The reading Event

We don’t talk that much here about the actual reading Event and process.

So, putting my head above the parapet once again, here is my personal view:

I need to preface this by saying that my readings are not a commercial transaction. If they were, I would possibly feel differently. I also rarely read for people I don’t know quite well.

I am not interested in delivering straight, predictive readings. I don’t believe they’re of much use, and they tend to allow the Querent to be a passive recipient. Much as its delightful to have my ego stroked by such recipients’ awe, there’s a risk that I could start to believe my own hype. And besides, I’m no longer prepared to do all of the work.

The reading Event, I believe, should be an interactive process... a subtle balance of power.... with the aim of self empowerment.

Hence,

~ The reading Event is not about me, its about the Querent..... their life, their experiences, their inner wisdom and strategies.

~ I’m not there to provide the answers... my role is to highlight the routes, the signposts, the anomalies.

~ My aim is to find the triggers for the querent to make their own connections.

~ My responsibility is to ’tune in’ to the Querent, not to deliver an impeccable litany of meanings.

~ My responsibility is to find the Querent between the cards.

~ The ’meanings’ are specific to the Querent, not the cards. It is not for me to determine what has meaning.

~ My ‘readings’ largely take the form of questions.

~ I aim to do less than 50% of the talking.

~ The best measure of success is when the Querent feels they’ve accessed their own inner wisdom, drawing to conscious thought transferable ideas and strategies.

Acknowledgement to Umbrae: I pinched his term, the reading 'Event'.

I liked that post, and thought about it quite a bit since I read it yesterday. I am much in the same position as you , Aoife, in that I do not read professionally, though I do aim to read for people I don't know (or not well) as much as for people I do know. The balance helps me refine the way I approach a reading.

Even with people you know well, a reading is a magic circle, an arrested moment in time in which the outer world should not intrude, in which you are not "2 friends" or "mother and daughter" or "friend of friend", but reader and querent, and two souls reaching across social definitions. This means having both to recognise the soul, and establish a distance from the friend, relative, friend's friend.
¨
I too will try and establish a dialogue, though I usually start with a narrative - weaving it from card to card, coming back and going forward. Then comes the moment of exchange, and the cards will come alive all the more when a real dynamic is established between me and my querent. Sometimes, though, a querent will stay silent (this is especially true of men. Many just sit there and look and me and at the cards). When that happens, the dialogue can only be silent, with the person's eyes, with the part inside him that wants to say "yes, it's true, I am unhappy and scared, but I can't show it, so I just want to know what to do about it!" That is where the connection between two souls can be so fruitful. The cards are a pretext for that meeting. Souls can meet when there is a spoken dialogue, but it is especially moving and creative when the reader and querent exchange a silent dialogue.

That meeting doesn't always happen. Some querents switch off and throw up a barrier when their hear something they fear or don't understand, but it is always my aim, this wordless conversation of hearts that begins with the cards, with the magic and symbolism I invest the cards with and try to communicate to my querent, continues through words and dialogue and flourishes in a form of spiritual communion which - at its best - has something of the "truth through ritual" that great theatre or live music has.

I am learning a completely new deck and system (Tarot de Marseille) at the moment, and have lost some of the ease I had in reading, and I am finding that that hesitation is leading to a complicity - something like: "let's see what we can discover together in this reading". And yes, when at the end of it the querent says - this is true I had not considered it that way, I had been bothered about something, feeling restless - not because I have told them something revelatory, but have provoked an inner revelation, then I feel I've done what I could for them.

As tmgrl said in another thread, it is an instant, a spark. We can't hold onto it, any more than we can hold onto the moment when Hamlet or St Joan spoke to the heart of us, that evening, that moment: only accept it and let it leave, like a butterfly - that delicate symbol of change.

Aoife, that was a great post. Thank you for such reflections.

Helvetica, yours is also a great post. I particularly liked your consideration (and tmgrl’s) about “it” being a moment, a spark. Thank you too.

