Saying what you see

[Oddity]

What is also true, I think , is that for those of us who read for ourselves, we are so used to processing the information in an instant and not really having to articulate it. We read in symbols, process in symbols and the information goes right back into the brain, in symbols. I don´t know about anyone else, but when I read for myself, I can process the information much faster simply by dint of not having to then reformulate that into words. But I know what the cards are telling me and where Im going...

I agree. The information that comes from the cards is instant. When I read my thoughts are nothing like coherent language but still I know (or I feel) exactly what it is the cards are saying... I follow all the threads between the cards in the spread at the same time, I see it all at once, how it is all connected like threads in a net.

But if (when) I need to put it into words, then I have to track the threads one by one... or I end up with a jumble of loose words, like a poem. Great, but nobody else gets what it means... and neither do I, six months later

It takes ages to find a coherent way to formulate what I have seen. Much longer than doing the reading itself.

 

[canid]

I have the same problem - verbalizing concepts. I've started researching it & it's not that uncommon; although I have yet to find a way to fix it! People with weak concept imagery, people who read words by rote & they just don't 'stick' usually have poor concept imagery. In reading tarot, we're forced into having very strong concept imagery, which in turn makes articulating concepts very difficult. I have a really hard time turning the 'images' of what I know a card means into words - it's like descriptions are running around in my head just fine, they just can't find a way to my tongue. I think maybe the only way to reconnect the mouth with the concept is by practice. Stop reading for yourself in your head & force yourself to say it. I know, I get in a hurry or lazy & don't want to bother because, what the heck, I already KNOW, why should I have to speak it? Maybe someone can find a better way to make that connection.

 

[moderndayruth]

Awesome toppic, Griz, thanks for starting it!
Often the term 'interpreting the cards' is used and to me its more accurate term than 'reading the cards', that being said - we studied at Uni that the best literature translation (translation being the written interpretation) in history is Goethe's Faust translation into Russian by Boris Pasternak... Mind that Pasternak won the Nobel for literature and that he translated into a wonderfully rich language that has some 48.000 words more than my mothet tongue (Serbian)... And, the experts say, that 25% of the original text's finesses and nuances in German is "lost in the translation" into Russian...
I don't speak German, but i read the translations into Russian and into Serbian comparatively, well, the translation into Serbain at least 'fades' there (not to say - sucks) and still its genius translation that helped millions of people appreciate, learn and enjoy the masterpeice... See what i mean?
As per 'conveying' the message - i am a schooled diplomat, so i have that from my 'regular job' - NOT to blunt out whatever crosses my mind...
Many times diplomacy is mistaken for hipocrisy and despiced, but by its definition its an art of conveying (more often than not) unpleasant news and messages "without arousing hostility" and is ususally listed as a synonym for 'tact':
1 : sensitive mental or aesthetic perception
2 : a keen sense of what to do or say in order to maintain good relations with others or avoid offense
(Merriam-Webster Dictionary)
When reading for others in other than your mother tongue language - i beleive the easiest part is to learn the vocabulary and grammar of the foreign language, the tough part (that's in my experience) is to learn what are the thinking patterns and associations that the words you use aweke in the sitter... In linguistics, there are too many "false friends", for example - if saying to someone from US that they are a pioneer / pioneering, i beleive the usual understanding would be "one who ventures into unknown or unclaimed territory to settle" and/or " one who opens up new areas of thought, research, or development" (from TheFreeDictionary); whereas if using exactly the same word with some of twenty two million of ex-Yugoslavs... it's all another story ...
Like Bright Eye, i am more comfortable reading in English than in my mother tongue, though (unlike BE) i speak 'bad English'; my language, as much as i love it, has some 'fatalistic feeling' to it, its burdened with our tragic history of wars, for me - there are too many 'linguistic mine fields' one should watch out when speaking in it... When i say 'Emperor' or 'King' in my language, immediately correlations are made to historic figures - aha, the good rooler/domestic traitor etc., which usually has very little to do with the actual Arcanum/Court's meaning in the reading...

 

[canid]

I am truly in awe of you, moderndayruth, & anyone else who can read tarot in a language other than their mother tongue. I can't say 'please pass the bread' in any language other than english. My grandmother was born in Budapest in 1898 & immigrated to the US in 1910. What was going on there at that time to make her parents send their 2 only children to the US, alone? Anyway, she taught me much of the language (would that have been Hungarian?) while I was growing up, but I've since forgotten it. I do have her recipes though...

 

[Disa]

This is exactly the problem I have. I'm more of a written word type person. Until the past few years, I was never even able to visualize an image in my mind at all-everything was a word or a feeling.

When I write, words flow, when I speak-not so much. This is true for everything, though-not just Tarot.

Since learning tarot I have definitely become more visual, but it's still difficult for me to get the feeling of the images to come out of my mouth coherently.

