When you first step into the world of fortune-telling, unfamiliar names — astrology, tarot, saju, numerology, palmistry, face reading, dream reading — pour out all at once, and you cannot tell where to start. At such a time a simple map helps a great deal. Sort the branches by two measures, and the crowded market settles into far clearer streets.
The first measure is “what it takes as input.” On one side are the branches read from birth information: astrology (the sky at your birth moment), saju (your birth year, month, day and hour), numerology (the numbers of your birthday and name). These draw a “map of you” that, once set, never changes for a lifetime. On the other side are the branches you draw in the present moment: like tarot or dice, a “snapshot of today” answering the question of the hour. To these are added, in their own grain, palmistry and face reading — read from the body and the look — and dream reading, read from the landscapes of sleep.
The second measure is “which tradition it grew from.” Branches grown in the West include astrology, which reads the stars; tarot, which asks with cards; and numerology, which works with numbers. Branches grown in the East include saju, which raises eight characters; feng shui, which sees the energy of space; and things like the zodiac animals and the I Ching. The vocabularies differ markedly, yet the wish — “to understand myself and gauge the flow of time” — is remarkably alike.
So where should you start? The answer rests on “what you are seeking now.” If you are curious about a “self-portrait” to keep by you for a long while, the birth-read branches like astrology or saju suit you; if you want to reflect on one question facing you now, tarot suits you. If you simply want to tint your day lightly, a fresh branch like a lucky colour or number is lovely too. There is no “best fortune” — just step through the door your heart is drawn to.
So think of all these branches as several mirrors that reflect the same thing in different languages. Whichever door you enter, at its end lies the same garden: “looking into yourself more clearly.” As always in FortuneLeaf, none of these announces a fixed fate — all are only kindly languages and tools for reflecting on yourself.