tarot tips – Page 2 – True Tarot Tales

Double Trouble…

What a few weeks it has been for anyone using the Tarot to try and divine the Election outcome. On May 4 I looked in the cards and saw a riot of apparent contradiction. Cross- referencing a number of question-and-answer columns, I seemed to be witnessing the following scenario post May 6:-

Gordon Brown still in situ in No. 10

BUT David Cameron the ‘winner’…just

AND a Hung Parliament was probable. (chance 3/5 or greater.)

GB! I thought. And I meant Gordon Bennett! not Gordon Brown. It looked completely bonkers. I tried to rationalise what I was looking at and couldn’t. I couldn’t think of a formula or precedent, that would allow me to accept the Tarot’s preview as likely.

Now, to use the Tarot for divination on public matters or world events doesn’t feel at all the same as doing an interpersonal reading. When attempting to divine impersonal events, such as earthquakes for example, or the actions or thinking of a mass collective…such as the national consciousness, the variables are truly enormous.

Even so. Hindsight (or Back In Time, as Tarot author Janet Boyer terms it) serves here as a reminder that reading the Tarot can require NERVE.

We have come though an education system that doesn’t teach us to how to train or access our unconscious mind pro-actively. To live peaceably in society settings, the human animal has had to compromise individual instinct…which is why the divination arts are so often regarded with mistrust and disfavour. They theoretically represent a potential threat to society. Imagine the social consequences of all of us acting on our gut feelings about other people…we’d struggle to work productively in co-operative teams of strangers in the workplace for starters, wouldn’t we?

As a tarot reader it doesn’t necessarily come easy, trusting what you see in your cards when it doesn’t square with your rational analysis of the question. Learning to ‘just go with it’ is the simplest and yet the hardest thing of all.

And so, returning to the reading on the Election, we drew the Emperor Rev as an Emperor (PM, Government, authority figure, paterfamilias) departed – with gravitas and dignity in my personal view, just as he had conducted himself in the T.V debates – with gravitas and dignity.

And now we have two younger, smaller Emperors…

Let’s hope it’s a harmonious workable team, as in the Tarot’s Chariot card, able to forge smoothly ahead, and not the Chariot Reversed which would signify Double Trouble…

Below is the Chariot Card from the popular pre 1900’s IJJ Swiss Tarot Deck.

I would say to tarot students, ‘nerve’ develops with experience. Cutting your ‘tarot teeth’ reading for a forgiving audience -family, friends, friends of friends, doing lots and lots of them, will help you find your key strengths and affinities in working with the Tarot.

This develops confidence in your divination…the Tarot’s power is the power of self-trust.

Ding Dong (Door) Bell…

A client was late in arriving. She had wanted a reading at a Saturday tea-time and now she was 1o minutes late. Hmmm. Was she en-route or was she going to be a no-show? Tarot readers get caught out now and then, just like anybody else. They’re only fallible…

I have a friend, Andrew, who is a very gifted clairvoyant. He will quite often pluck meaningful names out of the ether…very spooky, and when he does there’s nothing hit and miss about it. He did that with me once. ‘Who’s Edward?’ he said. ‘He’s very important to you. He’s a relative isn’t he? Is he your father…no hang on. He isn’t Edward. He’s Ted.’

Correct. And even someone with this spooky ability gets hit by timewasters and importunate sales callers. Even the most super-psychic person in the world could not operate at their highest frequency all the time.

Andrew’s telephone rang one day.

‘I’ll make an appointment,’ the man said. ‘If you can tell me my name.’ Andrew might actually have been able to do so. But there was only one response such ignorance and crassness deserved. How would a reading with such a discourteous client have gone?

‘I think it must be Mr Twat,’ Andrew said. ‘But I’m sorry, I’m all booked up.’

I don’t pursue clients in any way shape or form. Don’t spam, don’t telephone (though I return calls if a message is left.) If they book then don’t show up – which has happened four times in 10 years – without making a cancellation, well, OK. I’ll remember them, and they just won’t get another appointment

So now, with this lady running late, having requested a time that I had accommodated out of goodwill, I asked my cards, was the client en-route?

I drew The Chariot. This card of travel vehicles, speed, progress, ambition and teamwork was an indication that yes, she was on her way over.

The IJJ Tarot’s Chariot

How soon would she be arriving?

I drew the 4 of Cups. This seemed to indicate that she would be arriving in approximately 4 minutes, and that there was probably no particular crisis to be discussed in the reading, but she was in a rut and looking for ways to move ahead.

The lady arrived, apologising, just as I was re-shuffling the cards. It might have been 4 minutes later, more like 2-3. And she was a delight to read for.

The Sun Card, Solstice and Sunflowers.

The Sun card in Tarot forecasts sunny weather at its most literal. It is the card of high summer, no surprise there. Metaphorically it is recovery from illness, respite from care, the gift of the moment. It is playful. It is children, the state of childhood and sometimes predicts the imminence of a birth. It is success. It is travel, particularly to hot places. It is the return of the sun after the winter solstice. It is the zenith of the sun in the summer solstice. In terms of trying to establish timings, we are looking at the zodiac signs of Cancer (the solstice) and Leo.

Reversed it’s the setting sun, delays and lesser joys, the passing away of childhood, nostalgia and beautiful, bittersweet twilight. It may mean getting something less than you hoped for, but what you get is still something to be happy for.

