This week I thought I might use Lubanko Tarot, as I went to see Emily speak about her deck last week. (The new edition is quite nice and while I don’t particularly need borderless editions, the lack of borders makes the deck a little smaller and the thinner stock easier to shuffle. I think complainers will whine about the thin stock, but I think it shuffles like buttah . . . especially have the deck I did use this week). E. talked about the influence of the Mary-el Tarot by Marie White. I’ve had the deck for ages, although far less longer than it’s been available. I’d ordered the new print, which was on less angry-making card stock (despite the bowdlerization of a few of the cards)—but I wound up with the OG. It is a beast to shuffle and my poor hands aren’t up to it, but I made it happen. Also, my Wheel of Fortune was somewhat damaged when a shelf fell onto the deck, and that’s the card I got to, today, so I wonder if it’ll always cut at or near it, now. 
Anyway, the primary reason for avoiding this deck was the stock, Schiffer has never given a flying fuck about whether or not their decks are usable, and, in fact, any aren’t—even post-glossiness. 

But it wasn’t just the stock—I never really “got” the deck or the evangelical response it earned from a lot of folks, and anything that smacks of zeitgeistiness makes me cranky. I think the art is stunning and I love when an artist makes tarot their own. But I didn’t feel connected to it. I do, however, feel incredibly connected to the Lubanko deck and now that I see the influence, I felt compelled to try the Mary-el again. So I carbed up this morning preparing to shuffle. (Kidding.)

Today, the cards presented are:
3 of disks (4), Emperor (2), Wheel (1),  Queen of swords (3), 8 of wands (5)

I also augmented the Wheel, thus:
8 of swords — itself augmented by the 9 of swords and 7 of swords.

It’s a lotta stuff, so let’s get to it!

The Wheel “sits” on the 8 of Swords and it’s look, “look, bitch: cycles. This mindfuck hellscape you keep yourself trapped in could benefit from some evaluation. Think you’re the first people to suffer? Look around.”

Swords have everything to do with perception, and this suggests that we need to remember we’re actually not imprisoned right now (unless we are), which means that there’s still things that can be done—and, yeah, it’s a lot of shit to consider, which is why the energy should be granted to the thoughts that are productive rather than burdensome. 

The array augmenting the Wheel from below is 9, 8, 7 in that order. Literally think smaller. It’s the overwhelm that gets you, and it’s entirely the point. They keep you running in so many directions, worried about so many things, that instead of worrying about the things that matter, you’re worrying about everything or nothing and you shut off and check out. Not good.

(A sidebar: I remember trying to work with this deck at once point and thinking that I found the art distracting. I recalled hearing Marseille-style readers say that about Waite-Smith decks when I was starting out and I found it appalling. But I also found Marseille-style decks appalling, too. Or, well, ugly as fuck, anyway. I don’t know how long ago it was that I attempted to work with, but I actually still feel that way about it. It’s not an insult to the deck. It’s that it’s just such a rich, dense story on each card and I just don’t really sink into images the way that others do. It’s probably one reason why I use so many more cards than a lot of other readers, too. I actually like to work quickly before my brain starts overthinking things. And that’s definitely what I’m doing here, but I can’t express how much I want to pick up and study each of the cards. The deck is actually even more beautiful than I recall—and I never thought it was ugly. Just overwhelming. Which is one reason I was irked by the replacement of some of the cards in the new edition which has, I’m told, easier-to-handle cards. I called it bowdlerizing above. Bowdler was a publisher to created the Family Shakespeare in the early 1800s, in which he removed anything “unsanitary.” — might shock to you to know that he earned the [dubious] credit, it was actually his sister Harriet who did the work. Either way, “bowdlerizing” quickly became a term for “sanitizing” [defanging] work. I was pleased to hear that the Lubanko tarot was not bowdlerized for the mass market edition, though Lubanko—on her own—created two alts for the lovers. I wasn’t shocked to hear that another publisher made an offer and then told her to change a bunch of shit.)

The Wheel itself is flanked by (on the left) the 3 of disks and the Emperor and (on the right) by the Queen of Swords and the 8 of wands. 

Let’s do the right side first, because we see more swords and another 8. 

Queens are the embodiment of their suit and the 8 of wands is the fullness of directed labor. Smart bitches put their back into the shit that will yield change. 

On the left, the 3 of disks and the Emperor tell us the power of the empire is growing. 

Uh oh! 

Except, what? 

The fucking Wheel there in the middle—the only card we’ve only glanced at. Cycles. 

I’m writing this on Saturday, though it’s typically a Sunday thing. But I’m reading at a Halloween event tomorrow and I was reading at one last night, and I cannot tell you—I think I told every person sitting across from me that they had permission to be optimistic. Do I believe that? No. Did I confess to my clients that I’m a cynic who agrees there’s not much to be optimistic about? Yes, and they agreed with me—but I couldn’t avoid what the cards were telling me, and I’m not a reader to only sees sunshine. In fact, I had at least one “Yeah, he might come back but he’s gonna do it again” reading, so I wasn’t just giving everyone good news. But even that client got the go-ahead of optimism as the reading went on. 

And I think it’s because each of the readings also could be encapsulated in one way or another by the swords cards augmenting the Wheel and by the two cards to the Wheels’ right. But your energy into the shit that will impact you in the best way, and things will work out better. 

And I’m not one of those leftists interested in the status quo anymore. I was, but that’s over. I do not see any future in the world that so-called “liberal democracy” (pedos running everything and the wealthiest people throwing carrots at us to make us think we’re happy) has crafted, so I’m not saying we’re going to see a return to what we had. Not by a long shot. In fact I got Death in at least three readings last night, and if I’m right it showed up a couple more than that. Death doesn’t mean dying, but it does mean there’s no going back to before. So when I say “work out better” I don’t mean “go back to a world where white lefties are comfortably able to avoid participating in the liberation of the people they claim to be allies to.” 

