Il Matrimonio had answered the phone to lovely Jane from the community physiotherapy team, coming to rehabilitate little old moi because I surely need it, pesky auto-immune joint pain sh*te. Jane had called to arrange a visit for today, Thursday, during the afternoon. This morning, I asked Il Matrimonio what time she was coming. He didn’t know. Some time during the afternoon.
‘You mean you didn’t agree any kind of time slot?’ said I.
Hiss-grunt (he was busy on his keyboard) ‘No.’
If it had mattered, I’d have made a call to clarify. As it was, this was an opportunity to test my pendulum with a little game. A clockwise swing indicates a yes answer to a question, and an anti-clockwise swing indicates no. The more vigorous the swing, the more emphatic the answer.
So I asked, would Jane arrive 12-1?  Negative
1-2 ?  Negative
2-3Â ? Negative
3-4Â ? Affirmative
Jane called at 3.29 to say she be with us in the next few minutes  and arrived at 3.34, escorted in by a beaming Il Matrimonio, charm personified (He was born under the Chinese sign of The Snake and one can tell, and I was born under the sign of The Rabbit and maybe one can tell, by the rabbiting.)
What would have been even better would be to have got it down to a 5 minute block, but my pendulum suggested she would arrive at 3.20 making me 15 minutes out.
Practise makes perfect? I am far from expert at this. Pendulum divination (and you can use a ring on a string, no need to go and buy a pendulum though they are nice, sometimes very beautiful objects)  is at once very simple and treacherous.
An accurate result depends on the person doing the divination maintaining a calm, disinterested attitude of curiosity, without wishful thinking or anxiety attached. You can sway the swing, very easily. Test it for yourself by asking a question while thinking how much you want the answer to be yes or no. You will almost certainly, unless you turn yourself to stone or steel,  see the swing you want to see. Or perhaps it’s more like turning yourself into a sponge; the oracular mind is a sensate but neutral and completely uninvolved sponge. If you care about the matter in hand, it is not easy.
  It works by what Jung called synchronicity (see @Tarot Card Philosophy – HowStuffWorks.) The reader uses the imagery and numbers with all their associated symbolism to help them articulate their intuitive impressions more precisely.
Tarot is an old western esoteric artifact, but is only one of many available systems of divination.
The 78 cards offer a symbolic language. The reader ‘uploads’ a ‘programme’ by learning the meanings and associations of the cards. In a reading, the reader draws cards blindly and at random, and uses the imagery on the cards as a prompt, to share what they feel about a given person, situation or question. The thing that is most amazing, even uncanny, is the absolute relevance of cards drawn at random and blindly (being upside down when they are drawn). This is where the apparent miracle of synchronicity occurs.
The Wheel of Fortune; Public Domain
How does the reader choose cards supposedly at random, which so appropriately identify the enquirer’s situation or question? It can be darn spooky.
The answer is, the reader doesn’t know exactly. They simply trust, or learn to trust the unconscious process. What they have done is trained/strengthened a natural faculty by uploading a kind of programme or whether Tarot, or Astrology or Runes. There are many such ‘programmes’.
Sometimes the card does not actually contain literal relevant imagery. How could a deck of 78 cards contain all the possible images in the world? The cards deal with this by using archetypes, eg The Chariot = effort, progress, ambition, team work, or literally, a vehicle. Any vehicle or a driving job, or test.
Each card has a number of possible meanings attached, and this starts with book knowledge but the reader must still make a leap of intuition in deciding which meaning applies. Such a leap in the dark may result in a ‘psychic’ insight, where all existing book meanings for the card is bypassed and a unique meaning arrived at.
During one reading I drew the Page of Cups from the Universal Waite. The card generally signifies happy new developments, sometimes a welcome gift or a message. On this occasion, I looked at it and without thinking, asked the lady, did she ate a lot of those pink and white marshmallows? She was astonished and so was I, and we laughed when she opened her hand bag and there was a packet of those same marshmallows inside it.
It was the pink and white of the picture that leapt to my attention and prompted my question; the rest went into the background. How, exactly that happened, I  do not know. I was almost but not equally astonished as my visitor and by now, take it for granted that a conference with the Tarot can result in these experiences.
Tarot accesses a natural talent of the most normal, ancient human mind. We all possess it. A ‘psychic’ reader is simply someone who noticed it, Â been interested and through study self training and often many years of practice, gone on to exercise and develop this natural ability, rather like a muscle of the mind.
