Meditation
Before a reading
Before you shuffle, sit. Name the question. Feel the chair. Take three slower breaths. Look at something ordinary. You are here. The cards are here. The question is here.
What this is
A short sit as step one. Attention that can stay. Attention that can return when it wanders, which it will. Kindness toward the wander, then back to breath, or feet, or the card.
Why it matters
If you skip it, you will drag the last hour of your day onto the table and call it a message. That muscle is the same one you use when a story tries to hijack a spread. Notice. Return. Look again.
How to recognise it
You are fit to look honestly, or you are not. Restlessness is not failure. Restlessness is something you can observe. Come back. Then decide whether to begin.
How to use it
Set a timer for three minutes if you like, or take three breaths if that is the true minimum. Sit. Feet on the floor. Feel one breath arrive. Feel it leave. When a thought arrives, name it thinking, come back. When the sit ends, name one ordinary object. Now you may pick up a card. You can add: I will look honestly. I will stop when it is done.
Light
A table you arrived at. First impressions that have a chance. A reader who can tell mood from image.
Shadow
A sit so long you never shuffle. Performing stillness. Skipping it because you already know what you want. Reading when you should have gone to bed.
Example
Three minutes, then one card, first thing written unedited. The stillness was for hearing. The card was for practising what you heard against an image.
Practice
Three minutes, then a card
Do a short sit, with a timer if you have one. Then pull one card and write the first thing you receive. Do not edit it. Then write one line about how the sit changed the looking, or did not.
Open the practiceReflection