Reflections and Opinions on the Process of Reading by a Tarot (A)gnostic.
Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 12 May 2005, and now archived in the Forum Library.
| firemaiden |
12 May 2005 |
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When I was brand spanking new to this site, I was also new to tarot, as well as to matters occult, or spiritual, and I posted blind, heretical questions, without fear.
I did not know enough to worry about upsetting people with subversive questions like "does tarot actually work?", or "do you have to believe in tarot in order for it to work" - (a thread I began, inadvertently starting a sort of flame war, sorry!).
But I've been poking obsessively around this site now for what, three years? And I find some of my reservations are not going away. And I thought I owed it to you all to honestly share these thoughts.
It occurred to me there is a sense in which I do not think tarot of itself does actually "work" -- at least not always.
(but what does "working” mean?)
As much as I have seen ball-busting holey-moley-yes-virginia-there-is-a-God readings, I have also seen enough readings which were completely off-the mark and irrelevant... to observe that it is *not* a given that something meaningful or relevant can be learned by simply shuffling the cards and throwing them down onto the table.
I am not one who can accept the idea that something divine "arranges" the cards meaningfully, or even that "synchronicity" is at work, in preparing exactly the perfect message. Yes, I do believe that there can be such a thing as "the wrong cards" thrown onto the table.
At the same time, I concede that it is useful to accept the premise of "synchonicity" -- otherwise one could never settle on a throw, and would be continually reshuffling, looking for the "right cards" -- or even, would just go through the deck open faced and choose them.
My personal view, is that the cards in a throw offer *possibilities* and only possibilities. When I turn over a card, I consider it to be the seed of a thought, and am interested to see what those seeds can grow into.
One of the reasons that I personally object to the notion of "static" meanings, (if there truly is such a thing) is that if I accept a pre-written meaning, the little seed might not grow into something bigger.
In fact I do think that with all cards, the possibilities are inexhaustible.
For this reason, my ideal approach would be to look at the cards drawn, each time, as if it were the very first time seeing them, and to be open to discovering not only something new in the card each time, but also a new "focal point" -- because I have noticed that depending on the question, an entirely different focal point within the card can catch my attention as representative of the sitter’s situation.
Take the nine of pentacles for example (RWS). One day it might be the snail that sticks out, and I might derive a message of patience, for example, or, say, a thought about crawling through the mud, or perhaps even a message about continuing ones course ploddingly and faithfully, even while lying at the feet of greatness, or in danger of being crushed.
Or conversely, I might find focus on the woman not noticing the snail, and suggest there is something important that is not being seen, something small, but which contains the entire world, and it is lying at your very feet...
Another day I might notice the falcon. The focal point might be fact that the bird is hooded and bonded, and I might derive a message about being tied down, and held back, restricted or somehow enslaved.
Another day, it might be the woman's hand in this relationship that catches my attention, and the fact that she is more powerful in combination with her animal partner, and derive a message about teamwork; or perhaps about chanelling ones own animal energy in order to gain strength; or a recommendation to go beyond one's human limits by engaging an outside force...
The next day I might focus on the abundance of the garden around, and think it is a recommendation to be aware that Eden is here on earth, and to open one's eyes to the bounty before you...
Truly, I do think the possibiliities are endless, especially in combination with a particular question, a particular situation, and of course in function with a spread... and OTHER CARDS.
"But Firemaiden", says the Cosmic Toaster, "if the possibilities are inexhaustible, how could you ever get the wrong cards?? Surely, if every card the entire world within it, it also contains at least the rest of the deck, and well then, each and every card would potentially be "the right card".
Ah yes, CT, that is elegantly stated. Corollary-wise, while every card has the potential to be the right card, I am not sure it is terribly important which card is pulled. More important is that it be read, that it be taken as a seed for further thought, as a point of entry to open up a line of inquiry, or the opening for a discussion (if the sitter is in front of you for example). Furthermore, if the card pulled does not lead to a fruitful line of inquiry, I would not be adverse to discarding it, and choosing a new one. I do not personally believe one should be married to the draw. It is, in my line of reasoning, only a piece of cardboard, a tool meant to serve, and if it does not do the job, I am happy to draw a different card. I ask myself, why make the task impossible? what does it prove?
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| elysgrl |
12 May 2005 |
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Firemaiden, my first impulse was to resist and recoil from what you're saying here. As a fairly new reader, I need to have some sort of faith in the system I'm learning, otherwise I have nothing to hold onto. If I can't be sure I'm drawing the "right" cards every time, that the Divine Spirit (God, Goddess, collective unconscious, insert your Force here) has by some mechanism I don't understand arranged exactly the right cards in exactly the right order, then what is the point of all this? It's hard enough sometimes to divine the intended meaning without worrying about whether or not the "right" card may be still in the deck somewhere.
And yes, I do believe the meaning is intended by Somebody or Something--other than me or the querent--and it's my job to try and figure it out. Sometimes it's clear, sometimes it's not.
But your post is the second time in less than 24 hours I've been forced to consider a different theory. I signed on to post my own story about an experience I had last night that kind of shook my foundations, and now things are even shakier. I DO strongly believe in synchronicity, and the fact that you mentioned noticing little details in the pictures has an interesting parallel in my own experience. I'm wondering if I'll have to rebuild my Tower after all is said and done.
Anyway, I'm going to go post my story so you'll know what I'm talking about. The title will be "A tale of two readers". And THANK YOU. I'm learning that when I have a visceral reaction against something, it usually means I need to pay closer attention because there's an important lesson in there. I very often end up embracing what I initially reject.
Blessings,
Denise
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| The Dreamer |
12 May 2005 |
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To me, what does it prove is exactly the question.
I can't see how anyone could ever be certain that their reading was correct if they could not decide upon what their reading actually meant. So I stick to pretty rigid meanings. (Although, regardless of how fluid with the meanings the reader is- it can still be judged whether the reading is accurate. But, that can be approched "fluidly" as well. If both the meanings and the accuracy of the reading were approached fluidly- to me, that sounds like chaos, and an exercise in futility.)
I don't know if that is why I haven't gotten any "nonsense" readings, or if the reason I don't get readings which don't seem to make sense is because I only read when I really want to know something- and not for recreation and not for other people.
I do sometimes get readings which relate to something that was not asked, which I know because the events which follow directly after were described by those readings. Usually that happens when something important is about to happen.
I would not use tarot at all if I had not proved to myself early on that the readings that I did for myself were accurate.
I've seen way too many people who I know personally and who I don't know fool themselves about way too many things to allow myself the chance to do that. I am entirely capable of fooling myself, and coming up with stories, and imagining scenarios (not visually, because I'm not a visual thinker), and speculating about all and sundry. I use tarot to let me get out of my own imagination, and to see more clearly.
I've been a bit disconcerted to find among the users of tarot the same kind of (sorry, but this is how I see it) muddled imagination based thinking which I've seen in so many religious people, and so many other kinds of people.
In my experience, divination has been the one thing which I have experienced which is an actual supernatural experience that has nothing to do with my own internal workings. I've made sure of that. Again and again. It gives me the wonderful experience that there really is something deeper going on (that isn't about the magic of the imagination.) Nothing could be more sad and lonely and hopeless to me than the idea that each of our individual realities is made of nothing but our own imagination. Divination has shown me that there really is connection. There really is meaning. And I don't have to take on the impossible task of figuring it all out for myself.
If anyone really cares about proving that divination is not based only in the imagination of the reader, then they should remove their own imagination from the equation, and have real criteria about whether a reading is true.
In my experience, when I get The Tower, it is not just a possibility. Something happens. Something which I did not make happen, and which I cannot prevent happening happens.
In my experience, the Nine Of Swords does not ever mean anything remotely like The Sun.
I have chosen to set these boundaries, and it has served me very well.
Other styles suit others well, it seems. But still. I really wonder why anyone who thinks it doesn't matter which cards come up reads the cards at all.
"(A)gnostic" is a pretty good description of my spiritual state at this point. Agnostic about whatever the reality of the spiritual world really is. And Gnostic about divination working. Because I know it works for me.
I never asked anyone if it really worked, or if I needed to believe in it to work. I was not looking for a religion, or a belief system, or a teacher. Instead I used it, and discovered for myself that it worked, and that I didn't need to believe in it.
Maybe in some mystical way, everything is true. But in the practical world, it is most definite that not everything is true about every thing. For me, tarot is a tool for living practically in the world. I am very happy that I don't have to live with such ambiguity as the idea that any card or reading could mean anything a person wants it to. And I thank the theoretical spiritual realtity for letting me have some real true and clear experiences finally. Every "spiritual" thing before divination for me was an utter letdown, and, well, as I see it, a lie. I want the truth. Whatever it is. I can't just make it up. Divination gives that to me, in little manageable pieces.
I guess we can all get out of it what we're looking for. But I don't see why anyone would use such a potentially powerful tool as divination in a way which would only achieve something which can be gotten at by other means (such as meditation, or brainstorming, talking to others, or writing stories, etc. etc. etc.)
And aside from the imaginative get-you-thinking uses, there are the "psychic" uses. For the psychic uses- you don't need the cards. You don't need toothpicks. You don't need chicken bones. You don't need anything. All you need to be is a reciever.
Now, if someone was successful in triggering their own receptivity through particular exercises, then well and good for them. And good that they tell their stories. But everyone is different. Some people don't need to do such exercises to get similar effects. Some might need to do different exercises.
We have to seperate the subjective from the objective if we want to try to understand anything. Yes, in the end, maybe it's all the same. Maybe. But maybe it's only all the same from the perspective of an omnicient being. We will never be omnicient. We need to make distinctions as human beings, if we really want to understand anything.
That is, if we want to understand. Many people don't. I wish them well.
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| OakDragon |
12 May 2005 |
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Firemaiden, I too came to tarot from a (to my mind now) "overly rational", "non occult oriented" background and became initially attracted to tarot because of surprise in that it does work and trying to figure out why. I agree with just about everything you said in your post, but I would like to put my two cents in about something you said:
"But Firemaiden", says the Cosmic Toaster, "if the possibilities are inexhaustible, how could you ever get the wrong cards?? Surely, if every card the entire world within it, it also contains at least the rest of the deck, and well then, each and every card would potentially be "the right card".
Ah yes, CT, that is elegantly stated. Corollary-wise, while every card has the potential to be the right card , I am not sure it is terribly important which card is pulled. More important is that it be read , that it be taken as a seed for further thought, as a point of entry to open up a line of inquiry, or the opening for a discussion (if the sitter is in front of you for example). Furthermore, if the card pulled does not lead to a fruitful line of inquiry, I would not be adverse to discarding it, and choosing a new one.
(Prepare yourself for a few slightly more "heretical" tarot thoughts.) I believe that tarot works precisely because every card can be the "right" card, for any given situation. It does not really, in the end, matter which cards are pulled, but how the reader relates them to the situation at hand and the question posed. It is possible to pull potential wisdom from any card, in regard to any subject, at any time. To me, if ever the card seems to be the wrong one, it is a failing on the part of the reader to do so. (Something which happens to us all now and then, I'm sure.) Part of the joy of tarot reading to me, is the way tarot allows us to give thoughtful insight into our lives in an entertaining way. And one of my prerequisites for any thing like this is fulfilled by tarot: I don't have to believe in it because it works whether I believe in it or not.
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| firemaiden |
12 May 2005 |
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Wow, what wonderful posts. Dreamer, I thank you for writing with such passion and eloquence. Your post was very moving, and certainly gives me pause to think there could be an aspect I haven't experienced yet.
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| Ace |
12 May 2005 |
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Firemaiden: you said some very important things. I also read elysgrl's thread and replied on it, so I won't repeat myself.
But one thing I think is true. The cards are only little pretty pictures on cardstock, but they open up our...call it the third eye, our psychic sense, wherever, that ALL of us have. The cards are like Inkblots (and your comment on sometimes it's the snail, sometimes it's something else is very right on to me!) they help you see what is OUT THERE. but they are not magic in themselves. They are like magic wands, they help you DO magic but they are only plastic or wood.
Ace
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| firemaiden |
12 May 2005 |
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In my experience, divination has been the one thing which I have experienced which is an actual supernatural experience that has nothing to do with my own internal workings. I've made sure of that. Again and again. It gives me the wonderful experience that there really is something deeper going on (that isn't about the magic of the imagination.) Nothing could be more sad and lonely and hopeless to me than the idea that each of our individual realities is made of nothing but our own imagination. Divination has shown me that there really is connection. There really is meaning. And I don't have to take on the impossible task of figuring it all out for myself.
You know, despite our apparently divergent approaches, I totally agree with you. My experience of reading for others, and occasionally for myself, has shown me absolutely that there is connection and there really is meaning. For me, the point of magic, lies first in the moment where the details "pop" up from the card, and then in the flood of weird thoughts that seem to flow therefrom.
As a recent example, I asked a question about my upcoming opening night in an opera. I was Lady Macbeth. I turned over the world card - reversed from the "Estensi" tarot. (Lo Scarabeo's 78 card recreation of the so-called "Gringonneur" or "Charles VI" deck.) It shows a women in a red dress, standing on the globe. Well, I had just spent several days getting together the perfect RED dress, it looked not-unsimilar to that of the World. It showed me standing on stage - in the red dress.
Of all the ways to interpret the World card, one of my favorites is of "being on top of the world", and "all the world is a stage". This time the detail that zinged out was the RED of the red dress. I took the reversal as a message to take the stage and I would be on top of the world. (The opening went exactly as I had wished and hoped for).
It is almost impossible to explain, but I don't think that the details that pop out, or the ideas that come to mind are only the product of my imagination.
If I am in the proper space, I feel like I become sort of "hollow" - and the ideas that pop up do not feel like they are coming from me, it feels like I'm tapping into something else, like sticking my hand in a flow of electricity or something, and there is a sense of finding a vein, like a quartz vein in granite, and then mining it as far as it goes. Sometimes the vein goes very deep, and I keep on pulling more and more out. I go on until it is over.
The images on the card, as well as the ideas behind it (like the special qualities of the number and suit) all seem to feed this strange magic that does happen.
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| The Dreamer |
12 May 2005 |
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How good it is that we can recieve these messages.
I have had similar experiences of visual effects happening when looking at things- which seem to be from an entirely non imagination based intuitive faculty of some kind. I will look at a book or cd, and the color of it will glow out more than the things around it. I will pick up the object and listen to it or read it and get information or an experience that I needed at the time.
I distrusted that at first, because it followed an experience of my senses going a bit screwy- one particular color glowing in general for a while, and then another color for a while, was how it started.
And probably the things which scare me most are the ideas of hallucination and being separated from reality, and from other people.
But, after the initial variation, it never happened unless I was getting a "message". Which I tested each time, and still do, when it happens.
This process of my senses having become disorganized and then actually reorganizing into a more well functioning whole is symbolized to me by the Thoth tower card, with its eye of knowledge at the top, and its dove of hope flying off. When I get it, as opposed to other tower cards, it has meant reorganization into a better form- as well as, and not only just, upheaval.
I consider my various decks to be like one big deck. Each tower card is a bit different, but means only what it means when I draw it.
I have always had great distrust of those who claim they are recieving something by "intuition". For the majority of my life I did not have any. And a lot of what people claimed was intuition was nothing but imagination, it seemed to me. My mother is one such person. And, people would misread me all the time, so it showed that their intution was incorrect.
Then I began to recieve (after a kind of cataclysmic personal upheaval) intuition, real intuition, which I test every time it comes. I was not seeking after it, but there it is. I'm a skeptic with intuition now. Who feels compelled to test. Especially myself.
It is clear that many people can get readings which obviously turn out to be true by using less rigid methods than I use.
Probably the distinction which I want to make between the psychic function and what is found in the cards does not need to be made as clearly as I make it. For me, though, I'm really afraid of going off into some imaginary world instead of getting a real answer when I read the cards, so I don't want to do it that way. And, I think that it's always useful to seperate things out first, even if they are put back together in the end. I prefer to sort, rather than to lump. That way I know what's in the pile of ideas I'm dealing with.
I wonder if tarot automatically "speaks" to each person in the form which is most useful to them, or if we decide how it will speak to us by what we do. Perhaps a combination of the two. My experience has shown me that there is defintely an outside "force" going on when divination occurs. If I did not make distinctions in the way that I do, I would not be able to say that with certainty. Hearing twenty people say "it works this way, or because of this" about anything means absolutely nothing to me if I do not know why they think it works that way.
I am always glad to find someone who does not have a certainty about something, because that shows they are actually thinking. Even better is when someone can say something with certainty after having passed through the doubt and consequently really done some testing or examination.
It is clear that the particular world card with the red dress conveyed the message for you in a way which could have been conveyed by few other, if any other, cards. What a great thing that the right card was drawn, and that your intuitive faculty worked with it such that the message could be recieved.
