With Katie-Ellen Hazeldine, professional tarot reader, consultant and writer in the UK
Updated: A light hearted look at an ‘Option selecting’ reading, and at deploying the tarot as an alternative tool for animal communication. All, hopefully, will become clear…
Our cat Willow was thirteen at the time of this reading. A small black and white moggie, she’s an introverted, timid and fussy cat. When she’s hungry she trots into the kitchen and meows. Obtaining service, she’ll jump up to sit by the window, a model of composure, looking studiously in another direction, affecting not to notice while you open her food and put it on a saucer.
The food served, Willow’s dignity demands she must not notice it immediately. The trouble is, she often loses interest altogether, jumps down again and stalks off, leaving it to congeal malodorously, so she refuses it later.
She came in meowing and my daughter said. ‘If I feed her, she’ll only turn her nose up, whatever I serve up.’
I knew from previous readings for cats, and other species that the Tarot will sometimes assist, verifiably so, with animal communication. ‘Let’s see if the Tarot knows what she wants,’ I said and drew a card for each of the available options on the menu.
Card 1 represented Turkey
Card 2 represented Duck
Card 3 represented Lamb
Card 4 represented Beef
While shuffling I asked the Tarot (ie the portion of the mind that is ‘Tarot’) to ensure the cat’s preference would appear right way up (Dignified) and any she wouldn’t eat would appear upside down (reversed, Ill-Dignified)
I laid out the cards, a row of four and Willow’s selection as translated by the Tarot leapt straight at me, by means of the only upright card amongst the four which was the Queen of Pentacles. The Queen represented the Duck (with courgette) option. Oddly, the colour scheme of the duck pouch matched the green of this Queen’s dress. The Tarot couldn’t quite manage to rustle up a duck, but it did well to produce a peacock.
The thirteenth century visionary Julian of Norwich said, ‘God does not disdain to serve the body.’ Divinity is in anything, even I suppose in sh… ahem. Pentacles represents all things physical, including crops and animal husbandry and cat food therefore resides absolutely under the jurisdiction of this suit. The Queen of the suit is a Demeter and derives her own happiness in taking care of living things. As a Taurus woman, well over 40, I am represented archetypically in the Tarot as a Queen of Pentacles. Willow is a queen cat and a Virgo subject, so she too, is a Queen of Pentacles in her own right.
No sooner was the duck on the saucer than she gingerly sniffed it, and dived in, leaving two tiny crumbs and not a lick of gravy.
There are implications beyond this, for the using of the Tarot as a sensing device for animal communication, or for people, in sensing whatever might be meant by ‘right choices’. I use this approach quite often in business readings, in order to help identify a target or best strategy.
Dozy old cat. Companion animals roaming our homes. They help us stay close to our roots. We need their lessons and reminders. The Tarot promotes our innate telepathy.
This could have been the theme for tarot blogs in recent unsettled weeks, in the fiery light of the London riots. In fact, I found my cards foreshadowed these events, and the tragedies that followed with the Tower card and the Ace of Swords Reversed. No, this is the story of a personal reading, in which I was struck by a definite theme.
There were Wands cards everywhere:-
Wands in Tarot is the equivalent of Clubs in playing cards and its corresponding element is fire.
The associations of this Tarot suit are: fire, energy. passion, drive, ambition, travel, communications, business, moving house, heading south, summer, speed, and speaking literally, such things as combustion engines, flames, hot foods…
You get the idea…Now, in this reading, we had:-
The 5 of Wands, the Page of Wands (Rev) the Knight of Wands (Rev) the Queen of Wands (Rev) and finally, the King of Wands, Dignified.
It emerged that:
The Five of Wands was flagging up the client’s worries about disruption, gossip in her workplace and was indicating a certain amount of stress, even anger centering on failed communication.
The Page of Wands referred to a move at work that she was not happy about. It also referred to her reservations about a proposed house move. She had not fully realised just how uneasy the idea made her, she said, until she saw it reflected in the cards.
The Knight of Wands Rev. The man in her life had children and he didn’t want any more. She herself had no children. He had initially said he would consider having more, as she was helping look after his children, although they were not married. However, he had lately reconsidered and was saying no. This card spoke therefore of ardour dampened, ignition of new life denied.
The Queen of Wands Reversed referred to the client’s feelings about this situation. Astrologically speaking, she was a Queen of Pentacles, a Taurus queen. She was being shown as a Queen of Wands REv because her impulses were ruling her actions. Her common sense and her need for security, were being overruled by her passionate feelings, both happy and unhappy.
The King of Wands represented the man…an archetypal Wands figure, fun, dynamic, exciting, charismatic, but also, capable of carelessness, ruthlessness and selfishness. He could be chaotic and volatile and she had good reasons to feel cross.
Drawing another card of flames, The Devil I wondered what was her her job?
She couldn’t possibly be attached to the Fire Service, could she?
Yes, she could.
She was a firefighter.
!
The Devil: The Gilded Tarot
With kind permission from Ciro Marchetti
How was she to manage the flames of this relationship without getting burned? The Tarot’s answer came from the client’s own astrological suit…Pentacles.
The Tarot called for her to build and maintain a firewall of Taurean earth. to be able to enjoy the warmth of the flame in safe bounds.
What might this mean in practical terms?
The Four of Pentacles, the 10 of Pentacles and the Ace all asked her to reconsider begore agreeing to sell her house.
It was her own house, in her sole name, willed to her by a grandparent.
The Tarot could not have issued a louder warning against selling at urging of this man, her partner, without security of marriage.
Would she act on this?
True Tarot was secretly doubtful. Fire scorches earth, earth smothers fire, and what was the glue at work here?
