**On Interpretation**
No one truly remembers what the cards originally meant.
That, too, is part of their power.
It is not only the draw that introduces luck, but the interpretation. Where one observer sees a rising card as a sign of ascension, another reads it as a warning against it—a signal not to rise, not to act, not to fly.
Meaning does not reside in the card.
It emerges in the encounter.
This divergence is not a flaw in the system. It is the system.
If every card had a fixed and universally agreed meaning, then interpretation itself would become predictable—and therefore exploitable. By allowing meaning to shift between minds, contexts, and moments, the Tarot preserves the same essential quality it was designed to protect: unpredictability.
For this reason, it must be understood that any account of the Tarot—including the one that follows—is not authoritative.
It is merely one path through the cards.
What I offer here is not the meaning of the Tarot of Karnassus.
It is only my own.
