Love the depth you bring to this practice, Christine. This says it so well: "...some combination of your intuition and the collective unconscious brings you the cards that reflect your deepest knowing." It is a profound and rich process in which one is interacting with one's own psyche, the collective psyche of the spiritual universe (which dare I say includes "god" and all other intelligences), and the physical universe. What could be more profound or meaningful? The truly amazing thing is it works almost every time, which is against the odds. It almost never seems random.
Personally, I initially felt very uneasy at exploring tarot, contacting spirit guides, and reading channelled books, yet all contain so much spiritual wisdom, I don't look back. Interestingly, when something such as a channelled book does not contain wisdom and feels like a fraud or a mistaken view, my intuition knows that too! What a shame that over-controlling religion kept us for so long from knowing the deeper wisdom of the universe and trusting our own spirit to find it and connect with it.
Thank you, Chuck! Amazing what happens when we can really tap into intuition. And I remember always being so afraid (as an evangelical and even after) and unable to figure out whether it was "me" in a selfish way guiding my decisions, or the actual will of god... how nice to actually build a better relationship with one's own self!
"From what I’ve read and the way I’m using it, tarot is a way to tap into your deepest intuition" . . .
A few years back, John Sandford has his detective character Lucas Davenport consult a local artist and computer hacker, Kidd (crossover from another Sandford series - IYKYK) about a case. Kidd, the ultimate rationalist, uses the tarot. He explains to Davenport that he doesn't believe in being guided by mystical spirit forces, but that laying and examining the cards forces him out of his comfortable thought patterns and sometimes triggers new and helpful insights. Something very similar, I think, to what you're describing. As I pondered that, it changed my view of the tarot, which to be fair was always more "it's superstition" than "it's Satanic" since I've never been at home in the medieval version of Christianity, in my own church (where it's a minority view) or others.
In a larger sense, it also makes me wonder how many healthy mental awareness practices were squelched as "Satanism" or "witchcraft" over the centuries. "Those people must be getting info from the Evil One or they'd be as blind and stumbling as the rest of us!"
Unfortunately that kind of thinking is on the rise again, predicted 45 years ago by James Michener in his novel "Space." It's no time to relax - it's not in the cards. 😉
Thanks for, as usual, a thoughtful essay. Good luck in the half-marathon!
Well, I might not know the shows you're talking about... but I love the idea of getting forced out of comfortable thought patterns by tarot! There's space for everyone in tarot, even the most rationalist among us! I'm also fascinated by your reference to this book that I don't know about, either but that you compelled me to learn more about on Wikipedia ;)
I have amassed dozens of oracle cards and several tarot decks over the past few years (since my divorce and final walking away from the church after realizing how it was largely the reason I got into such a toxic connection in the first place). I have come to realize that this is largely why the church has made all things feminine out to be bad. We all have masculine and feminine characteristics and we have to learn to balance them and bring them into unity within ourselves first. The masculine is about action and doing, it's the strong and protective side of us. The feminine is about flow, intuition, receptivity rather than driving action. Thus we have a society where boys are taught they are weak if they have emotions, and all things feminine have to be under "control." If the feminine aspect was supported and less controlled and dominated- issues such as narcissism wouldn't be as prevalent as they are.
The church has forcefully kept all aspects of the feminine has much under control as possible because we would have figured it out a long time ago how toxic religion can be and people would have started walking away from it much earlier than we were able to... and of course with events such as the crusades and either come to Jesus or die- how many hundreds of thousands if not more were killed in the name of religion because they wouldn't submit to forcefully choosing the systems imposed upon them?
Even if maybe not as many people die present age for religion- that memory is still there in the collective and has continued to play out in some capacity in the lives of all. For myself it looked like needing my dad or my brother to tell me the dude I married wasn't right for me and for whatever reason- neither of them did... it was like "here is the worst possible option for me, please say something" and when they didn't that fear of being 29 and unmarried won out and I dove in anyway... and it didn't go well at all... I thought I needed someone outside of myself to save myself and thus I resigned to believing I somehow deserved what I got into and God forbid I get divorced... that was another hella big struggle.
It took a friend of mine dying in our mid30s before I could start writing through some of my earliest traumas and freeing up space to remember who I was at all. Then the last time I went back to my ex, when he started telling me things like how he "should have raped" me when he had the chance--then the anger grew and I started finding myself again and finally was able to leave for good (but not immediately). Then everything started to unravel.
But yeah, tarot and oracle cards and all that "weird/forbidden" stuff are awesome. Oh- and astrology... if you can run your whole birth chart, OMG it makes everything make sense...
Yes, it's so nice to start to really get more in touch with the feminine energy! That's so interesting too about the collective unconscious still holding on to the pain of the violence and way-over-emphasis on masculine energy, and acting that out in different ways now!
I'm glad you've come so far -- and amassed quite a collection of tarot and oracle cards along the way! I know people really into Galactic Astrology and Human Design and stuff, and I'm curious what my whole birth chart would look like!
Ooh I have done a couple tarot readings lately too and was shocked at how wrong I was about tarot! I was also told it was of the devil and was trying to predict the future. Not at all! Yes I found too that it just helps bring out your own knowings and helps with processing and reflection. I've enjoyed it too - still can feel a little "wrong" at times, but I'm working through it.
Nice! A good tarot reader is so fascinating with what they intuit about you and the cards. Hooray for working through the weird inner tensions, and what you're learning in this process!