The visionary Star card on the other hand, can- and in readings it often has-indicated a recovery from depression, sickness and despair, a guiding light. Someone can sees a way ahead now, they couldn’t see before. This is a more cerebral card; Aquarian in character, both visionary and analytical. This is the card of the collective, of space

Klytie (or Clytie) was a figure in Ancient Greek mythology, one of the oceanids, a daughter of Oceanus who fell in love with the sun god, Helios or Apollo. Each day she would watch him cross the sky in his chariot of fire. There is a darker version of this story, that Klytie was a demented stalker bunny-boiler whose jealousy brought about the horrific death of a love rival. A gentler version of the story says that Apollo could not come closer without destroying her, but when she pined away and died, he changed her into a sunflower so she could watch him forever, understanding that his love was far distant, it was constant, and he would never desert her absolutely.

The sun means Life itself. The fire of the sun can also be cruel, savage when ‘reversed,’ and then we need shelter. We need ‘dark sacred night’ or we need rain. But in a sense, aren’t we all sunflowers…looking for the sun by day and the stars by night. Like Klytie, we live with our memories of many sunsets past and the hope of a bright new dawn. We are sustained in adversity by resilience, determination and hope.

Venus or Hesperus, ‘The Evening star,’ is also Lucifer, the bringer of Light- the Angel before the Fall-‘The Morning star’.

The Sunflower

Klytie stands and tracks the sun
From dawn until Apollo’s gone
A patient and a hopeful eye
In contemplation of the sky
Her days are rooted, quiet, spent
In upward focus, still, intent
With other suns of earthly gold
Arms outstretched for light’s sure hold
And rich with cargo, every one
Built strong with sugar from the sun.

She’s etched with frosts and winds of loss
But comfort comes with Hesperus
The Morning Star’s deliverance
Alone she stands in fields of fellowship
Hands asking to receive
But with no strength to grip
Yet keeping faith and trusting to the light
The faintest and the coldest star
Still promises Apollo from afar
A spark to resurrect a phoenix in the night.

c. Katie-Ellen Hazeldine 2010.

Till next time 🙂

Tarot’s Helicopter View…The Elemental Spread.

Simple Tarot Spread, getting a snapshot reading by using the major points of the compass.

Wheel of Fortune (Photo credit: vpickering)

Tarot ‘s Helicopter Hover

I often use a 5 card spread to get a quick sense of how someone is doing in general. It’s useful when I haven’t been given any question, in which case I use it to help to identify the question.

To go up in my tarot helicopter I shuffle blind and draw 5 cards.

Card 1 EARTH/ the North stands the Suit of Coins (also called Pentacles or Discs.) I Look here to see how my querent is faring in terms of home, job, money, health, stability and security.

Card 2 WATER / West stands the Suit of Cups: I look here for insights into matters of the heart, what’s going on in their personal relationships. How’s their mood? I look out here also for issues to do with health, healing and recovery, and for creative and spiritual preoccupations or questions.

Card 3 FIRE/ South stands for the Suit of Wands: here I’m asking myself via the Tarot, what’s driving them? What’s the dream right now? Travel and relocation plans may also show up here, and social aspects, and levels of inspiration and energy.

Card 4 AIR/ East stands for the Suit of Swords: here I’m looking for a sense of, what’s going on in their head right now? (apart from the reading, obviously) I look here for their plans, pending decisions, exercising choice and power, and any legal, medical or intellectual matters.

A fifth card is drawn for the centre of the cross, and here I am explicitly asking, what is the priority to be addressed in this reading session? What is THE Question?

A recent client drew

Card 1 (N) Coins Four of Wands Reversed (dissatisfaction at work and at home. A home feeling incomplete
Card 2 Cups The Emperor Reversed (Bureaucracy, overbearing or absent male figure)
Card 3 (S) Wands The Three of Cups (Friendships, celebrations)
Card 4 (E) Swords The Wheel of Fortune (Thinking of making major changes, this being indicated as a good idea)
Question Card: Judgement

The Four of Wands Reversed

Client Response: This Card correctly indicated dissatisfaction connected to a home/property and/or a professional matter. The client had a flat on the market, no offers as yet, and had just bought a new house, but didn’t feel settled and was feeling anxious that she had made a false step. She liked her work but had been unsettled there recently, having difficulty with a new manager’s communication style. She was thinking of retirement (and this card when reversed means a LACK or ENDING or a NON-STARTING of a professional activity or satisfaction.)

The Emperor Reversed

Client Response: This card rang true. She confirmed both as concerns that were preoccupying her at this time.

The 3 of Cups

Client response. She wanted, not a husband necessarily, but a proper companion. The man in her life would not entertain the thought of marriage, nor would he court her, nor even come to visit her in her new home. She was beginning to feel, not only sad but angry about this (the growing anger shown again to me later by the 5 of Swords) Her new house did not feel like home…she felt she hadn’t had a ‘house warming’…

The Wheel of Fortune

Client Response: She was ready for change, beginning to think very hard about what she wanted and needed after retirement. She felt she wanted life to continue opening up…she didn’t want it to narrow, she dreaded the idea of a dead-end.

The Question Card Judgement: Retirement was approaching, the end of a major life chapter. A kind of Judgement Day. Her essential question was, What would her life be like after it?

There were strong signs of happiness in retirement, indicated as being about eighteen months down the line. The relationship problem wasn’t going to be an obstacle to this. If the man chose not to opt in more actively, I sensed she was going on to sail on regardless, and if he didn’t respond, he was likely to be left behind.

Until next time 🙂