Telling Time with Tarot
How Tarot reveals your past, present and future
By A.T. Mann
Everything in the universe happens in time, by which I mean that effects follow causes because nothing creates itself. This principle is what Buddhists call "impermanence" and the ancient Chinese called "changes." It is a great help to understand how to put interpretations in the correct order so you can not only understand them, but also see how they will play out in your life.
As a Tarot card reader lays the cards out on a table in a particular order, so the cards should be read in the right order. When I teach both Tarot and Astrology, the order of things is one of the first and most important issues I instill in my students.
At the most basic level, you can see this if you lay three cards down in a row on the table. You apply a sequence on them so that the left card is the past, the middle card is the present (a typical association) and the right card is the future. The qualities of the first card show a beginning, a first step or stage. The middle card shows how it manifests in time at the present moment. The right card shows the outcome.
In the astrological spread of the Mandala Astrological Tarot, the sequence goes counterclockwise around the circle. For your own interest, break longer sequences down into three card sequences and treat them in the way I just described. In this way you will learn how to "tell time" using the Tarot.
As an exercise, get your Tarot deck and first thing each morning lay down three cards in sequence and see how they describe your day to come. You will learn quickly about how time works.
