I thought, “What deck should I use this week?” Then, got up and went into the office and saw this one sitting wonkily atop a pile of others on my shelves. “OK,” I said, having forgotten I even had this deck, “You seem to want to chat.” I know I ordered it, but I can’t remember why and I don’t even think I’ve ever used it. It’s the Old English Tarot by Maggie Keen (USG). Because it’s “old” and “English,” I thought next, “Oh, I’ll do a Tudor Rose spread!” And I did find one or two online, but they sucked. So I went to research where it comes from and realized that it doesn’t have any really useful meaning, and sometimes we have to let go of an idea when it’s not yielding anything useful—something, in fact, that’s helpful for tarot readers to recall. If we have a spread or a deck that never gets us the results we want . . . let it go. It ain’t worth your sanity, trying to force something to work.

So I used this vague, rose-like shape—in this case, the cards represents the points/leafs of the Tudor Rose? Or something. I don’t know. 

Here’s what we got:
Four of Batons (2),  Judgement (3)
                     Ace of Cups (1)
Knight of Cups (4), Ace of Coins (5)
                 King of Batons (6)

A spread, to me, is less useful when it tells what specific issue a card is addressing, because I think it’s easier and clearer for everyone to focus each spread on one question. When you think about it, most spreads are really a series of one-card readings with different questions on a related topic. But if I want to really understand the situation, I want all the cards to answer the same question. When I use a shape other than my nine-card square, I first look to see what relationships the spread indicates. 

In this case, we have several-many sets of pairs—and that’s quite cool. To whit: 4/batons+Judgement; 4/batons+knight cups; Judgement + ace/coins; ace/cups+king/batons. We also have two chevrons, not unlike another reading I did recently where the cards above served as houses for those below, and vice versa. So that gives us 4/batons+ace/cups+Judgment and knight/cups+king/batons+ace/coins. Then there’s the way five of the cards (4/batons, knight/cups, king batons, ace/coins, Judgement) create a vessel that contains the only vessel in the reading—the Ace of Cups! 

The degree to which any or all of this matters to our final answer is yet-to-be-seen, as is the mix of cards. Two batons (four, king); two cups (ace, knight); one major (Judgement); one coin (ace). Fire and water are dominant, air is totally absent. No thinking, here! No talking, either, and potentially no learning. Good or bad? We will soon see. 

The Ace of Cups draws my attention no matter how I look at the spread, and it was also the first card I out down. It’s closest relative is the king, below it. This shades the card more than any other. That’s useful, because an ace alone frequently means very little to me. Yes, we know the cliches—a new beginning, inspiration, a seed. But what are we actually saying when we say that? The King of Batons reminds us that if we wanna be a daddy, we gotta sire the kid first. This is rather a coarse way of saying it, but however you get there, if a seed is going to become anything, it needs to be fertilized. The King of Wands is “daddy” in just about all ways, so it’s hard to escape—of course, the ace, then, becomes the thing being fertilized. I find procreational myths really annoying, but given the fact that I can’t escape the fact that I exist because of this reality I also can’t let it not play out at least in some readings. 

Fire and water have an evangelical nature when combined, assumed they’re evenly matched—and I’d say they are, here. True, aces can suggest a little bit of something—they frequently do, in fact. At the same time, aces can be high. When we place one with a king, they definitely get upskilled. Evangelism is a bad word, but stripped of its right-wing political poisoning, it’s the enthusiastic spreading of a message. Now, earlier I said there was no air in the reading. I said that means there’s no thinking or even talking. But I was wrong, you see, because this card combination’s evangelical nature—the spirit or air created when fire and water make steam—indicate that, in fact, the whole point of this spread is an airy topic: spreading the “good news.” (That term comes from my Christian upbringing, and though Catholics aren’t particularly evangelical--these days--the term “good news” makes me think always: “Good news! We’ve come to colonize you and destroy your sense of identity so that we can gaslight you into giving us your money and land.”) 

