(This is a tandem, collaborative post: The other half is over on Liz Emrich's blog. My reaction to her full reading is below this original background post, after the double-divider.)
Cards from the Rider-Waite Deck--The "Original" Tarot
I Went Through A Witchy Period And All I Have Left Are These Nine Tarot Decks...
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a college-aged woman with post-Christian feminist friends is in want of a coven.
In 1988, I found one.
After schlumping, disgustedly, out of my dark-ages-throwback childhood Catholic parish for the last time, I didn't exactly feel a spiritual void. But I was still (relatively) open to the notion that there may be Something Out There, somewhere, somehow engaged in the the workings of billions and billions of human lives.
I was certain to the bone that the literal "father" notion of "God" I'd been taught in Catholic school doesn't exist: It makes no sense that an omniscient, omnipotent force would act like an angry drunk half the time, through threats and intimidation and damnings-to-death-eternal. I couldn't believe in the existence of, let alone worship, such a dysfunctional idea.
But might there be, out there, something not-so-personal (and not so deranged and obviously based on human nomadic tribal patriarchs)? Something natural? Something like The Force? A Ben Kenobi-style We-are-all-cosmic-dust-and-subject-to-more-laws-of-nature-than-we-know-of kind of way?
Maybe.
The Zerner-Farber Tarot: Each image is actually a photo of a handwoven tapestry
I'd messed around with Ouija boards in high school (and always felt my friends tugging the little pointer thingy around to "prove" that Unattainable Gorgeous Boy did, in fact, secretly have a crush on one of them--not the most mystical experience). Beyond that, I didn't think much about "spirituality" in my teen years.
By the mid-college, though--fresh out of my first life-shattering breakup (the kind that makes you cry yourself dry and sink into a dark bedroom for months at a time) I found myself looking for reassurance, comfort, some notion that the current, transient pain was part of A Greater Plan. (Which, when it comes right down to it, is sort of what I conceive of as the "religious impulse"--a burning desire for things that hurt to make sense--not to be random, cruel, chance, meaningless.)
I started acquiring books on astrology (real, ephemeris-and-Dalton's-Table-of-Houses-based natal astrology--not mushy newspaper sun-sign stuff). I cast birthcharts for all my friends (hand-drawn and illustrated). Friends recommended other books.
I branched off into reading about Wicca--some beginning texts were Scott Cunningham's Wicca for the Solo Practitioner and Marion Weinstein's Positive Magic. I very much appreciated the underlying philosophy that sees humans as a part of nature, not separate from it; it made sense to me in a visceral way. The balance of masculine and feminine in the traditions was another appeal--the notion that we are, and need, both male and female, yin and yang, in equal proportions, to live life fully.
In the context of exploring Wicca more deeply, I picked up my first Rider-Waite tarot deck and a book on how to read the cards.
And then somehow, I fell in with friends-of-friends who actually had a small, functioning, active coven.
Cards from the Voyager Deck (my second-favorite deck)
The coven's rituals were warm, upbeat, positive, beautiful. While a couple of the girls privately expressed suspicion that a couple of the guys in the coven were hoping for a whole lot more "skyclad" action than we engaged in (i.e., none at all), for the most part I remember the coven members as warm, generous individuals with enough extra love to give that it sloshed all over everybody around them.
Before rituals, we cooked a lot. Food was central to the collective experience. Crescent almond cookies were one of my favorites for moon celebrations. (I suppose I've retained that part of the coven period--cooking for people I love remains one of the greatest pleasures in life to me.)
We worked only at positive magic--nothing even mildly suspect. Prosperity, love, renewal, strength spells. We lit candles and incense; we chanted; we held hands; we drank wine; when we broke the circle and drank a lot more wine. And we danced.
One glorious midsummer midnight (or was it Samhain?) we gathered in a local public park. We celebrated that shortest night by joining hands and playing--first skipping, then jogging, then running in a connected circle, the way small children do--gripping each other's fingers for dear life as we "raised power," spinning clockwise, faster and faster, until we felt it was time to break apart and we let go simultaneously, tumbling backwards onto the cool, damp grass, dizzy and laughing until we were breathless.
That night remains a favorite memory.
The Bosch Tarot (as in Heironymus)
I played with the coven for perhaps a year.