I just don’t know what it is yet. And though I’ve considered pulling cards to tell me, I don’t know if I’d believe anything it said. 

Once thing I’ll say, though . . . being forced by the readings to say that to folx last night actually started to make me feel better. And I was not feeling particularly good when I arrived at the event. While I love doing those, the set up kill me. Lugging a card table and chairs, along with all the crap I put on my table to make it look inviting, well . . . it annoys me. And the event space screwed up the assignments, so I wound up inadvertently getting myself shoved in the least visible spot in the reading area and spending the first forty-five minutes watching clients flock to everyone but me. 

Actually, if you want to stick around for a little more confessing . . . when I finally did get a client, she came up to me and kind of rudely showed me the little token that gets attached to our bios that clients take so everyone in line knows that reader is working at the moment—and she sorta tossed it at the table and said, “what do you do?” She kinda looked at my little menu that I made to help people who don’t know what to get a reading about and said, “Oh you do TAROT,” with disappointment. And I thought, “Oh, Jesus. This is it, I’m done with these events—I can’t deal with this.” 

I tried to put on my happy face and she said, “you just read cards, right? You don’t like . . . ?” The “just read cards” made me feel awesome and then the implication that my inability to do the “like . . . ?” (which I assume meant, like, psychic channeling or clairsentience?), and I kind of firmly said, “N0, I don’t channel.” And I expected her to walk away and instead she sat down. “Here we go,” I thought.  

She didn’t have a question and didn’t look particularly interested in even giving me a chance, so I was kinda surprised she was . . . ya know . . . giving me a chance. I started reading and a few minutes in she stopped me to get her phone out and record it. 

She let is slip a few minutes later that I was actually — I wouldn’t say “doing a good job”? But maybe like . . . serving face? I guess? I don’t know. 

It was the first time I relaxed the entire time I’d been there, including lugging all my shit and getting drenched in sweat setting it up. 

I’m, I think, going to make a video about this, but I thought it was interesting that I’d somehow won her over. The rest of the night flew by and was a blast, which is good because it stopped me shopping, which I’m tempted to do on nights when the market is slow.

Anyway, just a fun anecdote for you—though I have notes for readers as a result. Evil laugh. 

Until next week. ​

This week, I remembered to bring out one of the great tarots of all time, Robert M. Place’s Vampire Tarot, published (and held hostage by) St. Martin’s Press. The reason he can’t reprint this deck, as he has his others, is that the copyright is owned by SMP and they ain’t doing anything with it. Capitalism at is most moronic. The deck goes for hundreds on the collector’s market and maybe there’s a collector’s lobby preventing a reissue. I don’t know. But it’s typical bullshit and I hate it. 

Anyway, I love the deck. Place frequently uses a combination of pip and imagery to create his minors, and I really enjoy that. 

This week, we get: Eight of Knives (influenced by Queen of Stakes/Wands); The Hierophant (Van Helsing) (Influenced by the Knight of Knives); and the Ten of Stakes (influenced by The Hermit.)

I was talking yesterday about the solitary labor of the eights. We’re alone, and we’re working alone, in this case trapped in our mind-jails, ruing all that there is to rue. The Queen of Stakes makes us believe that if we think just right, we can slay monsters. (This Queen of Stakes is Charlotte Stoker, who was married to Bram Stoker, author of Dracula. She might have been a bit in this boat. Stoker, who was closeted and queer, may well have seemed a mystery she could solve if the only thought or said the right thing.) 

“I know I can slay this monster! I know I can! I’m the fucking Queen of Wands, after all!”
There’s a feedback loop because our own sense of importance (and impotence) and our need to logic this out. Something tells me logic ain’t it, but let’s keep exploring. 

To the left of the Eight of Knives, we have The Hierophant (Van Helsing) influenced by the Knight of Knives. 

If you place a queer lens on the story of Dracula, it’s not hard to see it as an allegory. Dracula represents our hungers, our thirsts, our desires; he also presents otherness and foreignness. He’s painted as the villain because he preys on pretty, white, Christian girls, but the book doesn’t limit him to women as the movies usually do. Even Bela’s Dracula feeds on Renfield, one of the few films to depict the count having a same-sex encounter. (The recent BBC adaptation puts Harker in the position of being asked if he had sex with the count, but we have no sense it happened.)

The straight-washing of Dracula isn’t shocking. Stoker himself was clearly on Van Helsing’s side, and he was clearly drying to pray the gay way. And after Oscar Wilde, Stoker’s contemporary, wound up in prison for being a homo, Stoker turned virulently anti-queer. In essence, he went from Harker to Van Helsing. 

Anyway, there’s a huge history of racism and anti-Jewishness in vampire myths. The Vampire mythology cannot be divorced from stereotypes of Jews and Romani as predators. I think Robert Egger’s recent Nosferatu did an excellent job playing that up, at least in the parts where rats infest the German town the main characters live in. I think the imagery of rats and plague and Dracula all speak to the white euro horror of “the other.” I do take issue with this portrayal of the Romani, who aren’t really characters—and that’s typical of Eggers’ work. It skirts queer liberation, it even skirts the dismantelling  of stereotype, but often he falls into whiteness tropes.

But if you look at it through a queer, less colonial lens: Dracula isn’t a villain; he’s simply higher on the food chain than we are. 

Anyway, to misquote the title of a recent Broadway play, Van Helsing is the Villain. (The play is John Proctor). Van Helsing, at least in the book (he’s not at all this way in Eggers’ Nosferatu), uses a kind of pragmatic blend of Catholicism and Calvinism to end his foe, and, like the Hierophant, he uses faith as a weapon. (A plot point in Dracula I always make fun of: somehow all these Church of England Anglican anti-Catholics suddenly discover the solution to their problems is Catholic imagery . . . it’s cute.)

