“The ancient art of divination” was how NCIS character Abby Sciuto described the tarot and that is how most people see it: a way of telling the future. Having someone tell our future is a risky business, because in choosing to believe or to not believe what we are told may influence the choices we make and in so doing narrow the possibilities. But what if the future we are seeking to tell is our own?
I was always taught that you should never do a reading for yourself. I can’t remember what the arcane law surrounding that injunction was, but I reject it. I believe that you can only ever do a reading for yourself. The tarot reader can tell you what the position relates to and what the card suggests, but only you can know what it means. I don’t have a tarot set, but I do have other oracle decks, and I subscribe to the view that ‘you are the oracle'. When we lay out the cards it is not so much about telling the future as reading the present. The words on the cards are fixed. There is room for interpretation of the ideas behind the words, however. Where we are, what we are thinking, feeling, seeking, resolving and resisting all play into the interpretation. The cards are there purely to tell us what we already know.
So why bother? Because we’re not always clear on what we already know. We often resist what we know, because it does not accord with what we think we want…or because it does and we feel unworthy of it, or afraid of it.
My favourite deck is Rebecca Campbell’s “Work Your Light” cards. These come with a guidebook which explains how to use them and contains “in-depth meanings for each of the 44 cards” among other things. I rarely use much of the information in the book.Certainly, I only turn to Rebecca’s interpretation of a card when I cannot make sense of it for myself. I do, however, use her ‘Cosmic Cross’ eleven-card spread, which I guess is a variation on the Celtic cross used in traditional tarot. The familiarity of the form enables me to focus on the question as I draw each card…but that and the shuffle and cut of the cards is as much ritual as I indulge in when doing a reading. I have lain them out on the dining table, the coffee table, the bed, the floor – anywhere there is a flat-enough surface. And I always lay them out face down in the first instance and then turn them over in sequence focussing on the point of the position as I interpret what the card offers.
My most recent reading was the night I moved into my new home…and this is what I found as I wrote it at the time:
Current state – “Trust the niggle” – with so much still needing to be done, I feel this is a call to just do whatever is prodding hardest. It will all get done. One definite niggle is to let someone else clean the property to be sold (get the professionals in).
Soul calling – “What is your soul calling you to do”. This card turn is supposed to answer that question. That it turns it back to me can only meant that I KNOW what I am called to do, I just need to listen to myself more carefully.
What’s rising? – Pleiades – the double mission of channelling & uplifting humanity – given yesterday’s insight about small higher purposes rather than big ones, I see this as confirmation that sharing things that please me or comfort me or help me is all I need to do.But I do need to do it.It is a call to action.
What’s falling away? – Lemuria – Creating heaven on earth. The creation part is what is falling away and it is doing so because it is happening. I am here. It is real.
My soul gift – Trust your path – Trust. My gift is my ability to trust. Someone told me I am a pessimist and many times over the last 18 months I’ve demonstrated reasons to believe that to be true, and yet…here I am, the creation part of my tiny patch of heaven on earth is nearly completed. I have broken every supplier-selection rule in the book, and still managed to trust, mostly. And, mostly, that trust has been honoured. I continue to trust my own instinctive judgement – not least in moving here, not least in changing the direction of my life.
Manifestation – Awakening, an energetic upgrade – a new way of being – that needs no explanation and makes me smile.
Next steps – The age of light “you have been training for this for lifetimes” - Share.Just be who I am.“Lifetimes” doesn’t have to be taken literally, but this ~ where I am, what I’m planning to do next ~ is what I have been training for over the past phases of my life. This is next stage of my life leads on from the previous ones.Now is the time to live this next one.
Past lives – Starseed – what lights you up? Again not taking the ‘past lives’ literally, a reminder not to ditch the past entirely, but to seek out the seeds of the future. What was brilliant that I need to carry forward?
What I need to know – Fill up your well. Rest. Refuel. - Yes! Point taken.
Hopes and fears – The Crumbling: what are you clinging on to? – Mostly “stuff” that I don’t need. The de-clutter isn’t complete, I’m still taking bags to the charity shop or putting stuff into the rubbish bins.But also my old identity…that’s even harder to let go, even though I know I am not that person any more and nor to I want to be.*
The outcome – Share your voice – which was everything that I’d been talking about with my coach only two days previously. This really does feel like a new beginning.
* What I didn’t know when I wrote those words in my journal was that by the end of the next week, I’d have had a chance to reconnect with my old world, which finally underlined that I had made the right choices, that I do not belong there anymore.What I didn’t know was that by the end of the next week, other opportunities would be beginning to present themselves.
But what I clearly did know is where I am and where I am headed. I know what the next steps are. And that is all I need to know.
If there is an ancient art of divination in the cards, it isn’t about divining the future, it’s about delving into our own personal present and how we might use that to influence the future in the direction we’d like it to unfold.
Image: Danielle Noel / Rebecca Campbell
