Details, Details!
Today we’re going to take a deep-dive into the details found in a tarot card. We know that tarot talks to us through symbols. In their book “The Secret Language of Tarot” by Ruth Ann and Wald Amberstone (directors of the amazing Tarot School in New York) there is a forward by the stellar tarot luminary Mary K. Greer in which she in turn quotes A.E Waite: “Tarot is symbolism. It speaks no other language and offers no other signs.”
My point here is that people who are serious masters of the tarot are confirming the importance of paying attention to symbols. We acknowledge that in a big picture sort of way when we work with the cards and learn to associate a certain card with a certain meaning; e.g.: The Star may indicate hope and faith. But what if you draw the Star in a reading where the client is asking about what to do about their career and by staying open to all details, you keep noticing a little bird in the tree behind the kneeling figure?
You might see this as representing a number of things. In addition to the over-arching meanings of hope and faith that we frequently attribute to the Star, we have more information. Birds as symbols can denote communication, so you might see the client being advised by someone or speaking up for herself. They can also fly; maybe it’s an indication that it’s time for the client to ‘fly out’ on her own. Or perhaps you can see how the long beak of the bird brings to mind the ibis, associated with the Egyptian god Thoth, god of magic, science, and sacred text. Maybe it’s time for the client to acknowledge or call on their own skills in one of these areas.
Maybe when you first draw the card you are struck by the bright blue of the sky mirroring the water and you notice how it endows the reading with an energy of being positive, lucid, and bright. We can advise the client to stay focused on keeping their thoughts light and positive, or we can reference the color of blue by association with the throat chakra and suggest to them that they need to communicate more clearly.
I am guessing that by now, you can see where we’re going with this. When I teach my Introduction to Tarot classes, before I touch on classic meanings of the cards I spend some time going over the process of really looking and seeing details in a card. In the end, each reader is the actual oracle and no matter what the books or other readers say about the meaning of a card, what matters is how the reader sees it at that moment in that particular reading.
Here’s an exercise you can try for yourself. Grab a deck, shuffle the cards, think of a question (optional), and pull a card at random. As you study the card, try not to let your mind go automatically to “the” meaning for that card but instead spend some time noticing where the details take your imagination. Here are a few questions to ask as food for thought.
What detail gets your attention first? Maybe your eye goes right to the shield at the foot of the Empress with its glyph for Venus and all of the inherent meanings for Venus.
What is the demeanor of any of the figures shown? Do they look confident, like the Emperor who sits facing us with an authoritative air, or worried like the Nine of Swords where the figure seems to be up late at night with head in hands from worry.
What is your own personal association with this card? For some reason I often draw the King of Pentacles when there is the possibility of a cash windfall.
Does the picture literally depict a possible solution? Maybe someone has been spending too much time in bars and we get the Eight of Cups where the person is walking away from the cups – time to cut back on drinking!
You’re sure to come up with many others on your own. This is an interesting exercise. If we can free ourselves from the notion that there is a ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ way to read the cards, we can increase our reading power exponentially. Have fun!