The Knight of Knives (Colerage, not useful here) reminds us of the bloodless intellectual approach to achieving our ends—which does underscore Van Helsing’s kind of bloodless lack of sex and intrigue. Dracula, like the Devil in tarot, invites us to be our wildest animal, our most innate, our “darkest,” which I take to mean our most anti-colonial, non-“christian” selves—our witchy, political, messy, selves. Van Helsing loathes that, and the Knight of Swords takes up the cause without thinking because he’s a holy roller and a truster of the status quo. 

What got us here won’t save us.

The Ten of Stakes influenced by The Hermit has lots to say. First, yes, you might need a rest this week. You might need to hole up for a day or so and spend it in your coffin, hiding from the vagaries of existence. The Hermit for sure amps up that vibe—but this hermit, who is one of Dracula’s disguises, seems to invite us into his world, not to avoid it. 

There’s a scene in a Hammer film, the first Dracula they made without Christopher Lee, where the sort of Renfield character, a madwoman midwife, kneels on the grave of a recently-bitten victim and essentially midwives her out of the grave—out into the the world. She plays delivery room doctor to a newly-minted vampire. 

That’s what this Hermit remind me of. “Rest,” he says, “but not for long. I need you to come with me.”

There’s a scene in one of the lesser Dracula films, I think it’s the Frank Langella, which is one of my least favorite (Langella doesn’t want to be playing Dracula; he wants to be playing Heathcliffe in Wuthering Heights), in which he tells Mina, “I need your blood. I need your blood.” And in a relatively sexless interpretation, it actually jolts up the fire for a hot second, because that kind of desperation is really sexy (to a certain kind of weirdo—hi, I’m the problem). 

I’m drawing another card for context and—it’s The Lovers! Which depicts Dracula in the act of Draculizing (and damn, RMP, this one is JACKED). 

Dear ones.

The solution lies not in Van Helsing’s conservative uptight attempt to erase the “other.” The solution lies not in attempting to overcome the overwhelming urges for a deeper kind of liberation. The solution, in fact, is taking a quick nap and then going deeper into the darkness. 

That is, after all, what is common this time of year anyway. 

The Dark Daddy, the Witch God/ess, the Devil, Dracula, Lilith, Hecate, Baba Yaga . . . it is the counsel of the dark ones, the ones who understands the margins better than anyone, that we must trust and fall into the embrace of. It is there where we taste our deeper, inner selves; and it is there that we find ways of transcending the mortal limitations of christo-capitalist Van Helsing-esque bullshit and discover that we, too, have access to higher powers that the Van Helings of the world would like us to forget, forever, that we have. 

Fangs out, little ones. 

Into the dark! ​

Morning, class. Before we get to this week’s message, two quick announcements. 

First, The Modern Fortune Teller’s Field Guide is finally out! If you haven’t yet, you can get your copy from Crossed Crow directly or order it from anywhere—including your local witchy shop, queer- or Black-owned business, etc. I’m doing a contest. If you post a review somewhere publicly and tag me or screencap and send it to me, you can win signed copies of all my books plus an hour-long session: tarot, tarot+reiki, coaching, general tarot bull session. The fact is, I’m so shy, that the hour with me is probably the most valuable!

Second, I have a new workshop/experience coming up! The Modern Fortune Teller’s Conclave. Part workshop, part divinatory experience, there are two sessions you can choose form. 10/31 at 4pm eastern, and 11/2 at 2 pm, eastern. Click the title for more info and to sign up. 

That said, on to this week’s survival tip. 

I recorded an episode of the Witch Wednesdays podcast recently and one of the things I mentioned is that, though I don’t read for myself much, I do from time to time, considering all the things, do a reading on the question, “How panicked should we be right now?” They’re actually usually pretty calming, so I figured I’d use this week to do one of those and post it, here. 

This week’s deck is the fascinating Infinite Door by Pamela Love, with art by Krys Maniecki. 

I did a double arc of three and in row one, we have Seven of Swords, The Sun, Ace of Cups. And in the second row, we find Ace of Pentacles, Queen of Pentacles, and the Eight of Cups.

Can I just mention that I love tarot? I so do. Not for any particular reason; I just feel really lucky to have it in my life. 

Anyhoo. 

The Sun in the middle is generally a good sign in readings, though it can signal the heat being turned up dramatically. The Ace of Cups doesn’t provide much relief. And the Seven of Swords can amp up the heat, given that it’s a higher number and the card sometimes indicates nefarious doings. The Sun being one of the higher-numbered majors also intensified the heat, and, as we already know, the Ace of Cups isn’t enough to tamp anything down. It’s a squirt gun at the conflagration. 

But each card is influenced by the one below it, and in this case I’m also intending to read that row together. 

The Seven of Wands, then, is influenced by the Ace of Pentacles; the Sun by the Queen of Pentacles; and, the Ace of Cups by the Eight of Cups. 

Let’s start with the last combo. The Ace of Cups partnered with the 8 adds more water to the equation, and while we’re not yet working with a fleet of firefighters yet, we are better-supplied. 

Eights represents work, effort. There’s always the sense of “moving on” with Waite-Smith inspired decks, but if we’re moving toward anything, it’s the Ace of Cups—which would be a bit of a new sensory experience. That’s promising, as many of us are feeling overly-sensitized at the moment. Of course, we need to be careful not to let ourselves become desensitized. But, a new sensory moment is promising. 

I’ve actually decided to add a third row, because I don’t feel like I have enough context at the moment to know how to get to our answer. The card that now appears below is the Hanged Man, which isn’t promising, but the energy of this column moves up. The Eight moves into the Ace, so we’re ascending from the Hanged Man, into the eight, and finally to the Ace. Promising. I drew another card to tell me what comes after the Ace and I got The Lovers. I typically interpret that card as lack of choice or partnership, and I think partnership, or union, works better here—especially as this depiction shows hands holding. We will move to a re-union. Bit of a journey, but that’s where we’re moving. 

