"Part of the role you're playing...you can choose to give as much or as little detail as you want, though I'll be less able to help you if it's vague. In any case, I can try reading for that. You want to know more about the state of your relationship with her and the paths it can go to?"

"Yes, that sounds good. The paths it can go is probably a good question..."

"Alright, here we go." 

"The Eight of Wands represents rapid action. You see how the wands all seem like they've been thrown or launched and are now all coming down. It represents quickness, decisiveness, things coming to a culmination or critical point, an apoapsis where an action would be the most impactful. A secondary meaning is receiving news. It's in the reversed position, which — I interpret reversals as meaning that the energy of the card is stifled, blocked, not fully expressed, or is entering or departing. Reversed Eight of Wands implies that the critical point is about to come, or has already passed. Alternatively, that the urge to decisively act is there, but is being stifled in some way.

The Three of Wands represents foresight. The person is looking out into the distance, surveying the land. And it represents leadership. Once the land has been surveyed, the person will lead the way into the wilderness. They are the one who is taking the first step. And it represents going into the unknown, going where no one has gone before. 

Queen of Swords...this card represents an energy, or a someone — the court cards, Page, Knight, Queen, King, are often interpreted to be specific people — who is honest and forthright. You will never be able to get anything past her, and likewise, she will never lie or deceive you. She will always tell you how it is and there will be a lot of clarity in your interactions. She is experienced and worldly and she has cutting wit. But here, the card is in reversed position, so that energy is not fully present in the situation.

Here is the context card: King of Cups. The King of Cups represents an energy who is caring and tolerant. It's a very warm and sort of paternal kind of energy, someone who you could rely on to listen to you and give good advice. And they are very diplomatic and good at resolving emotional tensions; someone who can take into account all points of view. Cups in general is a very receptive suit. Very yonic, so to speak, in contrast to the phallic nature of Wands and Swords.

There's a dichotomy here between Swords and Cups — Swords are very logical and head-based, and Cups are very emotional and heart-based. Swords are stubborn and Cups are yielding. Swords are justice and Cups are mercy. Swords are distance and Cups are intimacy. So there's a difference there.

Queens have a more inward focus and Kings have a more outward focus. But they are similar in that they are both mature adults, that they represent the energy of the suit in its full, mature, and balanced form, unlike the budding Page or the Knight with overly strong energy. They are equally mature, equally powerful, equally able. Here there is no...neither of them are having to reach down or reach up, neither of them are inferior or superior.

But the difference here is that the Queen is reversed and that the King is upright. The Queen, for her to be truly on par with the King, must be fully present, must fully present herself to him and the world, and then they will be equal in stature. She has that potential, but she needs to express that potential.

I drew no major arcana cards, which implies that everything that is occurring is within your power to affect. Minor arcana cards tend to represent lesser things, things that are workable or quotidian — major arcana cards are, well, major, and tend to represent things which are forces of nature or fate."

"Decise action either stifled, entering or departing... I think it's entering. Like, I have things I can do and I should probably do them now."

"Going into the unknown is very much a theme, yes, and leading... I don't know who should lead this. I have a feeling that I should, if I want things to change?"

She giggles "Oh, yonic is such a funny word!"

"A lot of clarity, but reversed... yeah, definitely, I'm very unclear on what the message is."

"Someone who could listen to me and give good advice, and is a man? Uh, I wonder who that is! Maybe someone I haven't met yet... It definitely can't be Vinio, he's the opposite of caring and tolerant!"

She looks up from the table.

"Oh. You are a man, listening to me and giving me good advice. Guess that checks out!"

"Everything is in my power to affect... yeah, of course, I know that, it's just... I think I'm scared."

"Can I ask another question?"

"Traditionally, the court cards were gendered, but I don't interpret them in that way. To me it has to do with masculine and feminine archetypes — outward and inward, phallic and yonic, extroverted and introverted — rather than being about literal gender. I apologize if I was unclear.

You can ask another question! You can ask a followup question to this one, or a clarifying question. Alternatively, you can ask a completely different question."

"I see... so someone outward, and... phallic." She resists the temptation to ask the fortune teller whether he is phallic. It would be mildly funny, but she doesn't want to imply things. If only people communicated more clearly!

"The second question is basically... would it work, as a relationship?"

"How I would interpret masculine and feminine in tarot is...the dichotomies would be: strong vs gentle, aggressive vs passive, cooperative vs competitive, intense vs mild, doing vs being, actor vs patient, offense vs defense.

I can't answer that directly. What I can try reading for you are the possible strong and weak points a relationship with this person could have. Do you want that?"