Silvia

Hi Aoife,

Isn't this rather like any form of psychiatric therapy then ? Where the goal is for the patient to make connections within themselves about their problems , and the therapist asks questions to stimulate the process? Not to say that the cards cannot be used in that way -- of course they can . I don't think this form of reading is quite the same as the traditional psychic reading though. If one reads this way, should one call oneself a "tarot therapist" ?

In my experience, it's worked better to let the cards
do all the talking ~ that's what people want to hear.

I remember once asking the same question and getting loudly ‘boo’d’.

Then I asked “Why do you read Tarot (for others)?” and gave joke grades, in an attempt to get people to step out of egocentric thinking. I was loudly boo’d.

I wrote “The Process” and folks said, “Wonderful – what are you going to do next?” They should have said, “What are you going to do for me?”

Folks know I hate books – why? Cuz with the single exception of Mary Greer, they all assume that if you know the meaning, you can read…

You can’t.

Not even close.

Meanings is all about what you know, what you think you know, egocentric thinking (that has nothing to do with wisdom).

Knowing what a card says, and what a card means are two different things.

Knowing how to read is an event.

Knowing what cards mean is egocentric thinking and what you think is not what they feel…

Reading books and knowing meanings makes you an Ace. A One.

Somebody walks in for a reading – you are now part of a Two.

The event – the reading (The Three) is not possible without Two – a reading occurs only when the subject and object (sitter and sittee) recognize each other…an event occurs.

Saying, “I read Tarot because I can” is dangerous egocentric feeling…

And what the cards mean has nothing to do with it.

Elemental correspondences, zoological astrophreakyourselfout has nothing to do with it…

She walks in and sits down and cards get spread out and the gleam you note in the purse is the butt end of a Walther PPKS .380 and you know she’s going to go home and write her own ending not just for herself but hubby and children and blood brains hair splattered on the wall is what you see and a referral to a hotline or a counselor like all the books tell you to do or that person online who knows everything will tell you to do ain’t goonna help here cuz if you do that just like the last reader did you’re gonna be a part of her ending and do me harder Jesus with a chainsaw your’re gonna hafta read cuz ain’t no author gonna step into this minefield…

Except Aoife and I.

A tarot deck is a tool. And used “intelligently” it is as dangerous as a loaded gun. Used with wisdom it can be wielded as well as a surgeon’s scalpel (which too, has its dangers…). Tarot is akin to a wrench. Books and books on how to use it – and then you stand there looking at an engine that needs…what? Well you got a wrench buddy…

There is a lot of stuff going on here on AT by ‘experts’ that is dangerous, and stupid…egocentric crap…

Reading is an event…

What you think has nothing to do with composting.

Good stuff Aoife (as usual).

Umbrae said:

I remember once asking the same question
and getting loudly ‘boo’d’.

Click to expand...

I must have missed the question part...
could somebody repeat it for me?

Great posts, Aoife and Umbrae.

True intuitive reading, Tarot or other, is about getting the person you're reading for to discover, realize, or recognize something about themselves or their life that they hadn't realized or didn't know how to put into ordered thought, so they can act on it with greater self-awareness. Yes, I think it has to be a kind of therapy, but not the same kind one gets from a psychologist. The psychologist relies on preconceived definitions, patterns and "symptoms," where the intuitive comes at the situation from openness, infinity, a universe of possibilities. The only construct, for a Tarot reader, is the cards themselves, and the symbols or pictures on them. And in a sense the "therapist" is the sitter themselves. Only perhaps they never realize it.

Aoife, do you find that some people you read for are closed off to some degree and don't interact, they just want you to read for them and then walk away? What do you do when that happens?

Nevada

Umbrae said:

There is a lot of stuff going on here on AT by ‘experts’ that is dangerous, and stupid…egocentric crap…

Click to expand...

I look forward to a detailed outline .

Nevada said:

Great posts, Aoife and Umbrae. I'm convinced that "fortune telling" doesn't really exist, except as a sham, trickery, something a charletaine does to separate others from their money.
Nevada

Click to expand...

What exactly do you mean by fortune telling, Nevada?