The Tarot Manifesto
Tarot is revelatory. Tarot is meant to be a meditative act, a study in symbol and archetype, meant to unleash understanding to the burgeoning spiritualist or the studied master. When we read tarot we interpret more than just cards. The Rider Waite deck, for example, is laden with information from various cultural/religious practices as well as archetypical love bombs energetically rendered to reality by Pamela Coleman Smith’s delicate and fierce watercolor illustrations.
Just as we, delicate and fierce both at once, enter into the tarot at first as novices finding our way and wandering through a forest of swords and cups– but any reader worth her salt has, since those first gingerly-laid steps, sought out meaning. Mastering tarot involves a study of symbol, metaphor, and archetype. It also involves a study of those cultural and religious symbols understood within the context of their origins. Why does the hanged man have a halo? What is that little creature on the bottom of The Wheel of Fortune? Are The Lovers Adam and Eve? What might these things mean?
More than this knowledge, though, is an understanding of the power of symbolic language. Symbol, metaphor, and archetype all have embedded within them the understanding that they represent transformation into new meaning. It's the same power a poet possesses. When I say that A is B, I fundamentally change both A and B; I create new meaning. Think of the universal symbol of a sunset. When used in art or in writing, we all, as humans, connect the sunset with the concept of endings: the end of the day, the end of a journey, the end of a life. We are capable of feeling the same gripping emotions when presented with the symbol because the symbol takes on that meaning. It’s no longer just the sunset.
The next complex task for a reader is the lay of the cards. Whether a simple three card reading or a more involved Celtic Cross, the position of the cards in the lay also requires interpretation. In what ways are the cards speaking to each other? How might that foundational card speak to the card in the possible paths position? Just as the Major Arcana cards describe a journey, each lay creates its own journey. The interpretation of any card is necessarily determined in part by the cards surrounding it. Seeing a card in a lay in isolation defeats the purpose of the reading.
Tarot is revelatory because the reader is prepared to reveal–not because the reader is performing a trick or making it up as she goes. The reader has been in the forest before and knows how to find the path, how to find meaning within a bewildering array of symbol, archetype, illustration, lore, and experience. While the word Arcana may derive itself from the root arcane, tarot is not mysterious or obscure to those who have put in the work needed to understand the cards, the varied meanings surrounding them, and the process. If a reader tells you that a card means yes or no with no further context, find another reader. If a reader suggests without hesitation that she can tell you all your future, find another reader. If a reader asks questions regarding your situation before reading, well, you know the drill. Find the reader who has put in the work to open your understanding as to what the cards can and cannot do. And what can they do especially? Make you think: about your life, your choices, your possibilities.
© Amy Yanity, all rights reserved. May not be reprinted in part or whole without explicit consent of the author.