Many people, even very experienced people, have trouble deriving time intervals from the Tarot. Suppose you have cards on the table indicating that you, or a querent, will be facing a turbulent emotional time, in which you will need the support of your friends. You, or the querent, immediately ask, “When will this start?” and “How long will it last?”

How do you get the answers to these questions? My system will show you how.

I have a Tarot deck that I only use for times as well as the decks that I use for readings, with unillustrated pips and Majors that don’t interest me much. You’re never actually going to READ with this deck, so it’s best if it’s a deck that has no meaning to you. During the main reading, if there’s a problem I want a time on, I close my eyes briefly, and if I don’t hear my voice come out with a time slot, I’ll hand the querent the time deck, get them to shuffle it briefly, and then cut it at the point where the deck wants to separate (rarely in the middle). I’ll look at that card later.

I will start by describing the meaning of minors:-

1) The time intervals are provided in the speed of the suits.

Coins, like Earth, move slower, so they represent YEARS.

Cups, like Water, is the second slowest, slightly faster, so it’s MONTHS.

Swords as Air, it’s even faster, so it’s WEEKS.

Wands, like Fire, is the fastest and most energetic of all, which is why it is DAYS.

The aces through the tens are that time interval multiplied by the face value (ie the two coins would be two years, the six wands would be six days).

The pages are eleven of the unit of time, the Knights twelve, the Queens thirteen and the Kings fourteen. This already gives the deck a bit of overlap. (If you were using an ordinary deck instead of a Tarot deck, you would do Jacks eleven, Queens twelve, and Kings thirteen.)

Drawing a Major tells you this, and I often say exactly this to clients: “The Tarot doesn’t know how long it will last. It’s completely up to you. This card is about {name of card’s main issue}; when that’s done resolved and dealt with in your life, then and only then will it happen. If you want it to happen faster, then resolve your problems related to this card faster.”

GRADING WELL!!!

This method DOES NOT WORK if you simply draw a card from the rest of the deck that you already did the main spread with. It also has a history of the occasional crash if you use a second platform that is accused of being used for reads – it will keep trying to tell you things instead of just calculating timings. Keep a completely separate cover, one you’ve never read about. I recommend very simple decks – Marseille style decks are excellent.

Playing cards is great too, much better than the Tarot decks you really like or have used for readings, but be careful with the court cards – Jack is 11, Queen is 12, and King is 13. The only problem is if timing REALLY depends entirely on you completing other important things first: Let’s say, for example, that you’ll never meet the love of your life or land the perfect job until after you appear in court for all of our traffic violations or even for that old rape charge. and figure that out, then a deck of cards won’t be able to tell you, but a deck of Tarot can, by presenting you with, say, the “Justice” card.

In short, the cards sync well, but not as well as single purpose non-illustrated Tarot decks that are only used for timing.