Are There Specific Tarot Cards That Indicate Orientation?

One topic that sometimes comes up in our many conversations about how we interpret tarot is how sexual orientation shows up in the cards. I’ve written and spoken about this a few times, maybe most notably in my Answers to Your Questions About Tarot series.

Recently I taught a class on YouTube about the Suit of Cups. It was interesting that a few of the Cups cards garnered comments and questions around the possibility of signifying homosexuality.

I have always resisted the idea that there might be specific cards that speak about gay people or gay issues. Any of the seventy-eight cards might speak of gay people, just as any of the seventy-eight cards might speak of straight people.

Since the suit of Cups, related to Water, is all about feelings, relationships, romance, and emotion, it makes sense that any discussion of this suit would encompass relationships. Yet, never have I been in a tarot class where someone says that a particular card will always be interpreted as a heterosexual person. I am not sure why we would consider that there would or could be such a card to indicate a member of the LBGTQI community.

Is traditional tarot heteronormative? It certainly could be considered that way, since many cards show heterosexual couples, and because the societies of which tarot was borne were themselves heteronormative. There are now many tarot decks that depict same-sex couples as a remedy to this. Yet, we could easily use a deck with same-sex depictions to read for heterosexual people, just as we can use a deck with opposite-sex couples to read for gay people.

When I first became a professional tarot reader my colleagues and I had a strong unfortunate incentive to be able to see in a reading when someone was gay. Back then, the expected life trajectory of a gay person was different than that of a straight person. If the Ten of Cups came up for someone’s unmarried son, suggesting that the son would one day be married with children could send a client into peals of sarcastic laughter. “My son is gay, so that will never happen. You aren’t a very good psychic, are you?”  

A reminder that love is love and love makes a family was usually enough to win back the reading. Yet, the 2015 Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges opened the path for anyone’s kids to one day be married and be parents. This made a real difference in the language we could comfortably use at the tarot table. It also made it less important to try to use the cards, or intuition, to understand the sexuality of a client or their family members.

Tarot readers often end up helping people explore their identity or orientation and helping family members find a way to accept or support that exploration. However, none of those sorts of tasks require a specific card to reveal the things that people must always figure out for themselves.

One card that came up in conversation during my Cups class was the Knight of Cups. Several students authoritatively stated that this card could represent a gay man. Of course, it can. And so can any other card in the deck. The Knight of Cups can be a man who is in touch with his feelings. But, suggesting that a male in touch with his feelings is likely to be gay buys into a misandrist culture of toxic masculinity that is best left without oxygen.

There are any number of opportunities to discuss sexuality, gender, identity and relationships at the tarot table. If we understand the nuances of all the cards, and are intuitive in our approach, we can do a good job for any client in any situation. And, we can do this without trying to force an individual card to inform us of a person’s orientation.

And, to whichever ill-informed tarot teacher is spreading the rumor that there are specific cards that indicate sexual orientation, last century called. You know what they said? Even they want you to update your practices to reflect reality rather than you own outdated views. Tarot helps us evolve.

Find Yourself with Divination

This is a cross-post from my Tarot Trends Personal Blog.

Who are you, at your core?

This is a topic I often speak about, and write about, because it comes up so often in readings.

One of the reason that divination is so helpful is that divination is a way to help us discover our true identity – our core.

Sometimes we get stuck trying to be the person other people want us to be.

Sometimes we get stuck trying to become the person we think we should be.

Sometimes our self-perception is marred by low self-esteem or over-inflated ego.

Tarot, astrology and numerology are ways for us to look into a cosmic mirror, and discover things that are true about the self.

The more we are able to understand the core self, the more at peace we will be.

There are some people who misuse tools of divination, like tarot. They use the tool only to make predictions in an effort to assuage anxiety about the future. They never use the cards, nor any psychic tool, to actually question their own behaviors and discover more about the self.

The irony is, this very practice works to dispel anxiety, because once we feel solid in who we are, it is very hard to feel anxious about anything. Anxiety is most often born of a misunderstanding of self.

The significator card in a tarot spread is helpful in discerning “Who am I at the present moment?” Significator cards that we chose to represent ourselves help us discern “Who am I at core?”

If you want to learn about yourself, learn about your birth number, your sun, moon and rising sun, and the tarot cards associated with them.

This information should paint a clear picture of your motivations, your path and your sense of self.