There are times when all one can ask for is strength. Please give me strength.
And very often the Strength card in the Tarot does just what it says on the tin. Talks about strength; physical, mental, emotional, moral, strategic, economic, and military. Strength of spirit. The courage to initiate, the fortitude to withstand.
Brave as a lion, strong as an elephant.
It’s generally good news, the best kind of reassurance we could hope for if you or a loved one is not well, and this card comes up on the future timeline. The reader is detecting recovery.
Image from The Gilded Tarot, by kind permission of Ciro Marchetti
But this card also correlates to the month of Leo, and this can be the answer to a question, ‘when?’
The younger daughter passed her driving theory test yesterday. I was optimistic that she would, because I had asked about the outcome and drawn just one card: The Strength card.
It was her third attempt at £31 a pop. Still, I didn’t have to pass this test when I passed my driving test. All I had had to do was answer 3 or 4 theory questions at the end of the practical exam.
On the two previous occasions I had asked about the likely outcome, and drawn multiple mixed cards. And she had not passed. Mixed cards amount to a weak or confused signal or a negative answer. In Tarot, I have found that the absence of a clear positive tends to mean a negative answer. Or it wants me to ask a different question, and it’s going to hold back for now, and tell me later.
Sometimes less is more, and it’s better to pull just one card, or two, because your feelings can confuse the picture. The more cards, the more opportunity for confusion.
Were these previous negative forecasts a reason for her not to make those previous attempts at her driving theory test? Of course not.
I didn’t tell her what the cards said, or failed to say. That they had failed to show me The Magician, or Chariot card, or Judgement or The Sun or The World.
Any of these would have been good auguries for a pass.
I didn’t tell her I’d got ‘bad’ cards.
I might have put her off her stroke and brought about a self- fulfilling prophecy.
Beyond this, Life demands we have a go and take risks and be ready to challenge the odds, taking the jumps and the falls.
Prediction senses the odds, and much of the time the odds ought to be challenged. It is only, there are times when the stakes are high, it might be useful to get a sense of the odds.
My daughter asked me do an online sample theory driving test with her last night. To keep her company.
Oh lawd help me now, I thought. And thank goodness I passed it or I’d never have heard the end of it.
Il Matrimonio, her dad, meanwhile, refused to do the test, saying she was a cocky little git, he wasn’t not the one doing his driving test, and she’d better pass the practical exam first time.
I didn’t pass mine first time, way back before I met Il Matrimonio. It took me two goes, and I didn’t have the money for a long while in-between.
And he was the same. He passed on his second attempt, but he thinks to beat us all with the trump card of his having been an army helicopter pilot once upon a time. He flew helicopters for two years in the Army.
And that is indeed quite the trump card. I wouldn’t even want to get in one of those things.
Kudos to him, but still, he chickened out of this one.
Il Matrimonio dreaded the schlepp from Lytham to Dover one Wednesday afternoon. He particularly dreaded the return journey on Thursday evening much as he loves and worships his car. I call her Black Betty. Skip if you don’t like this rock classic.
The journey down proved tedious in the extreme, starting with delays at Luton, which persisted one way and another the whole of the rest of the way down.
He rang on Thursday morning to ask me to look in the cards for clues as to the optimal time to set off on his return journey. This was shaping up ominously. An accident at the Dartford Tunnel had been backing up the roads all the way back to Sevenoaks.
He thought he might wait until 9.00PM before setting off, what did the Tarot suggest?
Tarot felt he should set off earlier. ! had my cards beside the phone, loose in a heap and all facing down. I swirled them about with my free hand and pulled out four cards.
Card 1 represented outcome of Departure at 6.00 PM
Card 2 represented outcome of Departure at 7.00 PM
Card 3 represented outcome of Departure at 8.00 PM
Card 4 represented outcome of Departure at 9.00 PM
Against 7.00 PM I drew the Two of Swords. A lady sits, blindfolded, holding two crossed swords. If you leave at 7.00 I told him, you’ll have a largely clear run, but there will be one slower patch, maybe roadworks.
Two of Swords from the Rider-Waite Tarot deck (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
If you leave at 8.00, I said, looking at the Ace of Swords, you should have a straight clear run, or at least, the best you’ll get.
That was because this card represents a) a good decision and b) represents a sword that cuts a Gordion Knot, or to put it less politely, cuts through the crap.