So, the reading begins by saying that if you want to spread your message, you first have to get the message fertilized. Fleshed out. You have to birth a message and understand what it really is. What are you really saying? So often, in “these times,” we dash off the message before we even know what we think. We fire off the missive, the social media post, we operate from passion and fury and we let that motivate fits of, yes, evangelizing. If we were to review all those missives, how often did we say what we intended to? I know I’ve fucked up—luckily not too badly—when in my missive-making mode. And of course if I were to go back through my missive history, I’d see someone who is far more a work in progress than he thought he was. Ah, well. The point is, sometimes--especially when it’s a message that really needs to get out there—spending time being sure what the message actually is would be a good start.

Let’s look at some other pairings. Next up, Four of Batons and Judgement. I have to be honest, the Judgement card’s not one I particularly like. I’ve worked out my issues with most of the majors, but I’m never excited to see this one. Crowley’s change from Judgement to Aeon always struck me as pretentious, but when I learned what it meant I actually found it more useful an idea than its predecessor. Not in the esoteric Crowley way, but in the practical Tom Benjamin way. An eon/aeon is . . . an era. Crowley’s era refers to the new age he felt would be dawning—the third of a triptych featuring Isis, Osiris, and Horus. But any old era works in a reading, because we’re rarely dealing with something as large as the Age of Horus, say. But . . . we did land on the word “evangelizing” a moment ago, which could indicate a certain “size” that does imply we’re dealing more with an “aeon” than an “era.” 

The Four of Cups is sustained fire, sustainable fire—although, sometimes it’s also a conservative state of being. Sustainable (good) can become conservative (reductive) if not tended carefully. (I love that there’s a peacock on this card!) The combo of the four + Judgement suggests that this is an era of sustained fire. Energy being directed in such a way as to keep up its motor, keep up its own juice. Like the alternator in a car, essentially recharging the battery by using the battery. Or, in my case, the brakes in my car (a hybrid) charge the battery—so when I’m braking, the energy created there is sustaining my engine. The act of doing the thing makes the thing doable! 

The Knight of Cups paired with the Ace of Coin makes me think of using this newfound evangelical fervor for the thing to, actually, make a little scratch. Hey, now. But what of this interesting seemingly-encouraged mix of spirituality and capitalism? Is there more to know? Well, yes, because we have a few more combos to consider. 

The Four of Batons + the Knight of Cups mirrors the central pairing (ace/cups, king/batons) in element and temperament. The knight’s journey is sustained by this fire, this fever, for what they do. The Judgement card paired with the Ace of Coins suggests that we’re waking up to new ways of surviving capitalism. (Surviving is not the word I thought I was going to type, but that’s what came out and it sure as fuck is more apt.)

The top trio/chevron (4/batons, ace/cups, Judgement) suggests that a slow burn (4) has been leading to this new (ace) great awakening (Judgement). The bottom trio/chevron (knight/cups, king/batons, ace/coins) suggests that the pursuit (knight) of this powerful spiritual work (fire+water) and the growth (knight < king) leads, in fact, to a new life/job/earth.

I wasn’t going to deal with diagonals, but why the fuck not? There are only two paired this way: 4/batons+ace/coins: sustainable effort yields new payouts/opportunities; knight/cups+Judgement: loving (cups) pursuit (knight) leads to revelation (Judgement). 

Here, friends, we have a rare case where every single card in this spread had something to say, all of the cards spoke at more or less equal volume, and every single combo I could think of proved to deepen the overall message! 

When I get somewhat evangelical about finding ways of reading that yield this much context, it’s only because I know from experience that more context = clearer readings. I know it can seem overwhelming to have so many card combos to work with, but it’s not—not if you remember that the theme that develops will begin constraining and shaping the possibilities for the other card combinations. The more you start to understand what the reading is about, the fewer possibilities exist for card interpretations—and that’s so helpful! Because often the very first combo will narrow down the scope of the reading so much that you won’t feel overwhelmed at all!

