MareSaturni
I've seen many people here write beautiful texts about the art of reading tarot. Inspiring texts. But i'd like to do something different - i want to dedicate this text to all tarot readers here. The professional and the starters, the fortune tellers and the spiritual seekers and everything that is in between.
It's not easy being a good tarot reader. It doesn't take just a book, a deck and some curiosity. I doesn't take just a super developed intuition. It might be enough in the beginning, but as you learn further...those things aren't enough. Tarot requires lots of living, much more than books, and living isn't an easy thing.
Fool's journey after fool's journey...most of us here have faced The Wheel of Fortune, the Tower, the Devil, the High Priestess more times than we can count. Yet, we all discover something new about the cards...something that comes much more from waking up everyday, getting up and facing life than reading books. Not that books aren't important...but after a while, they just can't give you enough about life.
My opinion is that a great way to learn tarot is living it. Life embraces what books cannot.
That's why tarot is something that requires...love. You can't learn tarot in a deeper level if you don't love it, if you don't believe in it enough to experience it. One thing is to believe that it works in times of despair, like many do, only to later dismiss it another 'esoteric blah blah blah '. When you are a tarot reader...you have you love it all the time. Believe in it's purpose, trust it even when it confuses the hell out of you.
I don't know how it is elsewhere in the world but...i'm the daughter of two doctors. It happens that they are very rational people too (they, my parents, not every doctor of course), and even...disillusioned. Nothing is magical for them and just the idea of tarot seems pretty 'out-of-this-world'.
For now, i study in college and read tarot. But as the time passes, i get this feeling...gut feeling...that the tarot will be something more in my life. That maybe i'll have to chose to take it more seriously...and it's not too far now! I feel this time approaching...and i know for sure that my parents won't pat me on the head, clap hands and make me a big dinner-party in honor of my choice. They'll probaby think i'm round the bend.
For most of people, choosing tarot as a way of life is madness. But tarot readers are brave people
Tarot is very much about love. I'm sure that everyone who reads tarot more professionally - i mean, makes tarot an important (if not essencial) part of his or her life - believes in it. And loves it. They are people who could be engineers, doctors, teachers, lawyers...maybe they even were one day. Maybe they still are. But they have decided to pursue the tarot, even if other people would think they are nuts. They decided to pursue something that other have rejected as a lie, accused of scam.
People will tell you you are ruining you life. Tell you that you are living a dream. And, heck, life is gonna hit you in the head with a brick sometimes and show you the world out there isn't nice. But you'll keep going, because there's a moment in which you just can't imagine yourself doing anything else except what you love...and it's a courageous leap of faith. I believe that tarot readers - you, who are here reading this - are brave people, even if you are not professionals. You are studying and pursuing a thing many dismiss as bullshit without even trying...and you haven't given up even after all the challenges. You are brave people. You help others, and sometimes you'll take what they can give in return and that's not much.
Where does this Strength comes from? I've met many interesting people over the years here and they all have it, even if they don't know. Even if they, like me, don't hear voices, don't talk to guides and spirits and don't have a supernatural background. Even when they felt they lacked what it took to be a good reader, they faced the challenges and learnt from them. They faced the criticism, they faced bad readings and bad sitters and...nothing could stop them.
Because tarot readers are brave people. Brave enough to change over the time, to reconsider what they before dismissed, to dismiss what they considered rules.
I'd like to thank you, Aeclectic Tarot Forum tarot readers, for making this community a beautiful place. We fight and we agree, we misunderstand and are misunderstood. We believe dogmas just to see they fall a part, and we help to dislodge the bricks of some people's towers. We find the best book, only to later put it away and learn to stop reading through another's eyes.
Since i first logged here until today, i've seen my tarot views being constructed and deconstructed many times. But ladies and gentlemen...it was a pleasure to suffer, or maybe to enjoy, these changes by your side. It was a pleasure to meet the brave people, to learn from you, and maybe even to teach one thing or two. It was pleasure to know a bit about you and your lives because that's what tarot is about - life. You are really inspiring people, even when you play the Devil's Advocate. Even when you aren't being nice. Even you are having a 'bad hair day'.
