lesson 28: dear tommy! How to handle bad news/funky cards

Deck: Dalí Tarot
Layout: Arc of Five Knight of Wands (4), Temperance (2), Nine of Wands (1), Nine of Swords (3), Ten of Swords (5). 

​Update: I thought it would be cool to bring you all into the puzzle this year. So rather than every post being a reading where I ask the cards what the divinatory lesson for the week is, I asked my social media pals to tell me questions they have about divination that I could ask the cards. So in the next handful of weeks, that’s what we’ll look at! For the sake of privacy, I won’t reveal who asked me what—but if you want to ID yourself in the comments, please do!

Here’s the question we’re working with today: How do you help people understand the more “negative” cards? Like, if someone gets the devil or the 10 of swords and isn’t swayed by your initial explanation, how do you help them integrate the lesson?

This was the first question someone sent so it’s the first I’m going with, but it also happens to be a topic I love talking about! Granted, I’m not going to tell you what I think; I’m going to tell you what the reading says. Let’s see if I’m “right.” 

I’m doing just a simple arc of five. It’s been pointed out that I haven’t talked about how to read this spread, and that’s partly because there isn’t really a way I read it. I just let it guide me. I start where the eye takes me, often the middle, but I’m usually going to use various card combos—including cards that “mirror” each other, meaning those that are in the same place on opposite sides of the spread. As always, the number following the card name is the order in which I drew and placed it down. 

We’ve got two swords cards, two wands cards, two nine cards, one major and one court; we’ve got no cups or penties. And I think in the lack of these two suits, we can remind ourselves—it’s not our job to feel the clients’ feelings (cups) or live their lives (penties). Good advice! But let’s jump in to the cards we do have. 

When reading a line or an arc like this (to me the shape is immaterial), I let the cards tell me where they want me to start. When there’s nothing demanding my attention, as here, I start in the middle since that’s typically the card I put down first. In Waite-Smith decks, I can never remember which is the nine and which is the ten, the one standing wounded with the wands or the one carrying the tonnage of them—and that’s partly because I find them so over the top. That’s wands! They perform. It’s hard to see many of the wands cards and not see histrionic actors hamming it up in a bad play. The Nine of Wands gives somewhat performative defensiveness (compare with the seven, which is more actual defensiveness). I think with the 9/wands, we’re saying, “no, don’t come near me because look how battle scarred I am. I will fuck you up! I am a survivor!” But, like, it’s clearly we’ve already shot our wad. It’s showing off. “Look how much I’ve been through, oh me . . .” And I recognize that sounds incredibly judgmental, but remember I’m talking about the card not the client and not you. 

The 9/wands is bolstered by the suit’s knight, which is to its left. Knights, I ain’t gonna lie, can be somewhat performative, too; they’re partly doing what they do to get attention. Right? Knights aren’t always the Arthurian ideal—in fact, they’re not even that in Arthurian legends (what I recall of them, anyway). They’re out there trying to get some action. They’re players. 

“Tom, what the hell does this have to do with the question?” We’ll get there! Right now, we’re just getting an overall “feel” of the reading. What am I as the reader feeling, right now? What are the cards making me see? Neither of the interpretations above are ones I typically jump at when looking at these two cards, but the fact that I am reading them that way now means something. Right? These cards have triggered that reaction, which is part of the reading. I’m not immune participation. 

OK, I have a “sense” of these two cards. Before doing more with them, let me look at the other three—starting with the two swords cards. The Nine and Ten of Swords are equally no one’s favorite, and have a similarly histrionic sense about them. Like, it’s not just bad; it’s the worst thing that’s never happend! (But, like, also it’s probably just a hang nail? That kinda vibe?) 

Nines in swords function similarly to wands, but obviously the realm of language, communication, intellect, learning, and suchlike. Nines, as I frequently say, can suggest burnout (“I’ll never get to this fucking finish line!”) but they can also suggest major expansiveness (3x3). Tens are full—or empty. They are complete—or depleted. All depending on context. They two cards make up the entire right side of the spread, so they’re working really closely and they appear in numeric order. They provide the perception of drama. But if wands are the actors in the bad play, swords are the actual bad play itself. It’s the “writing” 
So we’ve got this bad play, full of sturm und drang--very German—and it’s being performed by these melodramatic actors who are just dying to show everyone how hard they’re working.

What of Temperance, then?