"Strong, aggressive, competitive, intense... oh... but then if she... then why..."

Sofia seems lost in thought for a moment.

"Yes please, that would be helpful!"

"Alright, give me a moment to draw the cards."

"Oh, it's the King of Cups again, but in reversed position. I've already explained the meaning of the King of Cups in the previous reading, so I won't repeat myself. It is interesting that it's here again but reversed, though!

The Three of Cups represents...so you see the three women are raising their cups together. It represents partying, joy, happiness, exuberance. It represents being a part of a community and loving that community. It represents togetherness, friendliness, neighborliness. It's similar to the Two of Cups, except the Three of Cups is less reserved, less intimate, and less romantic. Here it is also reversed." He chooses to interpret the reversals until later.

"Knight of Pentacles. Knights represent the energy of the suit to a very strong degree that is not tempered by the maturity of the Kings and Queens. So they have this positive aspects and negative aspects dynamic to them. The Knight of Pentacles represents an energy which is very solid and stable. Pentacles in general is a very grounded and worldly suit — it relates to money and wealth, and it's associated with the element of Earth. The Knight of Pentacles is someone who is very hardworking, but may not know how to relax. Someone who is very realistic and grounded, but may be close-minded or pessimistic. Someone who is dogged and persevering, but may be stubborn. Someone who is reliable and cautious, but may be dogmatic. Someone who is meticulous, but may be obsessive. It's a very Type A personality, so to speak. Very conscientious.

The Four of Pentacles here is the context card. This card represents avarice and possessiveness. You see how the man is holding the pentacle very tightly in his arms, and two more are pinned beneath his feet. It signals a desire for control, and a desire to block change, to prevent things from moving. And it represents miserliness, penny-pinching.

There's a dichotomy that I'm spotting here, where both of the Pentacles cards are upright, whereas both the Cups cards are reversed. One interpretation for this is: there may be too much focus on the material aspects of the relationship — of course, the material aspects are important, especially if one is looking to marry or start a family, but they are not the only aspects of it. And too little on the emotional side. Alternatively, it can mean that the material aspects are already fulfilled or are 'ripe', so to speak, but it's the emotional side that needs work, that needs to be unblocked in order for the relationship to be in its fullness.

Although honestly, I'm not getting a very clear vibe from these pulls. I don't know if they were helpful or meaningful to you — if not, I can try drawing again, or you can ask another followup question. Or abandon this line of questioning altogether."

"'Someone who is very hardworking, but may not know how to relax.' yeah, that would be her."

"I think it's the latter. The material aspects are not a problem, but the emotional side is... complicated."

"I think I'd like to ask a final question, on a different line."

"What is stopping me? What obstacles are in my path?"

"Stopping you with regards to the relationship, or in your life, generally? Or in reference to something else?"

"Mostly the relationship, I'd say." the man is nice but she's not going to tell him about... the other things.

"Obstacles, obstacles. What are your obstacles..." he says, as he shuffles the cards.

"The Ace of Cups is the possibility of love and feeling in a situation. Very appropriate in this situation. It represents intuition and intimacy. It represents emotional force, emotionality. It's reversed, which is also appropriate in this situation, where we are trying to figure out what is blocking you from relationships.

The Empress represents Mother Nature in her glory. This is a major arcana card. This card represents abundance and joy from that abundance, of luxuriating in the senses. It also represents literal and figurative mothering. Taking care of something or someone. It is reversed here. There are a few different ways to interpret that...let me draw the other cards before saying more.

The World is the final card in the major arcana. It represents fullness and completion. It represents accomplishment and fulfillment, of finally having gotten everything you wanted, in the end. There is also a secondary meaning of involvement, participation, inclusion. To be a part of the world means to be in the world. You cannot escape it. You are fully in it, and this card asks you to recognize that. We are all in this together. Figuratively speaking. It's kind of awkward to say that now, now that I know there are different worlds. But yes.

The Knight of Swords is similar to the Queen of Swords, except that this energy isn't tempered. Very blunt, very direct, very cutting. Very logical. But also cut off from intuition. This card is the sort of card to cut away everything in its path. It's very...'facts don't care about your feelings', or 'destroyed by facts and logic'. Sorry, that was a reference specific to my world. But it has that energy."

Unlike the last time, there isn't a pause before he begins the final explanation.

"The cards are implying that you are overthinking things, or listening to your inner critic too much, and not relying more on your emotions and intuitions. You need to be a part of the world. You have to immerse yourself into it, and allow yourself to feel and sense fully, and not try to take a step back to analyze the situation dispassionately.

