The reading Event

[Nevada]

I'm using a definition personal to me, which is why I placed the term in quotes. I realize many readers use the title and don't place the same meaning on it: my use of it here referred to someone who does readings where they tell the sitter their future, and/or what to do. It would be more of an authoritative, "you must do this and this" type of reading.

My point is that no one can tell us our future. We each tell our own future.

Nevada

 

[Tarotphelia]

I'm using a definition personal to me, which is why I placed the term in quotes. I realize many readers use the title and don't place the same meaning on it: my use of it here referred to someone who does readings where they tell the sitter their future, and/or what to do. It would be more of an authoritative, "you must do this and this" type of reading.

My point is that no one can tell us our future. We each tell our own future.

Nevada

Well, if the reader is ordering you around, you are definitely in the wrong place ! And if they tell you this is your future - period, that seems improper too, since we can change what we will if we have the ability.

But, in my own experience I have had readers tell me all sorts of accurate things to come, and things in the past they had no way to know. And I told them nothing . I have also had my own decks tell me things about to happen . Things I had nothing to do with, that were under the control of others. So there is a predictive component to the tarot , I assume.

 

[Rosanne]

Moments in Time

Liked your charter Aiofe, fits my method to a tee. I don't call it an Event, I call it more like a moment. The sort of tool I liken a reading to is a Tarot Garment Maker. Tarot is the fabric, the querent has the cotton and needle and I have some ideas for a pattern. I try to get the querent to question what the fabrics potential is and get stitching. Usually they have an idea for a pattern anyway and thats just perfect. I never make a garment for myself and I won't tell them what garment suits them best or pre sew it for them. Helvetica, as usual I liked your post on this thread. Umbrae, I don't know what question you asked to get 'booed' and I, like Dark Inquisiter, look forward to a detailed outline of experts who spout egocentric crap and other dangerous stuff. I sincerly hope that while looking at the engine nobody has ever hit you over the head with your wrench. Mostly though I got your 'drift' and I agree totally about Wisdom, so I keep reading ,listening and doing in the never ending hope I will aquire some. Regards Rosanne

 

[Aoife]

Many thanks for the wonderful and varied responses!
Its very late here and I have an early start in the morning - promise I'll post later tomorrow.

 

[Nevada]

Well, if the reader is ordering you around, you are definitely in the wrong place ! And if they tell you this is your future - period, that seems improper too, since we can change what we will if we have the ability.

But, in my own experience I have had readers tell me all sorts of accurate things to come, and things in the past they had no way to know. And I told them nothing . I have also had my own decks tell me things about to happen . Things I had nothing to do with, that were under the control of others. So there is a predictive component to the tarot , I assume.

It's possible you take me too literally. I believe a reader can use Tarot to predict the future. I must not be communicating well tonight.

Nevada

 

[firemaiden]

Very moved by your brave post Aoife. Words...sometimes words are wind, like when I dash out something flip, and sometimes words are flesh, like when Aoifie writes what has been agonizing at the bottom of her well where the Sybill lives. When that voice under the water finally breaks through to the surface, I need to listen.

A reading from Aoife, a reading from Umbrae, is indeed an event.

Something happens. The day Umbrae read for me (it was two years ago) it was a special day. I knew the reading was happening. There was a feeling of suspension - as between two worlds. And indeed, it was. Something happened, and has been happening since. It was as though the reading event produced a "crack" in my world. And the light started to sneak through.

Aoife has read for me. I had the feeling when I read her words on the screen, that she had gone under the earth, and stayed there a long time, listening. Just listening. The truth she spoke zeroed in on things exactly, as Umbrae it, like brain surgery.

I asked her, how did you get this out of those cards?? She said... she didn't know, she mumbled something that sort of made sense, but it seemed very farfetched to me, that one could ever deduce such insights from mere cards.

I figure, the difference between applying pre-written meanings to get a reading, and this kind of "event" - was like the difference between sewing together random body parts to make a creature, and giving birth.

But... such was not even Aoife's point. I agree it is kind of a "charter". I think I will refer to it as "Aoife's Manifesto".