And then, as I inevitably do with all organized spiritual collectives, I lost the motivation that drove me to actually leave the house at specifically appointed times. I don't particularly Do Spiritual Stuff on a schedule.
So my official witchy period was over, but I still spent plenty of hours hunkered down on the beds, laying out cards. Trying to figure out where my life was going. What choices I should be making. What directions I should be seeking. (Even occasionally returning to that perennial High School favorite: "Do X and I have a romantic future?" The answer was generally "No.")
I was never particularly good with the cards. They didn't "speak to me" the way they do with some people. Gleaning meaning from a spread was always a sketchy business, and I read only for myself. But I loved--still do, actually--the imagery, the poetics beneath the surface of each card, the details, the questions each image could raise (new ones every time). The way I could meditate on a card and construct a narrative around it. In that way, I suppose, individual cards did "speak to me."
But full readings? Ouch. Give me a book and a couple of hours and I might stumble into something halfway helpful...but usually not.
The Witches Tarot: My Favorite Deck, By Far
I bring all this up because most of the accoutrements of my Witchy Period are long gone now. The astrology books and Wicca tomes got offloaded to a local occult bookstore many years ago. I still have my cauldron and its various effects (the knife, the pentacle, the cup, a few candle stubs, a bunch of stones), but they're sitting next to the fireplace and haven't been visited in a forever.
The tarot decks also remain with me. They've been my companions through (counting on fingers) 23 years, 12 homes, ~6 serious romantic entanglements, 2 marriages. They're some of my oldest friends.
I have nine decks. Some were whimsical purchases, others more considered. (The Lord of the Rings deck seemed like a good idea...until I realized that keeping straight all of Tolkein's characters was going to be much harder than the old familiar Rider-Waite cast.)
Until last weekend, I hadn't really thought about my decks in years.
I was inspired last weekend to haul the decks out of the closet where they've been resting in a wooden jewelry box, neglected, each deck wrapped in a silk scarf.
The inspiration was talking to our own Liz (Georges) Emrich (thanks for the call, Pretend Farmer (Lauren Dillon)!). Liz is somebody who does have the knack, the insight, the knowledge and the ability to tap into whatever subconscious mechanisms there are that make a good card reader.
- Do I believe tarot cards are some kind of mystical conduit to The Universal Font of Knowledge And Wisdom? Not really. 2020: OH hElL yEs
- Do I still believe in Something Supernatural out there? Not really. 2020: hAHAHAhAHHAhAH
- Do I have any sort of "faith" or "spirituality" at all? Not really. (When pressed to place myself on the atheist--------agnostic spectrum, I come out on the atheist side, at least in terms of a "god" personified with human urges, emotions, and qualities). 2020: To quote Miss Driscoll, SHS: "Define Your Terms." I believe in reality. If reality includes things "rational" people call "spirituality" then I believe in that, I guess.
- Do I believe there's potential value in tarot card reading? Perhaps surprisingly, yes. I do believe in the power of storytelling--of myth, symbols, and imagery--and that's what cards do. They construct a story, from a finite set of elements. Some people are better than others at deciphering the stories and gleaning applicable meaning from them, that's all.
So, I asked Liz if we might do a tag-team post.
- I would haul out my decks for the first time in a forever, do a spread and send a photo of it to her.
- She, with no prompting from me (no specific question to answer, nothing to guide her or noodge her) would read that spread in an OS post, explaining exactly what the cards are telling her--how and why she perceives and concludes what she does from the cards and their relative positions to each other.
I sent her the spread photo Wednesday morning. She sent me back her "preliminary impression" Wednesday afternoon.
I replied, "Holy CRAP, Liz. No wonder you get paid to do this."
Stay tuned for her full reading/teaching/explanation.
Afterwards, I'll chime back in with a few final reflections.
Verbal Reacts
In the spirit of Cartouche's recent post "What was she thinking?" I've summed up my own internal monologue as I read Liz's interpretation of the spread.
Check. Check. Yep. Uh-Huh. Oh, hell yes; you just said a mouthful. Ouch. Have you been reading my diary? (Oh, wait, I don't have a diary)...Well, no, actually that's not quite accurate but I can see where it came from...Yeah...well, that's good to know...Eeeeep...Triple EEEP...[sigh] Yeah, isn't that always the way?
And then I hit this line: "The reason this is such a problem for her is largely because she can’t seem to get her brain to shut up."