Well, in just about all ways it is the complete and total opposite of all we’ve just described. So what the fuck is it doing here? Ah! Excellent question. 

In my early days, this would cause me so much anxiety. Incongruent cards can make you doubt your whole sense of ability as a reader. But they shouldn’t. In fact, they should make you quite excited! It is in the tension between the expected and the unexpected, between the congruent and incongruent, where the real magic of reading happens. Why? Because we’re frequently trying to anticipate and solve problems with readings and what are problems but unresolved tensions? And even when we’re not necessarily dealing with a problem, we’re usually trying to reconcile the tension between the known and the unknown. And so when cards create tension by not making “sense,” we get to experience the magic of that! Of course, there are times when the card never comes together and we just can’t make it work—but those are really rare. There are also times when a card isn’t saying much in a reading, behaving in much the same way that vowel sounds do in English-language words, but you usually only notice that once you’ve gotten an answer and realize you didn’t spend much time with a particular card. That sort of glossing over a card usually happens when you looked at the spread and the answer just kind of fell on you. 

Temperance is a card of moderation and it is a card of integration. It provides a container, it mitigates flow, and it also can bring parts of different things—often incongruent things!—together. Crowley and Harris’s transformation of Temperance into Art shows us an alchemical process of disparate parts becoming whole. Temperance as a card is likely going to serve a similar function in this reading. 

OK, I’ve given myself a sense of the impressions I’ve gotten from all the cards and a basic sense of the overall mood of the reading.

We don’t talk about this much, at least I don’t, but a reading’s “mood” is important. It’s influenced of course by the reader’s mood as well as the clients’ and anyone else in the situation and even in the room, but it’s also going to be influenced by the deck, the environment, the lighting—everything. In this case, this is a deck whose mood I’m not sure I’ve figured out. This is literally the second reading I’ve done with it. My mood is . . . fine. But you can see from my instant reaction to the cards that I definitely have a feeling about these cards that is super specific—bad actors in a bad play, right? Mitigated somewhat by Temperance. 

Before we get into finding the answer to the question, it’s always OK to look back and see if we’re noticing anything we haven’t before. For example, I haven’t said anything about the fact that the Knight of Wands and Temperance are both facing the 9/wands (the rest of the reading, really). But that’s not necessarily giving me any hits yet. Nothing else particularly strikes me. 

So that’s my glance. This is more or less what I do with every reading, every spread I encounter. And thought it took me a while to write it and likely for you to read it, this all happens really in the first thirty seconds to minute of the reading. I’m just letting the cards tell me what’s up. I’m not imposing anything on them; I’m letting them give me a vibe. 

Now, there have been times when not a single one of those initial impressions helped me solve the reading. There have been times where I started down a wrong track and discovered I had to start again. By that I mean, I start interpreting the cards all over again, as though they’re new, but with different context. it’s rare that I would redraw an entire spread. Though, frankly friends, I have absolutely done that. Why not? Because someone said not to? If the difference between getting an answer and not is redoing the damn spread, then redo the damn spread. The goal of readers is to get an answer, not to show off and torture ourselves. The point of not redrawing a spreadsheet is to is to not let yourself off the hook. And if you find yourself redrawing the damn spread every time, that’s probably a sign you’re not being tenacious enough, you’re letting yourself get distracted by imposed meanings, your question isn’t that well-worded, or you’re me and you’re lazy. 

Sometimes readings describe situations literally (“you are going to have a fight with your boss over the budget, and you will lose your temper and that’s going to get you in trouble—again”) and sometimes they’re mythological (“this looks like a bunch of bad actors in a bad play”). And here my twinkly little brain finds delight, for it is with mythological answers that we can sometimes deliver bad news—help the client hear and integrate it! And to share this little tidbit of advice, I don’t need to read the cards any further. I don’t have to think of elemental dignities or anything, or of who is facing what, etc. I just have tell you that I actually have a completely relevant theory about handling difficult cards and bad news in readings that is connected to the mythology of bad actors in a bad play. Because the point of a reading is to get a relevant answer triggered in your mind, not to follow dogmatic approaches to card reading. 

