One of the questions I’ve been asked by clients a lot over the past year (aside from how I got started reading cards) has been about private card reading tutoring and/or mentoring.

So I started to formulate an offering to meet with those requests, putting things in place, and even working with a few clients while things were in “beta” mode, to hammer out any kinks and make any necessary tweaks.

It was during a session with one of my “beta” clients that I experienced what I like to call a “teachable moment,” and wanted to share it in this space, in the hopes it might benefit some card readers who read the blog posts.

So what was the teachable moment about? One of the most important aspects to keep in mind when reading cards: Context is king—meaning the context for the reading is everything.

During this session with my client, she mentioned that she’d recently done a past-present-future reading with playing cards, asking about her relationship, and wasn’t sure about the cards. The cards she drew were 3 of Diamonds, 3 of Clubs, and 3 of Spades.

I asked her to take me through the reading; I wanted to hear her process.

The first thing she noted was that she got all “no” cards. In traditional cartomancy, red cards are seen as “positive” (meaning yes), and black cards “negative” (meaning no); two of the three cards were black, which can suggest a “no” answer.

Here’s the first challenge she was having with the reading, in terms of context: She was using a “no” response as the answer to a past-present-future layout.

Within the context of the layout, the first card talks about a past influence on the relationship; the middle card talks about something happening in the moment (perhaps as a result of the past); and the last card talks about a potential future situation or outcome with the relationship.

Even with that, the individual cards would tell us more as to why the answer to the question is a “no.”

I asked her to tell me what else she noticed in the cards. “More than the card meanings, I felt like focusing more on what the angel number 333 meant,” she said, as she was noticing all the cards had the number 3 on them, and strung them together.

Knowing the meaning of the number, I asked, “If the 333 is what stands out for you, how does it answer the question?”

Basically, how does a merging with the ascended masters serve to answer her question about her relationship? As an answer, does it fit the context of the question?

It’s a nice answer, but it doesn’t seem to fit with the context of the question. When I work through readings with my clients, I always remind them that when they’re stuck, to come back to the original question.

No matter how you approach a reading, it has to be able to answer the question.

Also noting that the number 3 repeated three times, I offered this reframe of her observation: How does the number 3 answer the question about the relationship?  

In cartomancy, the 3 is a number associated with increase and expansion, with growth and development. This aspect of the number would seem to fit with the context of her question much better; without knowing the specifics of the question (which I didn’t), here the cards were offering that the question was rooted in her desire for the relationship to grow and develop.

So, if you read cards for yourself, and find yourself stumped with some of the cards that turn up, keep these points in mind:

• Honor your process. Go through the reading and note any and all observations that come to you in the moment. Don’t edit or censor yourself.
• After you’ve made all your observations, go through each one and ask yourself, “How does this answer my question? Does it answer my question (meaning, “Does it fit with the context of the question?”)?” If it does, keep it; if it doesn’t, eliminate it.
• If you find yourself going all over the place with your answers, or drawing a blank, come back to the original question. If, after doing that, you’re still unsure, the problem may lie with the question itself, and you might need to revise it.

Remember, context is king—and queen (an inside joke if you read Tarot, playing cards, or Lenormand).

​Interested in getting some private 1-to-1 tutoring and/or mentoring to assist you in your growth and development as a card reader? If so, you can check out my Cartomancy Coaching (for Tarot and Lenormand) page, with all the details, here.