Tarot time: a surreal experiment

Hi y'all.

I am great at executing ideas. If by executing we mean killing them. Because I have loads of ideas and then they kind of die from lack of attention. If by kind of we meant completely dead. Like the plants in my house if my partner didn't remember to water them regularly.

But this new idea. Well. I'm hopeful. We can be hopeful right? I like Tarot as a way to shake me out of my regular patterns of thinking. The Anishinaabe stories that make up the bulk of this blog are another strategy to do that because they require a certain suspension of what I think of as normal or expected. They exist in a world where animals have their own lives that have nothing to do with us, where people and animals talk and get married and have children. Creation is far more chaotic and imaginative than we may have ever thought and part of the work of surrealism is to help us break free from the cages and boundaries we set around creation to limit the chaos. So, we're going on a tarot journey open only to paid subscribers.

I appreciate y'all I really do. And I do want to create content that recognizes your contribution to this blog but clearly I haven't landed on anything that stuck. Inspired by Talia Lavin who writes about sandwiches in addition to her regular blog I wrote about tea I was drinking but that got boring very fast. I tried a writing group, and while that idea still holds some interest for me I'm clearly not disciplined enough to do anything but disappoint with that. Mostly because I have no idea how to run a writing group. I did do a couple of workshops but they mostly underlined how little I know about doing that.

I don't know a lot about Tarot either, but I am intrigued by the possibilities of story in these cards. The number of decks I've picked up over the years, some local and others from places I traveled to. Mostly drawn to the artwork and the story potential of the ways in which the cards are designed. The cards do have some specific meaning, but that meaning shifts depending on the artwork which is also a significant part of the interpretation. Did I tell you about my first tarot deck?

So my friend Celeste and I were at a conference and we met a woman called Lainey who we called our bestie from Boston. Somehow we wound up hanging out together during the conference because we had walked a couple of blocks in the same direction. Celeste and I decided to show her Kensington, on account of the conference being held in Toronto and we were somewhat familiar with the downtown neighbourhoods, so off we went. I had wanted to go to the Japanese Paper Store which was on the other side of Kensington so that's what we did and on our way from Kensington to the paper store we passed a witchy shop that looked more like an apple store than the dark and mysterious vibe that these stores typically give off.

In we went, looking at the various thises and thatses as we walked to the back of the store where the sales girl told us the tarot decks were. They had several that you could try out so I picked up the Curious Creatures deck on account of if reminded me of one of my kids who is definitely a curious creature. They had a three card layout printed on the table cloth so I shuffled the deck and laid out the cards face down. Then we had to think of a question. You need to come to these things with a question. Tarot isn't fortune telling. It won't tell you what's going to happen or if you should do this or that. The cards you choose and the layout (a layout is just the number of cards along with the order they should be read in along with any additional the relationships that they will have to each other for the purposes of this story) drive the story. You can believe that they connect you with spirit, or see them as a tool to break you out of your ingrained thinking patterns.

People do this with Bible verses and stories all the time. Picking cards with random verses on them, daily readings that are chosen by somebody else, or just flipping the book and dropping your finger somewhere. All of these are ways that Christians tap into spirit (believing that the Holy Spirit directed that verse for this moment) or try to break out of their own ingrained thinking patterns. So the practice is not unique to tarot. We are a meaning-making species after all. It's what we do whether we are looking at tea leaves, feathers or pennies that fall on our path, animals that come to visit us, or anything else. We look for patterns and then assign meaning to those patterns. It could be spirit, could be brain chemicals. Who knows.

Back to the story of my first tarot deck.

So I chose the curious creatures deck and did the three card layout: Situation, Action, Outcome. The first card reveals something, or asks you to consider something, in your current situation. What's going on right now that needs your attention? Action suggests possible ways to respond to or meet that situation. The third card is what will happen, what you can expect. Now, I did tell you that tarot isn't fortune telling and it isn't. Hollywood mostly lies to us about a lot of stuff, tarot included. But it does give you glimpses of what to look for, what to pay attention to or be on the lookout for. If this then that. And honestly, the way that we read the cards, the story we conjure with them is likely to lead towards something that is already in your brain anyway, you may not have known how to get it out into the open is all.

The question we wound up with was: am I on the right track with my book? Because I was just sketching out Bad Indians Book Club and had decided to write short stories about deer woman, imagining her myself alongside the non fiction I was writing and while I do not remember what the other two cards were, do you want to guess what kind of curious creature showed up for the outcome card?

I had no idea she was in this deck. It was the one I was drawn to. The question was asked by my friend Celeste when neither I nor our bestie from Boston could think of one. And there she was. The three of us just stood and gaped for a moment. Then I bought the deck. Because we are meaning-making creatures and that outcome had the same meaning for all three of us.