Get out of my head, Emrich. You kinda scare me.
What Liz did with that tarot spread is something I could not have done with a thousand intensive hours of additional reading and study. I could look at the same cards in the same array and never, ever piece it all together the way she did.
- Did the reading tell me anything I didn't already know? At some level? Not really.
- Did it rub my nose in some things I'd been trying to deny or ignore or futilely wish into nonexistence? Oh, yes.
- Am I OK with having done this little experiment? Difficult to say. Then again, I'm probably overthinking...
- Would I pay Liz to read my cards?
Whatever her method or approach to reading may be, it's obvious to me as a recovering Witchy-Poo that Liz also has a sizeable intuitive gift (as Bob Eckstein mentioned in comments, she could probably be a very good psychologist. Idle thought: I wonder if any psychologists use the tarot in their practice? Hm. Probably not. I'm being silly. Where was I again? Oh, yeah, that's right; concluding this experiment. Distractedly. Always, always distractedly.)
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The Zerner-Farber Tarot- never seen that one before Verbal, and I must go find it and buy it
On another note, I'm glad you didn't put a vid of The Eagles "Whichy Woman" on here.
I would have had to pick on you then ; )
If anyone's interested, I have a very simple tarot system and sometimes do a workshop (which I was getting the book out for) called Tarot in Ten Minutes. Which I did as an antidote to all the complicated systems out there - and also as an antidote to the use-your-intuition approach (you need something solid on which to base intuition, IMO).
SO waiting for the follow-up.
And BTW – I’m not sure anyone could have written better and more understandably (not to mention efficiently) about the history and causes of their religious/spiritual beliefs (or lack thereof).
Now I've got to run over and check out Liz's reading
--rated--
Julie, you can order it from Amazon. Easy peasy.
MJ--don't think I wasn't TEMPTED to insert the Eagles. :-P
CBerg, I had a MotherPeace deck but found it just a tad bit too gender-unbalanced for my tastes. I found it a good home, though.
Shivaun, no, the sample deck images are all Googled. And I did have my doubts about going forward with this...but I figured, what the hell.
Isn't she just, 'touche?
Lisa, there are probably literally HUNDREDS of decks available--this is but the merest of samples.
Myriad, can you blog about your Ten Minutes system?
Delia, I'd heard that too (that readings for others are much easier than readings for self) but I find readings in general are basically beyond me.
David, thanks for the visit and the compliment. :-)
ELO-Evil Woman: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R20f-TPKjzc
Something is majorly wrong with "people search" OS function...white screen only. I'll catch PF's blog in the morning (hopefully)
If you ever want to try a different type of cards, I went through 3 sets of these in college :)
I don't have time to finish reading...I'll be back but just wanted to say that my view of religion is close to the same as yours.
Can't wait to read Liz's response.
I'll be looking forward to see how it applies, or whatever you care to share.
That said, my wife and I have two or three decks. Way back when, we used to travel around in Europe quite a bit. And we played cards. So it was only natural that when we were thinking, "What would make a good lightweight souvenir to take home from this place?" we settled on playing cards. In a couple of places, it turned out to be more convenient to pick up a tarot deck rather than an ordinary one, and so we have a few stacked up on the back corner of a closet shelf, somewhere. Before anyone asks, "Are they interesting and exotic?" I'll answer, "No, they are not." What we've most often seen with foreign cards, tarot or otherwise, is a perfectly familiar deck marked with non-English text. Oh, well.
Yes, Liz is great and gave me a Tarot card reading that echoes in my mind as it involves a life changing decision my wife and I are addressing–the cards suggested I seriously consider moving.
Genetic, genetic and... genetic!
I will PM a poem to you in a few, to punctuate that conviction.
You are one brave girl! ...one more reason to love you.
--thumbed--
My grandfather gave me a deck when I was in high school. I never asked why he gave them to me and I never used them.
In my 20s I had a friend who did readings and always got a kick from it.
Living by the boardwalk (with many palm and tarot readers) I got sort of interested again.
So my son, at the age of 7 or 8, made some cards. They are very interesting.
I love the storytelling of it. And the reader is telling YOUR story--just like those books that people buy with their kids names in them as the main character. Of course the cards have the added element of synchronicity--and those beautiful pictures! There are so many pretty decks.