You are still the brave people.
So like Steve Jobs said - Stay hungry. Stay foolish.
And keep tarot-ing.
~Marina
It's not easy being a good tarot reader. It doesn't take just a book, a deck and some curiosity. I doesn't take just a super developed intuition. It might be enough in the beginning, but as you learn further...those things aren't enough. Tarot requires lots of living, much more than books, and living isn't an easy thing.
Fool's journey after fool's journey...most of us here have faced The Wheel of Fortune, the Tower, the Devil, the High Priestess more times than we can count. Yet, we all discover something new about the cards...something that comes much more from waking up everyday, getting up and facing life than reading books. Not that books aren't important...but after a while, they just can't give you enough about life.
My opinion is that a great way to learn tarot is living it. Life embraces what books cannot.
That's why tarot is something that requires...love. You can't learn tarot in a deeper level if you don't love it, if you don't believe in it enough to experience it. One thing is to believe that it works in times of despair, like many do, only to later dismiss it another 'esoteric blah blah blah '. When you are a tarot reader...you have you love it all the time. Believe in it's purpose, trust it even when it confuses the hell out of you.
I don't know how it is elsewhere in the world but...i'm the daughter of two doctors. It happens that they are very rational people too (they, my parents, not every doctor of course), and even...disillusioned. Nothing is magical for them and just the idea of tarot seems pretty 'out-of-this-world'.
For now, i study in college and read tarot. But as the time passes, i get this feeling...gut feeling...that the tarot will be something more in my life. That maybe i'll have to chose to take it more seriously...and it's not too far now! I feel this time approaching...and i know for sure that my parents won't pat me on the head, clap hands and make me a big dinner-party in honor of my choice. They'll probaby think i'm round the bend.
For most of people, choosing tarot as a way of life is madness. But tarot readers are brave people
Tarot is very much about love. I'm sure that everyone who reads tarot more professionally - i mean, makes tarot an important (if not essencial) part of his or her life - believes in it. And loves it. They are people who could be engineers, doctors, teachers, lawyers...maybe they even were one day. Maybe they still are. But they have decided to pursue the tarot, even if other people would think they are nuts. They decided to pursue something that other have rejected as a lie, accused of scam.
People will tell you you are ruining you life. Tell you that you are living a dream. And, heck, life is gonna hit you in the head with a brick sometimes and show you the world out there isn't nice. But you'll keep going, because there's a moment in which you just can't imagine yourself doing anything else except what you love...and it's a courageous leap of faith. I believe that tarot readers - you, who are here reading this - are brave people, even if you are not professionals. You are studying and pursuing a thing many dismiss as bullshit without even trying...and you haven't given up even after all the challenges. You are brave people. You help others, and sometimes you'll take what they can give in return and that's not much.
Where does this Strength comes from? I've met many interesting people over the years here and they all have it, even if they don't know. Even if they, like me, don't hear voices, don't talk to guides and spirits and don't have a supernatural background. Even when they felt they lacked what it took to be a good reader, they faced the challenges and learnt from them. They faced the criticism, they faced bad readings and bad sitters and...nothing could stop them.
Because tarot readers are brave people. Brave enough to change over the time, to reconsider what they before dismissed, to dismiss what they considered rules.
I'd like to thank you, Aeclectic Tarot Forum tarot readers, for making this community a beautiful place. We fight and we agree, we misunderstand and are misunderstood. We believe dogmas just to see they fall a part, and we help to dislodge the bricks of some people's towers. We find the best book, only to later put it away and learn to stop reading through another's eyes.
Since i first logged here until today, i've seen my tarot views being constructed and deconstructed many times. But ladies and gentlemen...it was a pleasure to suffer, or maybe to enjoy, these changes by your side. It was a pleasure to meet the brave people, to learn from you, and maybe even to teach one thing or two. It was pleasure to know a bit about you and your lives because that's what tarot is about - life. You are really inspiring people, even when you play the Devil's Advocate. Even when you aren't being nice. Even you are having a 'bad hair day'.
You are still the brave people.
So like Steve Jobs said - Stay hungry. Stay foolish.
And keep tarot-ing.
~Marina