March 25, 2023
Without much conscious deliberation, I’ve recently decided that if it’s not fun, I probably don’t want to engage with spiritual study. No dutifully poring over concepts or texts I “should” know. Instead, show me something colorful, something that engages intuition and intellect while flexing the channeling muscle. Intrigue and mystery, immersion in creativity.
This yearning led me to the lively, story-driven tool of tarot. I find tarot enticing partly because, unlike (for example) astrology, there are no charts to plot, no transits and influences, or—let’s face it—degrees of this or that. Math, in other words.
From delving into a couple of books, I gather that at its baseline, tarot is storytelling in aid of divination, utilizing one’s intuition and receptivity to Universe’s messages, complemented by established interpretations. Each card is chockablock with vibrant designs and minutely detailed symbols, and relationships within the picture that seem to clarify themselves the longer one contemplates the totality of the card.
My desire to interact with tarot has gradually upleveled during the two years I’ve been watching Tarot by Janine videos. I felt a kinship with those cards, those images and stories, and their subtle magnetic pull finally drew me to the metaphysical bookstore in downtown Santa Barbara to tactilely explore books and decks.
In her Tarot Level I online workshop at Beyond Mystic Academy, Janine notes that tarot is just the tool, and the Universe does the rest. Universal energy shuffles through and/or channels through the cards, and a reader has to trust that the right card will be flipped up.
“And that’s another big leap. You need a leap of faith to just know, and trust your tools. But the tools aren’t really the magic. The magic is yourself and the Universe working together to channel the answer to something, or get some clarity on something. Tarot is a tool for clarity. It’s fluent. It’s a language, it speaks like a language.” ~ Janine Morigeau
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So, what’s next for me? Read a bit, spend some time with the King of Cups or the Ten of Swords. Toy with a simple layout. Ask a single question. Add to the tarot notebook I started, a recommended activity that I would’ve done without even being told.
That, in fact, distills my sense about this brightly plumed spiritual tool I’ve taken up. Egotistically, perhaps, I feel that I don’t need to be told much about it. It feels familiar, as if I’d opened the door expecting a stranger and there stands my long-lost second cousin from Omaha, beaming with bonhomie.
Since I have the ability to perceive like an artist and tell stories like a writer, surely it follows that I can develop the skill to dance a tango with the tarot.
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I’m perpetually curious, always attempting to fathom the unfathomable. Like, who really is God? What’s really in charge of this universe? What imponderably vast, elemental force created and oversees the entirety of everything that ever was and is and will be?
If life can be likened to an infinite pack of cards, who is the keeper of the cosmic deck?
That sounds like a remarkably fruitful series of questions to place before those magical cards. Tell me a story, Fool. Are you really as evil as you seem, Devil?
Whimsical, creative, a moving target of meaning. If it seems I’ve managed to uncover a truth or two while shuffling and contemplating my shiny deck of cards, that’s just icing on the cake of fun.
Rather than a distraction from the woefulness all around, I view this engagement with self and Universe and this tool of tarot as the most meaningful fun activity I could engage in right now.
And if I ever meet the keeper of the cosmic deck, I’ll dance a jig with it and hoist a tankard in celebration. Rather like the hobbits at a birthday feast, laughing in the sun, joy a palpable overlay in the air.