I've just read Elysgrl's thread about the reader who uses the image based approach. I can see how that could work, although I tend to distrust imagery more than words. Words are not always clear, but I think that imagery can mean many more things potentially than words can, which makes me trust it less for something where I'm trying to get information. And, it seems like it's more about various things the reader may zero in upon in the image rather than what the card itself as a whole presents, although I do think that cards' meanings, even when interpreted purely visually, are not totally fluid or interchangeable.
It's hard to test the truth of every tarot reading, but I do think trying to do so is a worthy goal. And that is the only way which would show whether any particular approach to interpretation is really a useful one to use for any particular reader.
It's fine to say that a reader should not "tell" a sitter something. But, no matter how people try to get around it, a person getting a reading is there to get information. The person doing the reading is going to tell them. Both think that information has been recieved, and is being transmitted. If they did not, they would not be engaging in the reading. Telling will occur. Everyone is afraid of saying the wrong thing. That is appropriate. But, everyone also believes that there is a thing to say. No one thinks the reader just makes something up. Not even the most hardcore storytelling based reader really thinks that they don't need the cards. They may say they think they don't, but they use the cards anyway.
Anyone who thinks tarot cards are nothing but inkblots should use real inkblots to test that theory. Really. It might work for some people. I don't know.
Whatever strange magic occurs, it should always bring us back into engagement with reality. If it doesn't- it's not magic, it's psychosis. Sorry to be blunt, but that is my fear, and I think a well founded one.
Enough of my lengthy reflections for the moment.
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| Fudugazi |
12 May 2005 |
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The Dreamer - you are right: imagination and intuition belong together. They are both modes of expression from a non-rational part of us (or beyond). In me, they work closely together. I use my imagination very much when I read. Does that make me a bad reader? Not for me to answer. But I couldn't do without either. I really do believe Tarot reading is made up of many areas of our brain and the rational is only one small element - the one that arranges things in order to transmit to someone else or to oneself.
For me it works like writing. I have to get out of my way when I read or I get it all wrong - I mean my logic brain and my emotions must not take front seat here, though I'll allow them in at the end, when the reading is done. If I don't I project on others, or cloud myself; or become overly cerebral - it is already a fault I have.
But firemaiden: I don't believe there are wrong cards - ever. There are wrong interpretations, or there are cards turning up that have nothing to do with the question, but with another part of the querent's life. That's a tricky one to pick up!!
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| tmgrl2 |
12 May 2005 |
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When I read your post firemaiden...I identified with almost all, if not all of what you said.
I was even thinking of "stealing" your former name ....Puzzled Skeptic.
I'm in a funk about Tarot now.
I question it all the time.
I do believe, though, that somehow, I am a receiver....or a "noticer" of things and I do believe that I must let my meditative reflection allow my imagination to work.
This is one of the main reason, I have shyed more and more away from discussing meanings of a card....by itself, outside a spread, outside of a reading ...
I keep thinking about how each time a card appears, I notice something else...
Today in the fun and games section where we pair a card with food...I kept seeing the two pentacles in the Two of Pents (RWS) as someone flipping pizza dough round and round till it's right to put on the baking tray.
Each time, something different and sometimes...totally weird comes to me and I start speaking and somehow, at the end, there is a message, there is some meaning and some guidance....I guess.
Possibilities....Sometimes I think of the concept of "alternate realities" and think that a given card, depending on where it is, or the cards in a spread overall...present a myriad of "alternate possibilities" for the sitter....
I haven't been reading live lately...just in a strange place with the whole idea of someone coming to me for a reading. I feel better reading for myself, and have been avoiding that as well, because I usually get what I need not what I want to see or hear .....
When I read for live sitters, while I may not pick a "different" card, I often end up pulling another whole set to cover the first set...to clarify...or sometimes, just another card for one card...sometimes, one card just doesn't seem to fit at all...and that one is one I really focus on...
I'm not sure where I am with the Tarot. I know it's in my life to stay.
I will read when someone asks me to read for them.
I no longer require or expect feedback, but I do like the reading to be an interaction, a discussion, since I believe the sitter has just as much that is of importance to the process to help us build together some meaning
from this Tower of Cards...
I can speak for myself...you have done two rather significant readings for me and in each, there was much that was of great help to me at the time...
Remember the paintbrush?? And you asked me what I thought it meant and it had clear implications for some fears that were lurking beneath the surface.
Certainly a paintbrush could mean many things to many people, but at that moment, it stood out for you and pulled from me, that which was begging to come to the surface. Isn't this what we hope to achieve when we interact in a reading???
t
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| Umbrae |
12 May 2005 |
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Ah yes, CT, that is elegantly stated. Corollary-wise, while every card has the potential to be the right card , I am not sure it is terribly important which card is pulled. More important is that it be read , that it be taken as a seed for further thought, as a point of entry to open up a line of inquiry, or the opening for a discussion (if the sitter is in front of you for example)... some emphasis added
Yeah.
All this emphasis on the deck, the spread, the meanings…it ain’t none of that. It’s what we say. It’s not what we think the cards mean, it’s what we tell the sitter, it’s how we communicate.
It ain’t the cards. You can read knees, buttocks, crystal balls, toothpicks, Sweet n’ Low packets…even if you are picking your info out of the ether…what do you say?
Even IF the cards are always correct…what we say about them…does it have context in the life of the sitter.
That’s what’s lacking in internet readings. You tell.
But face to face, there’s a real person there – you can see into their eyes.
Every card has potential. Sometimes we limit it. We intellectualize it. We don’t allow the imagery to become flexible. The card meanings should be dynamic as opposed to static – like life…dynamic
And where is the really bad card? You know the one. The one that warns us of the monster. The thing with the fur on the inside – who may live next door. Where is the card that tells us to warn them, “Daddy’s coming home, don’t lock the doors, just get far far away…”
The 10 of Swords?…oh no…the sun is rising over the ocean! (where I live the sun sets over the ocean).
The Simpson's
Episode 2F15
"Lisa's Wedding"
Written by Greg Daniels
Directed by Jim Reardon
Woman: I've been waiting for you, Lisa.
Lisa: [gasps] How did you know my name?
Woman: Your nametag. ["hi, i'm lady lisa"] Would you like to know your future?
Lisa: Heh, sorry, I don't believe in fortune telling. I should go.
Woman: What's your hurry? Bart and Maggie and Marge are at the joust, and Homer is heckling the puppet show.
Lisa: [gasps] Wow, you can see into the...present.
Woman: Now we'll see what the future holds. [turns over a card from what looks like a tarot deck]
Lisa: [gulps] The "Death" card?
Woman: No, that's good: it means transition, change.
Lisa: [relieved] Oh.
[the woman turns over another card]
Lisa: Oh, that's cute.
Woman: [gasps] "The Happy Squirrel"!
Lisa: [timid] That's bad?
Woman: Possibly. The cards are vague and mysterious.
The Tower? No…that’s change…hmmmm.
Yes, it’s safe. When in doubt just say change. That should sound good to the sitter.
What if what I know deep in my heart, at the core of my being…its that voice telling, “Tell her to run far away right now she knows it’s gonna be bad she took out her savings and she’s thinking about it” and you’re looking at the Five of Pentacles. You gonna talk about poverty or a journey? Poverty is the sound of dirt hitting a wooden box – a journey is long and lonesome and not without certain risk itself.
It’s all about the sitter.
Without a sitter there’s not even a reason for anything resembling accuracy. But if you want to use Tarot to surf the wave of chaos, as an oracle, perhaps we need to remember that the probabilities inherent in each card are limited by our ability to communicate those probabilities. If we become staid, crippled with rote memorized meanings, we will miss probabilities.
We will miss what needs to be communicated.
We miss the whole point of reading.
The sitter. Communication and rapport with the sitter. Context with the sitter’s life.
When somebody says, “hold on, that’s not me at all!” you need to go back to the cards and reexamine your own approach. I don’t’ think there are wrong cards, but a wrong approach, inflexible and static.
Back when I wrote The Process pieces, they were about the event of reading. That reading is not about me (that is my hidden agenda btw), it’s about the sitter. That there is more to the event of reading than card meanings. That there is more to the process of reading than the deck itself. When I first proposed such a series, there were objections.
But you know…reading for others is a conversation, not a soliloquy.
“Ohhh look…The Happy Squirrel, does this mean anything to you?"
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| similia |
12 May 2005 |
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You are a brave woman Firemaiden :eek: :)
I recently made a joke in chat, folllowing two of us performing a reading on the same thing, and getting the same two major arcana in the key positions. I said something like "wow, maybe tarot actually works!"
I then spent the next 10 minutes explaining exactly what I meant by that :D Of course you have done it much more elegantly.
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| The Dreamer |
12 May 2005 |
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Yeah.
All this emphasis on the deck, the spread, the meanings…it ain’t none of that. It’s what we say. It’s not what we think the cards mean, it’s what we tell the sitter, it’s how we communicate.
It ain’t the cards. You can read knees, buttocks, crystal balls, toothpicks , Sweet n’ Low packets…even if you are picking your info out of the ether…what do you say?
If it doesn't mean anything, there is nothing to communicate.
Very good to emphasize the communication aspect, but to the point of negating the idea of meaning? That makes no sense.
Even IF the cards are always correct…what we say about them…does it have context in the life of the sitter.
That’s what’s lacking in internet readings. You tell.
But face to face, there’s a real person there – you can see into their eyes. I think it would be a pretty sad person who could not realize that there is a real person being spoken to via the internet, even though they cannot be looked in the eye at the moment. Just as sad as the many people who everyday do not realize it though they are looking people in the eyes.
Is "context" what is gained in the face to face interaction? I can see how that matters to many other interactions, but divination is different. It is a specialized activity. It can be done without even knowing the question.
If it's not a matter of reading a person's body language, or aura, or whatever, then I don't see why should it matter if it's in person or not. And, I don't see how anyone can be sure that internet readings on the whole are less accurate than face to face readings.
Every card has potential. Sometimes we limit it. We intellectualize it. We don’t allow the imagery to become flexible. The card meanings should be dynamic as opposed to static – like life…dynamic What if they become so dynamic that the reader doesn't know what they mean? I don't care how many times various people repeat that, I know that using that approach in my own readings would be worthless to me. The card meanings "should be" whatever is shown to be accurate.
Of course life is dynamic. But one needs an unflexible oar to paddle down a dynamic river. If I'm paddling very well with an oar and someone tells me I should use a noodle instead because it's more flexible like the river's water, I would say, the heck I should. Not to say that perhaps somebody hasn't possibly successfully lassoed a barracuda with a noodle and been pulled up the river that way. ;) To use a bizarre analogy.
And where is the really bad card? You know the one. The one that warns us of the monster. The thing with the fur on the inside – who may live next door. Where is the card that tells us to warn them, “Daddy’s coming home, don’t lock the doors, just get far far away…”
The 10 of Swords?…oh no…the sun is rising over the ocean! (where I live the sun sets over the ocean).
The Tower? No…that’s change…hmmmm.
Yes, it’s safe. When in doubt just say change. That should sound good to the sitter.
What if what I know deep in my heart, at the core of my being…its that voice telling, “Tell her to run far away right now she knows it’s gonna be bad she took out her savings and she’s thinking about it” and you’re looking at the Five of Pentacles. You gonna talk about poverty or a journey? Poverty is the sound of dirt hitting a wooden box – a journey is long and lonesome and not without certain risk itself. What that example focuses upon is not so much the fluidity of card meanings, but upon the intuition of the reader.
Of course the "monster" card can be all kinds of different cards, in many different situations. But in that situation, it was (indicated by) the five of pentacles. That, plus the intuitive prompting, which is a different thing from the card itself, is what made the card the right card in that situation.
This is why I very rarely use spreads. I take it one little bit, one card at a time, usually. There's too much needing emphasis and deemphasis in a big pile of cards like a spread. I still arrive at a big picture, just like other people who read do, but one step at a time instead of all at once.
It’s all about the sitter. Of course it is. (Primarily).I don't understand anyone who would think it's not.
But, if it were only about the sitter, the sitter would be reading their own cards. Two people are involved here. Two subjectivities prone to two sets of potential for self delusion in all the myriad ways people delude themselves. It complicates things.
Without a sitter there’s not even a reason for anything resembling accuracy. That depends how sitter is defined. If a person reading thier own cards is also a sitter, then yes. If a person reading their own cards is not a "sitter", then no. A person reading their own cards also needs accuracy. But if you want to use Tarot to surf the wave of chaos, as an oracle, I don't know what defintion of oracle would make it equivalent to riding the waves of chaos. Probably it can be defined in various ways. I was under the impression that tarot is a specific form of oracle. perhaps we need to remember that the probabilities inherent in each card are limited by our ability to communicate those probabilities. If we become staid, crippled with rote memorized meanings, we will miss probabilities.
We will miss what needs to be communicated.
We miss the whole point of reading.
The sitter. Communication and rapport with the sitter. Context with the sitter’s life.
When somebody says, “hold on, that’s not me at all!” you need to go back to the cards and reexamine your own approach. I don’t’ think there are wrong cards, but a wrong approach, inflexible and static. I don't know what to say about that, because I don't get a "that's not me at all" reaction when I read my own cards, nor did I have that reaction when I once had cards read for me (though I did not like the message I was getting.)
But I do know that many people will claim that things about them which are true are not true. That could be a big problem, when reading for self or others.
Sometimes someone cannot accept the truth of something until they've had time to mull it over. I don't see how someone saying something is not true during a reading is any way to judge that reading. I think a better way to judge it would be to wait until any predictions of the reading bear out.
Back when I wrote The Process pieces , they were about the event of reading. That reading is not about me (that is my hidden agenda btw), it’s about the sitter. That there is more to the event of reading than card meanings. That there is more to the process of reading than the deck itself. When I first proposed such a series, there were objections.
But you know…reading for others is a conversation, not a soliloquy.
“Ohhh look…The Happy Squirrel, does this mean anything to you?"
A reading could be closer to a soliloquy but still not be about the reader. It is only about the reader if the reader thinks it is about the reader. (And, maybe not even then, if the message, however it was arrived at, is conveyed well and is accurate.)
What is divination about? Two people just having a conversation, and free associating? I don't believe that anyone who uses tarot really thinks that.
That is an extreme postion which is meant to counter what is seen as other extreme postions (that the reading is about the reader, rather than the message, being right, or that all readers must stick to only rigid meanings.) There is no need for those extreme postions. People are free to try it any way they want to, and see what works for them in order to make it work for the one being read for.
And they know what works when the one being read for, be it self or other, finds the reading to be accurate.
This is not really that complicated.
For those who find their readings are not accurate, it would make sense to try different approaches.
For those who find their readings accurate, it would make sense to stick with the same approach, though there would be no harm in testing other methods.
Those who tell everyone else that everyone else must use their own method are making no sense.
Everyone can tell if the methods they are using are accurate, if they make the effort to do so- though it is harder for those who read for others. That will always be a problem.
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| elysgrl |
13 May 2005 |
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For me, though, I'm really afraid of going off into some imaginary world instead of getting a real answer when I read the cards, so I don't want to do it that way. And, I think that it's always useful to seperate things out first, even if they are put back together in the end. I prefer to sort, rather than to lump. That way I know what's in the pile of ideas I'm dealing with.
I wonder if tarot automatically "speaks" to each person in the form which is most useful to them, or if we decide how it will speak to us by what we do. Perhaps a combination of the two. My experience has shown me that there is defintely an outside "force" going on when divination occurs. .
Dreamer, your whole post was thought-provoking, but this really stood out for me. See, I'm a writer. Even though tarot reading is a visual medium, I haven't had the experience of certain details popping, or even really noticing them that much, because I've never been a visually-based person. (I'm great with names, but terrible with faces, for instance.)
For me, the magic happens when I'm writing up the reading later. My mind makes connections that I didn't see at all when I was staring at the cards, and I get into the same kind of trancy zone that I'm in when I'm writing fiction. But then sometimes I think, Is that what I'm doing? Am I writing fiction here, or am I getting flashes of the truth?
So far, it seems to be the latter. My in-person readings are not all that incisive, but the ones I've done through e-mail, for people I've never met, have been spot on. The difference is the writing, which seems to unlock a channel in me. I guess when I begin reading professionally, I better include a written follow-up!
Denise
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| firemaiden |
13 May 2005 |
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What if [the cards] become so dynamic that the reader doesn't know what they mean? I don't care how many times various people repeat that, I know that using that approach in my own readings would be worthless to me. The card meanings "should be" whatever is shown to be accurate.
Of course life is dynamic. But one needs an unflexible oar to paddle down a dynamic river. If I'm paddling very well with an oar and someone tells me I should use a noodle instead because it's more flexible like the river's water, I would say, the heck I should. Not to say that perhaps somebody hasn't possibly successfully lassoed a barracuda with a noodle and been pulled up the river that way. ;) To use a bizarre analogy.
