Why Now, Tarot?

When we enter the mystery...

A REASON, A JOURNEY, A BEGINNING, A MYSTERY, AN ADVENTURE

REASONS

If we turn toward Tarot, and investigate, we might disregard our assumptions, or better still, begin with a fresh view and let the world inform us through the books and cards themselves. We might journey. We begin in our normal worlds, possibly with a curiosity, or maybe a longing, perhaps a sense of wanting to fill something, or find something, or learn. Our path begins in our own lives, in our life itself, in the day of our breathing. With Tarot, we might be following an impulse which leads to some kind of wonderful gain. Perhaps there is a cloud, a sense of possible fulfillment, some kind of new knowing. Perhaps we are seeking love.

What kind of love would that be?

Some will be excited by the open potential of learning, and because they love to learn, this is a journey of love.

Are you motivated by desire? Is this a longing, an acquisitiveness, for something to hold, a thing you may keep, hold in your hands, inhale with your spirit, that you can have and comprehend?

Sometimes it will be peace which calls to us. We are filled with a sense of open expanses, of the clean space of the heart, where there is no conflict, where a window is open and the fresh air pours in, sweeping out the confusions, the battle energy. If we mix the cards, will we find a doorway, a pathway, an ineffable aroma, of peace?

A JOURNEY

So we begin the journey of knowing, at our own feet. We look down, and see our feet, and they seem to be advancing, step by step, on the wind of our thoughts, and the motivation of our heart. One breath at a time we continue, until we are looking at Tarot. What happens? Some kind of thrill, a confusion, a lovely possibility, perhaps without risk. Or is there risk? Would that be good? An embarkation could happen here, if we have a deck, a Tarot deck of our own. So that is what we do. We find and buy, or receive as a gift, a Tarot deck. The real thing. A Tarot. When you do this, it is your Tarot.

A BEGINNING

What now? Will we find love, that gathering of fresh energies and knowledge, learning? Will we follow desire, can we feel, or hear, or sense, or somehow know, that peace is a possibility? Step, step, step, on thought. Then we find emotion is also there waiting for us, in Tarot.

Some will devour the Little White Book, or the big paperback, the pdf they searched, the hand-written notes their Great Aunt left for them. Inhaling the meanings, they advance. This is a path. A path to where? Determination usually is part of it for those who love structure and meanings.

Most of us will be so strongly tempted to open that deck, though. To open the deck, and play with the cards! Well, do then, open that box and see what happens. Ask a question! Put down three cards for Past, Present, and Future. Or, use the diagram in the LWB, and place a Celtic Cross, as I did.

QUESTIONS

“What will happen with me and Bill?”

Tarot told me: The Tower. I read my Tower as a positive outcome, because in my image, from the Rider Waite Tarot deck, a man and a woman were falling, falling, down from a high tower, and the crown of the tower had been blown off by a lightning bolt. It seemed to express exactly what had happened to me and the man of my desire. Our safe and comfortable lives had been blown to smithereens, possibly by love, and neither one of us knew what to do about it. Initially I did not care about the meanings in the book, even though I had carefully noted them all, because the Tarot images told me DIRECTLY what had happened to us.

My Little White Book told me otherwise. It probably said something like “catastrophe, an unchosen demise” or something else indicating that the protective tower was down, and the King and Queen were falling. Tower is not really a good outcome, actually, if one pays attention to meanings from the LWB, or to most of learned tradition. It can evolve favorably, but that takes time. These evolved interpretations come with greater experience. Steady on! We start at the beginning, not at the end.

ANSWERS

So what did actually happen with me and Bill? All of the above. Tarot said, BOOM, glory! Tarot said, The End! Tarot said all of that, ten ways, and all of it happened.

We usually look for one solid answer, but any of us, all of us know, that life is not really like that. Many seeming contradictions can be true simultaneously. Tarot will describe the truth, if we are open and do not force. We can learn.

THE MYSTERY

So this is the mystery. Tarot says one thing, we say another. The Little White Book tells us, our heart also tells us. For some, their fear or anxiety will dominate the moment, while for more insouciant souls, an open willingness to float with the Tower image will take them to Pisa, or to the Eiffel Tower, or to the treehouse in their backyard where a board is loose. Tarot can be literal, figurative, suggestive, emphatic, tempting, discursive, and confounding. We choose.

CONTRASTS, STYLES, and OPTIONS

Retracing my steps for a moment, I began our contemplation of the Tarot in my serialized writing, contemplating an unshared image called Tarot Without Heads, which you now see above. Innate experience. Then, I spoke of the shared image, Tarot with Heads, where the reflection is with our whole body-mind. Bright colors, with and without thought. Instincts, emotion, innate knowing, initial thought, careful thought.

DETAILS, TRUTH, and DREAMS

I like to offer In Contemplation with the extremely precise and detailed art of 19th century painter Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, who loved classical subjects and depicted them with feeling and commentary. In today’s theme, The Roses of Heliogabalus, we see something which looks sumptuous, wonderful. We are invited to love and enter the scene.

But would we want to, if we knew more? The story is of a young Emperor who plotted harm, releasing, at a banquet, so many rose petals from a concealed ceiling that his guests were overcome, some dying in the depth of rose petals, while he observed from his elevated dais.

What is this? The suggested meaning is not the true story. How would we know? The image is extremely well-defined, and feels wonderful. The image is misleading.

We might be cautious about thinking that detail means truth.

As time passes, I will introduce artwork and Tarot images which alternate between precision detail and dreamy, vague outlines, because for me, that is Tarot in context. With experience, we learn to parse all these subtleties. That process is wonderful and continuously unfolding.

But back to our story.

MORE and BIGGER QUESTIONS

Why Tarot? Why this Tarot? Why that one, instead?

In our lives, we often must choose between literal things, and dreams. Some of our best choices and our greatest, most fraught risk-taking will be made with a feeling of cloud-like potentials, something we love, desire, and seek, for peace and plenty. As we waver between security and full expression of our Spirit of Life, we often waver on the line of detail. Do we move toward more detail and delineation, or do we levitate, float over to that window, and pass into our futures on a sense of its potentials? We might feel that we are following a colorful little rainbow fish which swims before us in the river of becoming, swimming, swimming, as we follow.

What if the mystery takes us to a dream, to illusion?

A true mystery is not fraud. Our little fish of knowing can lead us to vibrant details and solid gain, whether we navigate by meaning and tradition, or instinct and immediate knowing. It safely leads us, as filmmaker Wim Wenders told us about life, on Wings of Desire. We will learn, and Tarot will help us learn.

ANSWERS

Tarot has these answers. To find the first or next stop on the path, we must move forward. We mindfully embrace the mystery, and begin the adventure.

To be continued…