There are those who say that we should not read tarot, or use other tools, for ourselves. They people may think we will come from the perspective of the anxious person using tarot to relieve her fear of the future.

But when we use our tools to understand who we are, we become strong, self-aware and healed.

I will be teaching a webinar on self-reading on July 24. Join us!

Tarot and the Search for Identity: Five Ways Tarot Can Help You Discover Yourself

Who are you? I mean, really - who are you?

Our search for personal identity is as ancient as it is illusive.

The computer age has perhaps made matters worse. Each social network asks us to profile ourselves; to describe the essence of our being in four hundred characters or less. Many of us have different profiles for each hobby, professional goal and personal achievement. We become fragmented. Who am I as a drummer, a dancer, a tarotist, a naturist, a writer and a mother? How should my Facebook profile be different from my profile on LinkedIn?

As we age, our sense of identity changes. As children, our identity is formed by family. As young adults, we strive to create an identity separate from family. We want to be unique individuals. When we partner, we become part of a "we" instead of a singular identity.

Is there something at the core of each one of us that remains constant? Is there something that makes each of us unique?

So often in professional tarot reading I see that my client is struggling to understand and express his or her identity.

As it turns out, tarot can not only identify the problem, but also help us find the solution.

Mary K. Greer's recent book, Who are You in the Tarot, offers many ways to use tarot to help understand the biggest mystery of all - your own identity. More and more, tarot is being used as a tool of self-understanding and self-development.

I teach a webinar entitled Personal Tarot -Reading for Yourself that not only teaches good self-reading practices, but also ways of finding tarot cards that are connected to the self, and therefore defining of the identity.

In a quickly changing world, it is important for us to feel strong in our own core identity. Here are some easy ways tarot can help us do that.

1. Discover your "Native Significator." Using gender, age and astrology, discover your "native" significator. This will be one of the sixteen Court Cards. Simply, if you are young you may be a Page or a Knight. If you are an adult woman you may be a Queen, adult men may be Kings. If you are born under a Water sign, your significator will be of the Cups Court. If you are born under a Fire sign, it will be of the Wands Court. Air signs are of the Swords Court. Earth signs are of the Pentacles Court. Once you have identified your native significator, look up information about this card, and find ways in which it defines and describes you. How do you feel about this card? Does it feel like a comfortable fit, or does it describe aspects of yourself you would like to change? 
    
2. Find your "Birth Card." One of the first nine numbered cards of the Major Arcana is your Birth Card. Find it by adding all of the digits in your full birthdate together. You will come up with a two digit number. Add those two digits together until you come up with a single digit. Find the Major Arcana card that corresponds with that digit. If you are unfamiliar with the card, look up information about it. How does this card describe you? What positive and negative traits does this card show you about yourself? 
    
3. Find your "Affinity Cards." No matter your level of tarot knowledge and understanding, you will always find cards that attract you. Look through the deck and pick out the cards you love the most. You may be drawn by the image, the colors or simply the feeling you get when you look at the card. Find one, two or three cards for which you feel an absolute affinity. If you need to, look up their meanings. What do these cards say about you? How do they define and describe the best aspects of your identity?
    
4. Find the Cards you Don't Like. Which cards are distasteful to you? Go through the deck and choose one, two or three cards that you don't feel good about. Perhaps you don't like the image, or the colors. Perhaps looking at the card gives you a bad feeling.  If you need to, look up the meanings of the cards you have chosen. What do these cards say about you? How do these cards depict parts of your experiences, personality and identity?
    
5. Create and Perform an Identity Tarot Reading. You may dialogue with the cards by asking questions, shuffling and pulling cards to answer the questions. Or you may create a tarot spread, with each position asking a question about your identity. Questions can be as simple as "Who am I?" or "What are my greatest strengths?" Questions can be spiritual, such as "What is my soul's purpose in this lifetime?" You can create a Past, Present, Future timeline, describe who you were, who you are now, and who you will be in the future. You can ask questions such as "What aspects of me as a child are still present in me today?"

 As you can see, tarot is a tool that can help you understand yourself. From there, you can use the cards to help you create the positive changes you desire in your life.

Once you understand who you are at core, and once you own your identity, you can go forward to live the life that is perfectly suited for you!

If you enjoyed these exercises, you will certainly enjoy my new book, Tarot Tour Guide!