A quick note on the “subject” or “querent” of this reading. The question was “How panicked do we need to be?” When I ask the question I expanded the wording: we, being “those who care about each other.” So this “we” is the subject of the reading. 

The Sun with the Queen of Pentacles is interesting. The queen grounds the Sun dramatically, and that’s not a bad thing. The Queen of Penties is almost acting like the ozone layer, for us. There is a major grounding force at work beneath the blazing light. There’s work happening actually in front of our eyes, but it’s too bright to see it. Something, something is going on. Whenever I do these readings, the suit of Pentacles typically suggests the business community, which I hate; but I think this suggests two things. First, boycotts and the like are working. The business community has only one goal: money. And when we deny the monster money, they panic. That’s good. 

The card that I pulled for this column’s third was the Six of Swords. Again, the positioning of the card suggests a movement up. We’re coming from the six, into the queen, and then the sun—the sun is coming out, if we keep working. Incidentally, this very watery swords card tamps down the Sun’s intensity, which is also a good thing. I hate to say this, but we have to keep our brains balanced (six), we have to keep working, and the sun will come out. 

The Seven of Swords is influenced by the Ace of Pentacles and the added third card became the Knight of Wands. More fire. I’m struggling a bit with this combo, because sevens are somewhat vague. They’re so internal, so introspective. And what that suggests to me is a fire in the belly, I mean a lot of energy is being used up on this experience. It makes me think of indigestion or heartburn, two things I’ve felt increasingly troubled by in the last year. The Ace of Pentacles grounds that, but the Knight of Wands brings it back to life. I drew another influencer for this column’s, the Nine of Cups. 

So, what we’re experiencing really is our systems are being attacked by worry, by “fire.” Reminds me of when I was a kid. Fire drills at school—even the threat of a fire drill—used to terrify me. Truly. If there was a fire drill planned, I would spend the day in terror. I don’t know why. Obviously the fire alarms scared me, but I don’t know, it really was a traumatic experience. Granted, I now know that I have ADHD-related emotional dysregulation, and that was probably it. I think that has a lot to do with it. But I was a generally terrified kid, and didn’t sleep for three years thanks to a particularly alarming Time-Life Mysteries of the Unknown ad from the 80’s. (A wrote an essay about it for Hippocampus a bunch of years ago. You can find it here, if you’re somehow feeling deprived for my writing.)

We will come through the fire. 
The sun will come out. 
We will have a sensory refresh. 
But we have to keep the work up. 

Now, one thing that’s always difficult with tarot is timing. It’s hard to say when this will happen, and one thing that life teaches me daily is that things happen by inches. We rarely experience things suddenly, anymore, and even things that seem sudden have actually been moving in that direction for—well, generations. I mean I don’t for one second believe that we haven’t been on this path all along, and so the inevitability of this cycle shifting make sense. The problem, though, is that when cycles shift and we’re not feeling constantly under threat, we get lazy—particular about the wellbeing of others, who are still being impacted by shitty systems. We have to promise to ourselves that once we’re back in a space where our bodies can restore, our nervous systems reset, we won’t give up the good work of liberation. I think that’s actually the road to enlightenment. 

So, no, it’s not time to panic, yet. But it’s also not time to retire. ​

Here’s a deck that I find cute-but-not-cloying. I’m not among those who find animals wearing human clothing or engaging with human things weird or silly. I find it charming, and that’s probably because I’ve always been a lover of the idea of fairy tale. It makes total sense to me to see animals behaving like humans and humans behaving like animals, because my sensibility was so strongly influenced by Lewis Caroll and Narnia (alas). Of course, the seductive thing about fairy tale is that they’re generally morality bullshit wrapped up in magic. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, one of my all-time favorites as a child, chief among them. Fairy tale seduces because we want magic. We just don’t need the christo-colonial dogma they bring with them. 

This deck seduces with a charm and refinement that makes these cuties (how much do I identify as the chubby little mole in the Two of Arrows?) seem dignified. And I’m not joking. It’s Tarot of the Woodland Warden.

Not dignified is the absolute mess of a cardstock choice. I already have done this number several times, but the thickness of cardstock creates accessibility issues. You can see my “open letter” on Instagram, and I’m sure the publishers I tagged, including this deck’s publisher, will do nothing about it—but, well, at some point this squeaky wheel needs to get some grease, amiright?

Other than the stock, there’s nothin’ I don’t like about this eminently readable and not-too-suite curios. Alas, my hands hurt from shuffling. 

The Ace of Arrows is flanked by The World and the Two of Arrows. Here, arrows=swords. I pulled “influence” cards for each of the three, mostly just because I find the deck so delightful to look at that I simply wanted to see more cards—and I nearly drew more, which shows you how delighted I am by the artwork, and this how mournful I am of the stock. 

“Everything” — that’s a way I typically read the World. And I’ve found in dialogue with my guide that he frequently uses that word when he’s overwhelmed. In this case, it’s usually in a positive way, but for so many of us right now it isn’t. Everything…. is a lot. 

But it’s worth considering that the wearier, more despairing, least certain of us right now are the ones who have the least amount of experience living under oppression. Queer people, particularly trans people, people of global majority, children of global majority, and the people in nations whose natural resources are torn from the earth so that I can share this and you can read it, these communities have known how mythological “democracy” really is. It’s just that straight, white, and cis folx are discovering that they, too, can have their rights taken away. They’d taken them for granted. A lot of never had that luxury. 

