The Hook

I believe that in every tarot spread there is a 'HOOK' card. Just as most songs have a hook, whether it be the chorus, a guitar or piano riff, a few meaningful words in the song, and so on. No matter what it is there should be something in the song that catches your attention and makes you sit up and take notice.

A tarot spread is like a song and within the spread there lies a hook. Something that makes you sit up and take notice and that invariably will draw the entire spread together into a cohesive whole, or story if you like. But then most songs are stories, or tell a story of some type so I view the two (story and song) as being very similar.

Many times, but not always, the Hook card in a spread will be the first card laid out in that particular spread. We can also consider this Hook card as being part of the chorus in our song (spread) and it will continue to keep popping up and being heard from over and over. Or put another way the Hook card will influence, and/or it should be integrated with most, if not all of the other cards in a spread to one degree or another.

Now it's a fact that most tarot readers have a tough time with the Royals, Face cards, or the 'Court Cards' as they are usually referred to. Why? Because the imagery on the cards in most tarot decks isn't that revealing as per what the card might mean.

There is normally just a person on the Court card with a few tidbits thrown in. So it's necessary to always go back and check the meanings for these cards using whatever source material you have confidence in and it becomes just a matter of memorizing the meanings for these cards by repeatedly checking their meanings in your source material.

How many times have you went through the meanings for any card, but especially the court cards until you found one you liked and which you thought pertained best in the spread, and the other cards that came up in the spread you were trying to read?

Is this bad? Are you picking and choosing and trying to come up with the best possible meaning for the card, or the worse possible meaning?

Or are you looking and finding your ... 'Hook'.

Try picking and using one of the following meanings/phrases for the Page of Cups. Feel free to use your own meanings/phrases. The ones below came from Mary Greer's book 'Tarot for Yourself'.

Page of Cups
Suit Element: Water
Page Rank Element: Earth

Meanings/Phrases Upright
1.) Open to love and new relationships
2.) Willing to take risks with love
3.) Brings messages from your dreams and intuition
4.) Emotionally dependent
5.) In/of service to others

Meanings/Phrases Reversed
1.) Resists love
2.) Fears vulnerability
3.) Loss of innocence and trust
4.) Boy or girl crazy
5.) Over-sensitive
6.) Seductive, fawning, flatterer, foppish (pick one or more)
7.) Escapist
8.) Either to romantic or unromantic
9.) Callous or unfeeling
10.) Dreams and intuition ignored or proven false
11.) Withdrawn into fantasies
12.) Easily swayed or influenced
13.) Pining away, 'Dear John/Joan' letters
14.) Puberty rituals
15.) Cancellations of invitations or social engagements

Quite a list hey what? Did you pick up a meaning/phrase for your 'Hook'. If not that's okay since you don't have a spread with the Page of Cups laying in front of you. So...

Take the Page of Cups out of whichever deck you choose and place it in the number one (#1) position of the whatever spread you choose. Shuffle and cut your deck and finish laying out the cards for the spread.

Look it over. Study it. Contemplate the layout paying close attention to the Page of Cups and how it might integrate with the other cards.

Now go back to the meanings/phrases above and select one for your 'Hook'. But be aware that there may be more than one 'Hook' card in a spread. That's up to you to determine. See how your reading goes from this point on remembering to integrate the 'Hook' card if, and when necessary with/to the other cards.

Let your 'Hook' card or cards be your chorus, and the layout (spread) be your song.

Below is a layout you might like to try using a simple Three Card spread. Use whatever position meanings you like, or go with Past, Present, and Future.

(Past)	(Present)	(Future)
Page of Cups	Queen of Wands	8 of Pentacles

See: The Trigger
See: Visual Imagery Reading
See: Tarot Card Worksheet

Don S.