So, here’s the first answer to the question inspired by the cards: When you’re faced with difficult cards or a difficult answer, use myth. Pretend the situation is a bad play peopled with over-emotive actors. For example, one may do a little something like this (given an imaginary card draw of Death, The Tower and the Five of Cups): I see a man (Death) who relentlessly pursues his goal. Doesn’t matter what’s in his way, he’s going to trample over whatever is in his path. Sometimes that’s what needs to be done; sometimes it’s needlessly trampling over people we care about. Can you think of anyone in your life/in this situation/at work (whatever the context is) that resembles this? (We allow the client to answer.) OK, great. So your ex-husband Conrad is like that. From the vibe of this card draw, I feel pretty certain that this has actually been problematic for him. What do you think? (Let’s say the client tells us that it hasn’t been problematic for Conrad, but it has been problematic for the client—let’s call them Ted.) Ah, got it. So I’m hearing Conrad is the bull-in-a-China-shop type. (“Very.”) Heard. Well, he’s headed for a blowup. A big old, ring-the-curtain-down, Titanic “My Heart Will Go On” style POW situation. And he’s riding right into it, like he knows he can see it coming but he doesn’t think it’s actually going to happen. But it’s going to happen. 

I could keep going, but that would make this even longer and no one wants that! Point is, you can see how I’m using an oblique story-telling technique to explore these more difficult cards. I’m not using the word “you” and until the client confirms for me that the Death card represents his ex, I’m not using names or implying any card represents anyone. I’m just telling a story, in many ways describing what’s happening on the card—and I could continue in that vein through the 5/cups and to the answer. 

This is inspired by Susan Tompkins’s book, The Contemporary Astrologer’s Handbook, which I recommend highly. It explores a similar method of talking about difficult parts of a chart or progression. And it’s got two benefits: It lets you off the hook and it puts the client in the driver’s seat. It allows them to come to the conclusions the reading suggests and likely it will lead to them giving themselves the bad news. Crises averted and you even did a collaborative reading! The downside with this approach is that telling these kinds of stories takes practice and can be somewhat difficult on the spur of the moment. You really have to take your time, slow down, and think about what you’re going to say before you say it. Allow pauses. The other downside is that some people are so fucking dense they just won’t get it. But that’s another issue.

OK, that’s one method of dealing with this. Myth! 

But let’s keep reading, cuz why not?

If we take the cards as I began interpreting them above, we remain with a story of bad actors overdoing it in a bad play. And, to put it bluntly, so is life. Life is bad actors in a bad play. And that’s just the way it goes. Sometimes we have to tell clients, “I’m sorry, but you’re just stuck in a really shitty drama right now and unfortunately you’re the star.” Why? Because that’s life. He says only somewhat sarcastically. I mean it is. To talk about difficult cards and situations we got three difficult cards—the nines of swords and wands and the ten of swords. Tarot reflects reality and when something is difficult, tarot is going to reflect it. 

Here’s where I’m maybe going to start adding my own methods into the sauce—but I do think they’re prompted by the cards. Look, the nine and ten of swords could easily suggest “difficult conversations.” Right? The heft and difficulty of the numbers paired with the communication inherent in swords. Think about times in your life where you’ve known a difficult conversation was necessary and you avoided it—whether because, like most folx, you’re conflict-avoidant, or because you didn’t think it was that important, or you were too shy to deal with it, or you felt like it would eventually fix itself. How often did it just go away? Not often. How often did it get worse? Often. 

Imagine you’re my boss at Acme Tarot Publishing (not a real company). You brought me on as a line editor and I turned in my first manuscript late, but I was meticulous about it so you assumed I was just trying to be hyper-prepared since it was my first gig. But all five of my following projects were late and none of them were as well-proofed as the first one. Your bosses are pissed and you’re like, “OK, I thought he was gonna be better.” But you never ask me what the fuck. And I just keep fucking off, turning in half-assed shit whenever I feel like it, you and your bosses roll their eyes and say, “gee, that turned out to be a crappy hire.” And that goes on for years until I finally fuck up so big you can’t ignore it anymore and you fire me. To me, this is completely out of the blue and I’m stunned—and I file a wrongful termination suit against ATP (not a real company—and anyway soon it’ll probably be impossible to sue corporations for anything). I’m going to win. Because you never gave me the feedback and you never documented a damn thing. You never coached me, you never set the expectation, you never had the difficult conversation. So I got fired and your company loses a lawsuit because you avoided the difficult conversation until it was too late. 

Part of the point of reading is to give bad news, odd as that might be to say. And we just have to get comfortable with that. Ya know? No one wants to get bad news a reading and no reader wants to give it. This is what we’re worried about when we turn down certain topics--what if I get it wrong and I give them bad news and I ruin their marriage? Better not to tell them! Except if the marriage was perfectly fine, the client probably wouldn’t be asking about it. Of course there are exceptions, right, but when something is on people’s minds and they bring it up in a reading, there’s a pretty sure bet that it’s dogging them because something isn’t working or something is causing them anxiety about it. 

