherical. But that wouldn't be much help if the word was used in the sentence; "The guys were playing American style football and the ball was on the 40 yardline." This kind of ball definately isn't spherical. Or the sentence could be; "Cinderella wore a glass slipper to the ball." The word ball in this usage means something completely different. The surrounding words help define the meaning of the word "ball" in the same way that the surrounding cards help define a tarot card. This works for me but I'm sure others will have different opinions that are just a valid for them.

firemaiden	28 Dec 2004
I think this is a wonderful question! thank you. Perhaps we should read cards a bit the way we deciper poetry - first we take a profound look at the smallest parts -- not even whole words, but parts of words - roots and etymologies etc. Eventually we look at entire sentences... then the entire text... then we look at the surrounding context, be it the rest of the work, the rest of the authors output, the rest of his life, and the larger historical/psychological/sociological/ blablabla-ological contexts -- So to with the cards, it would be good to look at all the possibilities -- both the one-card-at-a time approach, delving into as great a depth as you wish, and then - the combining-cards-nearby approach, and then looking at the cards in context of the entire spread, or even in context of several readings for the same person over time. What do you think?

maria42airam	28 Dec 2004
I look at it the same way as understanding the meaning of a single word in a sentence. When she was younger, my daughter would be doing her homework and she'd ask me "How do you spell plane?" Now I didn't see the spelling since it's a verbal question. So my answer was always "Read the sentence to me." (Now I tell her to look it up in the dictionary!) Once I heard the sentence I would know if we are taking about a flying airplane or fruited plains. If you ask the meaning of a single card, there may be many meanings for that card, but if taken in the context of the spread, as in the example above, the word is taken in the context of a sentence, then the possible meanings are narrowed down.

contradiction	28 Dec 2004
to answer your question, yes sometimes cards are meant to stand alone. to be dominant in a reading. sometimes you will take a card at face value, ignoring the cards around it, but without knowing what the other cards are, what the reading concerns, or other information about the layout and reading, you have no way of knowing that it is to be read specifically by itself.

Fudugazi	28 Dec 2004
You can look at a tarot spread as a story, with images instead of words. Now, it's always possible to see words as separate. For example, you will know by reading any one word in this text what it means, independently of its surroundings words. But if you want to understand the whole text, the whole story, you also have to read all the words together. In poetry, with words used as symbols, this becomes even more essential! A word such as "dog" can mean an animal; an ugly woman; an oversexed man; or allied to "collar" means what priests wear round their neck, or a necklace you put around a dog's neck. How are you to determine which meaning to choose if you do not look at the words around it? So you need both the individual meanings, number etc., and, in order to see the whole story (the whole moving picture of the spread) you also need to relate those to the other cards in the reading. It's just the grammar of tarot ;)

Pook	28 Dec 2004
It seems like just about everyone is in agreement on this issue, huh? I really only asked because I see it pop up so much and it got me thinking. Thanks to everyone who replied. I think that I may head off to Amazon to grab a copy of a tarot card combination book. Maybe it'll help me get a better grasp of the situation in myself.

Phoenix Rising	28 Dec 2004
Hi Pook Great question, I was just thinking that myself. Because I've recently been studying playing cards, they are always in combination with other cards in a spread, especially the ones before and after. And if the face cards are facing a card directly. Then taking into consideration combinations of the same number value and suit. A friend of mine who has been using playing cards for 25 years, always looks for the dominating suit foremost. she can link together cards that maybe 3 away. Sometimes a single card will stand alone in a spread. She always reads it like a story with 6 or 7 in a row.

Pook	02 Jan 2005
What about in the case of a year-ahead reading? I mean, for example, when you lay out 12 cards, each representing the energies for the month, how do you read them in combination with the other cards? Just a simple merger from one months energy into the next?

Alta	02 Jan 2005
Do months of a year truly stand alone? Surely what you do in April could come to fruition in October?

The "further determined by the surrounding cards"...... thread was originally posted on 27 Dec 2004 in the Using Tarot Cards board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Using Tarot Cards, or read more archived threads.