I very nearly said the same thing earlier on, in this thread: Tarot Frustrations: crisis of faith, I wrote: How can you possibly read, if any card can mean anything at all?? If you are a great seer, do you even need the cards to read? Otherwise, being just an ordinary citizen, if the cards can mean so many different things each, and also so many cards mean the same or similar things one to the other... how can you read???
Since the time of that post, however, I have since done many readings for others, and it changed the way I saw things. The way I read now, the messages are derived from the details I pick up in the imagery. Although sometimes I almost trick myself into believing that pictures (as in dreams and horror movies, and Harry Potter) can wink, and move -- in reality, the image on the card is totally static. That is the solid oar that floats me down the river. Now, what is interesting in the image-reading approach to tarot, is that most of the time, when you "intuit" a meaning from picking out details on the illustration, you are going to still come up with something that fits into the range of possible "fixed-meaning."
Not always -- but most of the time. For example, if you re-read the variations I posted for the nine of pentacles, at the beginning of this thread, most of those meanings may turn out to be pretty standard for that card.
For these reasons, I would say that for me the cards are *not* fluid to the point of being meaningless.
Sometimes someone cannot accept the truth of something until they've had time to mull it over. I don't see how someone saying something is not true during a reading is any way to judge that reading. I think a better way to judge it would be to wait until any predictions of the reading bear out.
I have heard this before, yes, mulling over time is important. On the other end of the spectrum, however, there are readers who think, if you disagree with their reading, it is because you are "in denial", or can't face the truth, or something. I am afraid I think this is too easy. What about the lady on A tale of two readers, who thinks Queens for a man always predict he is gay.
What if she turns over a Queen in her fixed-but-not-admitting-it system, and tells a man he is gay, when he is not gay? Okay, so he's in denial about being gay? Well, hmm hmm hmm hmmm... I grew up in San Francisco, studied ballet, French, and opera, need I say more? hmmm? so in my warped geographical perspective 99.9 percent of all men are gay, and probably those who don't admit it are in denial... if she's reading on Polk Street, she has a good chance of getting it right every time. But that isn't really my point, my point is that, it is too easy to say someone is in denial. And truly, it is much more complicated than "either you are gay or not". Does one experience make you gay? do fantasies make you gay? But if he says he's not gay, I say "he's not gay!" -- its a choice.
It is also too easy for the reader to say, "oh, it only seems like it is totally off the mark, but just you watch, it may come true in ten years". What if the reader has predicted infidelity of a spouse, or death of a parent, or future health problems, a loss of a job?
Well, these things are bound to happen one day or another. You might as well predict a stock market crash. It's bound to come true one day...and when that day comes, you can say "I told you so."
Still, I think the reader has to have the humility to admit, that not everything can be known, that the person in front of them contains a part of God, and a part of infinity, and that a reading can be off the mark.
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| The Dreamer |
13 May 2005 |
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I very nearly said the same thing earlier on, in this thread: Tarot Frustrations: crisis of faith , I wrote:
Since the time of that post, however, I have since done many readings for others, and it changed the way I saw things. The way I read now, the messages are derived from the details I pick up in the imagery. Although sometimes I almost trick myself into believing that pictures (as in dreams and horror movies, and Harry Potter) can wink, and move -- in reality, the image on the card is totally static. That is the solid oar that floats me down the river. Now, what is interesting in the image-reading approach to tarot, is that most of the time, when you "intuit" a meaning from picking out details on the illustration, you are going to still come up with something that fits into the range of possible "fixed-meaning."
Not always -- but most of the time. For example, if you re-read the variations I posted for the nine of pentacles, at the beginning of this thread, most of those meanings may turn out to be pretty standard for that card.
For these reasons, I would say that for me the cards are *not* fluid to the point of being meaningless.
And, regardless of whether a prediction arrived at through divination is dependent upon which cards come up, a prediction can be tested, if it is a testable one.
I have heard this before, yes, mulling over time is important. On the other end of the spectrum, however, there are readers who think, if you disagree with their reading, it is because you are "in denial", or can't face the truth, or something. I am afraid I think this is too easy. What about the lady on A tale of two readers , who thinks Queens for a man always predict he is gay.
What if she turns over a Queen in her fixed-but-not-admitting-it system, and tells a man he is gay, when he is not gay? Okay, so he's in denial about being gay? Well, hmm hmm hmm hmmm... I grew up in San Francisco, studied ballet, French, and opera, need I say more? hmmm? so in my warped geographical perspective 99.9 percent of all men are gay, and probably those who don't admit it are in denial... if she's reading on Polk Street, she has a good chance of getting it right every time. But that isn't really my point, my point is that, it is too easy to say someone is in denial. And truly, it is much more complicated than "either you are gay or not". Does one experience make you gay? do fantasies make you gay? But if he says he's not gay, I say "he's not gay!" -- its a choice.
It is also too easy for the reader to say, "oh, it only seems like it is totally off the mark, but just you watch, it may come true in ten years". What if the reader has predicted infidelity of a spouse, or death of a parent, or future health problems, a loss of a job?
Well, these things are bound to happen one day or another. You might as well predict a stock market crash. It's bound to come true one day...and when that day comes, you can say "I told you so."
One is that the lady who had the queen=gay rule is using a fixed but not admitting it system. A good way to describe it. What "fixed" the meaning for her was, I assume, her experience with having done many readings for others (the other option being that perhaps someone taught her, that as a rule, if a man draws one of the queens that he is gay).
It could actually be that for that reader, 100% of the men who have drawn a queen when she read for them said to her that they were gay. That would not mean that her assumption that the rule holds up is correct, because the possiblility would remain that if one man drew a queen who was not gay, that the rule would be wrong. One exception would negate the rule. (And she would have to take the man's word for it, because there would be no other way for her to find out whether her prediction was true, unless she was reading for someone who she could find that out about otherwise, somehow.)
Being certain about the rule would be a big mistake. The best she can honestly say about the rule is that so far, that "man draws queen=gay" has (to her knowledge) predicted gayness in those she has encountered so far.
Now, the question of whether someone would lie to the reader about being gay is another issue, and another issue from that is whether someone could lie to themself about being gay. Those possibilities make such a rule an extremely hard one to test.
But it is a good example of many of the problems which can arise when trying to judge the accuracy of someone who reads for others. It raises the questions -what if the sitter lies to the reader; -what if the sitter lies to themself; -how can a reader determine whether their own reading was accurate; -how sure can a reader be that any specific statement will be able to be a useful prediction.
Still, I think the reader has to have the humility to admit, that not everything can be known, that the person in front of them contains a part of God, and a part of infinity, and that a reading can be off the mark. I don't know if the unknowability is because a person contains a part of god or infinity (though to say that does invoke a feeling of awe and respect that is appropriate when people deal with one another, I think).
But the weather is unpredictable too. Not necessarily because it is infinite, but because there are too many variables involved to be able to make a working model of it.
What is being questioned is testablility. To test something, it must be disproveable. A prediction which is so common that its being fulfilled soon would be highly likely ("you will eat breakfast tomorrow") would be useless as a testable prediction. The same goes for a prediction which is for any common thing which would occur eventually anyway ("there will be a stock market crash".) And anything which would predict so far into the future that one would have to wait years to test it would be a practically useless prediction for most people. (More useless for the reader, if they want to know if their own prediction was correct. The person who was predicted for will find out one way or the other, eventually.)
In my own experience with reading for myself, I've rarely had any predictions which go more than about a week into the future. Rarely, I've asked about something a few months ahead. (In any case, it's usually not in the form of "what will happen" but "what will happen if I..." and I get a few what if scenarios by drawing a few cards, depending on how many options there are.) Those predictions would be useless to me if they were not about things so near in the future (and, it goes without saying, testable.) I prefer predictions about things which are within two days, because I don't want to wait around to know what's going to happen. And tarot has given me that.
And, though I know from experience that when I draw the tower for the future that an unnerving event will happen (it has not failed yet) I do not know what that event will be.
I don't really understand how people are coming up with such specific predictions about things as predicting that someone will die, etc. I have not even attempted to seek that kind of knowledge using tarot. It is enough for me to know what the tone of the coming event will be. It is specific enough for me that way, and not at all ambiguous.
The meaning of ambiguous depends upon what a person is trying to make clear. If I had attempted to get names and dates from the cards, (which I've not attempted) but only got "something unnerving is going to happen, it will make you sad, but communicating with this person who you've asked about would be useful" (and that is exactly the sort of prediction that I get, when I predict- ) then that prediction could be considered ambiguous. But, since I was asking about tone and not other specifics, it was not ambiguous to me- that is what I was asking for. If I had set out to get the name of an unknown person, or whether someone will die, then that prediction would not be clear in regard to those questions.
To use the stock market crash example- I don't care about a stock market crash. I just want to know how to invest my money, so to speak. If I were to ask "how would it be if I invested in this" I would get a useful answer, probably, but I can't see how I could attempt to predict that the stock market would crash. There are many possibilities already contained in the question of "how would it be if..." it would cover things I hadn't thought of, such as whether it would cause me problems for some personal reason which is totally unrelated to the working of the markets itself.
What kinds of questions a person asks would make a big difference to the question of how much leeway and possibility must be contained within the interpretation of the cards.
To further explore the idea of what kind of interpretive leeway is useful in tarot, and how the accuracy of any specific reading can be tested-
It could be that sometimes when one person reads for another, that tarot starts to give answers which would be more easily interpreted by the person being read for, rather than the reader. When I read some of the reading exchange threads here, I see some readings where it seems that the person being read for has the knowledge which is the key to understanding the reading.
But- also- there are some readings where it seems that the reader seems to have the key to understanding. And in some, it seems to be a mixture of the two, and in some, neither seems to understand it.
Given that I don't know why tarot works, I don't know what to make of that.
What questions are asked may be a big part of this. Also, reading style may be a part. Maybe the reading style of the reader and the understanding style of the sitter have to synch up or something.
But. Ambiguity aside, if one wants to test the accuracy of specific readings, it is possible, within certain bounds. Outside of certain bounds, it becomes impossible. One has to examine what ambiguity is to know how to get to clarity, if indeed one is seeking clarity.
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| Fudugazi |
13 May 2005 |
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Dreamer, your whole post was thought-provoking, but this really stood out for me. See, I'm a writer. Even though tarot reading is a visual medium, I haven't had the experience of certain details popping, or even really noticing them that much, because I've never been a visually-based person. (I'm great with names, but terrible with faces, for instance.)
For me, the magic happens when I'm writing up the reading later. My mind makes connections that I didn't see at all when I was staring at the cards, and I get into the same kind of trancy zone that I'm in when I'm writing fiction. But then sometimes I think, Is that what I'm doing? Am I writing fiction here, or am I getting flashes of the truth? I feel exactly the same - I am also a writer - although I do have visual imagination and as a result my writing tends to be visual. In my mind, Tarot is born in the same place as poetry or fiction (non-fiction prose is in a different place). Those little pictures on cards bring up a whole world in my mind.
But Umbrae is right always to hammer on about the sitter. When we do face-to-face readings, or even via the internet, we are having conversations with real people and our "creation" must take second place to true communication (I know you might say that when we write truly, we are also communicating truly - I agree, but in a Tarot reading the public is not diffuse, it is individual. In a way it is more like writing a letter than a piece of fiction). We need to disengage our ego, because a reading is not about - "wow, you're such a good reader, this is so lovely, so true" - it's about the reader and querent establishing a rapport that can open up to the truth, using Tarot cards (or sugar packets) as support. One reason I always want "feedback" for internet readings is not so people can say - spot on, Sophie - but so we can have a conversation. The other day someone wrote: this card means a lot to me, it was around when...That was different from what I had written, but to me it was more important to the querent she go with her own sense of the card, and her own immediate need.
One thing I do find hard, though - and there I will rejoin The Dreamer - is that if anything is allowed, then there is always the temptation to say what the querent wants to hear. Exactly the danger Umbrae himself warns about - "don't worry, Ducks, these three swords will open your heart to love." So although I do believe there are many levels of meaning to one card, and some we might only access during a single reading, and every meaning is different for every querent, still, there is some need for structure at least in the study of Tarot. My preferred form is to write as much as I can on a card that I am studying - based on what is on the actual card (rather than book meanings). Book meanings are no more certain, and rather less so, than observed meanings in the picture. That does not mean you don't compare your observed meanings with those of other people (including those in books). But books are written by people who've done the same thing as us, observe a card and write down what they see. Many moons of writing up our observations, coupled with many moons of reading for others and ourselves will get us to a point when we can trust saying something different about a card for every different querent.
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| Imagemaker |
13 May 2005 |
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Many moons of writing up our observations, coupled with many moons of reading for others and ourselves will get us to a point when we can trust saying something different about a card for every different querent.
Indeed, it's about building a base of wisdom, a vocabulary of comprehensions, with which to evaluate/interpret the next reading.
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| tmgrl2 |
13 May 2005 |
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It is too what we think the cards (or whatever else we are using to divine) mean.
If it doesn't mean anything, there is nothing to communicate.
Very good to emphasize the communication aspect, but to the point of negating the idea of meaning?
I guess I read Umbrae's words in his post somewhat differently from you, Deamer....I can't imagine Umbrae..."negating the idea of meaning." When one looks at his many posts on card discussions and if one has a reading from him....certainly, he discusses meanings...I believe he emphasized the sitter more in this post, since the discussion was about the "process" itself, the interaction that occurs during reader and sitter.
I think it would be a pretty sad person who could not realize that there is a real person being spoken to via the internet, even though they cannot be looked in the eye at the moment. Just as sad as the many people who everyday do not realize it though they are looking people in the eyes.
Is "context" what is gained in the face to face interaction? I can see how that matters to many other interactions, but divination is different. It is a specialized activity. It can be done without even knowing the question.
If it's not a matter of reading a person's body language, or aura, or whatever, then I don't see why should it matter if it's in person or not. And, I don't see how anyone can be sure that internet readings on the whole are less accurate than face to face readings.
I have great deal of difficulty with speaking of "accuracy" since the multiple possibilities of the impact of a reading on the sitter and the reader, are, I believe, at best, mildly discernible at the time...Too often when I read initially, I would take the positive feedback or feedback from the sitter that I was "accurate" as meaning that I had done something "correctly."
I no longer believe that at all. Events have a way of creating ripples...some of them completely fizzle out shortly after the person who may have complemented us on our accuracy leave. Yet others, may have an effect down the road that neither of us know about....Perhaps we set wheels in motion and never know where the ripples go.
I had one sitter tell me she couldn't see that most of what I was saying applied to her or her situation....about three weeks later, she came for another reading. Of course, we had interacted during the first reading and I clarified with examples and we talked.
Then, as we sat down for the reading three weeks later, she apologized to me for being so "negative" during the first reading...that, in fact, as she reflected over time on our reading, there was so much there that was helpful.
Again...I took neither her initial negativity nor her second-instance apology with some stroking of my "ego" as being "true" or "accurate." I feel quite shakey with that word....human interaction and our understanding of people and ourselves can be quite complex....and so "right" and "wrong" and "accurate" and "inaccurate" make me nervous.
What if they become so dynamic that the reader doesn't know what they mean? I don't care how many times various people repeat that, I know that using that approach in my own readings would be worthless to me. The card meanings "should be" whatever is shown to be accurate.
"shown to be accurate" ....by whom?? I wish I felt as certain about this as you....it seems that the older I get, the less certain I am about so many things, including being "right" or "accurate" about things. Actually, in the big picture, "accuracy" isn't even what I look for when I read...I hope that perhaps in some small way, the sitter is given some kind of guidance, or that some doors to understanding are open, or that a path of action presents itself....it is a beginning..each day, each moment
A beginning
Of course life is dynamic. But one needs an unflexible oar to paddle down a dynamic river. If I'm paddling very well with an oar and someone tells me I should use a noodle instead because it's more flexible like the river's water, I would say, the heck I should. Not to say that perhaps somebody hasn't possibly successfully lassoed a barracuda with a noodle and been pulled up the river that way. ;) To use a bizarre analogy.
What that example focuses upon is not so much the fluidity of card meanings, but upon the intuition of the reader.
Of course the "monster" card can be all kinds of different cards, in many different situations. But in that situation, it was (indicated by) the five of pentacles. That, plus the intuitive prompting, which is a different thing from the card itself, is what made the card the right card in that situation.
This is why I very rarely use spreads. I take it one little bit, one card at a time, usually. There's too much needing emphasis and deemphasis in a big pile of cards like a spread. I still arrive at a big picture, just like other people who read do, but one step at a time instead of all at once.
Of course it is. (Primarily).I don't understand anyone who would think it's not.
But, if it were only about the sitter, the sitter would be reading their own cards. Two people are involved here. Two subjectivities prone to two sets of potential for self delusion in all the myriad ways people delude themselves. It complicates things.
I believe that through interactions and relationships, we have, perhaps "two sets of potential for self delusion" but, on the flip side, interactions with others is the very catalyst for all growth in life...and it can get messy in the process, but we fall in love, we work with people, we relate to friends and acquaintances and the ride is bumpy and filled with holes and love and annoyance and forgiveness and
Growth....we would hope.
