I’ve been thinking about the presence of interpretive contrasts and contradictions in almost every tarot reading, particularly when using spreads that include a “reactive” position such as the three-card “action/reaction/resolution” layout in which the second card provides an occasion for rebuttal against the original premise. Unless we are indulging in wishful thinking of the “It’s all good” variety or are extraordinarily lucky in our pull, most larger readings are a matter of “light” pitted against “shadow.” One of the laws of Newtonian physics is “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” While modern science has demonstrated that this isn’t as straightforward as was once thought, it still has many legitimate applications. If I push against an object with the intention of moving it across the floor, its inertia in the form of mass and weight will resist me until I push hard enough to overcome it, although there could still be residual consequences such as friction resulting in heat or the object carving deep scratches in my floor. In a steady-state model of the Universe, every deficiency presupposes some act of fulfillment or compensation, a premise for which a couple of useful aphorisms are “There is no free lunch” and “Nature abhors a vacuum.” But this is going farther afield than I envisioned, so I’ll bring it back to tarot.

One of the problems I’ve had with the traditional Celtic Cross spread is that some readers treat the top card in the “cross” section as “the best that can be expected.” But this is unbalanced and begs the question “Where is its complementary proposition, “the worst that can be expected?” We are left with imputing it from the card that appears in the “Near Future” position, an unsatisfactory solution in many cases because it is often far too pessimistic, and that’s not what most sitters come to a reading to hear. I’ve dodged this difficulty by assuming that the top card reveals “the Present,” which may in fact show the situation “as bad as it’s going to get” since, as Aleister Crowley noted, “the fact of consultation implies anxiety or discontent.” In other words, querents would not be sitting across the table if everything is going well for them. The goal would then be to offer them a view of the “other side” of the picture, regardless of whether it is better or worse than things as they stand.

This brings me to the main topic of this essay. I’ve recently written about the seventh card in the Celtic Cross as suggesting “push-back” against the preliminary result shown by the sixth, or “Near Future,” card. As a form of contrast or contradiction, it could be read as “the good in the bad” or “the bad in the good” of the matter as it advances in the short term. Depending on the nature of the card, we might think of it as “the silver lining” in unfortunate circumstances or “the fly in the ointment” of those that seem entirely encouraging on the surface. At its best I see it as a reactionary “pendulum swing” that attempts to compensate for an excessively polarized outlook and bring it back to center so we can manage our response to best effect. But the two cards involved may not always cooperate to this end. It reminds me of the “showdown” in some card games where the opposing players each turn over a card and the highest-ranking card takes the trick; one stands to win and the other to lose, a not-unheard-of outcome in the practice of divination.

The challenge in a tarot reading is to reconcile the “light” and the “shadow” so one does not dominate to the exclusion of the other. While we might hope that everything in the sitter’s future will be “sweetness and light,” a little rain falling on the scenario would not only be expected but could also be beneficial in the long run (think of it as a mixed blessing). Obviously, if Cards #6 and #7 (or any pair of cards that invites a possible contradiction) are both extremely positive there is no contrast and the reader’s task is to caution against being too enamored of one’s projected good fortune and thus not on guard against a potential setback, while if both are predominantly negative a constructive offset of some kind must be found. Although it can be tempting to pull a “clarifying” card to suggest another option for escaping the pitfall, I prefer to look at the trump-card “quintessence” between the two that elevates the dilemma to a higher order of contemplation. For example, if I can’t have the Sun as the “tie-breaker,” I would much rather have Death than the 10 of Swords.