“Oh a lecture, from a cis white boy who calls himself queer.” Sure. Get defensive. It ain’t gonna help you survive. Because if you keep feeling EVERYTHING as CAUSE FOR DESPAIR or, on the other hand, TOTALLY FINE, you’re going to crack. 

The Queen of Pentacles, who influenced the World, presents us with the quality of survivalism. Ah, survivalism—a specifically American concept: “I’m fine living totally underground off ancient canned goods while everyone else is incinerated/raptured, and I will definitely not go mad from complete and total absence of sunlight.” 

You do you, babe, but global problems require collective solution. The “at least I got mine” attitude of stereotypical survivalism is exactly how we wound up here. (I recognize some people tend toward survivalism thanks to trauma. But if that were the only reason, it would not be a billion dollar industry because one thing this country doesn’t give a fuck about is trauma responses.)

Hoard your resources! Everything is bad! 

“Nay, bitch,” sayeth the Ace of Swords, “one bite at a time.” 

The Ace of Swords is influenced by the Fool and the King of Cups (who I almost called “the king of beavers” in a thing I’m now unlikely to forget any time I see this card now). My friend Liz is taking a long workshop focusing on the big “tome” by Robert M. Place The Tarot, Magic, Alchemy, & Neoplatonism (3rd ed.), and she reminded me of something in the older images of The Fool: the animal scratching at the poor dude is meant to indicate that the guy is a stranger in a strange place. He doesn’t belong there, which is why the animal chases him away. 

If you look at the way I arranged the cards impulsively, it looks as though the Fool is actually leaping away from the Ace of Arrows and into, literally into the World. The King of Cups, on the other hand, looks away from it all. It is foolish for us to think we can do everything, solve everything, suffer everything, and to do that all at once.

It is the emotionally mature thing to recognize that we don’t have to onboard all of that. We just have to start speaking--softly, and then a little bit louder and more passionately. 

Arrows/swords aren’t just thoughts, they’re words. The suit of swords is the suit of saying. Say the things. You don’t have to from zero to sixty, just form one to two. The energy (Two of Wands, influencing the Two of Swords) will kick in—and because twos are magnetic, you’ll begin finding this truth-telling addictive, and you should, because it is healthy and correct and the more voices raised in singing, the less dangerous it us from the people currently singing out. 

Using your voice is not just about arrogance or grandstanding. It is the recognition that when vulnerable people stick their heads out to tell the truth, they are far less likely to get their fucking heads chopped off if there’s a hundred other heads. They can’t chop off all the heads. 

This is a reading about joining the choir, even if you feel like you waited to long.

Join it. If you wanna sing out, SING OUT. 
It’s time. ​

I’ve been saying to myself for a few weeks I need to pull out the Next World Tarot for this blog, it makes total sense given the content. Well, sometimes something can almost be too right. I did use it this week, or anyway began to, and found that it’s so specifically speaking to this moment that I don’t even know where to begin in translating into an actionable thing for the week. Which doesn’t surprise me, because I have really oblique way of reading, I’m realizing; it’s almost as though I need the cards to do just enough… but too much, actually doing too much of the work for me, confuses me. 

Anyway, I moved on to the deck I though I’d use, the new Ukiyo Tarot by—Pietro Turino, released by Lo Scarabeo. It’s handsome, if somewhat confusing deck. 

In this case, I pulled three card and allowed each what I’m calling a “dangling modifier.” Only because of the way I laid them out; not in the grammatical sense. But I feel like the dangling cards only work with the card they dangle from, not with each other and not with other primaries. 

That gives us: Knight of Cups (Dangling: 4 of cups); 8 of Pentacles (dangling: 6 of Wands); 3 of cups (dangling: Ace of Wands). 

This 8 of Pents is giving Disney, which reminds me that it’s a pain in the ass but necessarily reality to work at the middle-finger giving that we must do to corporations who don’t reflect our values. The mass exodus of the public from Disney-owned properties after their not-remotely-shocking capitulation to the current asshole in the white house demonstrated how quickly collective action works, especially when a big company is going to lose its bottom line. In fact, this may be the only way to protest effectively sometimes—especially given the current asshole in the white house. The 6 of Wands dangling from the 8 of penties, a) reminds us that it worked; b, that feeling great that it worked is ok (yay victory) but the good feelings don’t justify putting anything down yet. Six indicates progress but not a final victory, the implication that we’re heading to the Ten of Wands reminds us that the journey will not leave us camera-ready. But the work (eight) should be motivated by the little win (and it is a minor, minor “win” if you can call it that at all), not stopped due to it. 

The 8/pents finds it self flanked by two cups cards: a knight, riding out of the reading, and the three, dancing within it.  The Knight of Cups is modified by the 4 of cups, who has given up on the effort and suddenly finds themselves feel despondent. We cannot stop doing things that work and expect to keep feeling good about ourselves or the way things progress. We, like, actually have to do the labor. In this combo, the Knight and 4 of Cups are giving white people tears, the way that we throw in the towel the second gets hard while people of global majority, queer people, etc., are standing there looking at us like, “That’s it? That’s all you have?” And rather than saying, “Oh, no, didn’t we just have a victory? Is isn’t over?” We just get mopey and say “I can’t do anything right!” 4s are so conservative. So are white people, much more than we realize. 

The Three of Cups with the Ace of Wands reminds us that their can be some celebration, but we don’t put down the club. In fact, we have to keep celebrating the tiny wins, especially when there aren’t any others. We have to keep lighting matches and flicking them to see what we can burn down. And we need to do that in dance with the community of people who make us feel safe and connected, lived, and spiritually expansive. Spiritual expansiveness is important, too. It is the match that may ignite the fire!