Sometimes someone cannot accept the truth of something until they've had time to mull it over. I don't see how someone saying something is not true during a reading is any way to judge that reading.
Conversely, I don't see how someone saying something IS true during a reading is any better a way to judge that reading. Hence, I do my best with the knowledge I have of meanings attributed to cards and numbers and suits, but I definitely hope that through a loving, and quiet meditation, that I can find within the images, something else as well...something that will come forward at that moment in time that will be the pebble thrown into the water, that will start the ripples going.
I think a better way to judge it would be to wait until any predictions of the reading bear out.
Unfortunately, this, too is kind of scarey to me....Actually, I'm not sure that because something we said comes to pass, that it was a "prediction"....
Could it be the end result of a process that we pick up as being in motion already...I really don't know. I still think we do our best and move on.
A reading could be closer to a soliloquy but still not be about the reader. It is only about the reader if the reader thinks it is about the reader. (And, maybe not even then, if the message, however it was arrived at, is conveyed well and is accurate.)
Again...how does anyone judge "accuracy?"
What is divination about? Two people just having a conversation, and free associating? I don't believe that anyone who uses tarot really thinks that.
That is an extreme postion which is meant to counter what is seen as other extreme postions (that the reading is about the reader, rather than the message, being right, or that all readers must stick to only rigid meanings.) There is no need for those extreme postions. People are free to try it any way they want to, and see what works for them in order to make it work for the one being read for.
And they know what works when the one being read for, be it self or other, finds the reading to be accurate.
And personally, finding "the reading to be accurate" is the last thing that reading is about for me. These are my beliefs...
For those who find their readings are not accurate, it would make sense to try different approaches.
For those who find their readings accurate, it would make sense to stick with the same approach, though there would be no harm in testing other methods.
Those who tell everyone else that everyone else must use their own method are making no sense.
I don't think anyone is fostering that their own method is right. I believe each person should use their own frame of reference for how they read Tarot.
I also believe that they will eventually draw into their circle of clients exactly what they are expecting. If I expect to be "accuracte" then I am going to draw in someone who needs to be able to tell me that and drive away those who feel I was not "accurate."
If I feel that my reading as an interactive process, can somehow, open doors for the sitter (and for the reader) it really doesn't matter to me if they tell me I was "accurate" or "good" or not. I simply do my best to hopefully speak some words that will give the sitter something of assistance to them.
Everyone can tell if the methods they are using are accurate, if they make the effort to do so- though it is harder for those who read for others. That will always be a problem.
Again, I don't really believeone can tell if one is accurate.
All this being said, I wholeheartedly support any reader in reading according to their own beliefs and style. When I pay for a reading, I will choose someone based on my beliefs and needs.
As for online readings, I still do them to the best of my ability and when someone reads for me, I still give feedback since they appreciate it and since, online, it is really the only way we can turn this into a process...albeit a sequential, rather than interactive one during the reading.
The final readings in the Green Gargoyle Bar done here by Umbrae and Firemaiden were dynamic and done by both of them interacting with each other on the cards that were drawn...and the sitters had to wait till the readings were finished....then jumped in with "feedback." I'm not saying we shouldn't get or give feedback. I believe that's part of the "interaction" but I'm not sure that I need to accept the feedback as an indication of my accuracy or of the accuracy of the reading or that it implies a "truth" recognized by the sitter.
Just my two cents worth.
terri
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| Fudugazi |
13 May 2005 |
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Rather than the word accurate, I prefer "useful for the querent" as an indication of a succesful reading. This usefulness can sometimes play itself out over a long period, and might initially start with a rejection - a "not really that" reaction (like Terri's querent who came back three weeks later). Likewise, a reading which a querent thinks is accurate might actually not be very useful, beyond satisfying a soon-forgotten curiosity. This goes for predictions and for more psychological-exploration types of readings.
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| Imagemaker |
13 May 2005 |
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Again...how does anyone judge "accuracy?"
For me it depends on what the question was and what I get out of the reading. Like Dreamer said, for me it's about close-range timing (no further out than a few days) and tone--the what rather than the how?
Example: in the Fey intuition reading for next week, Skydancer (who knows me only thorugh my posts--not sure she has read many of them) pulled cards in "predicting" what next week would bring for me.
She "hit" totally accurately something she had no idea was coming for me--that I'm going away for a 4 day meditation retreat. She picked up the idea of "church" then wondered why, because the card didn't show anything like that at all. But the place is indeed a church for me--and it was a former ashram and before that, a Jesuit seminary--literal in the past.
Her "self" card for me, the opposing and assisting forces, and Guidance cards all had clear reflections of my situation (that she knows nothing about, and that I'd been pulling that same "self" card in recent days in regard to new plans), including my recent doodling with watercolors (which is actually shown in the Guidance card--the Fey with a paintbrush, painting a swirl, and tacked-up little paintings).
She mentioned that this coming week would not be about my daughter, it would be all about me (indeed, total comfort, great food, and no responsibilities other than to do yoga, write, meditate, hike and explore spiritual paths!). Then Skydancer wrote in a PM that she didn't know where the "daughter" came from, she thought I had only sons. Well, I have one daughter only!
So she was extremely accurate, and that doesn't mean she had to find any extraordinary philosphical insights or tell me what to *do* in my coming week--I'll just go and see what arises. But her prediction of my situation next week is clear as if she'd looked through a window--the window of tarot.
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| The Dreamer |
13 May 2005 |
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I guess I read Umbrae's words in his post somewhat differently from you, Deamer....I can't imagine Umbrae..."negating the idea of meaning." When one looks at his many posts on card discussions and if one has a reading from him....certainly, he discusses meanings...I believe he emphasized the sitter more in this post, since the discussion was about the "process" itself, the interaction that occurs during reader and sitter. The discussion is not only about the process of reading for others, it is about the process of reading in general. And about how one can tell if the cards one pulls are right. And whether tarot works.
I have great deal of difficulty with speaking of "accuracy" since the multiple possibilities of the impact of a reading on the sitter and the reader, are, I believe, at best, mildly discernible at the time...Too often when I read initially, I would take the positive feedback or feedback from the sitter that I was "accurate" as meaning that I had done something "correctly." I never view my use of tarot as being about anything which I have done. I don't even consider myself a reader, as so many do. All I do is ask the tarot, and get answers from it.
I think that the idea of the reader themself being accurate is a red herring when it comes to the idea of whether tarot works.
Again...I took neither her initial negativity nor her second-instance apology with some stroking of my "ego" as being "true" or "accurate." I feel quite shakey with that word....human interaction and our understanding of people and ourselves can be quite complex....and so "right" and "wrong" and "accurate" and "inaccurate" make me nervous. I think there's huge difference between a message arrived at through divination being right and the idea of a person or reader being right.
I think, based on my experience, that when people do divination they are accessing knowledge which goes beyond themselves, and which does not come from themselves. Things which come from themselves can be added onto it, though, depending on how they do it.
"shown to be accurate" ....by whom?? I wish I felt as certain about this as you....it seems that the older I get, the less certain I am about so many things, including being "right" or "accurate" about things. Actually, in the big picture, "accuracy" isn't even what I look for when I read...I hope that perhaps in some small way, the sitter is given some kind of guidance, or that some doors to understanding are open, or that a path of action presents itself....it is a beginning..each day, each moment
A beginning
Well, it has to be shown to be accurate by the person being read for.
Depending upon what questions are being asked- as I said earlier, some things are testable, and many things are not- it may not be possible to judge accuracy.
For myself, I have been able to judge the accuracy of the readings I've done for myself, and their usefulness.
When accuracy cannot be judged- though, I do maintain that it can be, If a person sets out to do it by asking testable questions and then observing the results- the accuracy of the reading falls back to the idea of usefulness. And whether it rings true. And all of that murky complicated process of reading for others stuff everyone keeps talking about, which actually has nothing to do with whether tarot itself works. If one wants to see if something works, it is good to get to the heart of the matter- and to me, the heart of the matter is whether those who use divination are really getting meaning from the cards, which does not come only from themselves.
I have very little certainty about being right about anything, though I always am trying to understand things.
Guidance is exactly what I look for most of the time when I use tarot. And I use it as a way to begin things, and to understand, and to plot a course of action.
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| The Dreamer |
13 May 2005 |
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Book meanings are no more certain, and rather less so, than observed meanings in the picture. That does not mean you don't compare your observed meanings with those of other people (including those in books). But books are written by people who've done the same thing as us, observe a card and write down what they see . But, originally, the card did not exist. It was only an idea in someone's mind. The person who designed the card had ideas in mind which were based upon something. I think there are different ways of looking at what the meaning of a card is. I tend to view all meaning as something which is beyond both words and images. Words and images are just ways of transmitting meaning. Words are symbols, just as much as images are, although at times one or the other can be more evocative or emotionally or mentally effecting.
Books about cards are written not only by people who have just looked at the images. They are also written by people who have done historical or mythological study. That study is about ideas, and about the idea that images transmit meaning which is not only something which is created in the moment when any given person looks at an image.
My favorite interpretation book for the thoth is one which combines a few approaches to deriving meaning from the cards. (Its main approach is not to use the ideas of Crowley.) The author looked at the images, and gives traditional meanings for the various symbols found on the cards.
Also, the author gives astrological interpretations for the astrological symbols which are found on the cards. Astrological symbols mean very little outside of the body of thought of astrology. When one uses them, one must trust that there is useful meaning within the body of thought of astrology (although one does not have to accept every particular astrological theory to use the astrological ideas.)
The author of my favorite thoth book also adds in a third approach to interpreting the cards- one which was based upon a study of 3,000 people which took place over six years. The study analyzed the "life cycle calculation" which attributes a tarot card to each year of a person's life in a particular pattern which is based upon the person's birthdate. What having that card as a year card meant in a practical way in people's lives was recorded. From that, more meaning about each of the major arcana was gained, based upon practical experience. (And I do not think this has anything to do with a person's reaction to a card's imagery. I have done my life cycle calculation, and found that back into the past my year cards described tremedously well the sorts of things which I encountered and which occurred, though I did not know about the cards at those times. This is one of the more mysterious aspects of tarot to me- why should the meanings which are contained in tarot be connected to a person's birthdate such that they will describe what goes on in each year of a person's life? It may be possible that I am finding meaning there which is not there, but the pattern really does seem to hold up for me, as well as for a few other people whose year cycle charts I've calculated.)
In addition to the book on the thoth which I use most, I also occasionally use a second book when interpreting it. Both seem to have different aspects of the truth. What matters when I ask any particular question is that I know which aspect I will be focusing upon, so I will get a useful answer. The ultimate truth of the cards is not something I care much about when doing divination, though it may be important to tarot as a body of thought, or tarot when used for year cycle calculations.
So. There are different levels of meaning possible, and different ways of deriving meaning. But still, I choose to limit the meanings (for each particular act of divination), for myself, for the sake of the clarity of the answer which I will get to each particular question.
Another interesting thing to consider when considering the question of the meaning of images is other decks which are used for divination, such as the Faeries' Oracle. Many people, including me, use it successfully for useful divination. What is the "meaning" of the cards? I focus upon the words which describe the cards in the book, rather than upon the images. And, the images, though some more or less obviously correspond to the written meanings, sometimes seem to have little to do with the written meanings. Such as the card called "Faeries of the Future". When I look at that card, nothing about it seems to evoke the meaning which is written about it to me.
But, Brian Froud, who painted the picture, had that meaning in mind when he painted it.
When I do divination, I don't care what the "real" meaning of a card is, only that I get a useful meaning for the real question I'm asking. So, I choose to stick to the written meaning for that card, rather than allow myself to imaginatively come up with a meaning for it based upon the picture.
There are different ways to look at what the real meaning of a card (or anything else) is. One is to try to discover what the maker of that card had in mind. One is to see what the card evokes when one looks at it, or when various people look at it. One is to try to find out if there is a "real thing" which the card refers to- some kind of spiritual reality, such as a fairy or a god. One is to take at face value certain written ideas which relate to it.
These approaches all have their uses.
The whole question of whether there is an "Ur- Tarot" as people speak of doesn't really have anything to do with whether divination by tarot works. Given that divination by various methods works, whatever tarot itself is or means is irrelevant to the question of divination itself working. There is nothing special about tarot, when it comes to divination, except the usefulness which people find it to have.
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| Fudugazi |
13 May 2005 |
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Well - each to her own, Dreamer! I could no more stick to book meanings only than I could parrot any other thing - but it is my way, I am comfortable with it. I have no need for absolute certainty, I believe truth is often to be found in the gaps between two certainties. So I also use book meanings - including those written by the author - as one of various instruments of learning. I view book learning in a broad fashion - books of symbols, books of mythology, of philosophy, etc. - even some fiction books, and certanly a lot of poetry, are all valuable ressources to approach Tarot. The creators' thoughts are useful too - but in some cases can only be taken as a very general direction for divination (Thoth, RWS), because the creators thought their cards more important than for use for mere divination and gave no divinatory meanings.
In the case of the Marseille - the creators (I don't believe there was one lone fellow) never wrote a line. They made pictures to be looked at, played with, interpreted as an image. It was a time when images were used like words, and alchemists would publish entire books of prints, with hardly a word in them. Now we are left with these lovely and intriguing cards - and they speak. There is a tradition attached to them, of course: but it is not rigid and no-one owns it.
Funny you should mention the Faeries - yes, they are eloquent little things! Sometimes I'll just pick up a card, look at it, read its name and take it from there. It seems to work. But I also use the book meanings at times - as a springboard for my imagination, because I agree: words are symbols too. I have had the opportunity to test that lately woking with the Sabian Symbols - and for many years, with the i-ching.
I am interested in the life cycle method you mention tested on 3000 people. It is strange how well it does work - all the more because we cannot even be certain about the year/card correlation in some cases: for instance if I am in year 11, I might say I am in the Strength year, while others will see themselves in the Justice year! There are also various methods of calculating year cycles: Umbrae's is different from Mary Greer's. So isn't the life cycle subjective then? Yes, it is. Et pourtant - it works!
BTW - which Thoth book are you talking about? It sounds very good.
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| Umbrae |
13 May 2005 |
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I love Soul Cards. Been a while since I picked them up actually (hmmmm).
I remember someone bought a set once and came on the forums complaining loudly that there was no LWB, “How are you supposed to read with them?”
There is no LWB, because there are no meanings.
But they are not Tarot.
Problem with Tarot, is that it has meanings. And often the reader, or author is inflexible. When the reader tells the sitter, “Based on the Tarot, you are pregnant.”…it makes some assumptions.
It assumes sexual activity between a man and a woman. It assumes that all of the biological parts of participants are in working order.
Posted here in these forums once, was an excerpt from a book where the author (and the poster) claimed:
This book gives the following meanings for card combinations:
1. The Empress + Three of Cups = pregnancy
2. The Empress + The World = pregnancy
3. The Empress + Ace of Wands = pregnancy
4. The Empress + a Pisces card = pregnancy
“I see here that you are pregnant, congratulations…”
“No.”
“You are sexually active?”
“Yes.”
“Then you are pregnant. You see the Empress? You see the Three of Cups…?”
“Yes, but…”
“You are in denial. You are pregnant.”
“But…”
“What, you are young – vibrant – what is…”
“I had cancer in my late teens, I had a hysterectomy at that time. Pregnancy would be a medical miracle.”
“Oh…so you’re in denial”
That is a fictional reader-centric conversation. Fixed meanings, inflexible reader.
Reading for others, is a different trip than reading for yourself. Way different trip.
Reading for yourself, and reading for others…
Reading for others over the internet, or writing a reading via e-mail, can be wonderful exercises in the written word. The Green Gargoyle thread began as a static written exchange. I wrote, she wrote, we edited. The latter readings were recorded off live chat. We RP’d the reading. They had a dynamic quality.
The readings were of varied success. Of more interest was the pre-selection of beings, and how they matched with the live querent.
Reading for others. Hey…there are times when ya just plain suck! Or do ya? Is it measurable? Can you measure, quantify, qualify readings?
I suppose you could draw 3-5 cards and seal them in an envelope unseen for 1 week. And do a reading, journal it, with a timeline of one-week…see which is best. I think it would prove that apples are not kumquats.
Reading for others…is it me that’s wrong or the cards? Is it what I say? Is it important?
Is rigidity of and to a systematic methodology of reading of benefit to a sitter?
It’s not really about accuracy, or if the cards are right or wrong; it’s about the event experience of the third party – the sitter – and it's about relevance...context to their lives.
Reading for others. Yeah.
See cuz there’s also a margin of just plain screw-up. Ya know? I don’t care if you’re using a system rote memorized key words or pulling it from a taffy machine…sometimes you get hit with the big screw up.
It occurred to me there is a sense in which I do not think tarot of itself does actually "work" -- at least not always.