 

[firemaiden]

Bye the way, both of these readings were, in fact, quite predictive, and their truth is continuing to unfold.

Actually, you've gotten me thinking now... what is "predictive" and what is not "predictive". An ex-ray of the present, spells out the past as well as the future. Inevitably.

 

[tmgrl2]

Aoife....

Brave thread, indeed.

You pretty much sum up my style of reading....and in between your lines I might add, at least for myself, that one of the reasons I have participated less or not at all in some of the reading threads that allow those outside the reader and querent to jump in with another interpretation, is that,

I feel it's like

burning the flag

or cursing in Church...

I don't know...since I started reading more for "live" people and see what happens during the reading when we interact...

It's something special when someone leaves and is so grateful that doors have been opened and some practical advice has come forth...

Sometimes, they come back a week or so later...especially when they had very little to say during the reading..some of my sitters love the interactive process more than others.

Some just sit and listen and take it in....one of these people came back to me about a week later (someone I worked with...a psychologist, no less) and said that she was so moved by the reading...that it really helped her with a relationship she was entering....

Umbrae, thanks for your relationship spread...it was the first time I used it I believe....

I never know what's going to happen or where the reading will take us...but I go in prepared to do my best.

Reading, like all of the work I have done in my life, has been about the Cup....Mine is never empty...it's always full...I don't know why, but it always is and it just makes me want to give some more if it can be of any help at all.

I am new to Tarot. I am not new to working with others in a deep and connected fashion. My job required it daily.

Then, a year ago, as I contemplated retirement, I discovered the Tarot. Another filling of the cup.

Now I have my little home office set up and this Friday and next week, I will sit down and do my best.


I get caught up in the left-brain stuff here at AT because I love to learn and discuss and analyze and break things into bits.

That isn't reading though.

Like firemaiden, I , too have had some wonderful readings done for me here at AT. I mentioned them in another thread. These readings stayed with me, because of the poignancy of the advice...sometimes just pieces of the reading took me right where I needed to go...and I still have those images as reminders today....

Aoife, thank you for starting this thread.

It really is an event....a reading. So simple, just a few cards on the table, eh?

terri

 

[maks]

The cards can be a snapshot of the past. And if conditions remain the same, the future is not difficult to predict. However, the moment contains now, the present, eternity. Asking and answering, giving and receiving--we attend to the other and in doing so find ourselves.

Beautiful threads like these remind me not only of what tarot is for, but what I am for.

 

[Aoife]

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

I’m not a psychiatrist, so not qualified to judge, but it seems to me that the divide between therapeutic and psychic insight can be an unbreachable gulf or a hair’s breadth.

I’m not comfortable with the term ‘tarot therapist’ ... both terms too laden with pejorative, hyped meaning.

I do believe both the psychic and therapeutic reading styles you suggest are valuable.... but I’d like to think its possible to both fuse and go beyond them. I’ve got a few ideas but without lively and challenging discussion progress is hit and miss.

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

I perhaps overstated my views when I said that I thought this style of reading was of lesser use. As I said earlier, for some people such readings can be useful markers on their personal maps... a place to return to when the time is right. I entirely agree that the cards can and do converse with the querent’s inner teacher. My problem is that too often, the reader’s voice hinders this process.... all too often the reading is about the reader ‘s need to read and not the querent’s need to hear.

Umbrae.... fabulous post.
The story rug grows exponentially whilst we wait in hope of more.

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

Yesssss!
More! Say more!! [please, thank you, lol]

Rosanne, I love your garment-making analogy. Thank you!

firemaiden said:
It was as though the reading event produced a "crack" in my world. And the light started to sneak through.

Ooooo.... this makes my metaphorical map three dimensional... I love it!

Actually, you've gotten me thinking now... what is "predictive" and what is not "predictive". An ex-ray of the present, spells out the past as well as the future. Inevitably.

More! You have to say more!

terri, thank you for your post. I’d love to hear about your reading process.
I think there’s be real value for us to talk about what’s happening and why independently of the cards.