The day my husband announced he was leaving, two days before Halloween, a pack of Rider Waite tarot cards arrived in the mail. Tarot folk wisdom suggests that instead of seeking out your own cards, you should wait for them to come to you. (Although I don’t think deliveries from Amazon were what anyone had in mind.)
Of course I had ordered the cards myself. When I picked out the pack, I was already predicting my need for them. My husband was on tour in Australia, operating concert lighting for a musician's world tour. Most times his absence didn’t bother me — I knew what I was in for when I married a roadie, and, confession, I often enjoyed my time alone. But disturbing signs were beginning to accumulate. Earlier in the fall, he called to say he wanted to tell me something important, but instead bragged about fighting French men in French bars. When my doctor asked if I wanted to run a full STD packet with my annual exam, I said yes. Before flying out for Australia, my husband turned away from me in bed, claiming jet lag for the first time in our almost four-year relationship. I couldn’t yet see that he was making plans with another woman, but I sensed something about my life that needed knowing. The solution? Tarot cards.
I can admit more than a tiny dose of the obvious here: when faced with an uncertain future, we want to know the future. The occultist Papus, writing in Paris in 1909, suggested that while men use the occult for “resolving all major philosophical problems ... in the case of the women who find their curiosity aroused by Tarot, it is not the latter aspect that draws them, so much as the fact that, with Tarot, you can determine certain laws of chance in a way that renders it suitable for divination.” While part of me bristles at this easy split — men want to know the nature of evil, women the name of their next lover — Papus wasn’t necessarily wrong. Today, American women are more than twice as likely as American men to have their fortunes told. In addition, we're similarly more inclined to believe that fortunes can be told.
As my marriage dissolved, I did what I’ve been trying not to do for twenty-some years, ever since my major league baseball hopes were vaporized by mean words from a lazy infielder on the T-ball field: I started to throw like a girl. When tears, conversation with friends, gallons of wine and herbal tea, two different bags of Hershey’s Halloween assortment, yoga, Desperate Housewives, Xanax, candles, and running failed to bring me any sense of calm, I tried to deal out my future in cards.
The deck came with instructions, and I pulled a Celtic Cross spread, one of the oldest patterns for reading Tarot. I prefer things that come with history: used records, prewar buildings, wedding vows from the Book of Common Prayer. “This crosses you, for good or for evil,” the instructions said, of the second card in the spread, the card that tells what you're up against. My cross came up the Five of Cups, and even though I’d read very little about how to interpret Tarot, I knew it for a bad card. It shows a lonely figure in a black cloak, huddled between spilled goblets, across the river from a ruined castle — a scene so desolate I was not surprised when I looked it up in the deck’s instructions: loss, they suggested, divorce. Later, when I showed the card to a guy friend, an exuberant dude who is more likely to find spiritual solace in the Jim Rome show, even he shuddered and urged me to “put that scary shit away.” Since then, people have told me to read Tarot in fuzzier ways, so the dark cards stand for blocked energy or transformation. Those New Age readings feel weak to me — the cards are dark because sometimes men and women are dark to one another! In that moment, I fell for Tarot because it didn’t offer me empty cheer or false promises. A mass-produced picture based on a 19th-century magician's symbols based on a Romany deck of cards was doing what my husband could not: telling the truth about my future.
Maybe drawing that card was luck, not divination, but Tarot quickly became my favorite painkiller. Maybe Tarot cards are no more than mirrors for whatever desires and fears animate our thinking when we read them. This past summer a psychic called me troubled by love, and I was not impressed. How many women in stable relationships knock on the door of a strange trailer in North Mississippi because a sign says five dollars, fortunes told? When I’m happy, I don’t want to know the future, because what does it really mean to tell the future, other than telling how the places and relationships and routines that gird your life will change?
Yet, one year later, I know both the Tarot deck and the fault-lines of my marriage much better, and I still believe those cards. The Nine of Swords — a woman waking into a sword-filled night — shows an anxious mind. The Fool — an open-hearted innocent walking the edge of a cliff — is a card for starting over. Sometimes, when I’m wrapping the cards in a silk scarf to guard against nosy bad spirits, I glimpse the Five of Cups. These days, the darkness of that image is cut with history. Hello old friend, I want to say, you were right, and I am grateful. I haven’t drawn the Five of Cups again, but I continue to turn the Hermit and the High Priestess, cards of solitude. In the spread of my marriage, I foretold necessary space, and my husband read damaging distance. Maybe because my ex and I often stayed in different time zones, or because joining one’s life with another person’s is an uncertain act, our relationship hinged on faith. My obsession with Tarot might be as simple as replacing one belief with another: when my husband left me, I needed someone new — in this case, a deck filled with wheels and stars and lovers and crawfish — who could have and hold my trust.