There we have it, friends. 
Onward. ​

Six of Jazz/Wands (4), King of Axes/Swords (2) Nine of Roots/Pentacles (1), Six of Blues/Cups (3), The High Priestess

Deck: Rhythm and Soul Tarot by Stacey Williams-Ng

I love that the central card in the spread is “roots.” In this music-themed tarot, focusing primarily on the roots of so-called american music, we’re happily reminded not only of the foundational need for music—but how music has roots.

I happened to be running errands today and listening to music and singing. I can’t tell you how cleansing that was. First, you may know my journey with sound and energy healing (technically both energy healing), so it’s fitting that sound would be medicinal. Second, though, because I’ve always loved singing—until it was taken from me by a shitty teacher. Only in my forties have I started taking it back. 

If you haven’t spent any time listening to your music this week (by which I mean the music that lights you up most), do it. At once. 

Starting here with the Nine of Roots, we’re first encouraged to consider the nature of roots. The obvious association are those of plants, but the more appropriate one here are the ancestors. Not least because the theme of the deck hints heavily at Southern traditions and spirituality, which is of course the source of american music (coming, of course, from the Black communities there). 

In a white supremacist country, such as the one now known as america, the idea of going back to our roots can be scary. We don’t know what we’re going to find there, and if we’re the descendants of enslavers—nothing that is true for many of us, regardless of race—or colonizers, that means we have to face that our ancestors were probably big assholes. Of course, unless we do that we can’t actually heal or free ourselves from it. So, yes, though it can be scary, it is necessary. 

But there are spiritual ancestors, too. In The Modern Fortune Teller’s Field Guide, I write in the first chapter that our divinatory ancestors require our respect and dedication—not just because they earned it, but because we’re going to need their guidance when the tide turns. And at the time I was writing that, the tide was well on its way toward turning. We need to build relationships with our divinatory ancestors and honor the communities from which they came. Those are the roots, the ancestors, I mean in this case. 

And the nine can simply mean “a lot.” So then this card can simply suggest, you need the communion of your spiritual ancestors a lot--and/or, you need the communion of a lot of your spiritual ancestors--and/or--you need a lot of communion with with your spiritual ancestors. I love how moving a two-word phrase throughout a sentence can make so many cool things happen. Not unlike moving cards around in a spread. 

I’m compelled by the image, here; inspired of course by Pamela Colman Smith’s regal Nine of Pentacles, there’s something to be said, too, for taking a moment and admiring how far you’ve come. Even if it’s not as far as you want to go (and who has gotten that far?), pause and note, “Yes, I’ve reached another level.”

Flanked by the King of Axes/Swords and the Six of Blues/Cups, we achieve the combo of air and water—which has spiritual tendencies. The emotion of cups elevated with the airiness of air.

Did you know that right this second, you’re as wise as you’ve ever been? Did you? Because it’s true. Sure, you’ll be wiser someday, but right now you’re as wise as you’ve ever been! That’s what this combo is telling you. There’s a spiritual elevation that happens each time we learn something.

I think about Reiki, which is a very air/water thing to me, and how we have “attunements” that we receive that kind of re-awaken the Reiki within us. In Japan, attunements weren’t really a “thing,” but Reiju were. And these are frequently energetic blessing/connections between a teacher and student (it is often done in groups) that reconnect and theoretically strengthen one’s connection to Reiki. When we learn something new, when we up our wisdom, we’re getting sort of a reiju from our spiritual ancestors. Their message has gotten through and so we get a gold star—but more than just a symbol of achievement, it connects us closer to them. 

Odd, isn’t it? The more we listen, the better we hear. 

We have another six, the Six of Jazz/Wands, paired with the High Priestess. Odd to see two sixes, especially given that sixes are typically considered “positive” (ugh) and celebratory. Ain’t no one feeling that way, now. But we might if we actually made the connections this reading is suggesting, or deepened the ones we have. The energy is awfully well-primed at the moment, and the Six of Jazz/Wands shows the glyph of Jupiter on their dress—And Jupiter has kind of an expansive nature. What better time to expand our relationship with our spiritual ancestors. 

Because there are two sixes in the reading, the imply a pairing—and in a way the whole reading is summing them up. But because of this, it also implies another asymmetric pairing: the King of Axes/Swords and the Priestess: I happened to glance at the guidebook for this (new to me) deck and noted that this Priestess is summoning one of the lwa of New Orleans Voodoo. The King of Axes/Swords suggests that’s who this HP is summoning: our wise ones. 

I think this is in fact a message from the elders and wise ones: listen to our music. There’s a lot to learn there. Both literally and figuratively. 

Until next week,
TB.

​

Hello, weary ones. Welcome to this week’s survival tip. As ever, the question for the week is, “How do we survive this week during the fall of an empire?” 

We’ve drawn:
The Empress (4), Queen of Pentacles (2), The Devil (1), Four of Swords (3), The Magician (5)
This is the Apparition Tarot by Spirit Speak

The Devil showed up last week, not as the central card but one over. This week, he sets the tone for us and does so hand-in-hand with the Queen of Pentacles and the Four of Swords. 

I chose this deck today because I showed it to a friend yesterday. I’d forgotten if, during our many tarot show-and-tells, I’d ever shown this one, and apparently I hadn’t. When my friend saw this Queen of Pents, she got very excited—because it shows the Venus of Willendorf, and ancient votive stature of The Goddess(TM). She is thought to be a fertility goddess, and there’s no reason to doubt it—fertility goddesses throughout the world have celebrated, exaggerated, the breasts and genitals of the mother. Think of Ireland’s Sheela Na Gig. 

