AUTHOR’S NOTE: When it comes to divination, I have little interest in modern philosophical or scientific theories about the elastic nature of time. My aim is to help my clients understand (and therefore withstand) their circumstances; such academic hypotheses add nothing to the outlook and only serve to complicate it. Events occur in “real time,” although its intervals are not necessarily fixed.

Unless they have a particular time-frame in mind (i.e. a forecast for the next month) or are requesting an open-ended “life reading” or a third-party “mind reading” session, most sitters want to know two things: 1) the probability of occurrence for a desired or dreaded event, and 2) how much time they have to prepare for it. Those concerned about the former almost invariably ask about the latter. We could say it “comes with the territory” and is not at all exceptional in human terms.

The timing of uncertain occurrences is admittedly a slippery proposition. But if we believe that prediction with the cards can provide an answer to the seeker’s question, we should be able to come to grips with a reasonable approximation of its ETA. It’s awkward for a reader to bow out with vague excuses about indeterminacy, so when asked I always try to give some kind of an estimate, if only of the “ballpark” kind. I have few clients who only want a psychological perspective from the tarot; most put me into full-on “fortune-telling” mode.

I’ve posted almost three dozen essay that touch on tarot timing, many of which offer experimental spreads and techniques. As might be expected, none of the proposed methods is conclusive in its precision since there is always room for an irrational projection. The table below is the closest I’ve come to a defensible solution, one that employs an “umbrella” paradigm running from “Very Soon” to “Greatly Delayed.”

In thinking further about this approach, should a client trot out the inconvenient “When?” question at the end of a reading, it may be best to pull a single, specific “timing” card after the main spread is drawn to see whether it agrees with the “temporal footprint” of the outcome card. Right now I’m considering a second shuffle with the querent concentrating solely on the timing aspect to bring it into sharp focus.

If the two are closely congruent, I would feel more comfortable standing by the original augury. But if they are widely divergent, a judgment call would be necessary, for which I would consult the overall testimony of the spread from the standpoint of relative immediacy. Recognizing that we are seldom going to be let off the hook by our clients’ anxious expectations, it seems advisable to have an established protocol for addressing them. Just saying “I don’t know” isn’t good enough for me.