Abigail Greenbaum lives, writes, and sometimes shoots cans in Rome. Georgia not Italy.
Photo by Girish Menon, via Shutterstock.com
I received my first set of Tarot cards when I was 14 from a Pagan friend. To this day they are kept in my hand carved wooden box for times when I need guidance, input, or just a different way to look at my situation. I think part of the reason that Tarot can be so healing is that it forces you to trust yourself. Trust your interpretation, trust that you can get through, trust that you're not crazy for thinking that these pieces of paper hold sway in your life!
"I once buried six blue marbles in the creek bed to make the river beyond run dry. 'Here is treasure for you to bury,' Constance used to say to me when I was small, giving me a penny, or a bright ribbon; I had buried all my baby teeth as they came out one by one and perhaps someday they would grow as dragons. All our land was enriched with my treasures buried in it, thickly inhabited just below the surface with my marbles and my teeth and my colored stones, all perhaps turned to jewels by now, held together under the ground in a powerful taut web which never loosened, but held fast to guard us."
@melis
LOVE.
@melis Where in the beautiful world is that from?
@melis WHEN ARE YOU COMING TO NEW YORK SO THAT WE CAN GET MARRIED AND LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER.
@BoBeah Oh you lucky and beauteous bastard, you get to discover Shirley Jackson for the first time. Begin with We Have Always Lived in the Castle, and let your feet carry you on from there.
@BoBeah It's from We Have Always Lived in the Castle, by Shirley Jackson, one of the best books of all time.
@melis I literally just read this book for the first time *today*, so seeing this quote here felt like the tarot gods were sending me a sign! It was so fascinating, any other favorites by Jackson? The only other one I had heard of was Haunting of Hill House.
@melis Raise your hand if your 14 year old self used to make monologues out of the text and perform them to herself in the mirror
@melis YES. Love this book.
@craygirl Try "The Summer People"! "The Lottery" is also excellent if you haven't already read it. Also "The Daemon Lover," and then, I guess, read everything else.
@melis Ooh, "The Lottery" was so good. I will definitely add We Have Always Lived in the Castle to my reading list!
@craygirl The Sundial The Sundial The Sundial! And that story, the one whose title I cannot remember just now, about the fellow with the clean apartment and the woman across the hall, that's the scariest story in the world.
Oh, I just got excited and almost started spouting off about how much I love "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" but then I realized that sometimes, in my head, I mix up Shirley Jackson and Flannery O'Connor, so never mind I guess. Bah!
@craygirl Favorite short stories (other than "The Lottery" because obviously it is awesome) "Flower Garden", "Elizabeth", and "The Tooth". Also "Louisa, Please Come Home" largely for sentimental 'this is the best time I've ever been gently accused of plagiarism' reasons but also because it's good. Novels: "The Bird's Nest": weird but in a hypnotic sort of way, although "We Have Always Lived in the Castle" and "The Haunting of Hill House" are still my favorites.
I've spent years looking for Jackson fans!
@queenofbithynia "Like Mother Used to Make"! I always felt so sorry for poor David.
Er, just for the record I had NOT committed plagiarism, because I had never even heard of the story before. It just happens to coincide with the most terrifying ending possible for a certain kind of 13 year old girl.
@melis Saw your original comment and thought 'must come back and ask what that is from as it is amazing', then forgot. Today I spontaneously went to the book shop and bought We Have Always Lived in the Castle, and it turns out @craygirl beat me to the 'woah, coincidence!'. Holy fuck is that an awesome book.
I have a beautiful deck of cards illustrated by Stephanie Pui-Mun Law. I only do readings for myself, and when I do, it's not to try and divine the future, but rather to see how I *really* feel about a given situation, based on how I interpret the reading. That way, I don't have to wait for the anxiety/stress dreams to tell me. :P It's actually been a pretty useful device.