A quick digression. Skip to the paragraph beginning “The reading:” if you don’t care about this stuff.
I get rather testy about gendered shit, lately. Especially when a tarot deck relies heavily on one or the other. And there are decks that I’ve found and really liked but didn’t want to use because they were so gendered. But while talking to this same friend yesterday, I finally managed to articulate what I’d been trying to say when talking about them. Frequently I’ve said that I feel “left out” of them, because there’s no boys. And I knew that wasn’t quite what I meant, because I don’t actually give a fuck whether a deck is all women or not, and I’ve never really felt very comfortable around other boys, anyway. What I was finally able to articulate was that it’s not the gender, but the vibe. A deck can be all “women” (I put that in quotes not to make it seem ironic, but to highlight the vastness of that word), but it doesn’t have to be all femme. And that’s what I’ve been trying to get out, but I didn’t know how to say it. Because as a queer person, a cis one, I’m particularly aware at this point in my life of the union of the the so-called masc and femme within me. I don’t feel as though I’m non-binary, though had that conversation been introduced to me much younger I might have. I’ve spent a long time growing into myself, now. But sometimes I’m super femme, and sometimes I’m not. And I like the mix. I like being a bit of a changeling, in that way. And I like it when decks can reflect the full spectrum of being a person, rather than saying, “Ah, to be a safe place, this must center only femme-presenting people.” A deck can be woman, womyn, wombon, etc.-centric, while still presenting the masculine as presented by cis women, trans women, trans men, and non-binary people. 

When the now-infamous Divine Masculine Tarot was preparing to fund, a lot of queer male (I believe mostly cis, if not entirely, but I’m not sure) were asked to showcase cards—and many of us eagerly did. In part because of the celebration of the masc/femme dance. There were people with breasts and a penis, for example, beautifully rendered. The Tarot Karens complained and got heir way, and those parts were painted over—disappointing those of us who backed the deck having seen its earlier—and true—iteration, only to find out that the queerness, the dance, had been erased by assholes. 

Because, dear ones, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart: If you cannot look at a naked body in a piece of art and not find it sexualized somehow, you are the prurient one, you are the disgusting one, you are the pervert. 

Anyway. I digress, as ever. 

The reading: The Devil flanked by the Venus of Willendorf and the Four of Swords reminds me of the toughness present in all these cards. I frequently get down on fours because they’re conservative, but they’re also tenacious. Sometimes clinging to shit is bad, but sometimes—especially when it’s our energy, clarity, sanity, and life—it’s not so bad. The Four of Swords actually suggests a stable mind. Fours=stable, swords=mind. Or communication. And one impacts the other, anyway. What we think shapes what we say and when; what we say impacts how we think. Both impact our body/mind. 

To sustain our energy in this time, we need that rocky earthiness of the Venus. Look how solid she is. She has carbed up for the fucking fight. 

It has been said that diet culture exists in part to keep us thin and weak. If we are not healthy and fed, we cannot fight. The Devil, lord of indulgence, actually shows us two femme bodies, one looking somewhat thin (in the center of the skeletal oval), the other looking supple and ready to feed. 

Feed, dear ones. Sustain yourself. 
Eat. 
I know that’s a dangerous thing to say.
For one, people are literally being starved in a genocides on this planet. 
Also, I know many of us struggle with food.
I do. 
I’m not going pretend I don’t. 
There are times when I’m eating at work and I feel ashamed when someone walks by me because I feel like the fat kid scarfing down my slop. 
No one in my life every called me that, this isn’t one of those times where abusers made me feel this way. I just picked it up because—actually, now that I’m saying that, in fact . . . , other people have said to me. 
Other cis gendered white gay men. 

So, I didn’t pick that up from nowhere. Clarity unlocked, I guess. 🤣

This isn’t feasting; this isn’t gluttony; those isn’t over-indulgence. It is sustaining. It’s nourishment. If you want to help, if you want to survive, nourish. 

The fact that I can’t even say “nourish yourself” without pointing out that, on this planet, in this life, eating food to stay alive is a fucking privilege, when, in fact, it should be a human fucking right, is in-fucking-sane. (And guess who thinks food isn’t a human right: The so-called “United States” and so-called “Isreal.” And these two entities are two of the major reasons why I have to qualify this reading this way. Because even though famine is a violation of “international law” [which is also a fucking joke; if there were “international law” the “US” and “Isreal” wouldn’t exist], but in the meantime, those of us who can need to sustain ourselves. Because these evils will not end on their own. Lord knows it may only be a matter of time before we’re being starved, too. 

Anyway, when I say “eat,” I don’t necessarily mean this has to be food. It could be wisdom, it could be inspiration: recall the earthy presence of the Queen of Pentacles. The wheat surrounding her isn’t yet bread; it’s the potential for bread. So “eat” what sustains you, but whatever it is should be earthy and deep and rich and filling like this Venus. 

Whatever it is should put the mind at least, too. 

That doesn’t mean being an ostrich, but it does mean that toxicity encountered during the week should be countenanced by healthy stuff. Sustaining stuff. Affirming, earthy stuff. 

There’s also the reality that how we talk this week should be earthy, too; it should be Queen of Pentacles-y. It can, and should, be real; queens to fuck around in my world. But it is also rooted in life. And in this case I take life to be mean, well, the value of it. We see so much fucking anti-life right now, primarily from those who claim to be so-called “pro-life” (which is the biggest fucking crock of shit and they know it—that’s why they go deeper on it, because they know if they ever give voice to their truth, they’ll know they’re going straight to the hell they think they’re consigning us to.)

The Empress and the Magician almost seem to me like an entirely different reading.

The Empress really enlarges the queen. There’s a simpatico, here; there’s an intensity of earth and Venus, because Venus is the astrological sign associated with The Empress. 

Which, and I know this sounds privileged, means surrounding yourself with love and beauty. 

But I don’t mean “spiritual white person” love and beauty; I mean actual love and beauty. Because love and beauty mean telling tough truths, standing up for those being denied love and beauty. Loving so intensely that we say “fuck the norms, fuck the rules.” That we discover what beauty means beyond vanity. 