The seductive power that’s also represented by that fiery Devil card. Uh oh. Can it be reasoned with, before it’s burned itself out? Does this golden oldie below remind you of the tarot card illustrated above?
Last Sunday my older daughter rang to say she had applied for a job at a vet’s practice. She had been considering a move for some time, due to lack of further training prospects at the vet’s she had been with for three years.
Hearing there was a job going, she called the recruiting practice only to found the closing date for applications had already gone. She was downcast, then thought, what the hell, sent her CV and a letter of application anyway and was rewarded for her intiative with an invitation to interview.
Would she be offered the job? I was disinclined to look. I didn’t need the cards to offer suggestions for tackling the interview. I used to work in recruitment amongst other things. Applying for the job was a no-brainer; no help asked or needed from the Tarot on that score. What would be, would be etc.
On Tuesday my mother rang, and we got talking about it. I quickly shuffled the cards while on the telephone, asking to be shown a card connected to the outcome of the interview. I was sneaking a peek with no intention of passing it back, as, whether the outcome looked positive or not, I had no wish to interfere with my daughters own processes.
I drew The Fool card.
This card of arrival, reinvention, reincarnation, setting forth, is above all a harbinger of new beginnings. Much energy and enthusiasm attach to it. Notice the dog. My daughter’s special interest is dog training and she has run puppy classes.
The dog in the card represents common sense. The Fool card, when drawn upside down indicates either over-timidity or recklessness, immaturity, irresponsibility, bad timing…and very occasionally, death, because the card is associated with number zero…
Looking at The Fool I remarked to ‘Grandma’ that I felt the prospective employer was going to like her. Being dignified, right way up, this was a great card for job hunting. If she didn’t get this one, she’d be getting another soon. My mother sniffed, unimpressed, declaring that of course they would like her; such a neat and efficient button-like person. A proper grandma is nothing if not loyal.
The interview was on Wednesday. On Friday evening my daughter rang to say she had got it, and though she’s not much ‘into’ what I do, she’s absorbed enough not to have been unduly perplexed at my turn of expression as I congratulated her.
‘Who’s a clever little Fool, then?’ I said.
That’s my girl.
Jung coined a phrase to describe how he thought tarot worked: ‘synchronicity.’ Something in the reader connects with something in the cards. The cards are shuffled blind and drawn at random. However, synchronicity proposes that actually the selection isn’t random;
”[In synchronistic experiences] the perception of wholeness derives not from our ego, our conscious sense of self, but instead from the way in which the meaning unites all of who we are, parts of experience we were unaware of, potentials we have that have lain dormant or underdeveloped, elements of our personality that we didn’t know existed”
One evening a client left after an intense reading, and that day I had been very, very tired. I went upstairs with a cup of tea to lounge with a book. My teenage daughter came in asking me to take a look in the cards for her.
I said, ‘not right now, sweetie, I’m too tired. Give me half an hour’.
She persisted, and as I knew the question, and knew it wasn’t serious, and could wait I became annoyed.
‘If you keep on asking when I’ve said I’m too tired,’ I said. ‘I’ll show you the Devil card! Now then.’
She asked again. Oh, dear.
‘Right!’ I said and whipped the cards out from their cloth and shuffled them furiously.
‘Now see THIS!’ I hissed, pulled a card and brandished it at her, and knock me down with a very small chick feather, it was, it really was THE DEVIL CARD. Look atta ugly mug. 
Ooh-er. A Devilish Tarot Tantrum to match my own.
She was I might say, suitably impressed. In fact she ran from the room howling for her dad, who was watching the footie and wasn’t remotely interested in this psychodrama, while I sniggered, feeling better now, peacefully drinking my tea.
Hey, you old Devil… you said it for me, heh heh! Now go away again, thank you.
How about that for synchronicity?
Not long ago I did a reading for a father, worried about job and training prospects for his sixteen year old son who had just left school. The teen years had been turbulent. It seemed important that the young man should be helped to find his feet with a new role, routine and responsibilities sooner rather than later.
The Tarot indicated that the hiccups were not yet over, but the cards offered encouragement by way of these three cards. The reading timeline indicated that the developments illustrated by the cards were likely to materialise within 3-4 weeks at the soonest, six months at the latest,
Most promising was the appearance of the 2 of Wands, the 8 of Coins/Pentacles and the King of Wands.
The 2 of Wands indicated an agreement or contract to come, career related. A job therefore, or work placement or traineeship. Travel, relocation, even migration are sometimes associated with this card.
The 8 of Coins or Pentacles indicated again, an apprenticeship with pay, in which hard work, consistency and attention to detail would be expected.
The King of Wands indicated a man of business, bluff, outgoing, direct in all his dealings. A no-nonsense employer. I asked the father if he was already aware of such a placement provider yet. He wasn’t sure…he had been casting about and had one or two possibilities in mind. Wands is a suit I have come to associate with sales, estate agencies, travel and transport. I sensed heat and thought of engines. This King of Wands might possibly be a garage owner? Or something else connected with cars, maybe motorbikes?
The client had actually already considered this idea, which was interesting.
A month later, and I learned yesterday that the young man had relocated to take up a work placement traineeship. It wasn’t with a garage. There wasn’t such a placement available at present through the Jobcentre. But it was a placement that would be reviewable in 13 weeks, when a change might be possible. Meanwhile, it represented an arrival into the world of work.
Good luck to him, there may still be a garage placement when the 13 weeks are up and he could be re-allocated. I hope he’ll stick with the start he’s made meantime, as shown by the example of the apprentice in the 8 of Pentacles. It can be a hard and fearful leap, from the safety of home out into the wide world, but for the well supported child, as this young man has been, at least it can be made in guided stages and with a safety net. Many might think that a luxury.
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