@D.@twitter I think that's exactly how tarot should be used. I don't believe you get in touch with spirits, I believe you get in touch with your own thoughts- where you often already know the answer to your question.
@D.@twitter In the best class I took in college (Magical and Occult Philosophy FTW) the prof told us that besides divination a common theory on the tarot is that it's a tool to train your intuition. I look at it that way, rather than actually telling em anything about the future it's more about giving you another way to frame your question and thus look at your problems/questions/boys in a new light.
@D.@twitter That's so useful! I wish I had thought to use Tarot for this purpose instead of subjecting friends to out-of-the-blue requests to pick a number out of a range (to which I had secretly assigned decisions) so that I could gauge my own reaction to having no choice in the situation (e.g. "oh rats, I wish X instead"). Thankfully, I have grown out of this. No, I will not say how recently I gave it up.
@D.@twitter I have that deck too and it is so beautiful!
@D.@twitter I was supposed to grow out of it? This is my standard way of deciding what to order at restaurants. Half the time I go to a restaurant with my brother he says "No, I will not pick a hand, just order something" as soon as I sit down.
I mean, he DID say that. Before I outgrew it. Which was a long time ago.
@SomeGayGuy @MilesofMountains Flipping a coin does not require anyone else's participation (or you listening to their judgment). Flip the coin and, before you look at it, think about what you hope it says.
@wharrgarbl Well, that only helps if you're trying to choose between two options. What if there are more? For me, this mainly was an issue when I was scrimping and saving to pay for voice lessons while also not making enough money working at a non-profit in NYC and there was almost always at least a third option of "no, just save the money" (which I almost invariably picked). And there was actually no judgment, either -- because how it worked was that I assigned choices to numbers in my head and then just point-blank asked a friend "pick 1, 2, or 3" usually out of the blue and usually at a distance from the choice itself.
And tee hee, I play up my indecisiveness for laughs -- it really doesn't (and hasn't) been a big deal.
@SomeGayGuy This is why I keep an assortment of gaming dice handy at all times. 20 options? I have a die for that.
@wharrgarbl Oh man, aren't those neat? I used to have a lot more dice around when I played D&D (oh god, I can hear you sniffing to see if I have rank gamer BO through the internet). And I still haven't held a 100-sided die in my hands yet (holding a 50 was cool enough). Man, now I want one.
@wharrgarbl Pssst...1, 2, or 3, wharrgarbl.
@SomeGayGuy Hee. The owner of a comics shop I used to frequent had a d100 about the size of a baseball. He kept it in a display case meant for baseballs behind the counter. Thanks to the miracle of the internet, you can now get them from Amazon for like $5.
3!
@wharrgarbl Done. I will send you a picture of my new Zocchihedron(tm) when I get it in the mail! (now i just need to figure out what color i want....). I almost want to get one and hang it around my neck like a gigantic piece of ice.
@SomeGayGuy If you put it in the center of a gigantic gold chain and wore a fancy hat, you could refer to yourself as the Mayor of Geekington!
@wharrgarbl yusssss. Well it is either the gold chain or mounted on a walking stick. Either way I need a geektacular hat. Suggestions?
@SomeGayGuy Gandalf hat.
@D.@twitter: Stephanie Pui-Mun Law! She is a fantastic artists. I used to see her stuff on Elfwood (was anyone else here on Elfwood? o_O) and I thought her stuff was jaw dropping. When I had ambitions of being a good artist, I would look to her work.
@boysplz You took a philosophy of the occult class in college too? I thought I was the only one! You didn't go to Pitzer did you?
@D.@twitter Nope, but I did go to CMC.
@boysplz high five for the 5Cs!
Oh man, I always want to know the future, whether I'm happy or not! I love spoilers.
Anyone itching for an instant tarot fix, there's The Secret Free Tarot Reading Portal.
@Edith Zimmerman Ugh, that thing totally told me I was gonna get my Fulbright. Guess who didn't get a Fulbright? Obviously all Tarot is bunk.
@Edith Zimmerman Yay! Did you just do a reading on me and learn that I was hoping someone would post a thing like this?
@Edith Zimmerman Okay, I just ran the "Past, Present, and Future" version, and here is what my future holds: Heartache. Hurt. Harsh resolution. Distress. Having been abandoned. Severance. Feeling crippled by the weight of past hurts. The pain of being misunderstood or unfairly judged. Rejection. Estrangement. Fear and isolation. Separation. The pain of a triangle dynamic in relationship or interests. The need for mental control over emotions. Frail health.
