Three cards is the size most questions actually are. It is big enough to hold a situation with more than one moving part and small enough that you will still remember what came up two weeks later. A three card tarot reading takes about ten minutes and holds a good deal more than people expect of it.
The three positions
The three cards are dealt here as past, present and future, and each of those seats means something plainer than the label suggests. The past card is what you are bringing to this: the history, the assumption, the thing you had already decided without noticing. It is the card people most often skip past and it usually explains the other two.
The present card is what is actually true now, as distinct from the story about it. This is where a reading earns its keep, because most of us carry a description of our situation that is about eight months out of date.
The future card is the one to be careful with, and we read it as where this leans if nothing changes rather than as what is going to happen. No card can see what is coming. What it can show is what already has some movement in it from where you are standing, which is the more useful half anyway.
Why the third seat is not a prediction
Past, present and future is the shape almost everybody knows, and it is well known because it is easy to explain. The trouble is that the last seat quietly invites a forecast, and a forecast is the least honest thing in any reading, and it will take over the whole page if nobody stops it.
So the layout stays and the last chair changes jobs. If you are dealing for yourself, you can name the three seats in your own words instead: what is pulling me back, what is true now, what protects me. What I want, what is in the way, what would move it. Name them before you draw and the reading has a spine.
When three cards is the right size
Decisions with two options. Situations that have been going on a few weeks. Anything where you want to be able to tell somebody afterward what the reading said without needing a diagram.
Use one card for a mood and the Celtic Cross for something you have been going round in circles about for months.
Start a three card reading
Deal it at the three card spread, with your question written down first.
Three cards, ten minutes, one thing you can do afterward. That is a good evening’s work.
Questions people ask
Is three cards always past, present and future?
It is the best known set and rarely the most useful. What is pulling you back, what is true now, and what would help will tell you more about almost any real situation.
What if the three cards seem to contradict each other?
That usually means the situation does. Two cards pulling in different directions is often the most accurate thing a reading can show you, and forcing them into agreement is where readings go wrong.
How long should a three card reading take?
Ten to fifteen minutes if you are actually reading rather than looking things up. If it is taking an hour, the question was probably too big for three cards.