Anyway, I haven’t yet yielded a clear reading; in fact, I’ve really just shown you my notes. What does this mean in terms of a lesson about divination?

Well, a lot, actually. Personally, it has some really resonant messages for me that I’m not ready to parse with you, yet, but it is quite timely. But I think—I know—a reading exists on multiples levels at one time, and so in a more general and reader-friendly sense the reading talks about the reality behind a dangerous cliche. 

Dangerous cliche? After all that evangelism, above? All that spirituality? 

Yes. The dangerous cliche is, “if you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.”

That’s, to put it bluntly, fuckin’ nonsense. 

In fact, if you treat something you love that way, you will burn out. I guarantee it. When you take a vocation and turn it into a job—we often say “career,” but a career is just a job you sacrifice too much for—you change the dynamic. It’s not something you do because you want to; you do it, now, because you have to. And there will be times you dont want to have to, but you’ll have to. 

This is how people get burned out on spiritual work, trying to commoditize it, in a way, and to make it their career, their gig. And when that’s the ultimate objective, it’s risky. I won’t get into the whole thing about running a small business, here, because it’s out of scope and also it bores me. (If it bores you, too, let that be a sign.)

Now you might think, “well, gee, it’s easy for you to say don’t commoditize your work when you read for money and write books.” I don’t mean that you can’t capitalize on your spiritual work, divination or otherwise. I mean that you have to take the counsel of this reading if you do. 

I talked about the evangelical nature of the reading. I didn’t say to whom we were intending to spread that good news. And, in this case, it is a self-evangelizing that we’re after. Which I know sounds nuts, and I will admit that I’m just a touch tickled by THC right now, but it’s back to that metaphor of the car alternator. You have to find a way to inspire (evangelize) yourself to keep going, so that your progress as a reader—especially if you’re attempting to go pro—is sustainable and leads to awakenings and new eras (Judgement). The pursuit (knight) should be largely spiritual (cups), less so than on the coin (ace/coins)—though, of course, that is how we sustain part of our work. But this much be practical, activated (coins) spirituality (fire+water). Meaning, it must be useful and usable. There is a reciprocity, though, to this—that doing the work charges the battery so that the work can be done. 

And I guess that’s one way in which my own “professional” practice has been a success. I don’t really think about this much, and in fact hadn’t ever thought it right before this very moment, but the approach I took once I decided to make this something I’m compensated for is similar to what I described above. I never intended to make it a job, it’s just that a time arrived when requests for readings suggested that I start asking for compensation. “It’s just for my time,” I told myself and friends. “I enjoy doing this, but life is busy.” And that is the tac I’ve taken this whole time. And I don’t make a lot of money doing it, I remain in a corporate job. But I never dread reading people’s cards. I may procrastinate, but I never dread it. (Same with writing my books.) And I rarely procrastinate unless I’m exceptionally worn out, mostly because reading isn’t impossible but is significantly more work when I’m depleted. Same with the books and the classes. It would make sense for me to have a more regular teaching schedule (yes, some classes are coming!) and even have a plan of what the next five books might be. But that’s not a good way for me to work because when I’m forced to do things, I immediately resent them. And I love this work, so it has to be sustainable. I love doing fairs and markets and events and shops. I love reading for folks online. I love teaching. All of those things leave me feeling generally more energized at the end than I was at the start. And that’s how it should be. 

And that’s what I think the reading is saying. If you want to do this work, and if you want to capitalize in it, please find a way into it that is self sustaining and leads to your own progress and growth. Please, please avoid thinking of it as the dream-job, the ideal, the perfect solution to your employment frustrations or worries. Let the journey take you, in this case, and pay attention to when and where it takes you. This is will tell you a lot about the conditions under which you will thrive as a reader. In recent posts I’ve talked a lot about receptivity. More and more I think receptivity is the ideal state of being most of the time. It keeps us open to possibility and opportunity while not projecting any hard-and-fast expectations on a situation and also allows us to do a vibe check and say, “no, I don’t think that this option is for me right now.” I’ve talked before about how, in Big Magic, write Elizabeth Gilbert talked about genius not as something you are, but something that visits you. In order to receive genius—a temporary visit—you must be receptive to it. If you are aggressive to it, it stays away. 

