As I had mentioned previously, tarot cards fascinate me. Not as in a doorway to contact people beyond this mortal coil. (Though if Mr. Rogers wants to pop in and have a cup of tea and chat, I am totally fine with that). And not in a tell me the future sort of thing. I just don’t think I am wired that way. I DO think there are people who are more channeled into those things, but I don’t think I am. (and yes, I would like to have a reading from someone who I do think is in touch with those elements of our world) To me, tarot is more a way to think outside the box, get outside of my own head and see things from a different perspective.
But they overwhelm me. Your basic deck has 78 cards. 22 in the major arcana and then 14 more cards per sign. And each one has a meaning or a reading or a thought attached to it. And they aren’t always what you think they might me. Death card… not the worst one in the deck, not the sign of immediate departure from this mortal plain. I would read on occasion and then put them away, my little gifts set two inch by two inch set of cards.
Being a librarian, I started ILL other books from our sister libraries on Tarot. Some were dry and even more confusing but I found one by Melissa Cynova. This kitchen table tarot broke it down in simple, gather around and have a chat terms. There was so much good advice in there but what really hit home for me was that you have to learn your cards and get comfortable with your cards. And one of the ways to do this was to do a card a day reading and write your results in a notebook. I started that.
I learn more about each card and then write a note down by it, I try to really think about what I feel when I look at the card and hold it in my head. Today I got the ten of swords. Eek. So it is a card of betrayal and back stabbing. It is also the end of the line, bottom of the barrel. There is no light in this card. But Melissa also said something that stuck with me when I read about it. That you are at the bottom and that is a good thing. Sort of like when I used to ask my kid about his grades, “sort of hard to fall off the floor, Mom”. And then she also made a good point of if you are on the floor… at the lowest of the low, it is ok to hang out there and reset and rest. That made such good sense to me. We are frequently told to pull up our boot straps, brush it off or rub some dirt on it and get back in the game. But isn’t that the best place to just reset? To say, ok onward and upward but maybe tomorrow.
I liken learning the cards to learning to read. You don’t start reading looking at a word and just knowing all there is about it, pronunciation, definition, part of speech, etc. No you start with the letters and learn them and then string them into words and learn those. The cards are the same way to me, I will learn them slowly, make friends with them (get less intimated) and then be able to better use them to help me out of my mental box.
kkdonk 