The other thing that swords suggests is perception, and in this case I mean the perception of the reader. When we look at the cards and say “oh fuck, that seems bad,” we’re actually judging the situation on behalf of the client. We don’t actually get to decide what cards are good or bad in a reading, the client does. It’s their reading! If we’re reading for a client who is not a friend, we likely don’t have even half of the context of the situation—and even with friends, we know they ain’t always telling us the whole tea. No one does. We may have a client ask whether they’re getting into grad school and the reading says “no sir!” and we feel bad—but the client only applied to grad school to make their mother happy, and now they don’t have to go! Whoopee! We have to be careful as readers not to project or perceive (swords) drama (the two nines and the ten) where it may not be. Dalí’s cards are wonderfully open to interpretation—which, given much of his famous art, is quite something. And there are so many ways that these images could be interpreted. We don’t get to decide for the client. And they may not even know how the hell they feel about something until they get the reading. (BOOK/MOVIE SPOILER AHEAD:) There’s a moment in the book Conclave (you don’t see it in the movie) where the Stanley Tucci character, who spends the whole first third of the novel saying he doesn’t want to be pope, realizes that he’s not going to be elected pope. And he really, really thought he would be. So did everyone else—including most of the media. And though he didn’t want it, the shock of not getting it—of being told you were a shoo-in only to discover that your peers don’t want you—is a devastating (in theory) as getting it would have been. But the character would have no way of knowing that until they experienced it. And had he been elected, he’d likely go the rest of his life thinking “Dear God, I would have been so much happier had they passed on me.” It’s a beautifully nuanced moment of character writing by Robert Harris, and having both read the book and listened to the audiobook, you can really see the character’s reaction in the moment he realizes it ain’t gonna be him. Such good writing. (I actually really enjoyed both the book and the movie, for what it’s worth. Though I revile the Catholic church, I’m a former Catholic and despite myself, I can’t help but enjoy Vatican palace intrigue. And, no, I don’t think the “twist” was tacked on or forced; Harris laid the groundwork well (the screenplay less so). 

Humans are fuckin’ weird, folks. The thing you thought could have been the best news ever may turn around and make your client weep with grief. We just do not know. And so it is helpful to guard our perception—to temper our perception, as it were. And here I can return to the cards to justify my thesis: the 9/swords mirrors temperance—so the card of anxiety and despair (for many W-S readers) is mirrored by the card of moderation and integration. It’s saying, to quote Edwina Monsoon, “Cheer up world, it might not bloody happen!” In other words, “hey reader, your might be perceiving this as more dramatic than it is.” And the 10/swords mirrors the Knight of Wands, who—though I gave him a kind of shallow makeover earlier—is nothing if not brave enough to rush into the mire and burn shit down. Which means that the client may actually need--may actually WANT--to get in the dirt and fuck shit up! And who are we to deny them that? Shit may need to get fucked up! Let them do it. Tell them the truth. 

The Knight of  Wands matched with Temperance actually says the same thing: “OK, hothead, let’s not rush into this reading projecting doom and gloom. Let’s, like, practice a little restraint.” Temperance looks at the rest of the cards in the spread and in fact protects them from the knight. Ah! Do you see what she’s doing? She’s tempering them. “No, 9/wands, you are not as dramatic as you appear; no, 9 and 10/swords, you are not, either. Life tends to be far more banal than you expect it to be, so even though this news isn’t good--it’s also, in the scheme of things, not life or death.” The knight/wands otherwise would rush in with allllll the community theatre drama you can handle—and more—and will be the, OH MY GOD GURL DID YOU HEAR???? But that’s not you, dear reader, because you are a diviner. And you temper such impulsive reactions with gentleness. Because you: are cool.

Tell the clients the truth, pals. They asked for the reading. That’s not the cards talking now, that’s me—after Camelia Elias. They asked for the reading, you owe it to them to tell them the truth. It’s what they asked you for. You’re not their mommy or daddy, you’re (likely) not their shrink, you’re not their lover or pal—even if you’re actually those things IRL. Right now, you are their fortune teller, their card reader, and you have vowed to them to say what that cards are telling you. Do it. 