My personal view, is that the cards in a throw offer *possibilities* and only possibilities. When I turn over a card, I consider it to be the seed of a thought, and am interested to see what those seeds can grow into.
One of the reasons that I personally object to the notion of "static" meanings, (if there truly is such a thing) is that if I accept a pre-written meaning, the little seed might not grow into something bigger.
You know, The Dreamer, you are correct (as I sit here writing), sometimes a card does become so dynamic that you don’t know what it means. You hit The Blank Spot. That’s scary stuff. There’s risk there.
And beauty…:smoker:
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| The Dreamer |
13 May 2005 |
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I am interested in the life cycle method you mention tested on 3000 people. It is strange how well it does work - all the more because we cannot even be certain about the year/card correlation in some cases: for instance if I am in year 11, I might say I am in the Strength year, while others will see themselves in the Justice year! There are also various methods of calculating year cycles: Umbrae's is different from Mary Greer's. So isn't the life cycle subjective then? Yes, it is. Et pourtant - it works! I do not know if the calculation which was studied and that I use is the same as Mary Greer's, or anyone else's. The book I use says "growth cycles and their applications to tarot were first discovered by Twainhart Hill".
The one I use is, for the soul card: month+day+year of birthdate; if the total comes to a double digit number 21 or less, the unreduced number is the personality card, the reduced the soul. If the total is a single digit number, there is a single card for personality and soul. If it's 22 it reduces to 4 and acts as a one digit number. For the year card: month of birthdate+day of birthday+current year, reduce if 22 or higher, do not reduce if under 22. There is a chart which shows how the cycles run. The card which begins each cycle shows the larger tone of the whole cycle, so that adds more nuance to it, in addition to the individual cards for years. I use only the thoth and its ordering when attributing the cards.
BTW - which Thoth book are you talking about? It sounds very good. The Tarot Handbook, by Angeles Arrien. And actually, it's both good and bad. In many ways it's great, but in other ways it is disappointing- there are many typos in it, some of the phrasing is not very good, and it tends to be repetitive. It even lists the dates on which the astrological signs start incorrectly (in one of the appendices.) I think those problems were caused by the fact that parts of the book were compiled by students, and it seems that the final editor dropped the ball.
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| Angel Star |
13 May 2005 |
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There are quite a few lengthy post on this thread and I just breezed thru most of them. All i have to say is the tarot works for me and for most of the people I read for. It is like an art if you ask me and the meanings of the cards change with the subject of each reading. I love the tarot and i do not get real rational when i read them. They are fun down right tell me the truth whether i want to believe it even after the fact.
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| MercyMe |
13 May 2005 |
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For me, the magic happens when I'm writing up the reading later. My mind makes connections that I didn't see at all when I was staring at the cards, and I get into the same kind of trancy zone that I'm in when I'm writing fiction. But then sometimes I think, Is that what I'm doing? Am I writing fiction here, or am I getting flashes of the truth?
So far, it seems to be the latter. My in-person readings are not all that incisive, but the ones I've done through e-mail, for people I've never met, have been spot on. The difference is the writing, which seems to unlock a channel in me. I guess when I begin reading professionally, I better include a written follow-up!
I could really relate to this. Although I am a visually oriented person, I get strong visceral responses to certain images, I have found that when I am writing a reading I get in that zone, too. I am a writer as well, though not fiction, so I do understand that "trancy zone" a writer gets into when words flow out like water and they just happen to be all the right words.
However, I have had some wonderful face-to-face readings as well, and I think that's because I can speak well, too. I am a great talker :)
I think you're right, that some people whose strengths are verbal will find they might give better face-to-face readings and those that are better with the written word might give better readings that way. The reader, and no, it's not all about the reader but it does depend on the reader's abilities, and our personal gifts will influence/enhance/detract from the reading depending.
~Mercy
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| MercyMe |
13 May 2005 |
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Rather than the word accurate, I prefer "useful for the querent" as an indication of a succesful reading. This usefulness can sometimes play itself out over a long period, and might initially start with a rejection - a "not really that" reaction (like Terri's querent who came back three weeks later). Likewise, a reading which a querent thinks is accurate might actually not be very useful, beyond satisfying a soon-forgotten curiosity. This goes for predictions and for more psychological-exploration types of readings.
I think this is really spot on, Helvetica. I just did a reading for myself the other day which, though really, really accurate just wasn't that helpful because it didn't really prompt me to discover anything new about the question at hand. It told me what I already knew. Which, now that I think about it, could be useful in telling me I just need to sit with this situation right now, with what I know, and that there's really no further I can go with it right now. But still, I know this kind of reading, the accurate but not really very useful kind, so accuracy cannot be the only measuring rod for a tarot reading's value.
~Mercy
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| HOLMES |
13 May 2005 |
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delited
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| tmgrl2 |
14 May 2005 |
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As I was reflecting on the topic of this thread....and firemaiden's comments, I was taken back to a little over a year ago, when I was new to AT and new to Tarot....I was about to throw in the towel, since, the whole idea of being able to "study" meanings for 78 cards seemed quite daunting...and
I wondered if it was all worth it anyhow....
And then, fm, you gave me this reading:
http://tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=23490
As I reread it today and look at what has happened in the last year of my life, especially in regards to the Tarot, I can say, simply...
Thank you...
I really was mired in perfectionism, in wanting to be "right" and learn the meanings well......it didn't seem possible at that time, that I would ever do a reading and...
Allow the process to unfold....
So, I almost walked away from the cards. I really only had one deck at the time and that was throwing me for a loop...
Again,
The magic of your reading, the words you used, the imagery you focused on to send me the message....
Well...
I'm still here..
And way more trusting of the process, the exchange, the event
The magical moment of the reading itself.
t2
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| Dark Inquisitor |
15 May 2005 |
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When I was brand spanking new to this site, I was also new to tarot, as well as to matters occult, or spiritual, and I posted blind, heretical questions, without fear.
I find this rather sad . Everyone should feel free to question and not fear. Why does there have to be fear ? Heretical to what ? There is no what. Where does the fear come from?
I did not know enough to worry about upsetting people with subversive questions like "does tarot actually work?", or "do you have to believe in tarot in order for it to work" -
I have come to the conclusion that tarot was more fun before I came here and found similar situations.
But I've been poking obsessively around this site now for what, three years? And I find some of my reservations are not going away.
It occurred to me there is a sense in which I do not think tarot of itself does actually "work" -- at least not always.
(but what does "working” mean?)
As much as I have seen ball-busting holey-moley-yes-virginia-there-is-a-God readings, I have also seen enough readings which were completely off-the mark and irrelevant...
I am not one who can accept the idea that something divine "arranges" the cards meaningfully,
Why does it bother you? You have reservations. You are not required by law to do away with reservations or to ever reach a point where you cease to question. There may not be such a point.
I think the point is to be comfortable with it. I can question and still be comfortable . I can see different points of view and not be troubled over inconsistency, conflict, or unprovability .
Just enjoy. Just be open and see what happens. And whomever is on the Committee to Spread the Fear should be disregarded.
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| Satori |
15 May 2005 |
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Hi my friends,
Today was a rare day.
I had tea alone at Barnes and Noble and was contemplating buying the Water Crystal Oracle. I really want that one.
Anyway, I was drawn to the books about Tarot and found a cute little oracle book written by someone I have never heard of. I wrote down the book title and the author, because this was one of the best Oracle books I've ever seen. It was great. I was laughing at one point and crying at one point.
I was amazed because he was telling the reader stories about his early days reading. The days when he was clueless about card meanings. He knew the basics, and knew enough to get started before as he put it, his stream of conciousness intuition would kick in. And then when he was tired he would revert back to just pat definitions he had learned/heard and was sure there was no great, amazing psychic stuff gonna come thru. And he admits to hating the court cards!!! I was just loving this book. Because he could have been talking about me! I hate the damn court cards, and I do sometimes have absolutely no flash of brilliance and so say, "Oh, her, the 9 of Pentacles. Are you a widow?" I'm ashamed to admit this, but when I'm tired, I'm quoting the books. But some people think the book definitions are the, I mean THE definitions...
One of the things the guy says is that the Oracle is always right. Always.
And he goes on to illustrate it.
But it is what made me cry that is so wonderful, and maybe allows me to be on topic and join the discussion here in this remarkable thread.
The guy said something about how the question is the more important thing, that it isn't the reading at all that is important, but that the question be specific and really well thought out.
Because when you can get really clear on the question, then the answer will be everywhere! It will be the stain on the tablecloth, it will be on the faces of the people around you it will be in the cards and everywhere you look will be the Oracle and the answer!
And so it was for me today.
I asked a question. I looked around and saw the answer everywhere, everyplace and on the faces of the people in the cafe. Astounding. And I love to read like this. I'm a person who looks for signs...I'm looking at the shapes of twigs, looking for random but recognizable patterns, looking for congruency where none should exist. But sitting there and looking around the room I just KNEW the answer!!!! It was a moment of perfection, and everything was in a state of perfection. The room came into FOCUS.
Was it the power of suggestion that made me have this profound experience? Suggestability? I dunno. I don't care. It happened.
Tarot is pretty wonderful this way.
And I have had some dud readings. But the Oracle is always accurate, 100% accurate. I am the Oracle. You are the Oracle. We are the Oracle.
I am the Tarot.
With the deck in hand, You are the Tarot.
What did Goethe say...What you want, wants you....I think that even the dud readings have kernels of truth in them.
The times the querent cries out, "NO! no that is not it!"...maybe it is it. Maybe you've just done the best stinking reading you'll ever do, but the person said, "You can go shove your cards, you can't read me at all."
What makes a dud reading anyway?
You feeling low energy...inaccuracy, what?
We always say we aren't telling the future here.
Probability, it is about the present and the strings of probability emanating out from NOW that we are glimpsing.
And how many of the strings of probability can any one reader see or sense? Are we zeroing in on the strongest one when we see what we see in the reading? Or the one the person wants the most....
Look at what I said...zeroing in.
So zeroing in is about focus...about being the zero empty and pregnant both, empty yet full...
I think that firemaiden is a fabulous reader so to see firemaiden here asking this question, well this is a brave thread. firemaiden is a brave woman, but we knew that. I knew that. If you are an opera singer the definition of that is brave, because there ain't nothing you aren't willing to share with the audience to make them feel what you are feeling. If you are any good that is. And because of this thread and the kind of questions and readings firemaiden does, well, she just gotta be good.
So maybe it isn't about the cards firemaiden, or that any card will answer the question. But me, I believe that the cards are lining up according to a special magic that I don't have to know about. And the right cards are there, I just have to be able to know, I'm the Oracle, and then I'll be able to listen to the music, find the right place to start and open my mouth...and sing.
Problem is, there is always a critic in the audience.
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| firemaiden |
16 May 2005 |
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Thank you dear elf :) Amazing post. I think I'll go chew on it for a while.
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| Major Tom |
16 May 2005 |
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I am the Tarot.
With the deck in hand, You are the Tarot.
So maybe it isn't about the cards firemaiden, or that any card will answer the question. But me, I believe that the cards are lining up according to a special magic that I don't have to know about. And the right cards are there, I just have to be able to know, I'm the Oracle, and then I'll be able to listen to the music, find the right place to start and open my mouth...and sing.
Problem is, there is always a critic in the audience.
We seriously need a smilie to symbolise applause. Ah! What this post deserves is a kiss. :*
Beautifully written Elf. :D
The critic may be there, but let's not forget there are those who appreciate too.
Even if you don't know about the special magic, can't you learn to use it? Or is that what you mean about knowing you are the Oracle?
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| Fudugazi |
16 May 2005 |
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I enjoyed it too, elf. I think you zoned in on how we use oracles (all oracles, including when we use Tarot as an oracle) and as firemaiden said, gave me something to chew on.
I distinguish oracle use from learning use of the archetypes, symbols and images of the Tarot. Images are a path to the unconscious - but I don't see that as "oracle". More as opening up what's already there. The example I always give, which predates my study of the Tarot (that's why it's interesting) is the RWS 3 of Swords that popped up in the middle of the first Tarot reading I ever had and that remained etched in my mind as an image of pain and despair and also total acceptance. I needed that card just then in my life.
But like you, I think we might find images, signs, symbols that will speak to us anywhere, including words in books. It is like inspiration for writing - it can be found in an anthill, a museum, a war or a coffee stain. The Tarot is simply one systematic and deliberate way of evoking the unconscious.
What you wrote reminded me so much of the necessity of developing our sense of observation, our eye - physical and inner eye. Focus, as you say. That is necessary in order to read the cards themselves (or the tea-stain, or the coat-rack!) But also, I would say all other senses must be developed by those who would be oracles in order to feel those we are reading for. When people say "I use my intuition", what often happens is that their senses - outer and inner - are well developed enough that they will feel the tension in someone, the minute variations in movement and temperature, the small signals just below normal perception their querent is sending. I remember a post you wrote about someone being so closed you couldn't read for them. This must be quite rare - most people will have some movement in them, even tiny and barely perceptible by the inner senses. And our senses are fallible, therefore we sometimes get it wrong; or we are tired and can't see or hear or feel straight.
It is those variations - some minute - in the querent that guide us between one image and another, to see which is relevant, which is not, among the unfolding levels of meanings in a card. That is so hard!
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| Imagemaker |
16 May 2005 |
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But sitting there and looking around the room I just KNEW the answer!!!! It was a moment of perfection, and everything was in a state of perfection. The room came into FOCUS
Brava! That glimpse of knowing is rare, unforgettable, and such bliss! Triggered by the question and your willingness to SEE.
You've gone through a portal, to arrive back here where you always were, but with a new ability to see and give.
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| Umbrae |
16 May 2005 |
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Hi my friends,
...I am the Oracle. You are the Oracle. We are the Oracle.
...I am the Tarot.
...Look at what I said...zeroing in.
...about being the zero empty and pregnant both, empty yet full...
...Problem is, there is always a critic in the audience.
Screw the critic - both internal and external.
We are not on this earth to bow to the opinions of others (or even our own). Brilliant stuff Elf, brilliant stuff.
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| tmgrl2 |
16 May 2005 |
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Was it the power of suggestion that made me have this profound experience? Suggestability? I dunno. I don't care. It happened.
Tarot is pretty wonderful this way.
And I have had some dud readings. But the Oracle is always accurate, 100% accurate. I am the Oracle. You are the Oracle. We are the Oracle.
I am the Tarot.
With the deck in hand, You are the Tarot.
What did Goethe say...What you want, wants you....I think that even the dud readings have kernels of truth in them.
The times the querent cries out, "NO! no that is not it!"...maybe it is it. Maybe you've just done the best stinking reading you'll ever do, but the person said, "You can go shove your cards, you can't read me at all."
You have woven a narrative that has touched my soul, today, elf....
Thank you!
terri-girl....
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| Satori |
16 May 2005 |
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I'm blown away by the responses.
Thank you!
The guy is Lon Milo DuQuette, and the book is Everyday Oracles or something like that.
And he also said in the book "I am the Oracle" or "You are the Oracle".
(And yes Major Tom, that was what I meant. And I do agree that critics, inner and outer, don't matter. They make it a little more fun after all.)
I took it further and said, "I am the Tarot", but really, for me, the Tarot, the Oracle, all the same thing. (elf ducks because her intuition tells her flack is on the way...:D)
You guys really make me feel good you know. The power of the shared experience is being illustrated right here. I think I have to thank Mr. DuQuette for the little book with the big punch.
And I have to say that as I was reading his stuff there were so many similarities to his ideas and Umbrae's. It was one of those moments where I looked back at the cover again and was thinking "could this be Umbrae's pen name?" I was almost convinced it was Umbrae's book.
So I figure this means Umbrae is going to publish soon!
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| Umbrae |
18 May 2005 |
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So I used to rent Videos from a place called Hollywood Video. After a while the tapes would not track on my VCR. So I took them back.
“It’s your VCR”
“But my own tapes play fine.”
“It’s your VCR”
Finally I bought a new VCR.
I went back to Hollywood video and rented some tapes. They would not track. My tapes worked fine. So I went back to the store.
“It’s your VCR.”
“It’s brand new!”
“You bought the wrong kind…”
I will not do business with a company who faults the consumer at every turn.
If you buy a toaster, that sets fire to your house, and the company sez, “Well what kind of bread were you toasting?”
“Rye”
“Oh no – that’s YOUR fault for toasting rye…”
“I was driving down the road and my car exploded.”
“Oh your tires were under/over-inflated it’s not OUR fault.”
We cringe at these stories in the news. The lady that sued cuz she spilled hot coffee in her lap and they didn’t tell her the hot coffee was hot…
It’s always YOUR fault.
So there’s this other thread. The poster had a bad reading. A reading where apparently the reader, took personal bias and editorialized, using tarot cards.
But that’s not the point.
The point is that at one point I counted 3 out of 5 responses that placed the blame squarely in the sitters lap.
“Perhaps you weren’t ready to hear…”
What a load of crap. What a load of egocentric readercentric clap-trap.
