Aoife said:
What these wise ancients did not do was to offer advice..... how they would have chuckled and scoffed at our modern obsession with quick fixes and easy answers! The ancients understood - in the deepest, most essential sense - the concept of solve et coagula.... long before the culture that evolved the language of the term.
Aoife said:
In acknowledgement of this reticence my original post was made in the form of a personal statement.... and in so doing exposed my reading style, process and beliefs to scrutiny.
I challenge others to do the same.
I cannot write a manifesto on reading the way you did, Aoife, I am not comfortable with that format for myself. My initial answer to your first post is the closest I can get to it. I’ll add that as I believe I have a responsibility as a reader, whatever my querent is looking for, I always try and act responsibly during a reading. By responsible, I mean truthful, non-directive and non-manipulative, but not vague or wishy-washy either. If the cards say - get off your backside and start walking, I say so.
That’s all the more important, in my view, when reading for our loved ones, friends or relatives. As I said before, during a reading, they are not our sister, our friend. They are another soul we try to reach. I might want my sister to leave her b&#/%d of a husband, but if I see in the cards that he can be of great help to her business, that she has the strength to deal with him, and there is still some love there, then that is what I must convey – however, I’ll try and do it as dialogue, as you do. Questions and answers. And a narrative that weaves its way all around the cards. At the end of the reading, I want to feel she is stronger in herself and better able to deal with some problems, because the reading has helped her sort them out.
I’m interested in what you wrote about the Ancients – re: story and advice. Like you I believe strongly in stories. They have a force of their own that reaches inside the person and will wind their way into many corners where we do not venture, as well as the open, public areas of our psyche. To the “medicine of stories” I will add the force and energy – the charge – of symbol. Its impact is very like stories, only probably more immediate. Who can see a man placed between two women, touching or being touched by both, without feeling the force of that scene?
Story and symbol touch us as no advice ever can. Advice is usually redundant, unless it is purely practical (“this is how to fill in your tax return” – now that’s the kind of advice I’m always happy to get). If someone needs advice on life issues which we all face – emotional, social - then they are not listening to their still inner voice; so all we can do, as readers, is try and help them access it by letting them feel the force of the symbol and of the story. I shall often show a card to the querent and ask them just to look at it. Some will comment, some will just let it impact them. Only they can do the real work.
tmgrl said:
Why are you bothering? Look how many there are. It doesn't matter. You can't save them all."
And the person answers as s(he) throws another into the water:
"It matters to this one."
This always is how I have approached the issue (I work in humanitarian aid). We can’t save everyone. Also, our best work is helping people to save themselves. For 5 years I visited people in prisons (political detainees, security detainees in civil wars; PoWs) who might have been tortured and who, in some countries, were always in danger of disappearing. Some had committed atrocities themselves (Rwanda). I had many one-to-one talks and every one of them was different. So despite ground rules, it was not possible, even if I had wished it, to say “this is how I’ll direct the private talk”. Because of the differences in our positions, I never ventured to offer advice. How could I presume? Listening and talking, that is what most of these detainees needed. Being spoken to as a human being in a humane fashion. Even, and especially, those who had crimes on their heads; and those who had been broken by torture.
In such a violent environment, there is a need for such things as stories. They would tell me their story. Then would ask me mine. Two people in a stinking cell, exchanging stories. It could be deep or light-hearted and generally was both. That exchange could lead them to all sorts of discoveries in themselves – and needless to say, in me. “Why did I leave my wife to come here?” “I killed innocent people, I know I did bad things” "When I leave, I want to do what you are doing". Anger and revolt, too, when there was injustice committed against them. That’s good – better than a broken spirit. I let the anger wash over me, I took it – because I was sometimes the only one they could express it to. If the detainee was held in isolation, then the responsibility was even stronger: I might be the only human being who will listen to them and talk to them (guards have orders not to speak when they bring food). Sometimes the only human being they will see for months on end, if the guards don’t come into the cell.
I have carried a lot of what I learnt in those years into my tarot reading. Of course, most people whom I read for are not living in such extreme circumstances. But people have their fears and issues, areas of burnout and pain, hopes and plans. Their anger and their joy is real, and will often break out past their constructed social face during a reading. Just as in those prison encounters, I have to take the anger, the hope, the joy, the sadness, the evasion. That's also my responsibility as reader. it's my business to try and shield myself while remaining open.
Some want to know they are going to be OK in the future. Just as some detainees wanted to know that they would be free and reunited with their wife (the fear that the wife would leave them while they are in prison always looms very large, especially if they are held far away from home), some querents want to know that things will be alright with their boyfriend, that they will not lose their house, that their mother won’t die. They want to know that their new business will thrive, that their film will be a success.
As you know, that’s also the lot of the reader- whether we call the art predictive or not, we sometimes see future events that are not happy; others that demand hard work for the hoped-for result. Sometimes we will see in the cards that a person is full of hope but does not have the willpower, knowledge or real commitment to pursue his/her ambitions. Or someone whom they love is sabotaging them. These things – events, surroundings, character - are not fixed in stone, but they are there in a reading –they exist in front of me. How do I deal with them?
I broach them, gently, by way of the dialogue if possible, and in any case, trying to establish that essential meeting between the souls as I wrote of before, which is a better dialogue than what can be conveyed by any words. I show the cards so that the querent may access the symbol and the story directly. I don’t say “don’t worry, it will probably not happen, you are the creator of your own future” or “well, you have to face it now, it will happen”. Either of these approaches, in my view, lack truth and integrity. What if a querent’s mother is dying of cancer? Can the daughter cure her mother? Then again, perhaps the daughter’s faith and positive attitude will play a role in the mother’s remission. Above all, I trust that I will be well guided and find the right words. I am not a font of wisdom, so I do my part in the encounter as humbly as I can.