Thanks! That was fun. Good luck on your project Verbal!
When you talk about positive spells (the coven thing), is that just like wishing for stuff real hard? I'm serious; I'm really asking. Is it The Secret in a different package? (My roommate and I in college used to seek out those contests in magazines where the prize was a trip to Hawaii, and I remember us specifically telling each other that no one else could possibly want it as much as we did, so we should win. But I'm not sure we thought that our wishing would make it so we would win).
On the tarot thing, I totally get what you're saying about the power of story telling and myths and so on. I think it's all good, too. I think it's true that we all need reminders, quick kicks in pants, pushes, etc., to organize our lives, to set goals, to look at the big picture, to act rather than act. To make choices rather than passively let things happen to us. But I still don't get how the cards fit in. It all felt very subjective to me. And Liz's final reading felt fairly universal. I hope I don't sound to negative--I have been wrong in the most profound ways, so I'm open to new thinking. But I honestly don't get it. I think if it was all done in fun, that would be one thing. But paying people for it suggests something else entirely. Unless it feels more like therapy in some way? Somehow that feels more acceptable to me.
(I left a comment on Liz's blog too. If neither of you feels obliged to explain any of this further, that's perfectly fine with me:)
Rrrrrrrrrated!
I understand that it probably sounds general/universal--so I'd be curious about whether it strongly applies to you and something going on in your life right now, too. (Or ANYBODY who's read it, to tell you the truth--in a thunderbolt-from-Zeus message kind of way).
The coven rituals/wishing really hard/the Secret/praying for G-d to "give" you something you want: I'd have to say fundamentally, yeah. It's all the same. (Only wiccan rituals also include food and dancing and candles and incense and wine! So, you know...BONUS! :-)
There's a reason I didn't continue with that practice; I had no more genuine faith in the ability of ten puny dancing humans to change the course of reality than one puny human praying to G-d, or fifty million when the asteroid's plummeting our way.
I could never consistently do Tarot cards. They were often more accurate than I liked. I mean, I'm sure it was a constructed story and all, but they meshed a little to well with the empath stuff. It was disconcerting.
It’s All in the Cards
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[hugs]
Seriously, seriously, dangerously, scarily spot on.
And HBean-Julie, thanks! Most people pay money for my readings. I did this one as a favor. I've been a professional for a few years now, and I can honestly say most of my clients have been happy.
So, are you going to start doing readings on OS???
Cartouche, I don't like being scary....but if you say it is a good thing, I will trust you on that point.
Suzn, you and me both.
CBerg, I don't think I'm going to make a habit of posting readings. First off, it takes one hell of a person to be as vulnerable and open as Verbal is being, allowing her reading to be a matter of public record. I really have to take a moment here and seriously shout out to Verbal as to how cool she is for allowing her reading to be public. The cards dig up a hell of a lot of stuff and the willingness to allow that to come out is rare. My guess is I couldn't publish many clients' readings even if I wanted to.
The other thing is that while someday I do think i want to write more about reading tarot, I don't think I want to actually use this space for readings. This was a lovely experiment, and I am grateful for it, but I don't think it will become a regular thing on OS for me.
Barbara anne, so many people are scared, and there's never a reason to be....and please don't cry....
Lisa, contact me via PM and we can work out details.
I'd like to see posts from you explaining your philosophy and approach to the cards, will add you to favorites so I don't miss anything
Seems that regardless of the cards, the reader's interpretation is what matters, so you could have a wide variety of answers with the same placement of the same cards. Or am I just crazy?
Thanks to both of you for sharing this!
rated
--rated--
Roy, thanks for stopping by! I will probably do aoms posts like you descibe, dealing with some topics in tarot. I don't think I'll do any more readings, but I'm happy to include more stuff on reading soon.
livemonster, if you really want a reading, contact me off list and we'll make arrangements.
Michael, I agree to a point. Certainly two readers can look at the same spread and draw different things from it. But there are some things that are universal, and I do think that the cards that you pull are no accident.
MaryT, there are tons of misconceptions about tarot, and plenty of people who trade off of those misconceptions. I'm glad to help folks understand more about what tarot is and isn't capable of.
Ann, again, if you want to, contact me off list...Thanks!