The Magician, mercurial and clever, presents to us the sense of acting the part when we don’t feel it. We will we faced with moments this week when the salt-of-the-earth response is necessary, but we will not feel it. It will be necessary for our own well-being and that of the person we might otherwise chop into bits, but it will not be genuine and it will not be felt. 

Do it, anyway. 

Perform it until it feels true. 

The more sustenance you take on, the more you feed yourself healthy things—food and otherwise—the better. 

Despair will not sustain us. Despair, like diet culture, will leave us weak, emaciated, and fully useless. 

When we see that they’re trying to make us too thin, too weak, too despairing, let the rage of the Goddesses—of all genders—teach you to eat. ​

Until next week. 

Welcome back. If you’re new to this new blog (hi there!), each week we’re asking the cards, How do we survive the next week at the end of an empire.

We’ve drawn: King of Swords (4), The Devil (2), Justice (1), Queen of Cups (3), Hermit (5). 

Lots of majors! 

The Justice card always demands that we figure out first whether this is real justice, or whether it is systemic justice—which isn’t just at all, but is often legalized enslavement or devaluation. Take the example of Les Miz: Jean Valjean steals a loaf of bread because he’s hungry. He gets caught and sentenced to years of hard labor, and then after he gets out he’s pursued by a fundamentalist asshole (with an admittedly good 11’clock number) who simply hates the guy on spec. Actual Justice would be Valjean being able to feed himself and his lived ones and not getting arrested for stealing. Systemic justice is what happens in the play. 

Flanked by the Devil, and the Queen of Cups, I think we’re actually being asked to question what we view as Justice. In this case, we’re seeing The Devil in his more negative aspect when partnered with the King of Swords, who actually mimics the Justice card in tone and posture. This is systemic justice, emotionless, logical, and punitive; this is the justice of private prisons and increased wealth for enslavers, and it is injustice to the impoverished and persecuted. 

Modern culture, so-called merit-based culture, culture that loathes special treatment, unless it’s for cis gendered straight white folx with. money, is this card combo—and so, even today, many of us will rally around a Robin Hood, a Zorro, and Elphaba, we’ll cheer them at the box office—but when the Robins and the Zorros and the Elphabas arrive in real life, even many of the most progressive of us remarks, “Well, they should have protested peacefully” or “they shouldn’t have blocked traffic, people have to get to work.” This is the cold, sharp-eyed colonial cynicism not of the american political right, but increasingly of the so-called american political left—which is really just rebranded right-of-center status-quo-ism. This is the Bill Nye-approved “astrology isn’t real because I can’t see it, even though the scientific method demands that I assume something exist until I find evidence that it doesn’t.” 

The Queen of Cups and The Hermit, on the other hand, are weirdly guided by the exact opposite. The Hermit here, holding their light up to this queen is saying, “Fuckin’ look, assholes, LOOK! Believe the evidence of your own eyes and your own hearts. Your hearts know that what stands for Justice in this world isn’t; your heart knows what you’re seeing is wrong. And you’re wise enough to know that this is about you as much as it is about anyone else. Our heart-minds, as I’ve heard them called recently, know when shit is fucked up. BELIEVE WHEN YOUR HEART-MIND IS TELLING YOU SHIT IS FUCKED UP!”

The Queen and the Hermit in this case make up the idea of the heart-mind; it’s a mind guided by actual love, rather than cold, so-called objective injustice. 

Thus, the way we get sustain and survive this week is through a rethinking of our views of Justice. We’re are we still clinging to colonial cynicism and bigoted, corporate, “logical” justice? And where are we being guided by the human’s innate heart-mind, by the union of love and perception, so that we can actually see what we’re really seeing. 

To put it another way, where is there a gap between your basic human empathy and your learned sense of colonial cynicism and “logic”?

Until next week, dear ones. 
Let me know how you are. 

TB. ​

Welcome to the new blog. It’s literally just advice from the cards on getting by “this week,” whatever the week it is your brain finds this. 

Today, we pulled three cards: 3/cups (2), Empress (1), Fool (3).

The fact that this blog’s subtitle is “divination at the end of an empire,” it’s funny to see The Empress, here, but I think she’s reminding us that the earth is still alive and kicking and has much to offer. In fact, as we head out of Leo season and into Virgo season, The Empress suggests the coming of harvest festivals and the reaping of what has been sown this summer. “You will reap,” she says, “what you have sown.” Which, in this case, suggests—ironically for me—that what you have been giving your energy two this season is what will be the payer of dividends in coming week(s). 

Flanked by the Three of Cups and The Fool, we’re prompted to consider the way that community that exists without expectation is pivotal for us. That “without expectation” part may seem incongruous, but it’s the most important part. How many of your relationships began with ulterior motives? No shame, no shade; we all do it. But when we look around, we may sometimes realize that the only thing we have in common with certain people is that we both thought that we’d be mutually beneficial in some way. I thought you’d get me a job, you thought I’d get you a book deal—that kind of thing. Transactional relationships actually aren’t bad, but they’re also not friendships. 

Relationships that exist beyond the expectation of anything, the find that will simply grow and evolve because that’s what relationships do, are going to be an special kind of medicine, this week. If we’ve been sowing primarily transactional relationships, however, that’s primarily what will be coming to home to roost, this week. Again, that’s not bad; it’s just what it is. If your work relationships are a focus for you, this is excellent work—but those work relationships are going to need to transcend the mere transactional for them to be truly useful to you, or you’re going to need to supplement them with actual time with loved ones. 

Look for opportunities to reap and glean and gather this week, particular in spaces where you’re loved (and where you love) for the hell of the relationships, not for end goals. 

The other thing that this reading suggests is we’re in the swell of an emotional time (3/cups), which is finally coming to fruition (Empress), but we have to let go of our expectations for the results. Let go of all expectations of results, this week. Go for the ride. Things may surprise us. ​