Still Life with Tarot

Tarot cards are like potato chips or my mother’s buttermilk biscuits. I can’t have just one.

When I practise daily, I always lay out two cards. I like the tension. I like the dialogue. Two always gives me something to ponder. While one sometimes leaves me with a feeling of - Yes, well, tell me something I don’t already know.

For example, let’s say I turned up the 8 of Wands. The 8 of Wands tells me that I am in constant motion, acting rapidly and decisively in everything I do, compelled forward toward my goals and desires. All of them. And maybe some other folks goals and desires too. With discernment out the window, it can all be for good or for naught.
The 8 of Wands is what I call a descriptive card. If I’m having an 8 of Wands kind of day or week or life, it’s hard to miss. Clients tend to feel the same way about it. What I want to know is where all that forward compulsion is leading and the 8 of Wands tells me almost nothing about that.
Sometimes a second card doesn’t reveal an end as much as it reveals a context.
Take the 2 of Wands. If it appeared I would need to pay some attention to the tension between what I have and what I want. All those 8 of Wands pursuits are changing my usual way of being. While the 8 of Wands shows the cow being well out of the barn, the 2 points out that some part of me wishes I had closed the barn door and may even wonder if it’s too late. The tension between the two cards may explain my apprehensions or warn that my own ambivalence might threaten my success.

Other times a second card can be like a bolt out of the blue.

Replace the 2 of Wands with The Chariot and the whole picture changes. Those eight things I am doing will pay off in the most splendid way, compelling me forward to a place of not only of success, but a triumphal feeling, a new confidence, a clear voice and direction. Hooray.
If I started with The Chariot, I would still want the second card, because I would wonder how. And if the 8 of Wands appeared, I would take a deep sigh and say Oh, by doing everything all at once.

The constant interaction between the cards captivates me. This vital aspect of reading cards can be missed in the memorize or meditate on a card a day approach.

This entry was posted Sunday, November 5th, 2006 at 6:40 pm and is filed under Reading. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.