Blame the sitter, blame the spread. But not the poor reader…
Posters imply that the reader is correct.
The attitude that fault lies with the sitter is a perfect defense for the custom of giving the first deck. Some people should still be waiting for theirs.
Readers can be dead wrong. We can all do a really bad reading. But to defend the bad reading?
To imply that somehow a person should alter their life to conform to a crap reading is ludicrous. You wouldn’t do it….”Ooooo but maybe you aren’t ready to hear it yet…”…”Oooooo maybe the reader was having a bad day.”
Like the posts where the fraudulent psychic con’s somebody out of $20k and we chuckle, “Oooo took you $20k to figure it out…there’s a knee-slapper – hoooo-hawwww”.
Such an attitude shifts blame from the perp to the victim.
If your surgeon was discovered to be having a bad day while you were under anesthesia…you’d be angry. You would be biting nails angry. Yet you defend a reader having a bad day.
“Well reading cards is not the same as surgery, Umbrae – get real.”
“No it’s not. You’ve got the very real life of a very real person, spread out on the table there – often you hold their beating metaphorical heart in your metaphorical hands…and if we cannot accept that responsibility…
It is never the sitters fault if we do a bad reading. If we editorialize personal bias based on cards, we are performing a soliloquy – reading is a conversation, not a monologue, and it’s not the sitters fault. Our first deck should have been given to us if we cannot grasp this concept– for we are not worthy to be called, readers…
Let me repeat…” You’ve got the very real life of a very real person, spread out on the table there – often you hold their beating metaphorical heart in your metaphorical hands…and if we cannot accept that responsibility…then we are not worthy to be, readers…”
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| firemaiden |
18 May 2005 |
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Hey there Umbrae, haven't you ever heard of a head cleaner for the video machine? :D })
JUST KIDDING!!
I love how you said their metaphorical heart is laid out in your metaphorical hands. Yes, sometimes when I have read I have had this humbling feeling of a person entrusting me with their life, a trembling thing, raw and exposed, sitting there on the table.
What I want to know is how we include the supernatural in the equation, and yet still remain responsible to the reader.
If I say : the reader cannot be wrong, the reader is merely reporting the word of [name of diety goes here]; or the reader cannot be wrong, the reader is merely reporting what the cards (and pre-written meanings) say -- how do I take responsibility?
I do feel the breath of something outside of me inspires the reading. You know, in medieval times, a painter, a writer, did not consider his oeuvre to originate with him, the writer considered himself to be the humble scribe of the creative genius dictating the words to him, aka God.
So how to we allow the inspiration of a source outside of ourselves, and at the same time, still accept our responsibility to the querant?
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| Rosanne |
18 May 2005 |
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Hey there Umbrae, haven't you ever heard of a head cleaner for the video machine? :D })
JUST KIDDING!!
I love how you said their metaphorical heart is laid out in your metaphorical hands. Yes, sometimes when I have read I have had this humbling feeling of a person entrusting me with their life, a trembling thing, raw and exposed, sitting there on the table.
What I want to know is how we include the supernatural in the equation, and yet still remain responsible to the reader.
If I say : the reader cannot be wrong, the reader is merely reporting the word of [name of diety goes here] ; or the reader cannot be wrong, the reader is merely reporting what the cards (and pre-written meanings) say -- how do I take responsibility?
I do feel the breath of something outside of me inspires the reading. You know, in medieval times, a painter, a writer, did not consider his oeuvre to originate with him, the writer considered himself to be the humble scribe of the creative genius dictating the words to him, aka God.
So how to we allow the inspiration of a source outside of ourselves, and at the same time, still accept our responsibility to the querant?
I have for years been bedeviled by this question and have come to the conclusion that my skill was not up to the cards meaning for the querent at that particular time ~Rosanne
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| HOLMES |
19 May 2005 |
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roseanne
good heart
there are days i dont' feel my energies are up to reading the tarot and so i dont' read for my mind is too focused on something else,,
yet how can your skills improve without the pratice :)
risk, love, and share with all your heart,
question
do you mean that one time, or at this time in your life where your skills are not up to it?
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| HOLMES |
19 May 2005 |
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we discussed this before,,
yet I as the reader before can be wrong,, but not wrong for the entire reading for if i am,, well let use this example
if one card is wrong,, then the ideals of the rest of the cards being right or wrong falls into question.
then if i can be wrong for the entire reading, then therefore some of my other readings fall into question (not the idea that i can be wrong ,, but the idea that the whole reading is totally off)
this reader never reports what the pre-written meanings say,, if you look at all my readings you will see while death may mean death or change it changes in how it is applied to the reading.
when i did the recent readings on the divine will for example
"I did say the creator inspired me" or something like it..
but i did take responsiblity for the reading and didnt' say IT ALL CAME FROM GOD SO BE IT .
for i based the inspiration on the tarot cards in front of me
for if i didnt',, i wouldn't be doing a tarot card reading
it is simple for me how to accept our responsiblity as a reader,,
do the best you can, without any judgements based on the tarot images in front of me,
and so the inspiration inspires me but that is not all i base it on,,
so it is a two fold sword.
when the client doesnt' agree with the reading, and you gave all the point of view how it can be,, and they say nope it just doenst' apply to me,,
what do i do?
let it go and offer a new tarot reading.
and so i tested to see if my style was irresponsbile,, for if it is totally wrong one day,, it must be totally wrong the other days,, but it hasn't been so far,
and so perhaps i can blame it on the stars for that is the only thing i can think off.
i disagree with you here
"What a load of crap. What a load of egocentric readercentric clap-trap."
how many times have we had readings ourselves ,, read it ,, and had to come back and read it again. for the first time we said to ourselves that isn't the cards i expected, the information i expected?
when issues come up is it becasue we said it mean,, perhaps but perhaps not.
i am one of the persons who implied it could be the sitter fault,, and won't speak of it here for it is over there my comments are.
that isn't a load of crap though,, but an honest look based on my experiences,
it is one thing to defend the bad reading.. (to say i am always right)
it is another to explain every detail, or criticism of the reading,
and if you still get told it has nothing to do with me,,
there is nothing else to defend for you explain everything
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| Rosanne |
19 May 2005 |
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Dear Holmes- I have never been called 'Good Heart' before, and that made me feel really good. Thank you. I meant when I have risked and shared and questioned at a reading and the Cards look like nonsense to me- I tell the Querent that my skill level at that time is not adequate to read the cards, but I could give them a strict bookmeaning and see if that gives them meaning. Sometimes it does, sometimes it does'nt. I don't read when I am tired. It does make me sad when I can't forward the meaning from the cards on properly.~Rosanne
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| HOLMES |
19 May 2005 |
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there are times you get messages dont' read you wont' get anything,,
then you go test it out, lay out the cards,
and draw a blank,
i tell the client in real life, dude this card says this and that means that. (who knows perhaps it does mean something but i just am not getting it )
but i am not getting anything more in that,, it would be the same if getting the book and doing it yourself i tell my friend.
for here , i wait til i have the energy,, and when nothing comes i dont' read that day. a reason why you see readings done 3 weeks after the fact.
when that happens all we can do is be honest
it is our responsiblity and duty
:)
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| WalesWoman |
19 May 2005 |
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I've pretty much stopped doing readings, except for a freind, we do readings for each other every week... and I felt awful because the cards were just cards and I couldn't get anything from them.
What was strange was that even though I had absolutely no insight when I did the readings, the cards that came up were still applicable to what was going on. I just couldn't interpret them for didley.
Basically my head has been elsewhere and the fog is slowly lifting... I'm able to think more clearly and reading is getting a bit easier...
So my point is, the reader can be off, but I think the cards will still apply to the querant, but maybe not the way the reader was interpreting them.
Case in point, one week I pulled the cards for our mutual spread exchange and they didn't seem right, they seemed more like what I was experiencing. It's been so hard to think or focus, I figured it was a message to me to get it together, so I reshuffled and did the spread again, making sure I was concentrating on this person and her question, and then sent her the reading and told her what had happened. She thought that both spreads applied to her... even tho' I myself didn't see how that could be. She got a lot more from it than I could.
But I've also had readings where the reader has said things that I just couldn't really agree with, it just didn't seem like me at all... and me being me, interpreted it in a way I could relate to... which irritated the heck out of the reader to no end. At the time, I just didn't see how it could or would apply, BUT the fact was the reader was right... things I couldn't have foreseen happened and I did have to act in a manner I normally don't have to resort to.
Other times, I have had readings that were... vague and sort of meaningless, that sounded good but didn't really say anything and all I could really do was say thanks, yadda yadda life goes on. So the reader, where they are at and how they read make a huge difference. Maybe I need to go back and re read the readings and see what I think of them now, maybe I would see things I didn't see at that time, or maybe they would still sound like words that go with some pictures but offer no insights. Maybe they made no sense at the time because the fog was beginning to settle and I couldn't and wouldnt' think about anything at that time.
I dont' think it can be a clear cut distinction of bad reader/bad querant here, that maybe they are both in a place where neither can relate to each other, just like there are some people, no matter how long you try to communicate with, you just can't find a common ground to relate to and then there are others where it's instantaneous.
If someone can't relate to my readings, I will try my darnedest to figure it out, but the truth is, after the past few months, I know I am not infalliable, if they see it in a different way and it works for them, I'm not going to get into an ego battle of wills over who is right or not. I'll try to learn what I can from it and move on.
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| Fudugazi |
19 May 2005 |
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I keep all the readings done for me in writing - and if they are live, I like tapes. That way I can see how certain things play out in my life. I've had readings I've rejected- or at least in part - initially, but which on reflection came to seem more useful and applicable to me. Sometimes they had touched upon something hidden, or raw; or something that had not yet manifested in my life.
But I agree WalesWoman - there are readings that are just so vague as to be almost useless. Nice, but what? I am sure I have done some of those though I try hard not to, to concentrate and express myself in precise terms.
And again, some readings are accurante - but you are left feeling (or leave the other feeling) like - well, yes, but so what? That's why when we are in the reader's seat, we must make an effort to be fully with the querent, with what matters to them and what they need, not simply to wow them with what they know already ("you're Dad's was a journalist? ah yes - it says so here. Wow! and then - so what? I know my Dad was a journalist. What about it. What, nothing?) or worse, dish them out some agenda.
But I have a niggle with Umbrae: when your toaster blows up it's pretty easy to see the consequences. When a tarot reading is off, it isn't always easy to put your finger on what's off. Sometimes what seems off one day will seem on the next day. So how to judge? And no, I am not talking about the Mum who is going home to drive herself and the kids into the river because of what a tarot reader told her: here the tarot reader is the equivalent of the toaster that burns the house down. Both are fortunately rare.
To me the most off reading is the one that doesn't answer my question - and yet even as I write this I remember readings I have given where the cards that turned up did not answer the question asked out loud, but another, unasked. It happened recently, and I said to my querent (it was a live reading) - these cards are not addressing your question they are talking about a woman in your past - an ex-wife? and he said - oh, please, tell me about it. He was scared and embarrassed, but he had been having trouble with his ex-wife, was honest enough to admit it and relieved to be able to discuss it. But what if he had said - I asked you about my business, not my ex-wife - what should I have done then, having seen his ex-wife all over the table?
Can a reader look at cards that he knows to be answering an unspoken question say nothing? Pretend it is answering the spoken question (if there was one)? I say not: it is our repsonsibility to say what we see, in a tactful manner, feeling our way round the querent if we get the impression it is someone emotionally fragile. That's why reading people is at least as important as reading cards. Still, some people will clam up on certain topics, and that too we must accept. It's their lives.
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| Satori |
19 May 2005 |
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I'm finding this new twist of Umbrae's unsettling.
Which is good, because he helps to ignite any complacency or ego around the idea of being a great reader and thinking you can relax and stop thinking about the querent.
At the same time, how can you read if you are worried you are delivering "claptrap". At some point you will become paralyzed by fear and worry and may actually stop the flow of information coming in.
I didn't read every entry on the thread Umbrae posted, so perhaps if I do that I'll understand better, but Umbrae, how do you find the balance point?
I usually say a prayer that the information I get will be clear and precise and that whatever I say is for the highest good of all parties involved.
And I've made a personal, ethical choice to read for money only if the information seems like it is helping the querent, otherwise I will have to turn the client away and accept nothing for any amount of reading I do for them.
I went back on this once, when a sitter took 40 minutes of my time, oohed and aahed thru the reading, and then said, "nope. that meant nothing to me." I charged her half the amount, and sent her to another reader.
Another time, when both Songdeva and I didn't charge a woman who ended up with about 80 minutes of our combined time, was there trying to reach her dead daughter. The girl had died horribly in a motorcycle accident. The driver popped a wheely and she fell off the back of the bike.
This woman had been to either Van Praagh or John Edwards...and had a very accurate reading with him. Between us Lara and got lots of hits, I told her that her daughter had fallen, that she had passed etc as well as other details about the girl. And Lara, a medium, told her even more. So we gave good readings, but she was testing us, looking for evidence of her daughter being there. My reading kept telling her to get out, date and be involved with her other kids.....foolishly, in the end, we didn't charge her!
This woman will not get in touch with her daughter again I don't think. Not until she begins to live again. Her daughter had been dead for three years.
There seemed to be an energy around the woman, she was just desperate. I finally asked her, before she ran crying to the bathroom, what exactly she needed to hear in the reading to feel satisfied. (Old sales technique. What do you need, what deal can we make, so you buy this from me. In reading, it is my way of showing people that we've already talked about whatever it is, or it makes a light go off in their heads showing them that whatever it is they think I should provide, they already have.)
Her answer: I need to hear my daughter. I need to talk to her again.
Well, we weren't able to provide that. That particular deal couldn't be made. So she may have moved enough energy that night to rejoin the living. Who knows.
But my question is probably the same as firemaiden's. How do you read for folks and not become immobilized by fear and doubt.
Maybe in the end, my defense mechanism for that is the terrifying feeling I get when they lift their shining, worshipful eyes to me, when I've had a really good hit for someone, and I see that if I wanted to, I could take complete advantage of them. But for me, I'm terrified to see that look. It is really not a good thing. Makes me want to pick my nose or something! LOL.
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| tmgrl2 |
19 May 2005 |
|
There he goes again.....})....umbrae stirring up the pot...seeming
to switch camps
and opinions...
He just wants to stir the pot....the responsibility belongs to
The toaster AND the toast...
The VCR AND the videotape...
It's a process ...an interaction...
I took my remote back to PCRichards a few weeks ago...and said..
"Bad remote...need a replacement."
"Maybe the batteries are dead."
"Tried that, wasn't that."
Maybe it's the whole vcr?"
Nope ...have the same two in my upstairs bedroom...and I took one of those remotes ...same as this one...works fine."
(We were almost there)
"Well they could be slightly different models of remotes.."
"Then the one that doesn't belong with the VCR that goes with this
BAD REMOTE SHOULDN'T work."
"Oh...ok...give it to us and we'll get you another one."
YA see we both have a job to participate and communicate.
If either side is RIGHT or WRONG...there is a problem.
That's just one piece of the process...but an important one..
The readers skills, ability, loving intent....there's that.
The sitter's capacity or willingness to listen, to learn, to participate...there's that, too.
Come to the table with the shiny cup filled with love and it will never be empty
For either person
t
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| HOLMES |
19 May 2005 |
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deleted and leaving this thread
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| Satori |
19 May 2005 |
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I don't think I get the whole video store thing....tmgrl and umbrae seem to understand this....but I'm not getting it.
But, maybe I'm not supposed to.
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| tmgrl2 |
19 May 2005 |
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My point was about...
dialogue...communication....interaction....process....
Not about one-sided responsibilty...or about one being "right" and one "wrong" but about how we
Arrive somewhere through interaction and conversation and listening and responding....
and about being pure in intention....
And about taking the process
Seriously.
With Tarot...someone's life is being discussed.
With my work in speech/language, someone's family, someone's life, someone's child, son, daughter, grandfather....whoever...was in need and had a problem.
We interacted. Many of my therapy goals for communication remediation were driven by my client's needs first...not by what I, as the therapist/clinician thought was best...I could certainly weave in my own goals and direction during the process, since often what I needed to let families know, had to be said, but...
within a framework that allowed for them to realize that we were in this
Together.
Working through the healing or building, day by day, week by week...
And often year by year.
That's my point.
With my professoinal work, I often questioned myself, my knowledge, my clinical skills...someone has a stroke.
The families want to know...
Can you help him/her speak again?
What does my loved one understand?
Will all of these practice materials you have given me come to any good for my husband ..my wife...my child?
With 30 years of experience...I have seen amazing recoveries...We have worked with patients up to three years...doctors often told families...He/she will never speak or walk again. Three years later, patient is speaking, walking, driving and even working.
But...
Even then...with all of my professional training and experience.
I question.
How did this miracle come about? How much part did I play in this?
