Inner Tarot

I sometimes find myself doing complete Tarot readings in my head.
    At a recent workshop, when we chose partners for a shamanic tracking exercise, a woman I'll call Mikki asked me to bring her guidance on creating a small holistic center. This was one of her longstanding ambitions, and she felt she was nearing the point in her life where she would have the resources and independence to fulfill this life dream. I asked her to give me an image I could use as a portal in embarking on a shamanic journey with the aid of drumming to find what she needed to know.
    She smiled and said, "I see myself doing Tarot readings at the center."
    This was perfect, given her intention. As I drummed, I let my bird allies fly part of my consciousness to an old brick building in a downtown area that was being brought back to life. I toured the rooms in the rented space that was being used - in a possible future - as the holistic center the woman wished to create. I had the impression that building was previously industrial, possibly a gasworks. I was drawn to a pleasant natural foods cafe on the ground floor.
    I saw life-size paintings of major arcana on the walls, and found Mikki's double seated at a table with a Tarot deck in front of her, ready to do a reading.
    I invited Madame Mikki to spread the cards to provide guidance for the Mikki who was waiting in the workshop space. Madame Mikki laid ten cards face down, producing the ten-card spread widely known as the Celtic Cross. One by one, she - or my secret working mind - turned the cards over, producing one of the clearest readings I have ever seen.
    I was able to retain exact memory of the sequence of the cards, and drew this in my journal after I ended the drumming for the group. When I was able to share directly with Mikki, I took her, one by one, through the sequence of the cards, giving her my own attributions and associations, and weaving in hers. At the center, the High Priestess seemed to embody her big dream of moving to a new level of life and spirit, crossed by all that bound and bedeviled.
    She was moving from the mature Queen of Swords part of herself that had an excellent brain and excelled at reason and planning (Mikki was an engineer) towards a less developed, passionate Princess of Wands part of herself that wasn't afraid to ride the tiger. In her own position was a powerful personality willing to cross the wilderness by inner light. On the horizon of possibility, the Lovers trump held the vision of union with the beloved, perhaps on several levels. In the position of her hopes and fears, the Tower, the prospect of the overthrow of familiar established structures. In her immediate environment, the Sun smiled on her; I reminded her that old-time Tarot readers sometimes say that if the Sun is in your spread, you have nothing to worry about. At the root of all, the King of Disks (called Knight in the Thoth deck); we talked about a history of patriarchy, in the family and at the job, to be recognized and moved beyond. The outcome? The three of Disks. Solid, steady work.
    We noticed that six of the ten cards were greater trumps, suggesting that big forces were at play around her intention, to challenge and to support. Three face cards, suggesting the necessity to recognize and work with others (certainly essential to bringing clients and other practitioners to a center) as well as aspects of the self. A lone number card as the outcome, solid and steady. I like the three of Disks very much. She liked it too, saying she wasn't afraid of work.
   Our discussion led Mikki to decide on concrete action plans, involving reaching out to others and scouting rental properties in a neighborhood she identified from my description.

Did I speak of doing Tarot readings "in my head"? That language may be inadequate. Tarot images can open doors into the imaginal realm, which is not inside our heads but rather, a realm we may sometimes succeed in getting our heads inside. Let's add that here the Tarot images may come alive and reveal themselves in forms beyond any of their painted representations.

I am leading a new workshop on Dreaming with Tarot in March. My latest book Dreaming the Soul Back Home contains a section on games to play in the Tarot Corner of your Secret Library.

The Tarot of writers

Triumph of Death fresco (1480) at Oratorio dei Disciplini, Clusone

In an afterword to his novel The Castle of Crossed Destinies, Italo Calvino described Tarot as "a machine for constructing stories." In his two-part story, travelers who are trapped or stranded communicate through cards drawn from two early decks, the Visconti Tarot and the Tarot of Marseilles.
    In the time of the Renaissance, a Benedictine monk named Teofilo Folengo wrote poems in which the fortunes and characters of individuals are revealed by the Tarot cards that are dealt to them. His Tarot poems appear in his 1527 work Caos del Triperiuno, written under the pseudonym Merlini Cocai. In one of the sonnets, he finds room to mention all 22 of the major arcana in a bragging contest between Love (the name for the Lovers card at that time) and Death personified as female, as in the macabre and magnificent 1480 fresco by Giacomo Borlone de Buschis at Clusone, where all the powers of this world bow down before La Morte.


