AUTHOR’S NOTE: The concept of “facing, gaze, regard, gesture or posture” is sometimes used to determine what a card is “looking at” or contemplating when there is a human figure or other off-card “pointer” present to suggest shifting one’s attention to external conditions.

But with decks like the Tarot de Marseille and the standard playing cards, all of the numbered “pips” are non-representational, making it impossible to use this convention except with the trumps, courts and cartomantic “face-cards.” I’ve created a number of spreads that take advantage of gaze to steer the flow of the narrative in different directions, and I needed a way to make this work when there are no figures or other visual clues on the minor cards.

It’s fairly common in these systems of divination to see the “red” cards (Cups/Hearts and Coins/Diamonds) as favorable “yes” markers, and the transition from left-to-right in linear spreads is usually considered to indicate advancement of the situation. Consequently, I’m proposing that, in these limited circumstances, the appearance of a red pip card in a reading that relies on facing can be interpreted to point toward the right as the path of least resistance (i.e. “water always flows downhill”).

On the other hand, black pips (Swords/Spades and Batons/Clubs) are less-fortunate “no” flags, and a leftward bias in a line spread is sometimes construed to show entanglement in unresolved issues from the past (like a figurative “clogged drain”). I suggest treating black pip cards in a gaze-sensitive spread as being oriented toward the left.

In my metaphysical play-book, red is energizing; it promotes activity, enthusiasm, optimism, wellness and the Right-Hand Path, all things to be encouraged and embraced. Black is de-energizing and invokes passivity, apathy, cynicism, illness and the Left-Hand Path, all things to be discouraged and avoided (more so in Spades than Clubs).

The left-or-right inclination of any face cards in a spread will pave the way for a change in the designated direction regardless of their color. For example, the Queen of Hearts in the pattern below is looking toward the viewer’s left when red normally leans toward the right.

Here is an example “decision-making” spread using my recently-posted “Detours and Dead-Ends” Mid-Course Correction layout. It begins with the bottom-middle position of a face-down 15-card array and proceeds upward from there. There were no black cards in the reading to reverse the rightward flow and only the gaze of the Queen of Hearts near the top to shift it back toward the center. Therefore, it pegged out in the “Go For It!” column, with the advice to “Just do it, you won’t regret it.” Once maximum benefit has been realized, the Jack of Diamonds settles back into the “comfort zone.” The individual cards will fill in the details, but the overall impression is that this could be a promotional flyer for the “Make-A-Wish” foundation.Alternatively, it could be telling the Jack of Diamonds to “take the money and run.”