The two's in the Tarot indicate duality, polarity, ambivalence, weighing up of options. The context of those feelings and actions will be decided by the suit of the tarot cards and their location within whatever spread or layout is being used.

Tarot readings, in a way, are a kind of map - both a map reading and map making. It's a dynamic interplay.

Sometimes I like to set out the tarot cards in a circle - as a structure for a reading, much like the mandala of an astrology chart; and also as a circle in itself, as a place of stillness, poise and protection, a place of grounding.

I can make a ritual of that.

The pause before entering the circle.

The circle is a place of containment and inclusion, a place of wholeness.

In the Runic tarot the Imbolc card number 12 shows a regal figure, well poised and balanced, serious and yet almost whimsical, holding a scepter and Celtic Cross in his left hand. In his right he holds a knotted curl.

On his left shoulder sits a sphinx, the tail of which also curls and twirls like a Celtic spiral.

It's a visually appealing tarot card.

In the Runic Tarot by Caroline Smith and John Astrop, the suits of the Minor Arcana are re-labeled using the metaphor of seasons. Thus there are in this tarot card set Imbolc, for the Spring season; Beltane for summer; Lufthansa, for autumn, and Samhuin for winter.

It's an elegant, practical, quietly sympathetic way of presenting both the calendar year and the seasons of our lives.

Today I am looking at Imbolc, card nine, which in this tarot deck refers to the first week of April and is subtitled, 'activity'.

It shows two peasants working in the fields, more symbolically than photographically; there's a rhythm here, looking at this card, the swing of shovel and rake. It can mean a labour of love; when we feel disaffected, then it will mirror that and we'll claim we're being overworked and unacknowledged. It's a place, when this tarot card is reversed, of drudgery and drone-like reticence.

So what's at work in this tarot card?

I love collecting sets of tarot cards and other oracles.

Not to put them aside but as a kind of working mosaic.

Tarot card readings are for me very much a story about our lives and a place where we can invite transformation into our lives.

So it's always interesting to see what a new tarot or card deck might bring in insights to those questions which concern us all - relationships, purpose, meaning, direction, finances and so on.