Because I was raised Catholic, I was raised to be passive. “Let go and let God.” The underlying message, at least as I accepted it, was “you can’t do anything about what happens to you in life, so don’t get your hopes up.” When I found tarot in my late teens, what attracted me so much was that it made me feel for the first time like an active participant in my own life! I’d never felt that way before. And, of course, we know how much this “country” loves aggression. But receptivity isn’t passive. Not remotely. It is actively engaged in receiving, because it doesn’t let any old thing on in. It pays attention to what fits and what doesn’t. It listens to intuition, rather than imposing meaning. It encourages the ego to sleep—more and more I think it actively sedates it. And it’s actually quite a powerful state to live in. Because when the time comes for genius to visit—or whatever else happens in those modes—you’re ready, willing, and able to go on that journey! And they are fun journeys, I no know from experience. Both when doing readings, as well as many other things, including spell work and cooking!

So, to sum it up, this is a somewhat long and winding way of saying, “whatever you do, especially if you love it, make sure you develop a practice around it that is sustainable and gives back what you put into it. And if that changes, changes with it.” That’s the basic lesson. Receptivity. One of my new buzzwords, apparently. Add it to context.

A read of one’s own
Here’s a spread you can try to explore the message of this reading, but like I said above—I think that one question per reading is actually more useful. So you could also make this into four (or give, if you have a business) mini readings!

1. Where I might be pushing too hard in my practice
2. Where I’m being actively receptive
3. How I benefit from letting go of what I push too hard on
4. How I can enhance my overall receptive nature
5. (Optional) How can receptivity make my spiritual business—and my spirit—thrive

As always, wishing you a decent week!
Be good!

tb.

In the fountain pen world, a land I’ve dabbled in, pen fans talk about “grail pens.” These are the great pens of all time that are either rare, exceptionally expensive, and often both. My grail pen is a Visconti Homo Sapiens, or really any Visconti pen would do (the operas, in particular . . . drool)—but the Homo Sapiens is a material unlike any other. It’s made from lava rock. Visconti known for the elegance of their pen capping and their dreamy nibs. I will never, though, justify spending close to a thousand dollars on a pen when I rarely write by hand. 

I bring this up because this week we’re using one of my grail decks this week. There haven’t been many in my career. Robert M. Place’s Vampire Tarot (which I got), this one, and the University Press edition of the Waite-Smith (the one with the pink Ankh on the back that Rachel Pollack mentions being her first, which is why I wanted it—and I got that, too). I can’t think of many others that I lusted for but that were either rare or too spendy. I’m not drawn to many decks purely because they’re hard to get or expensive. In fact, the cost of a deck can frequently deter me because I’m a rough shuffler. 

I never thought I’d get my hands on this one, but after commenting on someone’s post about it (and how much I lusted for it), the OP said, “You know, it’s not getting any cheaper.” I’d just graduated from undergrad, too (I think—or I had some other reason to pretend I needed to treat myself), so that was all the encouragement I needed. I got it. I love it. It’s strange. It’s an aggressively esoteric Marseille-style deck, with nods to many systems I don’t practice and/or appreciate. It is entirely intended to be viewed through a hermetic lens. And, much like all such decks, I just don’t care. It has a character I cannot resist. Like my inevitable love affair with the Thoth deck. I don’t like what it “stands” for, but when we’re dancing together it “stands” in a whole other way. 

Anyway, gaydies and gentletheys, The Grand Tarot Belline, (1966, France Cartes/Grimaud). In the “US,” it seems only gettable on eBay, which is where I got it years ago. I don’t know if that’s changed. 

Anyway, to the cartes themselves, n’est-ce pas? 
Five of Coins (4), Wheel of Fortune (Le Sphinx) (2), Two of Cups (1), Six of Wands (3), Chariot (of Osiris) (5). 