How much did the client contribute through hard work, desire and dedication to getting better?
How much was
An answer to prayers for a miracle.
I don't know. I don't need to know. I simply have lovingly done my work all these years.
If they can' t talk can you help him/her communicate somehow?
Even something not so serious as a VCR or toaster (although a broken one of these can drive us over the edge, LOL)....often requires that the seller and the buyer
Communicate.
terri
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| Fudugazi |
19 May 2005 |
|
Perhaps it is my non-Anglo-Saxon culture coming out here, my latin side, but I am shocked by all this analogy made between tarot reading and commerce. To me they are at opposite sides of the human spectrum, and business terms and thoughts should not even come into the exchange - and that even if the tarot reader accepts something from the querent.
Not all exchanges, not all relationships, not all communications, are about business and commerce - about shopkeeping concerns. Tarot is a book of images that feeds the spirit and the mind, and to reduce its encounter and practice between two people to a simple buying-and-selling exchange I find profoundly disturbing.
It is also not at all how I understand firemaiden's questioning, which I see as the natural concerns of an eager and inquisitive mind when faced with a mystery as great as how Tarot divination works. Does it work? always? are there failings and if so what are they?
To me it always comes to: how can I become a better reader? And also - how can I be a more open, more caring human being. Will tarot help or hinder that? And also - will the study of the Tarot make me wiser? Will I apprehend the Divine using these 78 cards as stepping-stones?
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| Nevada |
19 May 2005 |
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Not all exchanges, not all relationships, not all communications, are about business and commerce - about shopkeeping concerns. Tarot is a book of images that feeds the spirit and the mind, and to reduce its encounter and practice between two people to a simple buying-and-selling exchange I find profoundly disturbing. I agree wholeheartedly with this.
It is also not at all how I understand firemaiden's questioning, which I see as the natural concerns of an eager and inquisitive mind when faced with a mystery as great as how Tarot divination works. Does it work? always? are there failings and if so what are there? The way I see it there are portions of the process we can control and others we can't.
I see Tarot readings as being made up of several things, some of which are beyond human control, some under the reader's control and some under the sitter's:
1. Tarot as a book of
a. universal truths (When I look at the Tarot this way, I don't see how we can ever get the wrong cards.)
b. symbols individual to each deck
2. Reader with his/her individual background, education, experience, style of communiation and personal symbology.
3. Querent or sitter with his/her individual background, education, experience, style of communiation and personal symbology.
4. Random layout of cards with or without a spread.
5. Quality of the moment in which the reading is done, including where/how both the reader and sitter are at the time. Moods, health, level of energy or fatique, other factors in our lives all affect how we give and receive a reading, no matter how careful we are to keep them out of the reading.
6. Communication. This is probably the place where the most can go wrong.
7. Who is doing the reading. We hope it's the reader and they know and care about what they're doing, but if the sitter has any knowledge of Tarot s/he is just as likely to be interpreting and filtering the reader's interpretation through her own.
8. Intuition, psychic ability, guidance from unseen forces.
9. The gestalt of all the above listed factors, which is unique to each particular reading.
While, as I said above, I don't thing there's any such thing as the wrong cards, I think there is a lot of room for error due to the other factors involved. Tarot reading is a complex process with a lot of subjectivity injected into it along the way. Great care doesn't necessarily help, since it can lead to inhibition and second-guessing. But a relaxed, receptive state helps a great deal.
I also think first impressions are important, but not the only look one should take at a reading. Second looks, letting the reading sink in for a while, adds depth.
Nevada
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| jumptothemoonyea |
19 May 2005 |
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agree with post #55 (bull's eye Helvetica as usual)
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| Fudugazi |
19 May 2005 |
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While, as I said above, I don't thing there's any such thing as the wrong cards, I think there is a lot of room for error due to the other factors involved. Tarot reading is a complex process with a lot of subjectivity injected into it along the way. Great care doesn't necessarily help, since it can lead to inhibition and second-guessing. But a relaxed, receptive state helps a great deal. I found myself nodding at your whole post, Nevada - you have given us a near-comprehensive deconstruction of "the process". I would add to your list: the meeting of two souls - but that is unverifiable, I realise - simply what I think is happening.
This is really what struck out for me in your last paragraph: great care doesn't necessarily help, since it can lead to inhibition and second-guessing. To which my immediate reaction was - what????. Then - but we must be caring, no? Another discussion (sadly somewhat degenerated) is taking place at the moment in ncefafn's "apology" thread, about care given to the querent. But you raise a very good point! Yes, too much care - in the sense of too much stepping around and being careful (full of care) can inhibit and break the contact between reader and querent; and between reader and cards which, though we tend to take it for granted, is a magical thing in a live reading. There is a kind of creative triangle formed - querent-reader-oracle.
I think contact between querent and reader can take place at several levels - express, emotional, mental, unconscious and at soul level - to break that contact by worrying to much about one level only (usually the emotional), can result in breaking one or several of the other levels. I still remember a reader who was trying so hard to "embrace my emotions", because I was going through a time of confusion (visible in the cards and probably in my face too) that she ended up by insulting my intelligence, hence breaking the mental contact. I had trouble listening to her as a result. Unconsciously, possibly something happened, but if the conscious mind is in revolt, it tends to push things further down.
Sometimes it's a bind. You can meet people who are fiercely clever emotional wrecks, with all sorts of black holes and monsters in their unconscious. With them it is the hardest of all. If we approach them with too much well-thought out care - well, you described it Nevada - we end up second-guessing and losing the flow. Yet these are the very people who, if we can touch something sufficiently strongly in them, might benefit the most from a tarot reading. Ah, so that is where it becomes difficult!!!
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| Nevada |
19 May 2005 |
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This is really what struck out for me in your last paragraph: great care doesn't necessarily help, since it can lead to inhibition and second-guessing. To which my immediate reaction was - what????. Then - but we must be caring, no? Another discussion (sadly somewhat degenerated) is taking place at the moment in ncefafn's "apology" thread, about care given to the querent. But you raise a very good point! Yes, too much care - in the sense of too much stepping around and being careful (full of care) can inhibit and break the contact between reader and querent; and between reader and cards which, though we tend to take it for granted, is a magical thing in a live reading. There is a kind of creative triangle formed - querent-reader-oracle. I tried to compress too much into one sentence there, I think. By great care, in that statement, I meant not the care we should have for each other, but caring too much about the mechanics of the process. It's similar to when we grip the steering wheel of the car too tightly and lose our sense of connection to the process of steering because really all we're sensing is the tenseness of the muscles of our hands. Too tight a grip on a reading can override our ability to be receptive and let the process happen.
Nevada
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| Fudugazi |
19 May 2005 |
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Nevada - yes, I understood that, once I had read it twice and thought about it. You mean something like Zen and the Art of Archery ;) - that's what I was talking about too, after my initial (compressed) reaction.
(we have an expression in Switzerland - I understand fast when the explanation is long ;)).
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| Satori |
19 May 2005 |
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Perhaps it is my non-Anglo-Saxon culture coming out here, my latin side, but I am shocked by all this analogy made between tarot reading and commerce. To me they are at opposite sides of the human spectrum, and business terms and thoughts should not even come into the exchange - and that even if the tarot reader accepts something from the querent.
Not all exchanges, not all relationships, not all communications, are about business and commerce - about shopkeeping concerns. Tarot is a book of images that feeds the spirit and the mind, and to reduce its encounter and practice between two people to a simple buying-and-selling exchange I find profoundly disturbing.
It is also not at all how I understand firemaiden's questioning, which I see as the natural concerns of an eager and inquisitive mind when faced with a mystery as great as how Tarot divination works. Does it work? always? are there failings and if so what are they?
To me it always comes to: how can I become a better reader? And also - how can I be a more open, more caring human being. Will tarot help or hinder that? And also - will the study of the Tarot make me wiser? Will I apprehend the Divine using these 78 cards as stepping-stones?
Hmm.
I'm thinking you must be refering in part to my own post. I'm not sure of course, but I did talk about money for readings and that is commerce.
I simply think that we all have different experiences in our own lives that come into play and make us the readers we are.
I am not a salesperson now, but it was so much a part of me that I make closing statements all the time. I recruited blood donors and I worked with the mentally ill. I've worked in hospitals and nursing homes most of my adult life, in some way or another. All of it comes into play, when reading, interpreting and in living. I can't take it out of myself.
Plus Helvetica makes an important distinction.
As an American, as a woman, and being the color I happen to have been born with, I think a certain way.
I can't apologize for it. It is who I am, and if I find it gets in the way of my reading then of course I can begin to move outdated or bigoted or "commercial" ideas towards more enlightened ones. And this is a constant process of change my spiritual path takes me on.
I'm not sure what exactly got to you Helvetica. But I agree that we may be getting off topic.
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| Fudugazi |
19 May 2005 |
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elf- quick one - I was thinking VCRs here ;)
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| tmgrl2 |
19 May 2005 |
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My post wasn't intended to be about "commerce" or vcr machines or toasters.
I used these objects as a "metaphorical" vehicle over which two people need to engage in an exchange...
Whether it's Tarot or whether it's a simple exchange with another human being somewhere, anywhere about anything....I feel that love and respect need to be exhibited by all parties engaging in a communication exchange.
So...what I was attempting to say is that if we can't bring civility, love, caring, respect into a simple day-to-day exchange with people who cross our path for
Whatever reason,
Then I'm not so sure we would necessarily bring these same characteristics into the reading event or process....
Think about the endless day-to-day exchanges that occur between people at work, home, in a store....I believe that WHO we are as a person is reflected in HOW we treat ALL people we come in contact with, no matter how
simple, trivial, unimportant
The exchange is.
I am not disagreeing with all the other factors discussed about THE Process.
What I am trying to say, is...
If we don't come to the table prepared to
Say what we see
Say it with love
Interact with the sitter and
Open up the interactive process...
Then all the rest won't make a difference.
That is what I was trying to say.
Way too often I feel that "larger than life" exchanges...(if I may call Tarot this, or a visit with a doctor, or teacher/student...as examples) are often viewed as more "worthy" of the loving, respectful kinds of communication and interaction than those that involve...
a person we "chance" encounter in a store, on the street, in a bus, at an office waiting for an appointment.
The small exchanges we have, the little encounters throughout our day are marvelous opportunities for us to practice using the love and care and good intent we bring to the Table of Tarot. They are microcosms of
Who we are.....of the person we bring to the giving of ourselves during Tarot.
And even then, I still pray and have hope that I have done my best with
Loving Intent.
The next time we go into the hospital as we did yesterday for an operation, I only hope that the person who first takes us in and hands out gowns and slippers and surgical caps, is as patient and loving as the tiny lady we encountered yesterday before my husband's eye surgery.
Everyone else yesterday was also so loving and caring and didn't seem "put out" by my CONSTANT references and concerns about my husband's complicated health issues.
Given just a few who may have behaved differently, we may have gotten off on a whole metaphorical "different foot." Each person did what they do with care....and that in turn inspired both of us to have more trust than we came in with yesterday, simply because we were fearful and nervous and wanted answers and some hope and, of course, a good outcome.
So, all of the interactions yesterday started with the first pebble of love thrown into the water and all of the ripples throughout the morning only created more ripples of love and
Down went our FEAR.
Up went our HOPE
I swear we were even able to HEAR what we needed to hear even better because we felt the caring.
terri
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| wellspring |
19 May 2005 |
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” You’ve got the very real life of a very real person, spread out on the table there – often you hold their beating metaphorical heart in your metaphorical hands…and if we cannot accept that responsibility…then we are not worthy to be, readers…”
Exactly the point I've been trying to convey throughout a whole other thread, but which wasn't understood.
Cat
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| tmgrl2 |
19 May 2005 |
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I agree Cat....that's the whole point to me, too...
It just takes me a bit more to say it....but if "holding the hearts" in our hands, isn't first and foremost, then the rest....
By that I mean OUR hearts and OUR sitters....we can love others not much more than we love ourselves.
We can value others only to the extent we value ourselves.
All others.
Namaste
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| Fudugazi |
19 May 2005 |
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terri - I wish more people engaged in commercial enterprises viewed things as you do. It is a pleasure to walk into the baker's every morning and receive a smile and real concern, and return it. It is not a pleasure to be shoved along supermarket queues and treated as something to be got money out of and got rid of as fast as possible (not blaming the cashiers here, they are made to be "productive").
All interraction - ideally - is open and flowing. But sadly, this is often not the case in business and commerce - which brings us back to VCRs. That is why I feel so strongly about not comparing Tarot to commerce, apart from the fact that it is qualitatively different. But if a shopkeeper treats me like a warm-hearted tarot reader would, I am delighted! (and I agree the onus is on me too, the person who has walked in for bread).
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| tmgrl2 |
19 May 2005 |
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Helvetica, I'm still not comparing Tarot to commerce.
An encounter is an encounter and we must see all encounters with other humans as an exchange that can increase love
Or not.
I'm talking about how we behave in all our interactions, great and small, trivial
and "larger than life."
terri
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| wellspring |
19 May 2005 |
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Tmgrl2, am in total agreement, and you put your point really well.
That's my bottom line too, that the heart-level is what matters most. Without heart interaction, it's just an empty exercise, that doesn't bring any connection or healing or change, for those we read for, or when working at growing on a personal level, or when interacting with anyone.
It's great that as we do grow, this can naturally benefit our readings and interactions. And to handle exchanges on all levels as you describe, I feel is very positive. The point you make is something really relevant and often forgotten. Glad you made it!
BB, Cat x
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| tmgrl2 |
19 May 2005 |
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In re-reading firemaiden's opening post in this thread...
I was pulled in by her discussion of "possibilities" rather than of how or whether Tarot "works."
I recall jmd (I believe he said this in a post here) saying something to the effect that ....
It would be a good thing if we could pull out a deck of Tarot cards at a conference table at work during a meeting and use the cards and draw and images to ....
Explore possibilities ...avenues for discussion...other ways of looking at topics under consideration.
I couldn't agree more with this.
I hope that when I do a reading for someone, perhaps it will open up that door of "lateral thinking" and get them looking at an area, or a tidbit or something that they hadn't thought of prior to the reading...
find that little grain of sand that can grow for them.
I have always said that if I go to a professional conference and come away with one new idea that I can immediately put into action and own, then the conference was worthwhile.
I feel much that way about a reading I do for another person.
That's also what I look for when someone reads for me.
And let's not forget
That sitter, that querent in front of us....
Came to us...looking for something to be of help , of guidance, of hope.
I wish to deliver
What I see
Lovingly
Honestly...not omitting something that may come forward to me.
I hope that they will join in the process and together we will navigate the imagery.
And then I will silently bless them and hope that they
leave with perhaps
That one grain of sand...or
One possibility.....
that can help them toward changes they seek or need...
I just got a call today from my masseuse...she has a few clients that wish to call me for readings, but didn't want to give out my number unless I was doing readings right now. She knows that my husband just had surgery.
So...
Sure, I think.
Maybe, somehow, I can help another person.
Do I get a bit quirky about who will come and what they will expect and how I will do?
Of course I do. I am human.
But I will do the readings, holding each person gently in my heart and proceed to interact with them
Lovingly.
terri
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| wellspring |
19 May 2005 |
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A massive well done! What a wonderfully positive attitude.
BB Cat x
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| Fudugazi |
19 May 2005 |
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So why bring in VCRs at all, buy-and-sell, and all that, in the discussion at all?
I know and love your approach, terri. I am just a bit puzzled by the analogies used recently on this thread, that's all. But I take - and share - your point about encounters. I know Umbrae's view on the process, and set it up as a model for me (not always attained!)
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| Nevada |
19 May 2005 |
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I actually saw Umbrae's example as not one of commerce, but of customer service, which is a very human concept that crosses the boundaries of business and personal life. In fact it is the bridge between commerce and people, and it can come into play in a Tarot reading whether it's paid for or not, as well as in other services not related to what we normally think of as the business world. (For instance while cooking a meal for one's family.) It gets corrupted most often in private commerce because of too much focus on the bottom line or profit and not enough focus on the "exchange" which must take people into account.
I also think (and assumed of this thread) that caring about the querent is a given in reading Tarot. Anyone who's only in it for other reasons isn't likely to be much of a reader.
Nevada
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| Umbrae |
19 May 2005 |
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There are people, who place the onus of a good reading in the lap of the sitter (“the fault is your VCR, NOT our tapes”).
There was no reference to commerce, but human exchanges…
My examples are simply that. And as I said, “That’s not the point”.
It’s about service…
(and not servitude)
And willingness to accept responsibility for our actions while reading, especially those conducted face to face –regardless of remuneration.