Love the depth you bring to this practice, Christine. This says it so well: "...some combination of your intuition and the collective unconscious brings you the cards that reflect your deepest knowing." It is a profound and rich process in which one is interacting with one's own psyche, the collective psyche of the spiritual universe (which dare I say includes "god" and all other intelligences), and the physical universe. What could be more profound or meaningful? The truly amazing thing is it works almost every time, which is against the odds. It almost never seems random.
Personally, I initially felt very uneasy at exploring tarot, contacting spirit guides, and reading channelled books, yet all contain so much spiritual wisdom, I don't look back. Interestingly, when something such as a channelled book does not contain wisdom and feels like a fraud or a mistaken view, my intuition knows that too! What a shame that over-controlling religion kept us for so long from knowing the deeper wisdom of the universe and trusting our own spirit to find it and connect with it.
Thank you, Chuck! Amazing what happens when we can really tap into intuition. And I remember always being so afraid (as an evangelical and even after) and unable to figure out whether it was "me" in a selfish way guiding my decisions, or the actual will of god... how nice to actually build a better relationship with one's own self!
"From what I’ve read and the way I’m using it, tarot is a way to tap into your deepest intuition" . . .
A few years back, John Sandford has his detective character Lucas Davenport consult a local artist and computer hacker, Kidd (crossover from another Sandford series - IYKYK) about a case. Kidd, the ultimate rationalist, uses the tarot. He explains to Davenport that he doesn't believe in being guided by mystical spirit forces, but that laying and examining the cards forces him out of his comfortable thought patterns and sometimes triggers new and helpful insights. Something very similar, I think, to what you're describing. As I pondered that, it changed my view of the tarot, which to be fair was always more "it's superstition" than "it's Satanic" since I've never been at home in the medieval version of Christianity, in my own church (where it's a minority view) or others.
In a larger sense, it also makes me wonder how many healthy mental awareness practices were squelched as "Satanism" or "witchcraft" over the centuries. "Those people must be getting info from the Evil One or they'd be as blind and stumbling as the rest of us!"
Unfortunately that kind of thinking is on the rise again, predicted 45 years ago by James Michener in his novel "Space." It's no time to relax - it's not in the cards. 😉
Thanks for, as usual, a thoughtful essay. Good luck in the half-marathon!
Well, I might not know the shows you're talking about... but I love the idea of getting forced out of comfortable thought patterns by tarot! There's space for everyone in tarot, even the most rationalist among us! I'm also fascinated by your reference to this book that I don't know about, either but that you compelled me to learn more about on Wikipedia ;)
Thanks for your comment!
I have amassed dozens of oracle cards and several tarot decks over the past few years (since my divorce and final walking away from the church after realizing how it was largely the reason I got into such a toxic connection in the first place). I have come to realize that this is largely why the church has made all things feminine out to be bad. We all have masculine and feminine characteristics and we have to learn to balance them and bring them into unity within ourselves first. The masculine is about action and doing, it's the strong and protective side of us. The feminine is about flow, intuition, receptivity rather than driving action. Thus we have a society where boys are taught they are weak if they have emotions, and all things feminine have to be under "control." If the feminine aspect was supported and less controlled and dominated- issues such as narcissism wouldn't be as prevalent as they are.
The church has forcefully kept all aspects of the feminine has much under control as possible because we would have figured it out a long time ago how toxic religion can be and people would have started walking away from it much earlier than we were able to... and of course with events such as the crusades and either come to Jesus or die- how many hundreds of thousands if not more were killed in the name of religion because they wouldn't submit to forcefully choosing the systems imposed upon them?
Even if maybe not as many people die present age for religion- that memory is still there in the collective and has continued to play out in some capacity in the lives of all. For myself it looked like needing my dad or my brother to tell me the dude I married wasn't right for me and for whatever reason- neither of them did... it was like "here is the worst possible option for me, please say something" and when they didn't that fear of being 29 and unmarried won out and I dove in anyway... and it didn't go well at all... I thought I needed someone outside of myself to save myself and thus I resigned to believing I somehow deserved what I got into and God forbid I get divorced... that was another hella big struggle.
It took a friend of mine dying in our mid30s before I could start writing through some of my earliest traumas and freeing up space to remember who I was at all. Then the last time I went back to my ex, when he started telling me things like how he "should have raped" me when he had the chance--then the anger grew and I started finding myself again and finally was able to leave for good (but not immediately). Then everything started to unravel.
But yeah, tarot and oracle cards and all that "weird/forbidden" stuff are awesome. Oh- and astrology... if you can run your whole birth chart, OMG it makes everything make sense...
Yes, it's so nice to start to really get more in touch with the feminine energy! That's so interesting too about the collective unconscious still holding on to the pain of the violence and way-over-emphasis on masculine energy, and acting that out in different ways now!
I'm glad you've come so far -- and amassed quite a collection of tarot and oracle cards along the way! I know people really into Galactic Astrology and Human Design and stuff, and I'm curious what my whole birth chart would look like!
Ooh I have done a couple tarot readings lately too and was shocked at how wrong I was about tarot! I was also told it was of the devil and was trying to predict the future. Not at all! Yes I found too that it just helps bring out your own knowings and helps with processing and reflection. I've enjoyed it too - still can feel a little "wrong" at times, but I'm working through it.
Nice! A good tarot reader is so fascinating with what they intuit about you and the cards. Hooray for working through the weird inner tensions, and what you're learning in this process!
I love this. I got a really pretty deck of tarot cards for free but haven't used them yet. A friend did a reading for me recently, and it was fun.