The guidebook and the text on these cards—and there’s a lot of text on the cards—are all in French, and I have only tiny, tiny, tiny knowledge of French. But I actually quite love working with decks in languages I don’t speak as long as I know what cards I’m looking at. I love the look of descriptive text and handwriting on cards; I just don’t want to know what it is. Anyhoo. I do know, with my limited language skills, that the Chariot in this deck is also called “The Chariot of Osiris” as well as La Victoire--Victory. What is quite cool about the Chariot showing up, and why I allowed myself to go on that long diatribe about grail decks and pens, is because Crowley said that the Charioteer is holding the holy grail. That’s what the disk being held by the driver in the Thoth deck is. And so, a grail theme may in fact emerge from this reading! Who knows?

We do, after all, start with the two of cups! 

I know enough French to know that the descriptive text on this translates to “union of sympathetic hearts” — which is quite cute. But in many ways, isn’t that really the experience of doing a tarot reading for someone? In theory it is. For the duration of the reading, whether in person or not, you are in union together, in many ways speaking from heart to heart—or whatever chakra you’re working with that day. 

Back in my new hire training days, I used to tell my trainees that “customer engagement” should be taken literally. When we’re speaking to a customer, we should think about the common understanding of “engagement” as the intention to marry. For the duration of a customer contact, we are engaged to--or married to--the customer. They are the single most important thing in the world. These days, I’d get laughed out of the training room if I said that (and not just because I don’t work for that company anymore). This “country” has invested so much in its hateful individualism, getting a smile from someone ringing up your groceries is impossible. And why should they want to? They’re being treated like crap by the business. Being acknowledged by a person who stepped on your foot on the sidewalk is too much to hope for, now, let alone an apology. I’m not being nostalgic; I think this country is showing now who we always have been. But the myth of customer-centricity is being thrown down the toilet much the way the myth of this being the “land of free” is.

When we’re reading for someone, there is a union. But, and I think this is important to highlight, I don’t think it’s really between the client and the reader. I think the real union is between the message and the client. If we were to think about the two of cups through this lens, than the reader is the cups—the container holding the union, holding the reading. But, as I frequently say, we are merely a translator. I feel strongly that this is so partly—mostly—because my experience tells me this is so. But also because I think it reminds readers that we have to get our damn egos out of the equation. And that’s a thing I’ll harp on a lot, too. There’s that cliche that in meditation if you’re thinking about how mindful you’re being, you’re not being mindful. I think as a reader, if we’re thinking about how good or bad we’re reading, we’re not reading anymore. We’re patting ourselves on the back or beating ourselves up. These are two sides of the self-same coin. I think if we thought of ourselves as channels—and I’m certain there are readers who do—we would have a better time managing our own egos. 

It’s tough with tarot, or any physical divination (as opposed to, say, clairsentience) because that the reader does actively have to learn a system and has to actively interpret the cards. We’re not merely receiving, we’re receiving and translating. So we are part of the reading. We’re the ones “figuring out” what the reading “says.” But the more I work with divination, I think the more mature I get at doing it, the more I realize that so much of the process is simply getting out of the way and just . . . following our impulses. Because those impulses are, if we can get a bit metaphorical, the synapses that our guides fire in order for the correct words to come out. It’s like, they’re in our sphere aiming their little thought lasers at this part of the brain, then that one, and suddenly the word “union” comes out of our mouth. It feels like we “thought” of it, but really we were just manipulated in such a way that the word came out. 

That’s a far more spiritual way of thinking about it than you may be used to from me. But I don’t really think of it that way. I think that’s always how it worked, but what I’ve done over the years is understood that I’m actually not that important a piece of the puzzle. Not in a self-shame way, not in a negation of my gifts—I’m a very good reader—but in the way that I understand more and more that I’m a conduit for the oracle, not the oracle itself. I think I’m a good reader now because I’m much better at getting out of the way. I would have said in the past, and have said, that readings are simply pattern recognition. They are. But: I think the ability for us to recognize patterns exists in part because we’re being guided. In essence, we’re not entirely alone out here. But that would have been an unfathomable thought for me years ago. I wouldn’t have been able to understand it, enjoy it, and certainly not articulate it.

