I first learnt about tarot reading 27 years ago from a compelling woman who might or might not have been psychic. But you certainly believed everything she said and she took me under her wing. She made the cards come alive for me in a way that all the learned books (by men) that I’d read hadn’t.
I do believe that magic sometimes happens in tarot-reading – when a certain card brings me out in goosepimples or strange coincidences appear in the fall of the cards – but on the whole I look at it as simply a case of noting the effect that the archetypal images have on me and weaving a story from them. We all know more about each other and ourselves than we realise. We just have to tap into that knowledge.
Sometimes I read for other people but I feel grossly under-qualified to do so and find it a huge responsibility. It is however a good way of opening up subjects for discussion. When reading for myself the results are variable. Sometimes the cards are meaningless, sometimes they’re only wish-fulfilment, and just occasionally they’re extraordinary.
This was one of those times.
The reading
My intention and the random card
I held the cards in my hand and pondered my intention for the reading. I wanted hope, I decided and clarity about something that had been plaguing me for several months. Then as I shuffled the pack this card fell out, and Cheryl, my teacher, always said that you should pay attention to these random cards.
It’s a lovely one, isn’t it. At XIX (19) it’s near the end of the cycle of the Major Arcana, the 22 cards that deal with our soul’s journey. I took it to be a good omen because it means happiness, being reborn, seeing the world with the freshness and joy of a child. It doesn’t mean that you’ve finally got the answers to life, the universe and everything. It just means that you’re on the right track at the moment.
Thank god for that, I
thought.
The spread
Then I laid the cards out in my favourite ‘spread’ (arrangement) – five cards, with the first two representing the past, the third and centre card the here and now and the final two the future near or far (timing is not a forte of tarot reading, any more than it is of weather forecasting). You can use any spread you like so long as you’re clear in your mind as to what the positions mean.
Cards 1 and 2
These were the first two cards.
Oh dear, oh dear. I didn’t have any secrets, did I, from the powers that be (the powers that control the fall of the cards).
‘Anonymous’ commented
on my previous post that it must be difficult for me to imagine a new life when I
was happy with the old one. Well, sort of. Frog and I knew we wanted to be
together but we both had ‘issues’ and they clashed, and for years we had terrible
fights. By the time he died we’d reached stalemate and I knew his death was my
chance to finally sort myself out – in my own time, in my own way, however
messy the process.
So that’s what I’ve
been doing for the last three and a half years – without much reward I was
beginning to think. Why didn’t I look for a close male companion, or CMC as I
put it in my journal? (Not husband. One was enough. You can only be married
once.) Having a CMC might alleviate my grief for Frog and enable me to deal
further with my issues. How nice it would be to fall in love again, I thought.
I deserved it. Surely it was time.
But
it wasn’t happening and I was getting more and more stressed about the whole
thing.
And wasn’t this just what the cards were saying? Neither of the couples is actually together. Neither is kissing. There’s a gap between them. There’s indecision, lack of confidence. Well, that’s how they appeared to me anyway.
I was going down a
blind alley, the cards said, and I knew they were right.
Card 3
I laid out card
number three, the one concerned with the here and now.
How interesting that the card showed a female person. She had to be me, looking rather severe.
The 56 Minor Arcana, like ordinary playing cards, come in four suits with four court cards in each
suit – princess, queen, prince, king. The suit of Swords, as here, represents
the mind – the intellectual side of life, thoughts.
I was brought up to
rely on the mind but it wasn’t working for me any more, if it ever had. It was
my soul that had got me through the years since Frog’s death but my mind kept
scoffing. It was horrible. It was my mind that had come up with this crazy idea
about a CMC and worn me out with it.
My mind needed to
know its place, said the card. We also had body, emotions and spirit (as in the
other three tarot suits – and according to Jung). I needed to remember that I
was only a princess and not yet a queen. I didn’t know everything. How comforting
that was.
Card 4
This was card number
four, from the suit of Pentacles, representing the body and the physical world –
money, houses and security – and this card showed lots of activity in that area.
How apt, I thought. That was also me over the last few years: clearing Frog’s mountains of stuff, having work done to the house in case I wanted to downsize, taking on the myriad practical jobs that Frog did, getting used to the scariness of managing alone, trying to stay healthy while staggering between sleepless nights.
That activity wasn’t
finished yet, said the card. There was still more to do. That’s what I needed
to focus on – not romantic dreams.
OK, I could cope with
that. It was quite a relief, actually.
Card 5
This was the final card.
Put simply, this beautiful card means hope, which was extraordinary given that hope was exactly what I’d asked for before doing the reading. It means following your star. It means that you are a star. At number 17 in the Major Arcana it’s near the end of the spiritual cycle, like The Sun, and both are celestial bodies.
The card told me to write, as that is where I
feel most me, where I touch my star.
It gave me permission to believe in a higher world.
It answered everything, as did the whole spread. There was a pattern. We are connected. All is well.
Tarot probably dates back to medieval times but the best-known traditional pack is the Rider-Waite one of 1909. Modern tarot packs, and there are many of them, are easier to read because they rely less on symbols and more on pictures. I use the Cosmic Tarot (of 1988) because that was the one Cheryl used. Thanks to the artist Norbert Lősche and the publisher (of my edition) F X Schmid. There are other later publishers.
