week five: re-perceiving

King of Roots/Pentacles, Pawpaw/Emperor, King of Axes/Swords, Two of Roots/Pentacles, Six of Blues/Cups from the Rhythm and Soul Tarot

This week, I tried reaching for a deck I love but never use. I won’t say what it is, because I don’t want my inability to navigate it reflecting poorly on what is a wonderful and well-loved work. What I realized today is that I can’t read with it because we (the deck’s creator and I) recognize the problems inherent in tarot, but we’ve gone in very different directions to solve them in our own minds. So when I lay out the cards of this particular deck, I struggle. They just don’t make “sense” because it’s so far from how I’ve managed to re-contextualize the colonial bullshit of post-Golden Dawn decks in ways that are probably less effective than the deck I’m referring to, but are still deeply part of my cosmology. 

Whenever I see a Devil, for example, in a deck that focuses on the bondage or lack of agency that the Golden Dawn offered it, I immediately know I’m probably not going to be able to work with the deck much. A lot of people see the card fixed in a christo-colonial way, so creators tend to emphasize the danger of the card. I’ve had to work through my christo-colonial bullshit in a way that made me fall in love with the sweet boy, who represents, to put in a trendy witchy way, our re-wilding. 

Anyway. This is all to say that wonderful decks are wonderful regardless of whether or not we bond with them, and at the end of the day the effectiveness of a deck depends more on the reader’s ability to navigate it than anything else. 

So, I’m returning to the same deck I used last week—one that also has some cards I don’t vibe with, but one that, for some reason, loves chatting with me. 

From the Rhythm and Soul Tarot, I’ve drawn:
King of Roots/Pentacles (4), The Pawpaw/Emperor (2), King of Axes/Swords (1), Two of Roots/Pentacles (3), Six of Blues/Cups (5)

I feel like we’ve been seeing a lot of courts in this blog, and that doesn’t surprise me because we’re always at the mercy of others. 

Wherever we have a king, we’re dealing with entitlement. That word has more meanings than we usually think. Today, we use it to suggest someone has an unearned sense of deserving. They think they just get shit because they want it. But the word has a more literal meaning, which suggests the “nobler” (another word with layers) aspects of having been granted a title. In colonial peerage, a title is a way that wealthy people grab and hold land and make money off the backs of the people who live and work on it. Typically, I view tarot’s kings as the sort-of apex of entitlement. Not only do they feel they deserve what they want, everything in life has supported this. And when we come to the King of Air (guitars, in this case), we’re talking about language, knowledge, perceptions, and education. We’re talking about having the microphone. Kings of Air believe they’re entitled to the microphone. 

Typically, I tend to move from the center out when I do this readings, but I’m compelled by the two cards to the left of the King of Axes: the Pawpaw/Emperor and the King of Roots/Pentacles. Even more entitlement! The King of Roots is “my” card, astrologically; he represents my decan of Leo. He’s more Virgo-esque, though, because he rules the first two decans of Virgo. He’s quite rooted in this time of year, in fact. And this Virgo season, like much of other seasons before it, has been brutal.

But what’s helpful about the roots/pentacles beginning the reading is that this brings us right back down to earth. If the King of Roots is entitled to anything, it’s connection to the ground. The Pawpaw/Emperor is a card that frequently causes people to assume the more entitled, problematic aspects of “masculinity,” but in this case, I don’t get that vibe. Not just because the roots suit anchors the reading, but because this Emperor is painted in a really gentle way. When I saw him, I felt strongly he was an older queer man, just from the way he was sitting. 

There’s also the mirrored cards on the other side of the spread. The Pawpaw mirrors the Two of Roots/Pentacles, and there’s always a pull toward with twos. A pull toward rootedness; toward keeping one’s feet on the ground. There’s a confusion deeply built into the Waite-Smith twos. The actual juggling act of this card, the impossible balancing act of the Two of Swords, those are the obvious ones. Less obvious is the lack of certainty in the Two of Cups. “Do I want to hand over my cup to this dude?” And even the Two of Wands, which is one of the uber colonizer cards in that deck, hasn’t yet decided; there’s a wondering occurring. 

“How do we keep our feet on the ground while remaining in our power?”

The King of Roots mirrors the Six of Blues/Cups, and that card’s imagine delights me. The little girl literally feeling the spirit is much more exciting to me than the vague weirdness of the Waite-Smith Six of Cups. I’ve never understood that card, though we find clues in the esoteric titles, I don’t think it’s one of the more successful minors in that deck. 

The fact that the card’s image takes place in a church would usually annoy me, except that I’m perfectly fine with people dancing in church—and, though I’m profoundly critical of Christianity, this card depicts Black Christianity, which is born out of liberation and not colonialism. In fact, Black Christianity (he says like he’s a fucking expert on the Black experience—Jesus) manages to do what most of us do with the Waite-Smith tarot, and takes me back to my opening graphs on the deck I couldn’t work with: we syncretize what exists (in this case, the tarot and the church) with our own needs, wants, and cosmology. The King of Roots, being grounded—demanded grounding, in fact, is quite good at that. He can see, “ah, I’m going to take what I need and leave the rest.” He’s going to take the spirit and leave the dogma. 

Which is partly the lesson of the week. 

But we still haven’t solved that King of Axes/Swords, and his entitlement. 

In this case he, and we, are reminded that we are entitled to do exactly what I’ve just described—and that now is a good time because we have the wisdom and perceptions to do it. We are entitled to re-think, re-perceive, re-contextualize, re-view, re-understand, re-learn, revise. 

How? Staying grounded, first off; remembering that we have the power to do it, it’s what we’re always doing, anyway. This might mean zooming in or zooming out, or both, depending. In fact, we’re powerfully drawn to do doing this right now, anyway. And once we’re sure our feet are on the ground, we can simply let the spirit move us!

Quick note:
It’s getting close! My author copies of the Modern Fortune Teller’s Field Guide have arrived, and the feedback from early readers has been super positive. Madame Pamita, whose book of candle magic is probably the best out there, said, “Like a trickster friend who calls you out to get you thinking, Tom’s humorous and engaging writing and the unique exercises he gives throughout will open your eyes to fresh new ways of working with the cards.” Known bad-ass Kelly Ann Maddox said, “This is the book I have been waiting for. It boldly demolishes dogma and fiercely promotes creativity. It’s filled with energizing mindset shifts to help you examine your insecurities as a reader, strengthen your practice, and clarify your approach to working with querent.” 

Preorder yours now!