The 2/cups is flanked by the Wheel, a card I see a lot of lately, and the 6/wands. It’s almost as though the Wheel is chaos and the 6/wands is order. That’s not a keyword I typically assign to the Six of Wands, but the cards also typically doesn’t show such a neat arrangement of scepters. Sixes do have an association with beauty, and when we’re living in chaos, order can be quite a beautiful thing. (By the way: here’s an example of me getting out of the way . . . I didn’t tell these two cards what they meant together; I let them tell me. I glanced at them my and brain went—ORDER AND CHAOS—and boom, there was the interpretation. I got out of the way and the cards spoke.)

Actually, glancing at the whole spread, if I read it from left to right, I might say, The uncertainty of life (5/coins) is never-ending and unsettling (Wheel), but the uniting of client and message (2/cups) brings a stately order to their energy and their efforts (6/wands), so that they can keep chasing their grail (Chariot). (This is another example of me just getting out of the way. I happened to glance at the cards to reference while I was typing and this whole sentence formed in my mind because I was being receptive. I’m primed—now, after years—to receive more. I do impose, especially when I’m not “hearing” anything. But more and more and I have to do that less and less.)

In essence, it defines what divination is and why it’s helpful—especially now. Which is funny, because this morning I thought, “Oh, maybe I should ask ‘what is tarot?’ for this week’s blog” and then said, “No, that’s dumb.” But that’s essentially the answer I just got! Hilarious. 

If I return to what I had been doing, mirroring the flanking cards, I only hadn’t gotten to the 5/coins and the Chariot, which—when mirrored—say a similar thing, in context of the other cards. Moving on from and despite life’s uncertainty. 

It’s nice to be reminded that what we do matters. One of the things I attempted to do with The Modern Fortune Teller’s Field Guide (open for preorders now!) was make the case that fortune tellers matter. Not in like a defensive way, but in the sense that the world has always needed people who can decipher through chaos. The world also has needed people who can see what’s happening and what the patterns are and work with them. And, of course, to see the world as it actually is, and not as our desires or insecurities paint it. People want information, people want clarity. I don’t think divination systems of all kinds would keep having resurgences in history if they didn’t work. I know they work, because I see them work every day. I’m among the most cynical people you’ll ever encounter, I’m a skeptic in all ways . . . except that divination has proven to me that it works.

I’ve recently made the argument that skepticism is colonial. To retreat to a world of “logic” and of “science” that makes no room for magic or belief is, in essence, to commit the sin white liberals commit constantly: to buy into the idea that correctness and wisdom only come from “experts” who have passed certain tests of expertise set up by the privileged. That’s a convoluted way of saying “they got credentials from higher education, so we believe them.” And I want to be clear, I’m not anti-science. Or education. I’m quite pro-science. I benefit from it. But “science”—the gatekeeping kind—should have a “yes, and” attitude and instead it frequently has a “no moron” attitude. “Science” (I’m using the quotes here like I use “christianity”) doesn’t care about “what if . . .?” which is the main question of science. It’s attitude is, “That doesn’t seem reasonable to me, so it’s fake.” 

If you want to find out how or why something works, and even to change it—which, let’s not forget, is the very reason we have science--you have to be open to any possible answer. A science that isn’t, isn’t science. (Meanwhile, diviners are out here asking questions and being open all the damn time. Or we should be, anyway.)

It’s ego. Science and medicine are fields dominated by straight, white men—men who can afford advanced degrees in those fields. If the fields are more diverse than once they were, that doesn’t negate the fact that the culture, the lessons, the books, the ethos, everything, has been designed by those men in ways that make sense to those men—and anyone who doesn’t agree with those men are “uneducated” and “ignorant.” 

There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. 

