How Did This Show Up in the Cards?

How Did This Show Up in the Cards?

Part of the process of reading predictive tarot for yourself is retrospective. Sometimes it feels like the cards try hard to tell us something that we can’t quite see. Then, an event occurs that causes us to say, “Oh! That is what this card has been trying to tell me.”

A great example of that was my mother’s cancer diagnosis and death. In the months before the phone call that changed my life, I had been stalked by the Six of Cups. It was not until my husband and son and I moved to my family homestead to care for my mother, and ultimately inherited that historic house, that I understood the poignant message of the Six of Cups.

One might wonder, then, the value of predictive self-reading if we can’t always see what the prediction is until it has already come to pass. Actually, there is great value there. The Six of Cups served as a beacon for me during that difficult transition. The Six of Cups told me that it was correct to upend my business, my life, and my family to make this out-of-state move to try to help my mother and manage her affairs after her passing. The Six of Cups told me that my mother’s passing was inevitable; one of those things that is ‘written’, rather than something I could have changed. I found immeasurable comfort in that.

We professional readers can often see societal trends in the cards of our clients. I wrote about this last year in a blogpost entitled What Tarot Readers See About the World.

The question is, how did a worldwide pandemic show up in the cards? I am encouraged that, in the past few months, I haven’t seen a slew of doom and gloom, financially or health-wise. Yet, when I think about it, I did see a lot of cancelled trips (Chariot reversed). I did see job changes (Ace of Pentacles reversed, Three of Pentacles reversed). I did tell a lot of people to be careful about their health. I told folks that they would be teaching classes online. I told folks that they would be spending more time with their kids.

In retrospect, the two cards that have been presenting a lot more often than usual are the Hermit and the World. Now, that makes a lot of sense.

Another card I see quite often these days is the Seven of Swords. This card appears to describe those who are cavalier in their approach to social distancing. In some cases the Seven of Swords appears to describe the virus itself as the unseen enemy lurking.

At the beginning of 2020 I did a reading for the year and shared it in a blogpost. The questions I asked were about the thing that was bothering me most at the time; the great polarization and division between Americans.

Now that we are in an unprecedented world event, I thought it would be interesting to go back and look at the cards that appeared, and to see if there was any foreshadowing of this great crisis, or any wisdom we might derive from those cards.

I had asked three questions and pulled three cards in answer to each. The final question was about where we would be at the end of 2020. Would we still be a divided nation? The cards that came up were the Hierophant reversed, the Fool, the Wheel of Fortune Reversed.

Knowing what we now know, these cards take on a new meaning for me. The Hierophant reversed could be about eschewing science and good medical advice, as well as the high price our medical workers are paying in the pandemic. It could also show an end to business-as-usual at the highest levels of government. The Wheel of Fortune reversed could speak of this difficult cycle we have found ourselves in, and the many people who are suffering. The Fool could speak of our naïve ways of handling this crisis. Yet, the Fool also offers the hope of a new beginning, and a new journey at the end of the crisis.

Every tarot reader works in their own way, as does every intuitive. I think for a lot of us it is hard to interpret things that are unthinkable. Now, global pandemics are suddenly a reality that will always stay fixed in our mindset. In the future, when this nightmare is over, if I see the World and the Hermit together repeatedly, I will wonder if another pandemic, or other global event, is on its way.

The hopeful news is that as I continue to read for people, positive things appear in everyone’s cards. I see business, I see relationships, I see weddings, I even see travel. Within the cards of each person it is clear that the world is not ending, it is simply on pause.

Another way that predictive self-reading is helpful is this. Once we are in a situation, we can find wisdom on how it might evolve, and what might happen next.

Of course, the one thing we all want to know is how long this crisis will last. Timing is often one of the hardest things to figure. In this case, when this ends will depend so much on what people do right now. Yet, I still feel compelled to ask the cards some questions.

What do I personally need to know about this pandemic?

Hermit reversed, Ten of Wands reversed, Page of Wands

Well, that’s pretty clear. My job is to continue to do what I am doing. I must continue giving readings and encouraging our community with live broadcasts and online classes.

When will this crisis be over?

Ten of Cups, Six of Cups, Queen of Cups

That is certainly hopeful, and to me suggests a return to some kind of normalcy somewhere between June and October.

These three cards offer the sort of comfort and hope that reminds me how helpful tarot can be.

Sometimes the cards give us a full picture of what to expect. Sometimes the cards give us only clues. I have to trust that in every case what we see is what we need to see.

When we look back, old readings are often able to offer new insight. This is why keeping a record of the cards we pull can be so enlightening. Whether we are looking to the future or the past, tarot helps us understand the now.

These days, we are more in need of understanding than perhaps every before. I have been a tarotist for thirty years. Yet, tarot never ceases to amaze me with its ability to comfort, to inform, and to offer wisdom and insight when we need it most.

What May Be

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It’s May First, and time for the Beltane Tarot Blog Hop. Our wrangler, Karen Sealy, has tasked us with exploring the word “may”, as it relates to tarot.