WAIT
AM I GOING TO MARRY BALK
@melis DEAD
@Edith Zimmerman oh lawd the Arthurian deck!
@Edith Zimmerman I just did that and it told me I was wonderful and everything was going to be perfect...until the outcome card, which said I would fail because of my flaws and terrible behavior. I'm even moooore confused!
@melis
YOU MAY RELY ON IT
@Edith Zimmerman I got triumph for the future! So I choose to believe it.
@Xaxa For work anyway. For love I get: Daring, impressive young man of action. An impulsive but usually well-meaning person. Heroic, if a little rash. A man who can be wearing and disruptive, but also effective. Being determined, intelligent, and single-minded. Goals taking priority over relationships. A mercenary. Standing up for oneself or others. Bringing matters to a head.
I'll take it.
@Edith Zimmerman Sooooo I may or may not have this in a mobile app. It seemed less scary than buying my own tarot cards.
But, important! Check out this for tarot meanings: http://www.ata-tarot.com/resource/cards/ ... it even manages to make The Tower sound like a positive chance for renewal! I like these interpretations, they are quite thorough and manage to show the opportunity in all the negative cards, which makes me feel better any time I get a negativish card.
@Edith Zimmerman So, I just did mine three times in a row regarding my artistic career, and it keeps giving me similar scarily negative cards for my future. The last one: Ten of Wands - Reversed
Meaning: Being foiled by a perceived shortcut. Being duped. Being distracted by glitter. Succumbing to intrigues. Being led astray. Shirking responsibilities. Shallow, self-serving philosophy.
Basically, it keeps telling me that I am destined to become a douchebag and a failure. I don't usually believe in divination, but it is kinda freaking me out that it keeps giving me the same thing. This means I just have to change my ways, right? Like Scrooge?
@Edith Zimmerman Mine just said that I'm currently materialistic and ostentatious, but this will lead to The World in the future, which means I'll be self-actualized, have an epiphany, and basically reach nirvana. I guess you can buy happiness? Either way, I'm using this as an excuse to go shopping today.
@Edith Zimmerman The Past Present Future reading is alarmingly accurate in terms of Past and Present. Hopefully that bodes well for the future.
I have been obsessed with the idea of Tarot forever, but since I've always heard the warning that you can't get your own cards, I've just been waiting for a deck to somehow come to me, I guess. This rule is really hampering my would-be Tarot reading skills.
I really liked this, thank you for writing it.
@emilylouise Can we start of chain of 'Pinners buying Tarot cards for each other? That will keep the Universe from getting angry, right?
@aproprose I love this idea. I think the universe would, too.
@emilylouise & @aproprose - sounds like an excellent idea to me!
@Amanda Boone@facebook how do we do this, then? Amazon Wishlists?
@emilylouise Oooh, I want the Dali Deck, please.
The only problem is, I want mine to come from a mystical little shop, not like... amazon.com. (Even though they're probably all manufactured by the same people these days, no matter where you get them from, yes?) Am I too idealistic?
@emilylouise More like this? We just need a Nashville Pinner to head down there and get them for us!
@ironhoneybee I'm going to Nashville to visit friends in March, how many should I grab?
@emilylouise I try to get my decks at this awesome magic shop in New Orleans. It's run by this batty (heh) woman that'll tell you all about her priestess if you get her when business is slow. AND her dachshund is named "Christ Almighty". I forget that fact until my yearly visit and then get excited all over again.
@boysplz That is amaaaaaaaaaazing and I want to go to there. Christ Almighty is maybe the best dachshund name ever.
@ironhoneybee Yes that's exactly the kind of place I mean! There is a similar shop called The Vajra about four blocks from my apartment. @The Everpresent Wordsnatcher I would totally do a swap with you (& anyone else, too)!
@boysplz Uggggghhh so New Orleans is my favorite city ever, probably (and very mystical!). I went there with a pack of friends for Mardi Gras/my birthday last year, and heavily hinted about how I REALLY WANTED a deck of tarot cards, and none of my friends bought me any. I guess that just means I'll have to go back this year and try again.
@boysplz I live in nola! Going tomorrow when I get paid! Thank youuuu
@ironhoneybee Hi, Nashville 'pinner here! Whatchu need?
