Why Tarot?
Each morning, I pull a tarot card and decide on an affirmation for the day. Today, for instance, I pulled the Two of Coins from a deck called “The Naked Truth”. The affirmation that came to mind was: You don’t have to show off to show up. Now, throughout the day, I’ll mull that over and contemplate the myriad ways it could apply to me or my loved ones. It’s a practice I love, but I’ve often pondered “Why tarot?”
I grew up in the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church. I found great beauty and value in the texts we studied, in the music we sang, in the liturgical calendar and its scheduled rituals. I remember great debates over how to interpret the things we practiced. These debates resulted in schisms that separated us from one another. Do we believe that the bread and wine become transmuted into Christ’s body and blood as they enter our bodies? Is the Holy Trinity three individuals, or three facets of one being, or something else entirely? Why would God tell Abraham to kill Isaac, and what should that mean to us?
How we landed on these topics of debate was very important to the Missouri Synod Lutherans. It was the same to the local Southern Baptists I grew up around. I was often asked to come to church with folks because I wasn’t practicing the true Christianity. I was taught to think the same. Because my Catholic friends prayed to Mary, they weren’t true Christians. Because the ELCA Lutherans uplifted female preachers and queer individuals, they weren’t true believers. Frankly, this didn’t jive with me.
Growing up in Kentucky, I wasn’t exposed to many non-Christian spiritual practices. However, the internet was a treasure trove of knowledge for me to access. I read about Judaism, Islam, ancient pagan practices, Animism, etc. You name it, I was interested in it. So many humans sought meaning and wisdom and guidance, and many of us ended up on the same lessons of human connection, care, and compassion. However, we let the details of our belief systems divide us. When we claim to prioritize collaboration and humanism, this division feels incomprehensible to me.
I learned for myself that, in many ways, truth didn’t matter to me. I observed, even in my youth, that people pretended to prioritize facts when they actually valued meaning. Once you got below the surface with folks, you would discover that the facts they claimed to believe in informed much deeper narratives. Truth, facts, information, belief were all tools that helped us craft our perspective of the world. It was a scaffolding on which we built the lens through which we view our circumstance. Human beings pretend that there is truth when in fact they are simply writing their own version of our collective story.
So, I’ll ask again, why tarot? What is it about these little playing cards that I find value in? Originally invented in Italy in the 1400s, the tarot has a lot of Catholic imagery associated with it. However, over the course of human history, people from all backgrounds have used the tarot. They are no longer associated with Catholicism or Christianity for most people. Each deck that gets invented puts its own spin on the imagery and meaning of each card. Some even deviate from the traditional 78 cards, including cards like Destiny or the Four Elements. The tarot have, over the course of their long history, collected the weight of meaning and belief from thousands of people.
When I pull a card, I am invited to reflect on the stories that others have told themselves with these cards and their images. I’m asked to bring forward my own understanding of the world and the meaning that I attach to words, numbers, iconography. I am not told what to think, but simply asked to do the thinking. Within this framework, I am allowed to explore and evolve and grow. A Three of Swords may feel differently from day to day, or it may mean something different in one deck versus another. As I continue to practice with these cards, we will develop a shorthand with each other. I will have memories attached to each card that will inform my understanding of them. Then, when I read for others, I will bring that history to the table. The person I am reading for and I will be able to have a conversation that is informed by our own personal experience, but also the wisdom of centuries past.
In that space, at the table where I sit down with myself, or a client, or the folks who follow me on TikTok, I am expressing something that is meaningful to me. However, in that expression, I’m not asking people to think I am right or wrong. I am not inviting division and debate. I simply get to tell a story, and allow that story to be heard, interpreted, and then be reflected back at me from a new perspective. As with all of my spiritual practices–my attendance at church, my presence on a stage, my whispering of fantasies into a lovers’ ear–I don’t care that what I’m practicing is true or logical. I simply care that the narrative I interact with has meaning and weight. I do not seek to know what is right, I simply seek to listen, to be moved, and to transform.
Why tarot? Because human beings thrive on stories, and they always have a story to tell.