There is a recurring feeling that I've been getting from these readings. Here I get it from the fact that the Knight of Swords is present. This is a very judgmental card. This is a card that is cutting and opinionated. And also the fact that the Empress is reversed — I interpret that as a feeling of: there are pleasant things that could be indulged or enjoyed, but that this enjoyment is being prevented. And that may possibly be due to other feelings that may be present, like guilt, or shame, or unworthiness, or feeling stupid or cringeworthy."

Oh.

"I... I need to go, now, I think. Thank you for your readings!"

She runs away, and through the door to her world.

That was a little sudden! "Alright, see you, goodbye," he says.

A man in washed-out, hard-wearing clothes closes a book of poetry and approaches.

"I'd like to try it. More for its own sake than because I want an answer to any particular question. What it feels like to be the one asking, not an outside observer."

"Of course, that's no problem. The question doesn't need to be a matter of importance to you, although there still needs to be a question."

"Oh, good. I heard your last few, but the practice has been long forgotten by my day, so I wasn't sure. I have big questions, but I don't think I need a source of entropy for them. Maybe... Oh, the man who inspired me. What do I do for a dead man, who died fighting me but would have been on my side if he could? He was very much mad but used tarot and poetry as a metaphor to pass me a message his slave-mistress couldn't understand."

"My condolences. Is it that you want me to draw for you, or that you want me to read a spread for you? A spread is an arrangement of tarot cards.

Is it that the man gave or presented you tarot cards to send a message, and you want someone to interpret said cards? My cards aren't magical and I can't do a seance with them. Or is it that you want me to draw cards for...how you could deal with the tragedy?"

"Read a spread. What he said to me was - this poem here, T. S. Eliot," he says, gesturing with the little book, "He quoted from it, and several parts of it were using symbols from tarot. He referred to me as the Hanged Man, and the woman who was controlling him as 'Madame Sosostris, with a wicked pack of cards.' So it left me curious what getting a reading is like."

"And yes, the tragedy. He didn't get a funeral. I don't think there was anyone to mourn him. And... I mean, he was trying to kill me. I'm a little conflicted. But I'd like to honor his memory somehow."

"I'm unfamiliar with T.S. Eliot or Madame Sosotris, but you can read out the poem to me if you want, and I can try interpreting the tarot symbolism there for you.

As for the Hanged Man," he turns his deck over and flips through it, finding the card and holding it out, "here, you can look at it."

"The Hanged Man is quite paradoxical as a card, and there are several different meanings attached to it. In its upright position, it is upside down. The card represents upending the order of things. But this is a more internal change. It's more about...turning over your preconceptions, how you yourself see the world, rather than representing a change in the external order — that's more of a Tower energy. The Tower is another major arcana card, the most tragic card, I would say. In the major arcana, the Hanged Man succeeds Justice and precedes Death. It is the thirteenth card in the major arcana — its numbered twelve because the major arcana is zero-indexed.

The Hanged Man also represents sacrifice. Sacrifice in two ways. The first is sacrificing yourself for a higher cause. Being a martyr. The second is...giving up what you want. Putting others first, renouncing your claim on things, stepping back. 

Related to this is the meaning of letting go. The Hanged Man represents release, emotional release. Accepting fate and circumstance, ending one's struggle, surrendering, giving up control. Not...defeat, because that's an external thing, but this is a very internal thing. The Hanged Man is very concerned with internal experience.

Another meaning of the Hanged Man is stillness. Nondoing, nonaction. Pausing, reflecting, waiting.

A particular dynamic of the Hanged Man is...sometimes, one only gets what they want once they stop chasing after it. It's like with sleep — you cannot force yourself to sleep, and if you try to grasp for sleep, it will flee you. Rather, you have to be still and stop wanting, so to speak, sleeping, and then you will fall asleep. The Hanged Man is in a compromised position, but they are also in a relaxed position. There is no anguish on their face. They accept their position. The Hanged Man signifies that sometimes, when things are the most urgent, that is when we most must wait and remain still. When things seem like we must exert force, sometimes that is when we most must refrain from such exertion.

I don't know what exactly they meant, in referring to you as the Hanged Man. But it's probable that he meant to relate you to these concepts somehow."

"Hmm. Really that sounds more like him. But it made sense to me - I was stuck waiting, marking time doing my own thing while I waited for the - evil goddess, basically - to get tired of me and try to kill me. I was - pretty tense. Maybe he meant I should accept it, which... I did, sort of."