@emilylouise yes! i've been waiting forEVER but am so ready to buy my own after reading this! to which, i've wanted a francis bacon tarot deck but have never seen one, which, like, whaaa? that would be AWESOME.
@kaaaaaaatie-did Enjoy! I got a pack with paintings of handsome men on them (Corto Maltese Deck)when I was in town last month but something happened on the drive back and they all melded together. Now I have to/get to go back again.
@don't lol me Agreed about the Francis Bacon idea, which got me searching. And, if you guys want to go down a very deep tarot card rabbit hole, Here.
OK gang - we all seem to want to do something about exchanging cards from cool places where we live. So I'm going out on a limb and setting up a gmail account for this. If you're interested, send me an email at tarotcardswap@gmail.com and I'll try to help facilitate. Please include your Hairpin account so I can at least verify a bit.
@Amanda Boone@facebook I'm in!
@emilylouise I'm not sure if that ever was a thing...the not buying your own deck rule. I looked into it a few times and everything I read on the interwebs said that it is a myth among novices, and really it doesn't matter. You can totally get your own deck!
@emilylouise Like the shop in "The Craft" where the sexy yet maternal witch lady with the
unplaceable foreign accent works?
I am very fond of my Tarot deck--I have a set which uses Welsh mythology for the Major Arcana. I find it useful for pondering out problems and possibilities.
@DH@twitter Oooh! I was named for a Welsh myth...that would be very cool to use!
@Ophelia
It's the Llewellyn Tarot (made by the eponymous company). Very beautiful watercolor illustrations by Anna-Marie Ferguson.
@DH@twitter That is totally gorgeous!
<3 this. And oof you pulled that vicious Ten of Swords - I did a relationship reading for a friend recently who just looked at that card and was like, "Um? That doesn't look good. Jolie?" I told her the 9 of Swords is even more terrifying. But not as terrifying as pulling The Tower.
People ask me often if I "really believe in it." And usually what I tell them is that I believe in its ability to help me focus, provide a framework for thinking about what's on my mind and to give voice to the things that I already know/am thinking but can't quite get to on my own.
@Jolie Kerr I pulled the Tower the other day when I was asking the cards about the job interview I just had. I literally made the D: face.
@Anji
I was advised never to pull my tower during job interviews.
@atipofthehat Solid advice.
@Jolie Kerr What's wrong with the tower?! I had my cards read a a friend's baby shower and it came up.
But I felt like it was the worst (as in out of tune with my life) reading I've had. At the end, when I really had nothing to validate what he was telling me, he was basically like "well, you're pretty logical and masculine. You're probably just not in tune with your spiritual side."
@Jolie Kerr That's how I was always trying to explain it to my skeptical (now ex-)boyfriend. It wasn't about communing with "the spirits." It was just a way to focus and look at things from a new perspective.
And mostly, my Tarot readings tell me everything I already know. It's just nice to see it spelled out.
@Jolie Kerr I think the great thing about Tarot is that it's always, ultimately, good news. If something seems terrifying, it's just because the universe is asking you to grow. And even if you get Death, it's probably time to let something die and be reborn. That's how I now see it, anyway.
@jules omg, I love all of this! all of you!
My heart just broke a little.
I don't believe in a single readable future but I do believe a randomized shift in perspective is good for tackling a thorny problem. So I like the cards, but I don't believe in any superpowers (extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof).
What I'm saying is, just go buy yourself some cards if you want 'em. There are no gremlins who will fuck you over for the audacity of buying something that's for sale.
@cheeseandcrackers
Yeah, I bought my Tarot deck and my oracle decks too. I never heard anything like the "you shouldn't buy your own!" until after the fact. Doesn't seem to affect how I relate to the cards. Seems like buying the deck you want yourself is taking things into your own hands, right? Which is sort of the point.
@DH@twitter
You should never touch a tarot deck with Horrible Hands.
@atipofthehat That's where Hinds Tarot Cream comes in!
@cheeseandcrackers: You also shouldn't pour your own sake, but f it, I want some sake!
My Ace of Cups tattoo and I are kind of thrilled about this post. I don't really believe that my Tarot pack can tell the future, but I love and am fascinated by its symbolism.