Owl-- I think you make an excellent point. The understanding that sometimes we know things by intuition does not require the belief in a divinity is something a lot of people don't get. Reason does not necessary lead to omniscience. Sometimes reason needs a helping hand.
Buffy, Mothership, Silkstone, thanks!
Bob, actually, it's about reading the cards, not reading people. I have never met Verbal, and she didn't tell me anything about herself or what she was doing when I did the reading, and she requested a general reading. There really wasn't an opportunity to "read" Verbal as a person. Make no mistake, there are some readers who do read the person and not the cards, but this is not considered ethical. I fight that tendency in readings. Although it is quite a compliment that you see that ability in me.
bluesurly -- thanks for stopping by! I hate the word "psychic" -- it's so overused that it has lost its meaning and makes people nervous. I have and use intuition to guide my reading, the kind of natural intuition that everyone has, and that is highly developed in people who get the label "psychic." I don't ascribe any special powers to myself, and I don't encourage others to do so either.
This was a great post! (over to Verbal's now....)
I read your 2008 post and it made me think of a time when I was reading at a party a thousand years ago and some guy told me that if I was really good, I wouldn't need a deck as a crutch. Sigh. Guess I've always been a little lazy that way. Ha!
Rrrrrrated!
I took a picture of the spread and sent it to Liz.
All decks look different (see my post for some wide variances); most have the same cards or card-equivalent, but not all. The Voyager deck is one exception I can think of off the top of my head that goes in a whole different direction.
How does it differ from thinking you'll have a good day if you see a red car? I don't know Liz's answer. And mine is, "I really honestly can't tell you how the mechanics of card selection and layout work, beyond random chance. Not a bloody clue. Regardless, this was a scary-accurate reading."
That said, I expected nothing less than the thoughtful, astute and eloquent reading you gave here, Liz. Your place in my personal firmament has long been fixed, and with this post it just shines ever brighter.
WoPaddle, the suits in tarot have a lot of subtlety and nuance to them. A lot of people who only work with the major arcana miss out on the fact that the suited cards can provide so much to a reading.
And yet, thanks!
Lainey, I'm not offended by questions or skepticism. I think healthy minds ask questions and question answers. For a deck to be called a "tarot" deck it will usually have a certain structure, 22 major arcana or "trumps", four suits, running from ace to king with four face cards. Historically speaking, there have been variations on what some cards are called among the trumps, and what order the cards are in, but by and large the basic structure is preserved. There are other decks out there that are used for divination that are not proper tarot decks. Most tarot decks are variations on the Rider Waite pack, developed by Arthur Edward Waite in 1910.
Verbal did lay out the cards after shuffling. There are a number of ways to do spreads, and you can even make up a spread or work without a particular spread if you choose. The cards in the spread create a network of symbols, that work together to stimulate connections and ideas. Are the cards random? Personally, I think you end up getting the cards you need to see. But one could certainly make the case that nearly any cards you pulled up could be made to work and be meaningful in a reading. Whatever the answer (and i do not know for a certainty what the answer is), both would still make the deck useful for finding insight on your life. Does that help Lainey, or am I being too obtuse?
BeesTone, the deck isn't really a crutch so much as a tool. Would anyone really suggest that DaVinci would be a better painter if only he didn't use a brush? And you know, there's always time to have a teacher.... :)
Juli, thanks!
ZBitch, if you want a reading, contact me offline and we can make arrangements.
Lonnie, my dear friend, thanks. I love you too.
Michael, I have done back to back readings on the same question, and what I find is that the very same cards don't come up. But you will see repeating themes, and certain cards DO repeat, sometimes in an uncanny way. I don't think I've ever seen two back to back readings on the same question give opposite, incompatible results. But I am not foolish enough to declare that such things never happen (because after all, I do not know and have not seen everything in this world.)
My read was that Verbal has the opportunity to bring a bounty of love and /or make money to fill a void (or voids) in her life (inverted Page of Swords, Seven of Swords, Eight of Cups) by taking a new life path in conjunction with a man/traditionally masculine pursuit (swords) with a person who might also be an intelligent or powerful friend and/or lover (Emporer, King of Swords). Pursuing this endeavour would not be without guilt, but in the end ushers in a new beginning (Fool and Wheel of Fortune).
Verbal, what are you up to??!!
Liz, of course, yours is a much better, more indepth reading -- I want a reading, too! :)