Like, Floraove, I'm afraid of offending, since my words in other situations often offend when I didn't intend them to do so.

I'm glad I'm not alone in this. A throat chakra issue, maybe?

 

[moderndayruth]

I am truly in awe of you, moderndayruth, & anyone else who can read tarot in a language other than their mother tongue. I can't say 'please pass the bread' in any language other than english. My grandmother was born in Budapest in 1898 & immigrated to the US in 1910. What was going on there at that time to make her parents send their 2 only children to the US, alone? Anyway, she taught me much of the language (would that have been Hungarian?) while I was growing up, but I've since forgotten it. I do have her recipes though...

OT: He, he - those are the recipes for the most delicios and tasteful dishes in history - my maternal granma was from the same parts (Vojvodina), that once were part of Austria -Hungary ... And they were very open to divination (my granma was a reader), so no wonder the two of us are meeting on AT boards, as they say, it runs in the family!
Hungarin language, or Magyar, is the most intriguing language spoken in these parts - it doesn't belong to Indo-European family, so its very different from all the other languages spoken here and very difficult for us to learn ; i stayed in October 2008. with my family in nowdays Serbia, my sister-in-law is ethnic Hungarian who speaks Serbian, but her mom and sis don't, it was fun to read for them, i needed an interpretor - that's my cousin who is bilingual!
My granma was born 1912, and knowing her epic, yet tragic destiny - i believe your grand-grand parents made very difficult, but wise decision...

 

[Cat*]

Havn't read all the posts , but the problem found is that the intellect is way too slow to describe a pictured feeling.
So finding discriptions requires a pause in the flow, until the words are found that fit the mood and FEEL of the picture.

It seems that I know the message of the cards in an instant from the pictures, but to actually verbally read the cards for someone, you have to go into another mode and try to begin from the beginning and string it all together.

Exactly. (Come to think of it, this whole thread feels a bit like a tarot reading with all the putting feelings/impressions into words...)

I do "feel" my cards more than I actually "read" them. Slowly, I think it's not surprising that the multiple translations take a bit of time...

Now I just take it for granted that not only will I be able to relay the message, I'll probably even get added information along the way.

This is important, I think. Not only do we occasionally lose things in the translation, but we also gain other things in the process from card through mind through mouth.

It's the same with the several languages. One may not be able to directly translate a saying or metaphor from one language into the other, but sometimes the attempt to do this brings up other exciting metaphors/sayings that in turn enhance the general card meaning in our minds.

What is also true, I think , is that for those of us who read for ourselves, we are so used to processing the information in an instant and not really having to articulate it. We read in symbols, process in symbols and the information goes right back into the brain, in symbols. I don´t know about anyone else, but when I read for myself, I can process the information much faster simply by dint of not having to then reformulate that into words. But I know what the cards are telling me and where Im going...

I find this in my habit to actually write down rather little when I read for myself. I've also found, however, that the slowing down which the writing brings helps me look again and again at the same card(s) - and suddenly, additional layers of meaning open up that I would have missed if I had just "brushed over" the cards in an instant. And it's often emotional information that I gain, not just more/prettier words.

Which is what canid also said:

In reading tarot, we're forced into having very strong concept imagery, which in turn makes articulating concepts very difficult. I have a really hard time turning the 'images' of what I know a card means into words - it's like descriptions are running around in my head just fine, they just can't find a way to my tongue. I think maybe the only way to reconnect the mouth with the concept is by practice. Stop reading for yourself in your head & force yourself to say it. I know, I get in a hurry or lazy & don't want to bother because, what the heck, I already KNOW, why should I have to speak it?

I'm wondering how many of us mostly think in concepts/symbols/images/emotions/moods outside of our tarot readings, too? To me, this is just the "natural" way to "think" (if that is even the right term - maybe I should say "perceive, process and produce information and meaning"), so tarot reading comes relatively easy to me. So, how do all of you usually "think"? And how is that different or similar from how you "think" during a tarot reading?

i am more comfortable reading in English than in my mother tongue, though (unlike BE) i speak 'bad English'; my language, as much as i love it, has some 'fatalistic feeling' to it, its burdened with our tragic history of wars, for me - there are too many 'linguistic mine fields' one should watch out when speaking in it... When i say 'Emperor' or 'King' in my language, immediately correlations are made to historic figures - aha, the good rooler/domestic traitor etc., which usually has very little to do with the actual Arcanum/Court's meaning in the reading...

I both agree and disagree with you here. I also have an easier time with "Emperor" than I have with "Kaiser" or "Herrscher." "Emperor" seems a more open word to me, I didn't grow up with it. Then again, I believe that the associations that come with a certain word can immensely enrich a reading, too. Even if the Emperor in another language brings up a lot of negative associations, aren't they also part of that card's meaning, if only as a sort of "reversed" one? Like you have the ideal/archetype on one hand, and the real/historic interpretations of that archetype on the other hand, but it's actually their combination that makes the mental image of the Emperor's meaning complete?