From The Gilded Tarot, by kind permission of Ciro Marchetti.
Il Matrimonio by no means acts on all such suggestions coz we all have free will, innit?
On this occasion, he had a nap, set off at 7.40 PM and arrived home at 00.20Â (Two of Swords)
Although as he had set out, Tarot’s rival, the great god, Tom-Tom, had predicted an arrival time of 00.45.
There were no jams or problems whatsoever during the 330 mile drive home. Tarot beat Tom-Tom. Yay.
No, it doesn’t, really. The oracle of Tarot would never be so uncouth as to bellow like that, sniff. But I bet you know what’s coming, you bunch of psychics, you.
Yes, I’m talking about last night’s footie: England v Poland and I was in mighty good odour for saying to Il Matrimonio twenty minutes BEFORE kick-off that I thought England would win, though it didn’t look as if they’d have an easy time of it against our Polish friends.
As you may already know, England won 2-0; goals scored by Wayne Rooney in the first half ,and captain Stephen Gerrard in the final moments.
England going one up didn’t stop Il Matrimonio screaming at one point that the goal-mouth was too narrow, in his terror that Poland would manage to equalize.
Poland’s goal-mouth was too narrow, was what he meant. England’s goal-mouth was far too wide, of course.
How did I arrive at this opinion?
I used a 3 card counting spread, giving them a 75% chance of a win. I actually drew the same odds for Poland which made it tricky, but the last card drawn for England was a positive one, and the last card for Poland was drawn upside down.
Poland had a really good supporting crowd, as foreseen by the Six of Pentacles (a strong, supporting community)
So, England has qualified to play in The World Cup in Brazil starting in Sao Paolo, June 2014.
Whether I get this right or wrong, is it SAFE to say what I glimpse? : )
If I do, it’s not to try and poop anyone’s party. It’s by testing themselves continually, even if they frighten themselves in the process, that a reader hones their craft, and if you don’t like the answer, just decide it’s wrong, and maybe it will be. What does your instinct tell YOU?
It’s no better than possible they will reach the quarter finals, despite some inspired moments and sterling teamwork.  Alas, I see no World card, and in this instance, the card would do what it says on the tin.
I’d better go and hide, before Il Matrimonio sees this…
Mind you, he had decided where he wanted to open an easy access savings account, in which to deposit the proceeds of a recent house sale. He wouldn’t say which of three accounts he had in mind, but asked me to select the best choice for us, using Tarot, to see whether we were in accord. I chose Potential Account A, and put it to him that this was the Option he’d already selected, himself. He confirmed that this was the case. How did I know?
Well,because I drew the supremely numerate King of Swords when looking at Potential Account A, and this, for me, is the card which represents Il Matrimonio, who is a Libra ‘king’, only 3 days shy of Scorpio. The image below is from The Gilded Tarot, by kind permission of Ciro Marchetti.
Not only did my Tarot’s findings accord with his inner accountant, but we were on the same page about the best place to put the money, therefore, no need for shouting or plate throwing, and, it is he, I assure you, who would be the one to throw plates. I only throw fruit bowls.
Depiction of Hannibal and his army crossing the Alps during the Second Punic War. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
IÂ recently returned from an overseas family vacation driving in Europe, marginally more relaxing than crossing the Alps with Hannibal. OK, it was intense, but let’s keep a sense of proportion. It was nothing like marching with Hannibal. I had scrambled eggs for breakfast every day, once with chopped chives. The sun shone all week. It was instructive, it made a change, and my husband, Il Matrimonio, was in seventh heaven; king of the road in his lovely new black shiny car that he, ahem, loves.
Below we have the The Chariot card from The Gilded Tarot, representing progress, teamwork, ambition, and literally, a vehicle. Image by kind permission of Ciro Marchetti.
Yes, it was Chariot time. What else could one do, but belt up, pray not to need the loo in a hurry; no joke if you’re having to use a wheelchair for any reason, and look and learn?
There was plenty to see; Reims Cathedral, the snowy summit of the Eiger, the battlefields of Ypres. No goats in Switzerland. Perhaps because it was still hot, they were still up on the high pastures. No ghosts in Ypres, or in Polygon Wood, where Kiwis, Aussies and Brits lie, all brothers together, though I wouldn’t have been surprised to have seen one, standing waist high in the tall green fields.