@femme cassidy I have a Three of Wands tattoo! I've added a few other pieces of cards to it through the years, I like to think that I'm building a good reading for myself (if only to motivate me to be more positive)
Wow. crazy. I just did mine and it is SO spot on!!
Oh dear. My "question" related to future living arrangements and... this happened:
"Loss and wandering. Drained resources. Destitution. Exhaustion. Struggling to stay afloat while searching for relief. Fighting to keep morale and energy levels up. Loneliness. Crossing a wasteland. The collapse of one¹s values leads to the search for spiritual guidance. Temporary hardship. Seeking refuge."
@Hellcat You're in good company. I invariably draw the worst possible tarot cards. Mystically, I can chalk it up to the fact that, because of my history with it, I'm pretty terrified of tarot in general, so I'm putting out those bad tarot vibes. Practically, I can say it's probably all bullshit anyway, serving for me to take from it what I wish, and move on.
@Hellcat OR MAYBE YOU WILL BE IN A CORMAC MCCARTHY BOOK
@remargaret Because it didn't give a duration, I choose to believe that all of those bad things will be limited to one hour of one day in my future! I can do that, right?
@Hellcat It's gonna be a rough hour.
@The Everpresent Wordsnatcher Actually, now that I read it again, it seems kind of similar to, and certainly no worse than, the time I got lost from my friends and tent at a weekend-long Phish show, i.e., unpleasant but apparently doable (especially if my only-one-hour theory proves to be true).
@Hellcat HA, I was just about to comment, that Tarot reading kiiinda sounds like trying to find my campsite after a long, boozy day at an outdoor music festival.
@emilylouise I think it was the "wasteland" part that cemented it for me!
The one and only tarot reading I've ever had helped move on from a really bad guy in my life and open my eyes to the one I should have been focusing my energy on all along. I actually recorded it on tape and am thinking it'll be a cool thing to listen to when the bf and I have been together for a super long time because the woman who gave me my reading was convinced he was THE ONE (going on 5 years now).
@klaus I would like to subscribe to the audio podcast I can only assume you will be making of this for us all, now that you've mentioned it.
@ironhoneybee I SECOND THAT EMOTION
My one just told me what I already know, which is "get it together and you will get that shit done."
So.
My very first reading I pulled the 5 of Cups as the outcome for me going to law school. I actually got chills and was like "maybe I am making a huge mistake," but my mother pooh-poohed me out of it. And guess what, it was mostly a huge mistake! I don't know if it was a self-fulfilling prophecy or what but I have never forgotten it.
Also yesterday I did a tarot reading for the first time in months and kept pulling nothing but major cards, court cards, and swords, mostly reversed. Literally every time I pulled another card for clarification it would be another upside-down major that told me to cut the self-pity and move on with my life. It was like my deck was yelling at me!
(I don't really believe my cards have magical powers but other tarot people know, sometimes that shit gets spooky, right?)
I vote for the I Ching - particularly the Bruce Brown Walker version.
@thundertheft LOVE your avatar!! I <3 CA
Oh man, I just did the online one for my first ever reading, and I didn't even know what the positions or the decks meant, and it. made. so. much. sense. Holy crap.
My fella and I happened upon a gorgeous Aleister Crowley Tarot Deck at a garage sale for like five bucks.
Then our buddy came over and spilled his CHILI CHEESE HOT DOG on it.
I imagine all three of us will die horribly.
@Hambulance This story + username! I am dead. (call the hambulance)
@Hambulance Oh god, I can't stop quietly giggling over this.
@SomeGayGuy Ohmygod. You see??!
Now our evil stains are killing others!
I'm sorry Mister Crowwwwwwley....
@Hambulance Oh, the movie in my head of this incident... it's in slow motion and everyone looks horrified. But then I get stuck on the idea of someone bringing a fully loaded hot dog to a garage sale.
@Hambulance Ok, so my curiosity about this has been eating me up ALL DAY. When you are riding in the Hambulance to the Hockpital and your heart stops beating...do they pull out mini broilers and some honey instead of a defribrillator and conductive gel so that you maintain a good glaze until they can get you into the ER?
@SomeGayGuy That is exactly correct, sir.
And then....
.... you're cured.
"Before flying out for Australia, my husband turned away from me in bed, claiming jet lag for the first time in our almost four-year relationship. I couldn’t yet see that he was making plans with another woman, but I sensed something about my life that needed knowing."
