Tarot

The parrot and the cards

In Tamil Nadu and across South India, the kili josiyam (parrot astrologer) sits with a caged green parakeet and a row of folded cards. The bird steps out, picks one with its beak, and the astrologer reads it. Our parrot does the same with the tarot.

The deck

We use the full 78-card Rider–Waite–Smith deck: 22 Major Arcana and 56 Minor Arcana in four suits, in Pamela Colman Smith's original art from the first edition of 1909. Every reading is written fresh by Sunyra, with a line for love and a line for work and money. See all 78 cards and their meanings.

The four suits

• Wands (fire): energy, ambition, creativity and action.
• Cups (water): feelings, love, friendship and intuition.
• Swords (air): thought, truth, conflict and decisions.
• Pentacles (earth): money, work, the body and the practical world.

The Major Arcana, from The Fool to The World, describe the larger turning points of a life; the Minor Arcana describe its everyday weather.

Three spreads

• One card answers a simple question: what do I need to see today?
• Past · Present · Future reads as a short story: what has shaped the situation, where you stand now, and the way through.
• The love spread lays five cards: you, the other person, the bond between you, what helps, and where it is heading if nothing changes.

How to read a card

Tarot works best as a mirror: a prompt to look at a question from a new angle. A card does not decide your future. Notice what you feel when you see it, and what it brings to mind. A card that lands upside down is reversed: its energy is blocked, delayed or turned inward, and we add a line for that. You can switch reversals off if you prefer to read every card upright. A difficult card shows what to work with, not a sentence passed on you.

For questions about timing, marriage or career, your kundli says far more than a card can.

About the art

The card images are Pamela Colman Smith's illustrations from the original 1909 Rider–Waite–Smith deck, which are in the public domain, from scans of a first-edition deck shared on Wikimedia Commons. The card back is Sunyra's own design. Sources for every card.