[By the way, images work similarly for me: the DruidCraft's 10 of Cups reminds me in an awful way of Nazi family and race propaganda, so that will always be one of my associations with this particular version. Which is a good thing, in my opinion, because "family" isn't automatically something nice and positive. Think of the Bohemian Gothic's 10 of Cups for a version that purposely depicts the "baggage" of the family archetype in the image.]

And how much of this is still on topic?

 

[The crowned one]

Fascinating thread...

I have an additional problem which Id like to share.

My mother tongue is English, but Ive spent most of my adult life in Portuguese-speaking countries and am fluent in Portuguese. I have been interested in tarot now for over 25 years. However, all my tarot studying has been in English. I have never read anything to do with tarot in Portuguese as most of what I want to read about tarot is in English or translated; plus I read for pleasure, and I read more effortlessly in English. And, most importantly, when I look at the images, the whole unconscious stuff, just thinking about the images, processing them, what the symbols provoke, is in my mother tongue. Funny, but I never think of the cards or their images in Portuguese. Just the way my brain is. It has become set into this way of processing information.

Only recently have I begun reading for friends, and 99% of the time I have to do readings in Portuguese. There is nothing in Portuguese which I cannot express, but somehow, I find it incredibly difficult doing readings in another language, when I have processed everything in English. I really feel like Im translating (something I never feel Im doing in my day to day life) and the stuff doesn´t come out well.

The long and short of it is that the images have gone into my "English" subconscious and struggle to some out in another language. Plus it is connected to what you call the "image side of the brain". There is a lot in that...

I agree with your assessment of...you!

What language do you dream in? That is, generally speaking, the language of your sub conscious mind. Still I am betting the more you read, the more you will wire a new path that by-passes the extra step of looking through the English picture window first...

 

[moderndayruth]

I both agree and disagree with you here. I also have an easier time with "Emperor" than I have with "Kaiser" or "Herrscher." "Emperor" seems a more open word to me, I didn't grow up with it. Then again, I believe that the associations that come with a certain word can immensely enrich a reading, too. Even if the Emperor in another language brings up a lot of negative associations, aren't they also part of that card's meaning, if only as a sort of "reversed" one? Like you have the ideal/archetype on one hand, and the real/historic interpretations of that archetype on the other hand, but it's actually their combination that makes the mental image of the Emperor's meaning complete?

I totally know what you mean. Look, for example, when creating Tarot of Black Mountains, for the forth Arcanum , Em portrayed King Nikola I .
I had ToBM the Emperor in my reading for an Australian friend (also AT member), who is a Tarot reader herself; she loved adding new possible layers of meaning and interpretation; when reading for my friends here, who are not familiar with Tarot, but, of course, are familiar with our history, i have to explain that there is far more to the archetype than our king's personal destiny and its effect on our own people -you see what i mean?
And, also, when, for example, reading with ToBM for guys around here, i do have to bear in mind where they stand politically, because their perception of the very card is colored by that, so, while they might dislike the historical figure - the meaning of the card in the reading could be very positive and reassuring (and viceversa).

What language do you dream in? ...

Definitely OT: i often dream of people who speak perfect Mandarin, my spoken Mandarin is right now somewhere between begginers and intermediate and, in my dreams, i envy badly the guys who speak it fluently... Than, of course, that's my own passive knowledge from the twelve months of six classes (daily) of Mandarine in Beijing's University...
But, my point was the following: I think that with Tarot we are tapping into both, depths of knowledge and aspects of our own personalities, that otherwise would be mostly 'unaveilable'; i think there is a vast potential that we are, at first, 'tackling' while interpreting/reading the cards and, during the process, this potential somehow becomes an integrated part of our own selfs.
Hmmm, hope i managed to make sense here...

 

[Chronata]

This is a great topic, and I am just fascinated by all the responses.

and yep...me too. Even after reading professionally for over 20 years...it still happens.

I too think it has a lot to do with how our brains work.

More intuitive flashes, means harder to communicate with words that make sense.

And then try and do a reading for say...a 7 year old...who doesn't understand a lot of words and expressions that I use on a daily basis. I love the challenge of having to think about phrasing in an easier way.

A couple of tricks I developed along the tarot path, involve rethinking.

One, I use a lot of "key phrases" for certain cards. Though I discovered they aren't the keys other people have used, something I just sort of developed on my own...and they don't work all the time, because the card doesn't mean the same thing all the time. But they are a good crutch when I suddenly blank and can't think of the word for something.
I just remember the "patter" and my brain grasps new meanings, while my mouth is spouting the "usual."

The other trick, is to just simply describe what I see...it could be just the picture on the card, or what I see in my head. Either way, the description...without having to worry about conveying meaning at the same time... seems to rework my brain, and makes it easier to then formulate the words that have more abstract meanings.