So let's think about this card in general, the seven of wands, and then specifically in this deck. Generally speaking the wands are associated with fire so think passion and energy which can be destructive and creative, something that depends entirely on the perspective of the observers. Sevens are connected to the Chariot (card #7) and the Tower (card #16, 1+6=7) so think profound change, disruption (either creating it or responding to it), and making necessary adjustments the way a chariot driver would be constantly having to do. Sevens may be about contemplation and assessment, but the seven of wands is very much a do something card. All you have to do is look at the picture.

The artwork is a big part of Tarot, which is why we get drawn to some decks and not others. The artwork is part of the story we're going to be investigating so it needs to be imagery that speaks to us. most of the time the seven of wands is pictured something like this. A person (or Deer Lady) holding one wand or staff faces off six others that we can't see, they are just off screen so we don't know anything about them. We also don't know if this is a conflict or a gathering that she has convened, the cards that come before and after may provide context but I don't remember what they were so we're just looking at this card on its own. To me she looks like she's holding her ground against others. Alone. But that's ok, because alone is just an assumption I'm making, and we're rarely as alone as we think we are.

That might be an interesting way to put her into context btw. Find the seven of wands in your deck, if you have one. The card before is the challenge facing you and the card after is who is standing with you.

Well, well, well. Isn't that interesting. The wheel is about unexpected change, the constancy of change really. Life is motion. That's the challenge facing me. It is not change like the tower, which is also about unexpected change. The tower is destruction, a rotten base that can no longer hold. The change of the wheel of fortune is the change that comes from life cycles, from the constant motion of our lives. That's going to be a challenge because it isn't always the change we want, and sometimes we don't want change at all but look at her. She's beautiful, there's flowers and birds and yes a snake. But for the Anishinaabe snakes are not bad news. They are a warning, don't go that way. Whatever is over that way is not for you. Which is perhaps similar to the snake in the Garden of Eden, though the way the conversation is recorded the snake doesn't seem to be warning Eve away from it the way that snakes in the Anishinaabe teaching do.

And who has my back? The hippo family! Long term happiness, domestic harmony, strong caring relationships. Geez, what was I saying about never being as alone as we think we are? Every time I get into a nobody loves me slump I start remembering my friends and my family and the fact that I am not alone. And an interesting factoid about hippos. They will take you out. These are not peaceful, pastoral creatures. They are fast and they can kill you. Kind of like my friends. Metaphorically speaking. Remember what I said about context? With the ten of cups right beside her, it looks like Deer Lady may be gathering forces rather than standing alone against them.

Ok, so back to the seven of wands in the curious creatures deck. The creators of this deck imagined the card not as a man standing alone but as a deer and yeah, if i had horns growing out of my head people might think I was a little odd, give me a lot of space. But you gotta shine on, be your authentic self. In this deck it speaks of creative innovation and growth, standing up for myself, defending my ideas, and aligning my actions with integrity, trusting in my spiritual truth. Sometimes showing up and reaching goals means vulnerability, but it also means knowing that I deserve to be where I am. There's more than that, but you can read more about the deck here.

So not only were our flabbers gasted by Deer Woman showing up in answer to our question about whether or not I was on the right track with a book I was structuring around a fictional imagining of Deer Woman, but the card itself seemed to be reassuring us and providing some direction of its own.

Could we have read validation into anything? Sure, I suppose so. But Deer Woman herself showing up as the outcome card was a little on the nose.

Ok.

So I have an idea to execute, as in follow through to completion rather than kill, and I'm going to give myself some parameters.

1. These will be unedited and fairly personal blogs. Ok, lightly edited. Like spelling or fixing a sentence. But not editing with the intention to polish or perfect. They will be one-day projects only. I tend to overthink and make things harder than they need to be (yay virgo!) so going to resist that. Automatic writing is a strategy of surrealism. Not the spiritualist practice which invites a kind of direct communication, more like an unfiltered brain dump. That's what I'm aiming for.
2. I'm continuing with the theme of wonder. Not looking for answers, tarot doesn't provide answers anyway. Just avenues for consideration.
3. I'm taking requests! You can email me with a question and I'll blog about the story the cards tell about your question. It can be totally anonymous, I won't say that Celeste wanted to know if she should start guerilla gardening in public spaces unless she wants me to tell y'all that was her question. And let me know what deck you want me to use. These are a mix of tarot, oracle, and just things to think about. Think about which artwork and title speak to you. I've got a few spreads that I like to use, so that will be dealer's choice because the question itself may have a spread that is more appropriate.

4. If y'all don't have questions then I'll just mess about on my own, trying different spreads and decks to get familiar with them. See what story emerges

Ok, that's it. Not even going to re-read it to make sure it's coherent or says what I want it to say. Just brain dumping a new idea and lets see where it takes us.

baamaapii!