For me, “may” relates to tarot in three ways.

First, the month of May has some significant tarot associations for me personally. In the US, we celebrate Mother’s Day in May. The very first psychic fair I presented (Christiana’s Psychic and New Age Fair, circa 1996) was held on Mother’s Day. We had a line out the door of the King’s Inn in Putnam, Connecticut. From there, our roving band of readers, healers and vendors traveled throughout Connecticut and Massachusetts for several years.

I’ve also enjoyed reading tarot at various Beltane festivals over the years, and celebrating Beltane with my tarot friends.

The second type of “may” has to do with predictions in tarot readings. Every reader has their own prediction methods. Some readers chose not to make predictions at all. I am a predictive reader, but I recognize that predictions are not the single, nor primary, value of a reading with me.

Sometimes, I can see a story unfolding very clearly, and that story becomes reality, verbatim. Sometimes the story will unfold with minor differences than what I had predicted.

Sometimes, I get the sense that something may or may not happen. Yes, it’s possible, maybe even probable, but’s it’s definitely a “may”, not a “will”.

When that happens, I pull more cards to see what the client could do to push the situation in their favor.

Truly and literally, whenever we make a prediction, no matter how sure it feels, we can only ever say that it is something that MAY occur. Certainty only comes after the event has either happened, or not.

I know a few of my clients wish this were not so. They want the guarantee of a set future. If such a thing were possible, our actions, and our free will, wouldn't matter. 

My third and final “may” is the asking of permission, as in, “May I?”

So often I see cards come up in a reading that give the client permission from the Universe to release something, or pursue something. This can be tremendously empowering.

Often, I think permission to do a needed thing is as helpful, or more,  than a prediction that a thing may happen.

In the merry month of May, our divinatory pursuits are infused with the Beltane energy of fertility, youth and bounty. At this time of year, it is easy to to hopeful for all the wonderful things that may happen.

For me, tarot is always about exploring those possibilities; the things we may do, and the things that may be.

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The Modern Face of Tarot: Predictions, Healing and Divination

The face of tarot is always changing, growing and evolving. Until Eden Gray’s books in the 1960s and 1970s, tarot was thought to be only the domain of occultists and those who possessed some secret mystical knowledge.

Eden Gray suggested that ordinary people could enjoy tarot and find compassion, answers and spirituality within it.

Mary K. Greer carried that torch forward, encouraging us to read for ourselves and find healing in the process.

Without modern tarotists like Gray and Greer tarot would not be what it is today.

Now, there are readers, even professionals, who shy away from “predictive” readings, focusing instead on the more psychological and spiritual interpretations of the cards. There are others who are even uncomfortable with the basic divinatory aspects of tarot reading such as using the cards to check in on situations that cannot possibly be known to the reader by ordinary means.

I believe in the psychological and spiritual aspects of tarot. I believe that a tarot reading that does not include these components is less than what is possible. I believe that tarot helps us tap into our subconscious mind. I believe that tarot can reveal to us the behavioral patterns that no longer serve us, and offer solutions to help us change those patterns.

I also believe that tarot helps us communicate with the higher forces that drive the universe. With tarot we communicate with all that is Spirit. Again, if a reading does not include that sort of wisdom, it is less than what it could be.

But I also know this. As much as we all appreciate the opportunity to heal, understand ourselves better and receive spiritual direction, we all have real needs – anxieties, curiosities, options, heartache – and tarot can help us here as well.

Tarot is a practical tool as well as a mystical one. Tarot can show us our best options and point us in the directions that serve us best. Tarot can help us understand the people around us. Tarot can find ways for us to solve our most mundane problems.

By nature, tarot is a tool of divination, and divination is the process of making the unknowable known.

But what, then, about future predictions? Some readers are more comfortable predicting the future than others. Some readers feel that they can see into the future without question, and present their predictions as solid fact.

Since we all have different views about fate and destiny, we all have different views about our ability to predict the future.

Here’s how future predictions work for me. Some things really do seem to be set in stone. Many other things are totally dependent on the choices we make today. Some aspects about the future are not yet determined, and therefore completely unpredictable. And there are some things we just shouldn’t know.

I have found tarot to be an amazing tool to help me and my clients prepare for what is coming, but I do not believe future predictions are the only or primary use of tarot.

We are constantly discovering new ways that tarot can benefit us. We are constantly able to improve our psychic skills and our understanding of the cards.

As long as the work we do with tarot, either professionally or personally, is helpful and healing, there are no aspects of tarot we need to leave unexplored.

Who know what uses the next generation of tarotists will find for the cards?

What do I know is this. When I approach the cards without limiting what I might do with them, all things are possible.

There is one only limitation I set on myself and on the cards. The information I get and give must be for the highest good of all. Practical solutions, creative options and common sense are some of the greatest gifts we get from tarot. Coping strategies for difficult times are helpful. Dire gloom-and-doom predictions with no options, solutions or spiritual perspective are not.