Reading these two sentences made my stomach flip-flop. My boyfriend played music and toured for a long time, and it was rough on us. I'm sorry this happened to you.
@kayjay Even though mine's not a touring musician or anything, he's got a lot going on project-wise and it's the fill-ins with various local bar cover bands that always give me The Twinge. While those are his least favorite jobs to do (he seems to hate all the standard "Whooo, everyone have fun in the bar!" songs), I can't help but think of the typical audience for that kind of gig, especially here in Jersey. It's a stupid worry but... you know how it is.
@Hellcat I'd be willing to bet that he probably has absolutely NO interest in the kind of element that "local bar gig/let's all dance to covers!" brings out. I'm sure you have nothing to worry about.
The thing that set me straight was going on tour with him for a while in the states. My boyfriend plays prog music. I think I saw three female audience members the entire time I was with him. Mostly fat 40 year old dudes who strongly resemble Comic Book Guy wearing Dream Theater tee-shirts. I felt much better after that (although, European and South American audiences are much different. Lots more women, and all of them freakishly gorgeous. Ah well. If he's going to leave me for some beautiful Italian woman, not much I can do except kick him to the curb because I guess I didn't really know him that well to begin with).
@kayjay Oh, of course! I mean, a boy who wants to be with me probably is no fan of the "whoo-girls," so that worry is all just my brain being a jerk. And, we're 40; I assume he probably got all that nonsense out of his system long ago (he reads during breaks, and goes outside in the cold to call me. Aww, he's the cutest). Plus, I am a notorious hypothetical-scenario-maker; I am awful!
And, ahahhahahaaaa to the male-centric shows! I was at a sold-out Clutch show with the BF last week and was so pleased to be able to get in and out of the ladies' room so fast because of this same thing!
(I feel I must confess to doing some dancing to covers in my day... and "my day" often includes the present!)
I went for my first tarot card reading a little over a year ago with this lovely Australian woman based in Tribeca. She is also a trained life coach, and it was one of the most informative and helpful things I had ever done for myself. The reading helped me to end a relationship that I was desperately unhappy in, and basically lit the flame that helped me to start my life over.
(She also predicted I'd meet another man within a year. I have, and we're now getting engaged.)
So, yeah. Tarot can be some really eye-opening shit.
@thanks_maybe Ooh, would you share the name?
This is creepy in that yesterday, for the first time in nearly a decade, I considered pulling out my R-W deck.
This was beautifully written. Beautifully.
I got the Five of Cups in the "past" position when I thought of my love life. No surprises there...
Can the lovely Hairpin tarot readers recommend a deck for me? I'd like to start using them!
@MalPal Get the Rider-Waite deck. It's the traditional one in the English speaking world. The benefit over the other "traditional" deck (The Marseille Deck) is that in addition to being prettier all of the minor arcana cards have full illustrations that help you to remember the meanings. Also, when you graduate from that onto the Fairy-Unicorn-Vampires Deck or whatever niche you prefer it'll likely be based on the Rider-Waite so the card meanings won't be that much different.
@boysplz Thanks! That is really good advice for us Tarot-virgins.
@boysplz Thanks for this!
@wee_ramekin Oh Wee, for you I would pluck the Moon (Card XVIII!) itself from the sky and under it's wan light divine you the most wonderful of fortunes. By the by are the Austin pinups still happening? If so I seem to have fallen off of the email distro, let me know what's up and I'll email you again.
Pamela Coleman Smith centennial deck is a very nice version of Rider. It is also nice because it give props to the artist (finally).
My exes mom always gave us both the best tarot card readings, most of them had the very obvious subtext of "someone is looking to SETTLE DOWN WINK WINK" which made him uncomfortable, so eventually he stopped, but there was some truth to it on my behalf and I always liked hearing what she had to say. She still offers to read my cards via Facebook even though we've broken up.
Just spent way too much at this website, recommended in a past Hairpin post. Scary how accurate things can be. Like someone said earlier, it's a good way to be more focused and bring a little more clarity in your life.
I started reading tarot cards when i was about 13. My aunt did it and i loved it and she taught me... I guess I have been reading for like 17 years now, which is weird. Anyway i read them for the same reason -- to tell me what i don't want to admit to myself. i had the morgan greer, which my parents gave me, and then i also got the rider waite deck.
but recently though i got a new deck -- my grandparents moved from their millionty-year old home into a retirement facility and my mom cleaned out their house. There was a deck of old French tarot cards in a little red box in a drawer. she couldn't toss them, and Nana didn't even remember whose they were. So she gave them to me. They are, basically, magical.
