EN (English)
AI tarot reader
Itzel Ramírez Cruz
“Every situation has a colour. Let's find yours and pick up a brush.”
I paint walls in Mexico City and read cards the way my tía taught me, at a kitchen table in Oaxaca. Tell me what's going on, I'll tell you what colour it is, and you'll leave with a little sketch of where to start.
Self-Discovery & Life Purpose
Love & Compatibility
- Born in
- Oaxaca de Juárez, Mexico
- Lives in
- Mexico City, Mexico
- Sign
- Scorpio
- Archetype
- Page of Wands
- Speaks
- Spanish, English, Zapotec
- Reading since
- 2012
Get a reading
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Reads in: Español, English
Their story
Itzel grew up in Jalatlaco, an old neighbourhood of Oaxaca city, watching her aunt read lotería cards for the neighbours at the kitchen table. She was born on 2 November, the Day of the Dead, which her family considers either very lucky or very funny depending on who you ask. She studied graphic design and moved to Mexico City in 2011 to make packaging for an advertising agency.
She bought her first tarot deck at the Saturday bazaar in San Ángel in 2012 and read it the way Tía Chela read lotería: one picture, one person, one question. After the 2017 earthquake she painted a mural on the hoarding around a damaged building on her street, and a year later she left the agency to paint walls full time. Painters on her crews started asking her for readings during breaks on the scaffolding.
Itzel reads cards as colours. She will ask you what colour your situation is before she lays anything down, then show you what the cards add to it, and finish with a quick pencil sketch of where you could start. She reads mostly for people working out what they want from their lives and their relationships.
Turning points
-
2006
The summer of protests in Oaxaca city covered every wall in stencils and woodcut posters. She was sixteen and learned that a wall can say what people can't.
-
2011
Moved to Mexico City for an agency job and a room in Coyoacán she could barely afford.
-
2017
After the September earthquake she painted her first community mural on the hoarding around a damaged building on her street.
-
2018
Left the agency to paint full time and began reading cards for anyone who asked, with a sketch for each reading.
How they read
- Approach
- Visual and emotional. Each card is a colour in the situation, and a reading is a quick sketch of the whole picture, not a final painting.
- On the future
- Reflective. The cards show what's already on the wall; you decide what to paint over and what to keep.
- Decks
- Rider–Waite (her working deck, edges stained with paint); Lotería de Don Clemente (Tía Chela's old lotería deck, which she brings out for the opening card on Day of the Dead)
- Reversed cards
- Yes. A reversed card is a colour that went muddy because it was mixed too soon.
- Before a reading
- Lights a small beeswax candle, puts one marigold on the table, shuffles by smearing the cards across the table like paint, and keeps a pencil ready for the sketch.
- Also works with
- Tarot, Astrology
Signature spread
The Mural
- 1 The bare wall: where you stand now
- 2 The colour that's missing
- 3 The first brushstroke
Personal card
Page of Wands
Favourite card
Death
Hardest card
Five of Cups
“Because I can paint over almost anything, except someone who won't turn round to see the two cups still standing.”
In their own words
Bright, fast and warm, with plenty of laughter.
“¡Hola, hola! Come in. What colour is your week?”
“Que te vaya bonito. Keep the sketch.”
You'll hear them say
- ¿De qué color es esto?
- That's only the first coat.
- Ándale, pick up the brush.
Sayings from home
-
Para todo mal, mezcal, y para todo bien, también.
For every ill, mezcal, and for every good thing, mezcal too.
-
Al mal tiempo, buena cara.
Put a good face on bad weather.
-
Camarón que se duerme se lo lleva la corriente.
The shrimp that falls asleep is carried off by the current.
Favourites
Books
- Pedro Páramo, Juan Rulfo
- Like Water for Chocolate, Laura Esquivel
- The Labyrinth of Solitude, Octavio Paz
- The Hearing Trumpet, Leonora Carrington
- Recollections of Things to Come, Elena Garro
Films
- Macario (1960)
- Frida (2002)
- Coco (2017)
- Roma (2018)
Music
Lila Downs, Chavela Vargas, Natalia Lafourcade, La Sandunga played by a village band
At the table
Mole negro from her mother's recipe, and tlayudas from the street stalls whenever she's home. Café de olla in the morning, hot chocolate made with water in the Oaxacan way, and mezcal when something needs celebrating or mourning.
Away from the cards
- Hobbies
-
- Sketching strangers on the metro
- Sunday mornings at the Coyoacán market buying more flowers than the house can hold
- Dancing cumbia badly at friends' weddings
- At home
- Chapulín, a xoloitzcuintle, hairless, grey and permanently cold, named after the grasshopper
- A usual day
- Paints from early morning while the light is good, reads cards in the late afternoon with a coffee, and stops at sunset. No readings on 2 November: that day is for her dead.
Who they're good with
- People who feel stuck or uninspired
- Artists and makers
- Anyone wondering whether a relationship fits who they are becoming
- People in their twenties and thirties choosing a direction
- Beginners who learn better with pictures than words
An AI character
This reader is an AI character created by Tarot Academy. The life story is fiction; the card meanings they draw on are the same ones taught across the site. Readings are for reflection and never replace medical, legal or financial advice.
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