{"id":58137,"date":"2012-06-13T14:08:46","date_gmt":"2012-06-13T18:08:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=58137"},"modified":"2012-06-14T13:52:05","modified_gmt":"2012-06-14T17:52:05","slug":"tarot-matter-communication","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/reading-tarot\/tarot-matter-communication\/","title":{"rendered":"Tarot and the matter of communication"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Sarah Taylor<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,<\/em>
\nthere is a field. I will meet you there.<\/em><\/p>\n

— Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi<\/p>\n

Maybe it’s just my ishoo<\/em>, but I have a hard time explaining tarot to people who are firmly situated in the tangible world — the ones who propound science over spirit, who might describe themselves as ‘left-brain’ instead of right, who talk of empirical evidence and reproducibility, and who often want proof, sometimes demanding it of me with a twinkle in their eye. Oh, and when I see that twinkle, I hope they’re up for a sparring match; they might as well be throwing down a gauntlet and asking me to meet them at dawn. And I can talk all night.<\/p>\n

\"Ace<\/a>
Ace of Swords from the Rider-Waite Smith Tarot deck. Swords represent the intellect, which is then translated into the spoken and written word; the Ace is its highest potential.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Because for all of the fact that I have a reputation of being — how to put it? — fey<\/em> (The other day, a friend of mine helpfully told me that I was ever so slightly ‘birdies’ — you know who you are!), I am at pains to point out the utter normality of spiritual life and laws as they appear to me. There is, as quantum mechanics is demonstrating to us, a place where science and spirit meet. Take a look at the movie What the #$*! Do We (K)now!?<\/em><\/a>\u00a0 for an introduction to this concept that is both entertaining and accessible, if a little twee at times. In the same way, there is a point where you and I can meet and talk and find a way that explains our own experience of the world in words that are meaningful to both of us. Words create meaning.<\/p>\n

Which brings me to this: I’m not interested in talking in a dialect that alienates people who might feel they are lacking a sense of meaning in their lives, but have no idea where to start looking. I’m not interested in something that segregates people into ‘us’ and ‘them’, those who are ‘evolving in consciousness’ and everyone else who isn’t, those who belong to the new paradigm versus those who belong in the old, those who are going to be moving forward and those who are going to be left behind. In therapy, this is a mechanism known as splitting<\/em>, where we unconsciously project something undesirable in us onto a suitable — and preferably separate — receptacle, while putting all the ‘good stuff’ in a place with which we more closely identify.<\/p>\n

Splitting reflects a state of internal division. As defenses go, it is common. It is whether we are willing and able to become conscious of it that is critical. It is the difference between maintaining that division, which will continue to be reflected in our outer experience, or taking steps to integrate and become whole. We all want to be angels, but how many of us are willing to say we are also demonic? How uncomfortable is that phrase to read, because it was somewhat uncomfortable to write it? How uncomfortable is it for each of us to embrace what we fear? And how often is that reflected in the language that we use and the paradigms of meaning in which we choose to operate?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Instead of walls, I’m for building bridges — between ourselves and within<\/em> ourselves. Which brings me back to my opening statement: the issue I have about explaining tarot in a way that tries to incorporate rather than alienate. I’ve given up trying to find some kind of ‘unified theory’ when it comes to communicating what tarot is and what it can do, where, as if by magic, what I write about can be understood by everyone. Trying to be all things to all people was a role I frequently tried to inhabit when I was younger, and down that path only disillusionment and madness can lie. Consider the biblical story of the Tower of Babel, or Esperanto. One exploded, one imploded, and both were unmitigated failures in terms of the ideal of universality that they held. Open your mouth, or wield your pen or keyboard with any conviction, and invariably you will piss some people off, attract others, while others still will simply pass you by with no connection at all.<\/p>\n

The key word is “bridges” — plural. There are many different ways to skin a cat, and there are many different ways to say the same thing so that it appeals to different people at different times. As a tarot reader, I apply this logic to how it is that I communicate to people who read what I write and to those for whom I do readings. It is no less applicable in any other area of life, however, and I believe that it is a skill that most of us can learn. All it takes is a desire to try and see something from another person’s point of view. When that desire meets with their curiosity — or, at least, their receptivity — then a bridge has been built.<\/p>\n

With tarot, these bridges come in the form of metaphor. They have to: tarot, as with all things spiritual (as opposed to material), deals with the ineffable<\/em>. We cannot know it fully just as our language cannot replicate our emotions, just as a blind man will never know what it is like to live in the world of sight. What we can do is to reach for meaning, to strive for it, and metaphor is the language of striving.<\/p>\n

Over the past two years, I have spoken about tarot in terms of travelling, maps, physical sensations, disembodied sensations, psychology, music, mythology. Each of these distinct approaches has its own metaphors, each of them are striving towards the ineffable — and yet they all refer to the same thing.<\/p>\n

As a tarot reader, if a client reacts in confusion about what it is that I’m saying, I don’t throw my hands up in defeat; I’ll try and say it a different way, and I’ll keep on saying it until we meet at the centre of the crossroads. When I am working with clients who would never consider themselves ‘spiritual’ in any sense of the word, and yet I can clearly see that they are searching for something, then I see it as my responsibility as the reader to approach them on their terms, to try their hat on for size. I have read comments from other tarot readers where they have stated that they will make no effort to explain what they are saying. Why, I ask myself? What is the point of doing a reading for someone when you’re not talking the same language? It is alienating, and at least one party will walk away feeling like they have failed. Sometimes I do fail — miserably — and while failure isn’t always a welcome visitor, it always brings a gift, humility being the most frequent and the most levelling.<\/p>\n

With tarot, language is a means to an end — that end being a place that lies beyond words. Words can only approximate that place, which is why it behooves us to get as creative as we can with them. So when we get a client who is wholly different from us — in fact, when we encounter anyone or anything with whom we feel little or nothing in common — how about rejoicing? We get to learn how to build bridges, and we have an opportunity to deepen our connection with our creativity in the process.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If you want to experiment with tarot cards and don’t have any, we provide a free tarot spread generator<\/a> using the Celtic Wings spread, which is based on the traditional Celtic Cross spread. This article<\/a> explains how to use the spread.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Sarah Taylor Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there. — Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi Maybe it’s just my ishoo, but I have a hard time explaining tarot to people who are firmly situated in the tangible world — the ones who propound science over spirit, who … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":470,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[183],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58137"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/470"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58137\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}