I love to use clarifiers in my tarot practice. A clarifier is a companion card. It does not replace or correct that cards that have already been drawn, but to sit beside it and offer resonance. If the main card is the headline, the clarifier is the subtext.

Where one card might describe the visible shape of the moment, the clarifier describes the inner tone. It can give some extra information or can offer a different perspective. It does not shout over the first voice but harmonises with it, sometimes softly, sometimes dissonantly, but always in relation.

To understand a clarifier card, imagine the difference between a photograph and the caption beneath it. The photograph captures an image — it shows what is there. The caption provides context: it may point to time, place, or mood, or even undermine the image with irony. On its own, the photo is complete. With the caption, the meaning shifts. A clarifier works in exactly this way. It acknowledges that the first card is enough, but it adds a frame, a filter, or a whisper that subtly changes how it is seen.

The 22 Keys of Small Truths are the archetypal cards in tarot, the Majors. Archetypes speak to pattern rather than detail and therefore very well suitable to be used as clarifiers. They show not what is happening on Tuesday or who might call you next week, but what kind of story you are in. On top of that, the Keys’ poker size makes them physically easy to lay beside larger decks without overwhelming your spread.

Importantly, a clarifier does not always have to agree with the main card. Sometimes it intensifies, sometimes it softens, sometimes it appears to contradict. But contradiction here is not conflict, but it is contrast. Like in paintings, it can add more dimention to the reading. The clarifier says: there is more than one angle to this truth.

Where the main card says, this is what you see, the clarifier says, this is what it means to you now. Where the main card speaks of the surface, the clarifier reveals the soul. That is the clarifier’s gift: to remind us that every truth is layered, and that the most important parts are often the ones spoken quietly.