No risk of mal- de- mer, we had gone through the Channel Tunnel. Quick and easy, no fuss, sitting, working up our best French, and in some cases, spoof French, to be spat out 25 minutes in La Belle France.
The course of the Channel Tunnel (English). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
On the return trip, however, there occurred a minor delay. We had made the crossing. The train had slowed right down. We’d had the announcements thanking us for travelling Euro-Tunnel, and were doing up our seat-belts ready to stop and drive off, when abruptly the train stopped, the lights went out and we were trapped in the dark in the belly of this vast tin-can underwater snake.
We heard announcements and apologies to the effect that power had been lost, preventing us from reaching the platform at Ashford, but hopefully it wouldn’t be long before power was restored.
How long would it be, I wondered? My tarot cards were in my suitcase, but I had my pendulum in my handbag. I held the pendulum, suspending it over my lap and asked, ‘how long till we move? Will it be 5 minutes?’
The pendulum dithered, then began to move in a circle, anti-clockwise. For me, that always means ‘no.’
It wasn’t the answer I was hoping for. So what. That’s the risk in consulting oracles.
‘How long till we move?’ I asked again. ‘Will it be 10 minutes?’ The pendulum hesitated, then began to swing clockwise. For me, that always means yes.
‘Only ten more minutes, with any luck,’ I said to Il Matrimonio, as he sat, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel, in-between kissing it, or wishing he could.
‘Are we there, yet?’ the teen piped up, stirring it from the back of the car.
Il Matrimonio glanced at his watch, to monitor the prediction, and this is why I am able to tell you, the lights came back on, the power was back, and the train began to move, 9 minutes and 50 seconds later.
Anyone can learn to dowse. It’s not magic. OK, it is. It’s everyday human magic. You won’t always get it right. I don’t, but it’s one of those things you get better at with practice.
There are lots of books on the subject, and plenty of how-to articles on-line. No need to spend money to mobilize this magic. You don’t even need to buy a pendulum. You can use a ring on a string, or even a threaded needle, stuck into a cork. You need a cord or string for there to be that crucial swing, when gravity gets hold of the body twitch, when it comes, that’s the answer needing translation, the non-verbal reply coming from your central nervous system.
What you need to do is decide in advance what movement shall mean ‘yes’, what movement shall mean ‘no’, and what shall represent ‘don’t know’, or ‘ask again later.’
Then ask your question, relax, and trust yourself. Learning to trust yourself, that’s the hardest thing you have to teach yourself, if it doesn’t come naturally. It is the challenge in learning Tarot, it is the challenge in using the insights provided by dreams. It is the challenge in learning to believe yourself, and not beat yourself up when you take an instant ‘unfair’ like or dislike to someone or something. Have you ever felt like that and reasoned yourself out of it, only to come full circle?
Your first feeling is the one to trust. It can save much time, energy, heartache, or even money.
You know more than you know you know. Why don’t they teach this in school?
The use of divinatory tools is largely a means of silencing the counter-arguments of the know-it-all front brain. The conscious attention goes to the tool, creating a tiny oasis of stillness in which to more easily connect with the silent voice of the body’s primary intelligence; instinct.
It trumps tunnel vision, any time. Unless, perhaps, it’s a vision in a tunnel.
From an edition of Boccaccio’s De Casibus Virorum Illustrium showing Lady Fortune spinning her wheel. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Has anyone ever foreseen a lottery win with the Tarot? Yes, you will find a link at the bottom of this post, but I haven’t, at least, not yet, for myself or anyone else.
Someone, a friend of a friend whom I don’t know, personally, messaged me via the friend to ask – light-heartedly, this was not a consultation- could I see him winning the Euro Millions Lottery? A big win? Because if I couldn’t, he had apparently said, perhaps he wouldn’t bother to continue buying tickets.
Now, I might not have bothered, but this is a question I have often been asked about. Amongst some readers there is the superstition that this question should not be asked. I can see no ethical or karmic reason why not, so long as you don’t shoot the messenger when you don’t like the answer. Tarot reading is divination, not magic, though Tarot is sometimes used as a magical tool for trying to bring something about.
I understood the man’s question to refer to a BIG win, and I drew three cards,
This was a counting spread where I counted to assess the probability of a yes answer. In the spread I used each flanking card represents 25% and the centre card represents 50%.
