The Pinpointer. A pre-spread for a General Reading.

Lots' of people ask for a general reading, or just ask, "what do the cards say for me?". And sometimes I'd like to have an idea of what will be pertinent for them so as to select a suitable spread.

So I came up with this, which I call the Pinpointer.
It's like a pre-reading, except that you don't 'read' it to the querent. It's purely between you and your deck, relative to the querent. And it doesn't take long. It also goes down well with the sitter whether you, or they, draw the cards.

Shuffle the deck. Cut it into 5 stacks and set them out in a row. Mentally decide what life-area they cover and designate a Suit for four of the stacks, and the Courts for the fifth stack.

It really doesn't matter what 'suit' is used to represent the life-area stacks. They're only a point of reference for the card that is going to be drawn from that stack. So for instance, if the life-areas were identified like this; (You can make them what you like)

1) Batons: Personal interests. Projects, hobbies.
2) Coins: Job - Work. Material necessities (cash).
3) Cups: Home - family - domestic life-style.
4) Swords: Wellbeing - health.
5) Courts: Relationship. One-to-one.

NOTE: Trumps turned up in any area = This area of life will be noticably affected by whatever happens in the 'active' area(s). i.e. spill-over, or back-lash, or by-product etc. Unforseen or unconsidered.
...

Now I draw (or ask the querent to draw) one card from each stack and lay it face up by the stack. If the card Suit (or court card) matches the designations I've decided for the stacks, then I'll know it's an 'active' area. It doesn't matter what rank the card is, ignore it.

~~
Example Pinpointer:

..Card drawn..........Does it match the stack?

1) 9 cups ................(not applicable. Stack = batons)

2) Page Batons .......(not applicable. Stack = coins)

3) Knight Cups -----> Reading will pertain to this area. Card is a Cup.

4) 7 Coins...............(not applicable. Stack=swords)

5) Temperance ----> This area will be affected. Card is a Trump.

In this example all one does now, is choose a suitable spread for 'life-style - domestic - home', bearing in mind that it wll have an unforseen effect in a relationship, or a one-to-one personal contact.
~~~~

I also have a Pinpointer for six stacks. It can easily be adapted to suit whatever areas one wants.

Bee

That sounds really useful Bernice. I will definitely try this.

It reminds me of how I use my Healing with the Fairies oracle to determine placements in a spread.
This method has no set question you just lay out as many cards as you like kind of like how she describes in her booklet.
Basically you shuffle the oracle deck and lay out however many cards you like facedown.
Then you shuffle your Tarot deck and lay out same amount of cards underneath the Oracle cards.
Turn over the oracle cards and that is your "subject". So instead of actually reading with the oracle you are using it to determine what your reading is about.
For example, if you turn over "Parents and children", the Tarot card underneath will relate to parenting and/or children. If you turn over "Stand your ground" then the Tarot card under that will relate to that issue. You may get the Ace of pentacles which could mean "stand your ground in some matter concerning work or money or somesuch. It is quite a lucid way of reading because the tarot card could be saying what you need to do in relation to the oracle card but it can also be the other way round, the oracle card can offer advice concerning the area the tarot card is influencing.

Hope that made sense lol!

Works well for me.

Oracle cards for discovering the 'area(s)' of a general reading. What a good idea!

Now, just got to choose a suitable oracle, one with definitive cards/images. I don't have any fairy decks, but I do have Oracles, so I'll give this a go.

Thanks Ambrosia.

Bee

You're welcome

Yea it doesn't have to be fairies, I don't usually use oracles at all except when I use this method sometimes. I was actually going to get rid of the deck until I thought of this use for it lol!

Any deck with a keyword would be fine. You could even write your own little cards with keywords such as "health" "home" "love" etc or whatever, then just shuffle them and pick a few. You could technically have HEAPS of keywords to pick from and only the most appropriate will be drawn for that time.

I like it cos it's not set in stone, you don't know in advance what "area" your reading will be focusing on, but you are not floundering around trying to relate the card to something out of thin air either you know?

Hope you enjoy it, let me know what you use and how it works out.