deck_in_a_dash/docs/reading.md

# Your daily reading, explained

This page describes what actually happens when you get a reading —
no code, no jargon you haven't already agreed to. If you just want to
know "what am I looking at", start here.

## The one-time setup: telling it who you are

Before you can get a personal reading, you tell it a few things about
your birth, once:

- the **date** and **time** you were born, and which time zone that
  clock time was in
- **where** you were born (latitude/longitude)

That's it. This information never changes and is only used to work out
exactly where the planets were, and which zodiac sign was rising, at the
moment you were born — your **natal chart**. Everything else the app
does is compared against that one fixed reference point.

## What happens every day

Each day, the app does two independent things and then combines them:

1. **It looks at the sky right now** and compares it to your natal
   chart from step one — this tells you what's changing today,
   relative to your own personal baseline (not a generic horoscope).
2. **It shuffles a tarot deck**, using today's date as the shuffle
   "seed". This means: if you check your reading three times on the
   same day, you get the exact same 10 cards, in the same order, every
   time — it only changes when the date changes. There's no randomness
   involved beyond that; today's date fully determines today's spread.

## The three parts of a reading

### 1. Your natal chart

A snapshot of the sky at the moment you were born: where the Sun,
Moon, and each planet were, which zodiac sign was rising on the
eastern horizon at that moment (your **Ascendant**), and which of the
12 astrological "houses" each planet falls into as a result. Think of
this as your personal baseline — it doesn't change day to day, and
every other part of the reading is measured against it.

### 2. Today's sky (your "transits")

Where the Sun, Moon, and planets are positioned *today*, plus:

- the current **Moon phase** (New, Waxing Crescent, Full, and so on)
- any **aspects** — meaningful angles formed between where a planet is
  today and where a planet sat in your natal chart. For example, "the
  Sun is opposite your natal Moon today" is one aspect. These are the
  traditional signals astrologers use to say a day is emotionally
  charged, a good day for decisions, a day of tension, etc. Not every
  day has aspects; some days are quiet.

Each planet's position today is also placed into one of *your* 12
houses (not a fresh chart for right now) — that's the standard way
astrologers read "what house is this transit happening in for me".

### 3. Your tarot spread (the Celtic Cross)

A classic 10-card tarot layout, drawn from the 22 Major Arcana cards
(The Fool, The Magician, and so on through The World). Each of the 10
positions asks a different question about your day or situation — for
example, "what covers you right now", "what crosses/challenges you",
"your hopes and fears", "the likely outcome". Every card can land
**upright** or **reversed**, which traditionally shades or inverts its
meaning. The order and meanings of the 10 positions, and the meaning
of each card, come from A. E. Waite's original 1911 description of the
spread — the same source most modern tarot decks trace back to.

## How "big" is today?

Not every day is equally eventful astrologically. A separate,
optional step can look at today's aspects (part 2, above) and works
out an overall **significance level** for the day — Quiet, Notable,
Significant, or Major, shown together with its rank out of those four
(for example "Notable (2/4)") — based on which planets are involved,
how exact the angle is, and whether it touches your Sun or Moon (the
two most personally weighted points in a chart). On a genuinely Major
day, it also calls out the single most important thing happening, as a
hint that it's worth paying closer attention to your tarot spread that
day rather than treating it as routine. Quiet days still get a full
reading — this step only adds a "pay attention today" flag, it never
removes anything.

For each of the handful of events that make up today's score, you also
get a plain sentence about what it classically means and *which area
of your life* it's playing out in — drawn from the house it falls in
(see "Today's sky", above). For example, a tense aspect from Saturn
landing in your 6th house reads as a day for your daily work and
routine to feel a bit stuck, not just "Saturn is doing something."
That wording is condensed from a public-domain 1920 astrology book
(Sepharial's *Transits and Planetary Periods*), the same way the tarot
card meanings are condensed from Waite's 1911 book.

## What a day's reading actually gives you

Put together, one day's reading contains: your natal chart (for
reference), today's sky and how it's speaking to your chart, how
significant today is overall (with a plain-language note on each of the
main events driving that), and your 10-card Celtic Cross spread for the
day. Right now these sit side by side — the astrology tells you *how
eventful* today is and *where* to pay attention, and the tarot spread
gives you the actual guidance to sit with. They don't yet get woven
into a single narrative (e.g. a spread explained *in light of* today's
significant transit) — that combined storytelling is the next piece to
build, not something you get today.

*(This page, like that piece, is still a work in progress — expect it
to grow as the reading itself does.)*

## A worked example

Here's what an actual day's reading looks like end to end, for someone
born 14 March 1988 in Berlin, checking their reading on 5 July 2026.

**Natal chart (excerpt).** Sun in Pisces, Moon in Aquarius, Ascendant in
Sagittarius.

**Today's sky (excerpt).** Moon phase: Waning Gibbous. Several planets
are forming aspects back to the natal chart above — see below for which
ones actually matter.

**How big is today.**

```
Day significance: Major (4/4)
(a major transit today - worth a deeper Celtic Cross look)

Top 5 significant transits:
  1. Transiting Pluto in Aquarius (house 3) Conjunction natal Moon in Aquarius (house 3) (orb 2.9°, score 9.60)
     In matters of communication, siblings, and everyday learning (house 3). Brings deep, often
     hidden transformation - the surfacing or dismantling of something that has outgrown its old form.
  2. Transiting Neptune in Aries (house 5) Sextile natal Moon in Aquarius (house 3) (orb 2.5°, score 9.25)
     In matters of romance, creativity, and children (house 5). Brings a state of chaos and confusion -
     an involved, uncertain condition of affairs, with plots, subtlety, or unseen influences at work.
  3. Transiting Uranus in Gemini (house 7) Trine natal Moon in Aquarius (house 3) (orb 2.0°, score 8.96)
     In matters of partnerships and close relationships (house 7). Brings separations, estrangements,
     sudden dislocations and violent upsets. Success through official or civic channels, and beneficial
     changes or appointments, are possible.
```

In plain terms: today is about as big as this reading gets (Major,
4 out of 4), and the story is squarely about the Moon — a slow-moving
Pluto sitting right on top of it, a chaotic Neptune touching it gently
from the 5th house, and a disruptive-but-possibly-lucky Uranus trine
from the 7th. Communication, romance, and relationships are all
quietly under pressure at once.

**Tarot spread (excerpt).** Drawn independently, using today's date:

- *The Present* — The Emperor, reversed: immaturity or a loss of
  authority, rather than confident structure.
- *The Challenge* — The Devil: force, ravage, an obstacle that isn't
  easily reasoned with.
- *The Near Future* — The World, reversed: stagnation, things staying
  fixed in place rather than resolving.

Read side by side, the astrology and the tarot happen to rhyme here —
both point toward something that wants to shift (Pluto's "hidden
transformation," The Devil's "force") running into something that
feels stuck (a reversed World, an afflicted Moon) — but that's the
reader's own synthesis for now, not something the app does for you (see
above).