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| Fudugazi |
19 May 2005 |
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Yes, I also saw it customer service, and that is what bothered me. That is were I think there is some cultural clash going on here. In my view, customer service has become a byword for fake interraction and care, hypocrisy, false smiles, and PR to brush off genuine need (for information, a product, a service, whatever). It is "commerce with a smiley mask on". Shopsellers who don't know the first thing about what they are selling are made to "do" customer service. Well, maybe better than to be barked at! But still, I don't see its relation to tarot, and don't want tarot associated with that kind of "put-on" service. Tarot is not a "service", in my view, though I know some wonderful tarot readers who would describe it as such. But I think that is because this expression is bandied around and picked up. But tarot and tarot reading is different and we need different vocabulary and analogies for it. Tarot is genuine. (Of course, my baker is genuine too; but she does not practice costumer service. She is just a nice woman who likes people and makes an effort with them).
But my point, originally, is that customer service, or commerce, is not the point of the thread. I am getting lost now....so I'll stop :)
edited to add: hehe, just saw Umbrae talk about tarot as service. Really, I think I am culturally outnumbered here! That word bugs me in relation to tarot.
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| Nevada |
19 May 2005 |
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Helvetica, I think what you're referring to as a cultural difference may be a result of the corruption of the idea of customer service, and the fact that too often it can only be sold to big business as a way of assuring repeat business, profit and so forth. Sadly that's the only reason many business people will give it any attention at all. And sadly that's often the only impression the consumer has of the concept of customer service.
My experience of customer service comes from a government setting, where there was no profit to be made, but a service was provided, and service was indeed the key to doing our job. It was our primary business. I've also seen it at work in smaller businesses, where the business owners saw it not just as an aid to making money, but as a part of the exchange, as well as a critical way to fit into the community.
(I started to think of this as a side issue to the discussion here, but it is important to define our terms.)
Nevada
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| Fudugazi |
19 May 2005 |
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please delete
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| Umbrae |
20 May 2005 |
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Are ya ready? For the big confession?
Somebody once complained that I had an agenda.
I do.
Here it is. Ready.
I exist, here and now, with or without Tarot, to be of service to my fellow occupants of this planet.
That’s it.
Pretty simple. It’s not overly complex which makes it a little hard to grasp.
My analogies had and have nothing to do with commerce. I could have used many different allegorical stories alluding to how one person treats another poorly, under a guise of ‘service’.
Sure Tarot is pure – it’s the reader that can be the issue. In my view, customer service has become a byword for fake interaction and care, hypocrisy, false smiles, and PR to brush off genuine need… See we do agree…when you get that attitude from a reader…they have soiled the pureness of tarot.
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| Fudugazi |
20 May 2005 |
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Sure Tarot is pure – it’s the reader that can be the issue. See we do agree…when you get that attitude from a reader…they have soiled the pureness of tarot. Bon alors on est d'accord :) It's a lovely new morning in the Alps, and what you say there quite unarguable.
I'm still not keen on the word service, but that's my issue :cool: - I agree with the sentiment absolutely.
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| Imagemaker |
20 May 2005 |
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I used to have a problem with the word service, too. Especially from the female perspective where we've been forced into servitude for too many generations.
I like the word "contribute" when affecting the wellbeing of the occupants of the planet, In each interaction, do we contribute or do we contaminate? (Setting aside neutrality for the moment.)
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| firemaiden |
20 May 2005 |
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I first heard the notion of "service" when I was 19, working in a muffin store on 86th Street in New York back in 1980... called "Sadoux's Surprise". When I answered the phone, I said "surprise!".
My boss (the muffin man) was a philosopher, an artist and a sort of existentialist seeking enlightenment (and women) and I made him my "guru". One day I asked him what the purpose in life was, or more specifically what my purpose in life was...
He said it was "to be of service".
I was scared he meant I was supposed to serve coffee and muffins for the rest of my life.... and got pretty mad.
No, no, no, no, no.... that is not what he meant, and it is not what Umbrae means now.
I think I finally figured out what it meant when I was in the hospital this fall, (no, not thanks to the morphine!!) lying in bed, attached to tubes, enjoying laughing with the tired and overworked nurses from all over the world (one from Sierra Leone, for example) -- in that position I could do exactly the same thing that I could do singing an aria, or serving coffee, or reading cards, which is exactly the same thing the lady on the corner waving and smiling to all the cars in the morning can do. Be there, connect to "source" -whatever source means to you, God, or the soul of the universe, or the universal flow, or whatever, and share that connection with people, in whatever way you can. ...
Umbrae is using the word the way my muffin man guru used it... "Service" is a bit ironic of a word, if the way you can be of service to the world is to be a "star", LOL. But anyway, it's a nice concept because it takes the pressure off of you, your ego, (me, my ego) to say, this work is dedicated to a higher purpose -- to serve, and it means it doesn't really matter what you do, and its not about you (not about me).
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| jmd |
20 May 2005 |
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It is rather difficult to enter a thread that has, effectively, the equivalent of over thirty printed pages, and do any of it justice in what one tries to keep succinct...
So let me first reply in a general sense to the thread as a whole, and then to some (and only some) of the more specific points raised (especially in the opening post).
The overall sense that I get when reading through the thread is that many aspects touch upon areas that many of us are sensitive to. After all, if I directly put into question whether what a reader (even an experienced one) takes for granted (that the reading has a way of always being meaningful, and that the cards are always there to be correctly read subject o the reader being receptive), then questioning the very process of a reading will surely touch that more sensitive part within each of us.
When the thread first opened, I tried to make a post, and simply did not know how to best add any personal reflections - I am very thankful that so many have contributed, thereby not only adding various views and insights, but also keeping this more important and difficult thread active.
In the opening post, firemaiden makes quite a number of statements - and one is also forced to reflect as to whether from whence are the readings seen that are 'completely off-the-mark'. Certainly some of my own in the Your Readings section could be seen as this (witness my total blunder in identifying who the current Pope was going to be - though I did get his adopted name right... it could be argued that if the current Pope lives until only 2008, and the person I identified is then Pope, the blunder is not totally 'off-the-mark', but then, I certainly do not wish Benedict the XVIth such short reign).
My mention above would probably be true for each of us that has either posted publicly, or that has contributed to a reading in a group discussion format.
Then, there is also the 'denial' aspect (by the readee) mentioned a number of times both within this thread and in others.
This is somewhat different to the rather derogatory assumption that the reader knows best. Rather, it undoubtedly needs to be recognised that, as when a dear friend sees clearly what may be going on in one's life that one simply prefers to either not see nor admit to oneself, there may indeed be times that the reading, though accurate and given in just the right manner for the person, will be claimed to be 'off-the-mark' and downright rude.
I realise that this too has been mentioned by a number of contributors hereon.
Of course, this doesn't take away from the also very important factor of effective, gentle, and sensible communication. Undoubtedly, when mis-communication occurs, the message is not heard. When a person reacts strongly, this may be a sign that the message is not heard... or a sign that the message has been clearly heard and either rejected as incorrect, or, even, rejected because deeply known to be true but not wanting it to be so.
How does one, then, assess any reading?
If each card is viewed, as suggested, as fresh seeds to allow for an unfolding narrative, could one not simply permit, as a reader, one's flights of fanciful story-telling from taking over and effectively stating as apparent fact what is perhaps the beginnings of a new novel they should perhaps pen?
Here also is where, in my view, broad reading about the symbolism of the individual cards becomes as a foundation upon which the seed may not only take root, but grow in a healthy fashion.
This last point is really the one that many who suggest certification are also advocating (though in my view in a very unhealthy way, for in a reading, the seed needs to be able to germinate and grow in its own manner, and the reading is analogous to the developed plant, not the ground upon which it takes root, nor the waters (feelings) or Sunlight (in-the-moment insight) that sustains it - each important).
Divination, or, if you like, a reading (rather than using the cards as a psycho-analytical or equivalent tool), certainly needs this seed-thought to take shape in the developing precise imaginative faculty of the reader. This 'precise imaginative faculty' is how I would characterise, as well, the experience elf mentioned earlier - and wonderful when it occurs!
As others have said, however, there is also (usually) the person for whom the reading is done. I say usually for one may also do a reading as to what vegetables one will put into a soup one is in the process of preparing (to paraphrase an example given many months ago by Diana).
This other person, as importantly noted, is not only human with all those common needs, feelings, and acts we can generally characterise as human, but also their individual and specific characteristic (hence the recoil from such boxes as the MBTI by many - and that irrespective as to its also useful aspects in furthering understanding of temperamental characteristics).
As individual, they also come for a reading really expecting to take with due care, consideration, reflection and truth what the reader will provide them with for further entertainment (and I am using the term here in its full sense of 'to entertain', 'to think through', 'to reflect upon'). It is this that is perhaps 'useful to the reader' (to paraphrase Helvetica).
This is where sometimes some have seen from this a similarity to counselling. Personally, I would suggest that unless one is a counsellor or has skills in those areas, that it not be a counselling session - for then the readee will walk away as though it was, without the benefit of, usually, a follow up session(s).
Rather, the reading needs to stand on its own, usually provide the person with snippets that they themselves may be allowed to take within and transform in freedom. For different individuals, different readings will likely be best (or even for the same individual at different times or in differing circumstance).
The wonderful discussion about Imagination and Intuition I shall leave for now, and simply comment that this raises, also, the need to take care, during a reading, of the other. And here tmgrl2 and Umbrae have so often brought this ever so important aspect.
How does one do this? with empathy, with love - that characteristic which is opening oneself to the good that is in the other.
It is also this empathy and love that requires that we also step back from the form, to the substance. In discussions, we often focus on the form, for it is through this that we may get closer to the substance (hence the ease with which discussion may head in analysis of words or analogies used). Only yesterday I was at an all-day meeting to work on a response to a federal government document, and each time someone used the term 'industry' or 'bench-marks' or 'standards' with respect to education, I would sense an aspect of myself recoiling: the words (really single-word analogies) nearly masked the important point otherwise being offered.
Certainly, as has long being also shown, the analogies we use also tend to make our very understanding of the topic take on shades or wings of intended metonymy (or any other figures of speech).
In a discussion, this can help further clarity. It also serves to remind us, however, that a reading is not simply an analytical discussion... at least not for most of us, and that analogies or various figures of speech used may indeed have quite different connotations for the person one is reading for.
But to return to the opening post for one small and final comment.
One could make a somewhat similar criticism of any endeavour in the human realm: does 'it' (whatever the 'it' is) always 'work'?
If appropriate, yes, is the easy answer.
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| tmgrl2 |
21 May 2005 |
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jmd...I was hoping you would pop in sooner or later....again...well said, summarized and, once again....additional insights.
I especially like the idea of thinking that the reading must
"stand on its own."
This struck a deep chord within me.
I have been having some difficulty lately, and I have expressed it here....with offering readings.
Your comment, jmd, tapped quite well into the crux of what I am experiencing.
For thirty years I have worked as a speech/language pathologist...and by the very nature of my work, the remediation and the individual and family counseling are long-term efforts taken on by all involved ...the process shapes itself as we move through time and as the patient reaches goals or newer levels of comprehension or communication.
So....this is WHAT I KNOW.....and now I realize that when I read Tarot,
few of my clients "come back for the rest."
While some do....
I had completely overlooked, forgotten, or, in fact , not even examined the reality that Tarot is often a single moment in time with an individual...and that my purpose is often to
Plant a seed and hope that it may grow and flourish as a form of guidance for the querent.
This is what has been bothering me!!
This statement has opened a door for me.
I haven't felt that I have "done a bad job" of reading with my live querents.
What I have felt is that they come to see me....we do the reading...sometimes, a few come back for another (I am still too new to have a client "base.")
At best, those I see in my daily life, will from time to time comment on how a card or image or on how something I said, started the ripples....
But for those I will meet only once...what I need to remember is
I am NOT counseling...I am at best hoping to plant a seed.
This is more like the "conference" effect. Sometimes, I will go to a three-day professional conference and, as I said before, walk away with ONE NEW SEED that I can plant and make my own. I am quite happy with that.
Thank you, jmd.
I was having a hard time, setting aside what I did/do for a living....and what I do when I read....
(no laughs anyone....I'm baring my soul, here, and now that I SEE this, it seems as though it was right in front of my nose and I missed it....so jmd, see, your post wasn't a reading, but I found my seed!)
This thread has been wonderful. After pm-ing a friend here the other day, I received the suggestion in return that this is a thread well worth re-reading.
And so it is!!
And I love the alternate meaning for "entertain," one which we seldom think of when we hear the word...but it has been used at work in the context you mentioned, jmd....."to think through," "to reflect upon."
Also, fm, I like your clarification of "service." I think I can see that some may find the word less than "suitable" when we discuss Tarot....
I clearly was coming from the perspective of my own philosophy of being
"mindful" whenever I engage with another person....we "serve" each other somehow...even when we communicate with family members and friends, not just with people we encounter in our day-to-day lives in the world.
By "serve" I am of the belief that we are here on this plane to "serve" each other, to be of "service" and that we must attempt to treat all encounters, great and small, as having been served lovingly. Love one another as we would be loved. Serve one another as we would be served.
terri
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| Nevada |
21 May 2005 |
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I understand why many people have problems with the term "service"--and most especially with the term "customer service" which I'm certain I overused in my earlier posts, falling back on my work experience. Why is it we use this word "service" so much in business and so little in our personal lives? Perhaps we've allowed the lords of commerce--and of sexism, as was also noted--too much effect on our emotions about language? Service, as it's listed in my dictionary, has numerous meanings, the first of which is:
"1. an act of helpful activity; help; aid: to do someone a service."
To me that epitomizes what we do with Tarot, whether reading for ourselves or others. It is merely a help, not professional (meaning licensed, here) counseling, not something that should require followup, but something that can be of help along the way. It implies a certain amount of responsibility, that of helping rather than hindering, but doesn't imply any level of formal education or licensing that could be compared with, say, seeing a psychologist, as "counseling" might imply, or connection with a religion, as "ministering" might.
But perhaps the word "help" is even better. I strive to provide help, whatever else I do in a reading. This word can comprise all the various experience, learning and talents of readers. The primary responsibility of the reader is to strive to be of help providing answers by way of Tarot.
Does Tarot help? Can even a "wrong" Tarot reading help? I think it can, and if its purpose is stated simply as help, that's not likely to give the readee a false idea that they're being given a magic bandaid for all their troubles. Help is something everyone knows to take at face value and with a certain amount of discernment. At the same time, there is something inherent in the intention, and in the attention given the sitter in a reading, that I'm sure is always of help, no matter how astute the interpretation.
Nevada
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| Umbrae |
21 May 2005 |
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In case my series of posts in this thread appeared like unfounded rants…check out this thread.
It’s filled with examples of bad readers – readers who should have waited for their first deck to be given to them – they have no right to read for others…they should be stopped, they are irresponsible.
There are a lot of them out there folks – and no, I’m not discussing any members or posters…
Reading for others is a privilege, not a right.
They are not creating anything positive. They are not of service, they offer no help. And if you read carefully – they place blame onto the sitter.
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| Fudugazi |
22 May 2005 |
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Thank you jmd, Nevada, Umbrae, firemaiden and terri for your illuminating posts. JMD - I take your point about not letting form blind me to content ;)
I have been thinking about this whole thread and my sometimes uncomfortable reactions. Nevada - you do well to distinguish "customer service" from service. For I realise that service - to serve - is in fact much of what I have been doing with my life since I started work. It's the reason I joined the ICRC, and the reason I enjoy doing readings - live and internet readings. To serve.
In the prisons, you must beware projecting what you might want for your "clients", and what they want for themselves. You might look and think - this cell is filthy, they need a bucket and brushes and soap. But what they ask you for is a photo of their wives and a visit to the military judge to see if their case will be reviewed; or time given to look through their papers to check if there has been a miscarriage or something missing, and if so, help with finding a lawyer (I am talking about political prisoners and civilian internees here, rather than PoWs, whom I also visited). It's easy to think you've done your job because you've provided a bucket and the next time you visit, the cell is clean and the prisoners say thank you. But you haven't - not unless you do what they want and really need (as much as you are able). That I believe is doing your best by your clients, and serving them truly (which is not to say you don't also give the bucket, bursh and soap!)
I think with a reading the approach must be the same, and that is why it is so hard. Some demands are difficult to meet, you do the best you can: but it must be the best, otherwise - to come back to firemaiden's original question - no, it doesn't work. The best you have might not be enough for a very troubled querent, but if you do your best honestly it will be recognised as such by the querent and might be of some use - and, as jmd said - something will remain of the reading for the querent to entertain in his/her mind later. Well, I think so. Certainly if you do your honest best (as defined above) by your prisoners - they will recognise it even if the next time you visit they have been knocked about or tortured some more or are now on death row.
Your muffin man guru sounds like quite a guy, firemaiden, and reminds me of my baker, who serves me a smile and a chat with my croissant every morning. I've noticed that quite a few lonely old ladies in the neighbourhood go to the bakery's tea-room for conversation and human warmth.
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The Reflections and Opinions on the Process of Reading by a Tarot (A)gnostic. thread was originally posted on 12 May 2005 in the Using Tarot Cards board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Using Tarot Cards, or read more archived threads.
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