Umbrae said:
But for them? What is it like for them? Perhaps they are waiting for us to have that one day the cards come up a tad different and something strange and beautiful floats out from between our lips…
That is why I read tarot. Why I read books and poems. Why I listen to Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, why I travel or go skinny-dipping at midnight among the jasmine blooms (not in this season
) . It's why I write - to find "something strange and beautiful" floating out from the world.
And tarot does give that. In the most mundane and repetitive of all readings we might see a flower growing in the middle of the pile of manure that has accumulated in front of the querent.
They come circling back with the same question, again and again, because the manure stinks and they can't see a way round it. But what if we plucked that flower for them?
What if, for these querents who can't seem to see the magic in their lives anymore, so close are they to their obsessions ("will he get his divorce?" "will we make up?", "will my sister do her share of looking after Mum?")
...the 6 of Swords meant a boating trip?
...the 2 of Swords meant taking up historical fencing?
...Strength meant going to the circus?
...the Four of Cups meant a picnic under a tree?
...the 5 of Cups means gatecrashing a Greek wedding?
...The Hanged Man meant a bungie jump off the Golden Gate?
...The High Priestess meant curling up with a good book on the steps of a Thai temple?
...The Tower meant a trip to Italy to watch the late summer storms from the leaning tower of Pisa?
...The 8 of Swords meant entertaining children at a party with blind man's buff?
...the 8 of Cups meant going for a long hike in the mountains?
...the 5 of Pentacles meant volunteering for the homeless?
What if we gave them something different than the "get a life" lecture? A glimpse of magic, a yearning for the light that shines between the floor-boards?
If you want to build a ship, don't herd people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to yearn for the endless immensity of the sea. Saint-Exupéry.
If someone yearns for long enough, they do something about it, or die.
Edited to add: I've just sat in on an hour-long meeting. Like most UN meetings, a lot of it was terminally dull. Then suddenly the head of the department - my boss's boss - started to talk. He is a Malian, from a long line of storytellers. He spoke of vision and opening factories making essential AIDS medicines in Africa and bringing in teenagers and prostitutes to get to know their experience and their needs. This initiative I am working on is new, but the questions it is attempting to answer are not. The initiative is like the 20th psychic consulted. The world has been asking the same questions for 25 years now. But he did two things as he spoke: he opened the horizon and switched the focus. He gave breadth and detail. You could feel the energy in the room change dramatically. That's what a good tarot reading must deliver - especially when the question has been asked again and again.
And say if the question repeats itself, the price goes up 50% each time lol