Equinox Equivocation Spread
By Pengwen
Yes or No readings can be complicated and frustrating, but sometimes Yes or No is the only answer that is needed or wanted. Even so, giving your querent Yes or No isn’t a lot of information for them to work with. Advising someone “No, you won’t get the job” feels like such a missed opportunity to look more deeply into what might be done to change that situation, or what they might do instead of applying for that particular job.
If you look online for a method of doing Yes/No readings, you find advice on setting intentions for various cards; for example “positive” cards mean Yes, “negative” cards mean No. But what exactly is a positive card? Are any cards wholly negative? There is always that little voice that says “but in certain cases …” and then you’re back to setting your intentions again. And I am completely overwhelmed by the suggestion to set intentions for every card in the deck.
There is one simple way to do Yes/No readings that solves all these problems: it lets you give a Yes or No answer, incorporate some advice, and it lets you rely on your knowledge of Tarot, rather than having memorised yes-ness or no-ness for 78 individual cards.
This is the “Yes, if / No, if” reading. I usually incorporate it into a three-card reading that either starts with a card for the current situation, or ends with more general advice. Here’s an example.
Q: “I have the chance to move abroad for work. Should I do it?”
You draw two cards – one for “Yes, you should do it IF …” and one for “No, you shouldn’t do it IF …”.
Say we draw the Knight of Swords for Yes and the Queen of Pentacles for No. You could interpret this, briefly, as meaning: “Yes, you should take the job if you are able to move quickly, and if you are up for adventure” and “No, you shouldn’t take the job if being settled in your home is more important than adventure.” The Queen also implies that there is more money in staying at home, so that would be a factor in the decision, too.
For advice, you draw the World, which implies that either decision will ultimately be a good one. But the cards you’ve drawn for Yes and No give your querent some really useful information to help them make the choice.
Featured image is “Two Paths” by Susanne Schwarz via Unsplash
0 Comments