#Self-Reflection

Card zero of the tarot is not about stupidity. It is about the courage every beginning requires, and the lightness that makes it possible.

The snake is one of the oldest figures in human dreams. What the traditions say, what the psychologists say, and the questions worth asking when you wake.

Card one of the tarot stands at a table holding everything he needs. The Magician is about capability claimed, and the gap between having tools and using them.

Nearly everyone falls in their sleep. What the traditions and the researchers say about the most universal dream, and the question it asks.

Card two sits between the pillars, holding the scroll she does not open for you. The High Priestess is the tarot's portrait of inner knowing.

It is one of the most common and most unsettling dreams there is. What the teeth dream tends to track, and the questions worth asking after it.

Card three sits in a field that is flowering because she is there. The Empress is the tarot's portrait of nurture, abundance, and creative fruit.

Water is the dream world's favourite material. What oceans, floods, and clear pools tend to mean, and the simple key that unlocks most of them.

Card four sits on a stone throne in armor. The Emperor is the tarot's portrait of order, authority, and the discipline that makes freedom possible.

The flying dream is the night's great gift. What it tends to mean, why it visits when it does, and the question to ask while your feet are still off the ground.

Card five sits between two pillars, two students kneeling. The Hierophant asks what tradition is for, and when to honour or outgrow the inherited way.

The chase dream is fear's favourite theatre. What the pursuer usually is, why turning around changes everything, and the question to ask on waking.

Card six is read as romance and is really about alignment: the choices that decide who you become. The Lovers is the tarot's crossroads.

Card seven is victory through mastered opposites: the black and white sphinxes, the armored driver, no reins. The Chariot is willpower examined.

Card eight shows a woman closing a lion's jaws with no force at all. Strength is the tarot's redefinition of power, and its quietest card.

Card nine climbs alone with a single light. The Hermit is the tarot's case for solitude, and for the difference between withdrawing and hiding.

Card ten spins at the deck's centre: luck, cycles, and the oldest lesson about what turns. The Wheel asks where you stand when it moves.

Card eleven sits between pillars with both instruments raised. Justice is the tarot's accounting: causes, consequences, and the truth told level.

Card twelve hangs upside down by choice, haloed and calm. The Hanged Man is the tarot's strangest teacher: surrender, suspension, and the inverted view.

Card thirteen is the deck's most dreaded and least understood. Death almost never means death: it means the ending that clears the field.

Card fourteen pours water between two cups in an impossible arc. Temperance is the tarot's master of blending, patience, and the middle way.

Card fifteen shows two figures chained to a beast, and the chains hang loose. The Devil is the tarot's portrait of bondage by consent.

Card sixteen is the deck's thunderclap: the proud structure struck, the crown blown off. The Tower is sudden truth, and what survives it.

Card seventeen kneels at the water under an open sky, pouring freely. The Star is hope with its armor off, and it follows the Tower on purpose.

Card eighteen lights a path between howling creatures and untrustworthy light. The Moon is the tarot's night country: fear, illusion, and the way through.

Card nineteen is the deck's full daylight: a child, a white horse, a wall of sunflowers. The Sun is joy without argument, and it must be accepted to work.

Card twenty raises the dead with a trumpet, and they rise glad. Judgement is the tarot's great summons: the reckoning that frees, and the life answered.

Card twenty-one dances inside the laurel wreath: completion, integration, the journey whole. The World is the deck's last word, and it is a moving one.

No psychic gifts required, no doom permitted: how to actually read tarot cards as the reflective practice they do brilliantly.