The only exception to this, and again this is me not the cards talking, is when I’m certain the answer will poison their well. What do I mean? Suppose I saw in a reading that the second the person stepped out of their home tomorrow morning, an asteroid would fall and crush them to death. Were I to share that, I would likely ruin whatever time they had left. And there is nothing they can do about it—I guess other than not be home? So I wouldn’t say, “you’re going to die tomorrow morning.” I might say, “Have you thought about spending the night a hotel? Just for fun?” Other than that, I feel like I owe my clients the truth.

Finally, I’ll add that when scary-looking cards go down you can easily just lower the temperature in a couple ways. “Don’t worry about that,” I’ve been known to say, “it’s not a bad card, there are not bad cards.” Or, let’s say I’ve just got the grimmest-looking spread—like we got all the daddies of drauma, honey, Okrrr? I have been known to say, with a big old genuine laugh, “OK, we’re going through some shit right now, aren’t we?” And the client will inevitably laugh and say, “YUP!” Because they almost always already know the answer, anyway. So let yourself off the hook. Tell them the truth. They asked for it. 

And these cards agree!

A Read of One’s Own
There are lots of reasons we may resist giving bad news or addressing funky cards. Sometimes, we want to protect our clients from the world; sometimes, we want to protect ourselves. Sometimes we’re afraid they’ll take it out on us and sometimes we just think we’re not good enough, so we’re not going to be “right.” We may even be attempting to live the clients’ lives for them (something more common than you might think). Of course when I say “client,” I mean anyone we’re reading for, paying or not. Not to over corporate-ize the reading process, but I think of every reading as an agreement. 

This reading is meant to help you see whether you’re avoiding telling the client the truth, why, and what you might do about it. As always, take this with a grain of salt if you don’t think you do that. 

The first card is a yes/no (“Do I do this?”). I recommend letting all odd-numbered cards mean “no,” all even-numbered cards as “yes,” and any court card as “kinda.” The meaning of the card can tell you more about what’s behind that answer. 

Position 1. Do I tend to avoid giving my clients the full truth? (Obviously if the answer is “no,” you don’t have to do the rest of the spread.)
Position 2. What’s the root cause of this?
Position 3. What’s one thing I can do immediately to correct that?
Position 4. How can I measure my progress?

Brief example.
For position one, I chose the King of Wands. That’s a court, so I’ll read it as “kinda.” Which is fair, I concur. I think there’s a somewhat overdramatic (fire) tendency to read the worst, but also a somewhat smug (king/fire) tendency to think, “Oh, maybe they’re not ready to hear this!” or even the occasional, “I don’t want them taking this out on me”—which is something very kingly. 

For position two, why, I chose the Page of Wands! I didn’t select that card until after I got my “kinda,” so I was pleasantly surprised to consider the page. I’m actually going to give myself three cards here, because I just really hate reading one. 🤣 So I also got the Chariot and Nine of Penties. There’s a somewhat passionately naive (page/fire) tendency to carry (chariot—more on that presently) the client who is just going through their life (9/penties). Why am I reading the Chariot as “carry”? Because it’s the major typically associated with Cancer (for some reason, Dalí assigns it Sagittarius—but since my moon is in Cancer, I’ve gotten used to that connection . . . even though I actually don’t think it makes much sense, and actually I think I agree with Sal) and chariots also carry. So it is a caring carry, as it were. The Cancerian protector/nurturer can make the Chariot into a whambulance. So to speak. 

For position three, I chose the Queen of Wands, Three of Cups, and the King of Cups! Lots of Cups. Whoa! “You, Queen,” it says to me (there is a deck I have that associates this card with Leo, which I’ve never seen anywhere else but it always sticks with me—and I’m a Leo sun), “are in spiritual collaboration with the client (3/cups). But you are not the boss of them (the two courts). The client has the enthusiasm and wisdom (queen/wands) and the ability to protect themselves (king/cups) and the responsibility (two courts) to manage their relationships (3/cups). They are the monarchs of their particular glens, they have or need their own community, and the “mommy and daddy” (two courts) attitude toward your clients is patronizing (the 3/cups in consort with the two courts, creating kind of an “aren’t you precious” vibe). 

Position 4, I chose the Six of Swords. When you’re communicating (swords) the reading (swords) in an even (six) way; when you’re telling all sides (six) of the story (swords). And when the client, not you, is piloting their boat (image). 

And there you have it! Let me know how it goes!​