The odds were therefore 50: 50 ie the odds you would expect, BUT reading the card literally, and since the King of Pentacles suggests a money king, and he had come out upside-down, as seen below in this image from I think, the Radiant Tarot, a Rider-Waite based deck,  the odds reduced.
The final card is like turning over the last page in a storybook to get the ending.
I say what I see, no dissing the oracle, and my reply was therefore no, I did not see any significant lottery win, but I saw other good stuff. The Devil Reversed and The Lovers.
I sensed he had a passion about to be fulfilled, maybe to do with music or entertainments, then I learned he was a musician and amateur DJ.
The friend joked that now I was out of favour, telling him this bad news, (sigh, well this goes with the territory)
He asked, could a prediction not be overturned?
Another possible response might have been to say, oh bah. Well,  that chimes with my gut, and that’s a few quid saved on buying tickets. But the risk in asking oracles anything, is that you might not like the answer, so the bargain is, not to shoot the messenger should you not win the Tarot Lottery of hearing what you long to hear.
The Emperor Tiberius used to ‘shoot’ his messengers. He had his soothsayers hurled off the cliff tops on Capri, if he did not like their sooth-ing, except for one called Thrasyllus who made him laugh by sooth-ing that he could feel his life was in danger at that very moment. And indeed it was, but Tiberius was so tickled he decided to let him off. I can’t help feeling, that their terror in reading for Tiberius is not likely to have increased their accuracy.
But, in answer to his question, yes, it might be that a prediction can be overturned. The future is subject to change, apart from the certainty of physical death, and readers can misconstrue the cards. I offer forecasts, not predictions.
What’s the difference? A forecast is a sniffing of the air, sensing prevailing and coming weather, an intuiting of trends, and a qualified reckoning of odds, unlike predictions which make flat statements about the future as if it is a done deal.
Therefore, to the friend asking whether my forecast that he will not win the Euro Millions Lottery can be overturned, I’d only say, I see it’s a ‘no’ by all means, chance your arm if you feel you can afford to. You can’t win if you don’t buy tickets (remembering that the original question was, did I see a big win, because if I didn’t, he might not bother to buy tickets.)
What were the chances of him overturning my forecast?
I drew positive cards, but no actual money card. This did not imply future poverty to come, but was a symbolic with-holding of that particular jackpot. The question as stated is the context to stick with.
Hope as they say, springs eternal, and I for one, am not knocking it. There is ALWAYS the chance of the wild card. And that card is the Wheel of Fortune, as illustrated in this newspaper story.
I told him he had good news coming. Not a Lottery win but a lucky break.
His good news was not long in coming. The tarot had given a 50:50 answer for its own good reasons, not just to do with the laws of chance, because in a sense he DID woin the lottery.
A few weeks after this he was made DJ of his very own radio programme.
How about that for a jackpot. AND he had earned it.
Il Matrimonio had gone out, Dad’s taxi service, collecting Brat No 2 from the pictures. Or maybe it was the pub, because 35 minutes later, it had taken a r-ather long time for this errand. What was occurring? I pulled a card from my Gilded Tarot deck and drew The Ace of Pentacles/Coins/Disks.
OK, They were just arriving home, then. And so they were, I heard the front door open at that very moment. We had also, the previous day, returned home from a long trip. You look in the Tarot to find out what you don’t know, but often what you see is what you do know.
The message here is I suppose two- fold. To obtain an accurate reflection of what you already know is to have a benchmark for the accuracy of forecasts. And, you might think you don’t know something, when actually, you do. The answer is just lodged too deep for you to recognize it, and Tarot digs to fetch it out into the light.
The Ace of the Earth suit, signifying or forecasting home, a new home or house, often with a green garden, a new contract or job or other new source of income, is considered a most fortunate card unless it’s drawn reversed. The best things of earthly life. It may also refer specifically to a physical object, I’ve known it flag up a lost ring and a lost briefcase, and in both cases, the items were recovered as foreseen.
There are the book meanings for tarot cards, then there are the meanings you add through working with them, but last night, the Ace was just doing what it says on the tin.
Shame there was no wild stoat, or ferret, ahhhh. A ferret went to sleep on my arm once, tail hanging down, and it snored nearly as loud as does Il Matrimonio. It was funny when the ferret did it, such is the unfairness of life.
The Tarot is a cosmic ferret. Great fun to send it down rabbit holes, and hold it when it snores, but it needs handling with care. The teeth are sharp and…. my God it can stink.
True Tarot Tales 