I don't do readings for friends, though, unless they ask. The few times I've offered it has /not/ gone well. The cards don't always tell you what you want to hear, and when friends want to hear that, well, it gets awkward.
@littlegirlblue Agreed. I used to read for everyone on NYE but stopped because a)sometimes the info suggested by the cards was too personal for the venue and b)some people had some very specific things they wanted to hear which were NOT in the cards.
I know tarot and astrology are not the same thing (obv) but I couldn't help relating to the author's perspective on tarot, because it is my perspective on astrology. It is a fun and mystical way of focusing my thoughts and helping me see the big picture (because it is related to the universe and stuff.) Yay fortune-telling!
I love this stuff. I am wishy washy and never trust myself (issues, what?!) I have a psychic pretty much tells me the same thing my best friend tells me. It's actually really stupid but it makes me feel better about my choices.
I'm pretty sure my reading just said re: my love life that I am going to have a new beginning and then fall in love and be fertile and things will be wonderful...and then the outcome is that he will die.
@drunkennoodle well you know, this is how all love stories end. Maybe he'll die after 50 wonderful years with you?
@Edith Zimmerman Sooooo I may or may not have this in a mobile app. It seemed less scary than buying my own tarot cards.
But, important! Check out this for tarot meanings: http://www.ata-tarot.com/resource/cards/ ... it even manages to make The Tower sound like a positive chance for renewal! I like these interpretations, they are quite thorough and manage to show the opportunity in all the negative cards, which makes me feel better any time I get a negativish card.
This was so beautiful and sad.
It's also really inspired me to start tarot. I had a deck when i was around 15 but I wasn't very serious about it. I'm ready now.
I've had my deck since I was 14, and I still have to use the definition sheet during my readings - 72 cards x 2 (upright and reverse) meanings is unfortunately too much for me to memorize!
BUT... I'm weirdly accurate on my readings too. I've done cold readings (meaning I hardly know the person) and predicted pregnancy, marriage, family situations, money and job loss/gain. I get more and more people asking for readings once they've had me do one, since my cards seem to be so on the ball...
I always do them during our annual halloween party (prefaced with the spiel that this is purely for entertainment purposes and nothing is coming from the beyond to screw with them... I've got some mildly religious friends that get hinky about stuff like this).
The big IMPORTANT thing to remember is that no reading is a "set in stone" type of sitch. All of them are "if circumstances continue with no change" meaning that free will and other unforeseen events can easily alter the outcome of your life path and invalidate the reading's predictions.
And I love my deck - it's the Aquarian Tarot with lovely watercolors in a sort of art deco style. http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/aquarian/
My mom used to read my cards and it was always awesome - not because what they said was always good news, but she could frame everything in a way that made me feel hopeful and focused. She had a gorgeous little book with all the different meanings associated with the cards and placements.
Now I feel like I need to go call my mom...
This post makes me glad. Oh, lords and ladies, the idea that you can't get your own tarot deck just isn't true. I've been doing tarot for years and I do it professionally now. It's such a beautiful dang system, and there are as many styles and ways to read it as there are people. The Rider-Waite deck is great one for learning, it's got the classic imagery. And a great place to learn how to use the cards is right here: http://learntarot.com That's what I used when I did my initial intensive course of study. Joan Bunning is the name of the person who put it together, and she's got some really good books for people who are just learning. Mary K. Greer's another terrific author and so's Rachael Pollack. I say just go to your friendly neighborhood spiritual bookstore and get a deck that you love and start playing.
A little late to this post, but had to add ... I for years have said I love Tarot for the "find out how you really feel about the issue" factor. Except my deck that I received when it was found opened and thus unsellable at the bookstore I used to work for seems to give me better readings than the one I bought myself. And I seem to pull The Fool in about 2/3 readings (when I do readings for my good friend who has depression, she pulls the 9 of swords about as often) -- it's a card that really fits me for a number of reasons. And when I did a reading after I found out I was pregnant, I pulled no cards that had a whiff of anything to do with babies, and about a month later I had a miscarriage. So now, I don't know, I think I'm starting to believe in them for real?