“What a Fool I am,” said Love, “my Fire, 
that can appear as an Angel or as a Devil 
can be Tempered by some others who live under my Star. 
You are the Empress of bodies. But you cannot kill hearts, 
you only Suspend them. You have a name of high Fame, 
but you are nothing but a Trickster.” *


The monkish author was a living testimony to the power of Love. He abandoned his monastery and roamed Italy with a lovely young woman of noble birth named Girolama, though he returned to the cloister, in Sicily, to seek a peaceful Death.
    Fr Teofilo's use of the cards to compose poetry started a literary craze among the sixteenth-century Italian nobility for a game that came to be known as Tarocchi appropriati, or "Appropriated Tarot". As described by Paul Huson in Mystical Origins of the Tarot (Destiny Books, Rochester VT, 2004), "Here trump cards were selected by one player and presented to another, who would interpret them thematically by a process of idea association to create verses about himself or herself, about another person, or most popularly, to praise certain well-known ladies around the court."
    Many writers have been inspired by Tarot. The Tower and the Hanged Man fascinated W.B.Yeats, whose magical diaries are filled with personal Tarot readings and was thoroughly familiar, as an adept, with the use of the major arcana in ceremonial magic and pathworking by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.
    Leading Tarot authority and novelist Rachel Pollack published an anthology of Tarot Tales (co-edited with Caitlin Matthews) and more recently produced a strange and wonderful solo collection of Tarot stories, The Tarot of Perfection (Magic Realist Press, Prague, 2008). In her Introduction, she explains an exercise in "Tarot for Writers" that she developed for her students in a course at Goddard College in Vermont.
     In this spread, you draw seven cards in sequence with the idea that they will answer the following questions about the characters, themes, and plot development of a story:

Who is my character?

What situation does he or she face?

What is the outer motivation?

What is hidden?

What opposes her or him?

What helps?

What is at risk?

I tested this just now, with a deck I like a lot by rarely use for personal readings, the Tarot of the Spirit. My "character" proved to be a theme, presented here as the Three of Water (3 of Cups in other decks), Love abounding and overflowing, going beyond duality. The "situation" is the ultimate Three, the Empress, Trump III. Perhaps the "situation" my character faces is to encounter and claim (or be claimed by ) the Threefold Goddess. The "outer motivation", by a curious paradox, appears as the High Priestess, one of the most "inner" of the cards. Perhaps the "outer motivation" is the desire for initiation and admission to the Mysteries. 

    What is "hidden" is the Father of Wind (King of Swords elsewhere) shown here as a double being riding a rearing bull through a flaming sky. What "opposes" is the arcanum numbered I, here called the Magus; he is shown leaning over a cubical table where the four magical weapons are laid out, a whirling golden lemniscate (figure of 8) above his head. What "helps" is the Mother of Wind, shown here as a glamorous woman in a swirling marigold dress, weaving the reins of power the Father may or may not be able to hold into a larger figure of 8, a Möbius power strip.What is "at risk" is the Brother of Wind, the reckless, sometimes tormented Son of the family. 

    A family drama then, with greater forces in play. So many clues to follow. Who or what is the Magus that opposes? What is in the visual echo between the figures of 8 above his head and in the control of Wind Mother?
    Will I write from these cards? Maybe, but writing this reminds me that I have an unfinished Tarot novella that was first inspired by a dream, one of those dreams that haunts you - with its mystery and its invitation - down all the long corridors of the years.

*There is a complete translation of the sonnet, with all the attributions to the Greater Trumps, at Mary Greer's Tarot blog, an excellent resource on all things Tarot.