Science can tell you why it feels like your heart is breaking when you think of your lover cheating on you. A diviner can tell you what’s causing the feeling, the reasons you are prone to that kind of mindset, and even things you can do to recover from it. 

Divination is the lovechild of science and magic. Science is magic, when it’s approached with openness. We don’t get cures to diseases when people say, “well, that disease isn’t real.” And we know that has happened and know it continues to! We know that certain group of people are entirely dismissed by their doctors because their doctors have bizarrely inhumane beliefs about them (studies—recent studies—show that med students actually think Black bodies have higher pain tolerances than non-Black bodies). 

This is real and it is verifiable. It is science. 

Knowing this, you’d think science (and medicine) would admit, “gee, we might have a fucking bias issue in our industry—and because it’s really hard to see bias, we might have it in way more areas than just whether or not we hold racist stereotypes about Black skin that we KNOW, because we’re scientists and we have the evidence, were placed into the collective mind deliberately by enslavers to justify their fucking crimes.”

Or something. You know. Just a suggestion.

And this rigidity, incidentally, has made it acceptable for every “American” to consider themselves both an expert and a scientist, and to feel completely comfortable pontificating on their “expertise” without concept of consequence or even the idea that maybe, just maybe, they’re fucking wrong about something. 

This is an influencer culture. People see guys like Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye go on their anti-astrologer benders—discussing something they don’t know about because they don’t want to know about it because they don’t think like scientists —at least in this case--and so blow all their own cred out of the water—and speak with absolute conviction and authority about things that cannot be proven. Yet. And then we all go out there and ape them. I’m not immune. My social media persona has, for years, been incredibly “fuck you” to anyone who doesn’t agree with me. Granted, a lot of my opinions are things like, oh, trans kids deserve a happy childhood and the chance to be themselves and we should stop murdering Palestinian babies, so if you disagree with me you deserve my fuck-yous. But I also know, and have known, this attitude never changes minds. It’s never changed mine, that’s for damn sure. But we do this because it feels necessary, it feels correct, and it feels that way because we see people of influence doing the same thing.

I’m not saying we should tone police ourselves or anyone else. No. Frankly, social media is an emotion waste bin. In some ways that’s healthy. We dump our shit into the ether and then it’s been released and we can move on--usually. Unless we managed to hit someone’s nerve and we wind up in a battle. And I do think that anger matters. While I may not have changed minds with mine, I have had people tell me that they are glad to know they’re not alone in their anger, or that they feel less disgusted by the world knowing that there are people out there who are angry on their behalf. Anger, social media rage even, is, in a way, something we give to the people who already agree with us to sustain their energy. But changing minds, social change, requires a different voice—and that’s a reality. And it is sometimes hard to admit that because it feels so good talking like a so-called “expert,” which is to say acting like a know-it-all and getting praised for it.

I’m quite big right now on the the ideas of aggression and receptivity. Our society prizes aggression. That’s why we love a good, old-fashioned take-down on TV. “Watch Bill Nye Obliterate Astrologer” is a video title that isn’t hard to imagine, right? (I made that up.) This is how we talk. This is our culture. In fact, we’ve being trained to think and talk this way by the “experts” who know that we are more likely to click on videos with highly emotive terms like that. We’ve gotten more obsessed with aggression these days, which is saying something—because the world-as-influenced-by-the-US is an aggressive place.

Aggression is closed. Aggression is, “No, that’s not real, because I don’t like it and I don’t think it is.” 

Receptivity, on the other hand, is open. People think this is passive. Not at all. Passivity means anything can just come wandering on in. No. Receptivity allows for curation, but also for potential. It is a state-of-being that says, “approach before I decide . . . and when I decide, there are phases of deciding . . . every moment of our interaction will be a phase of deciding.” Actually, that’s a convoluted way of thinking about it. How about this? It’s like a date. OK? Two people are attracted to each other, they want to know more, they may even want to see each other naked, but they also don’t know whether that’s a risk worth taking. But the excitement of some co-created nakey time with an attractive person is worth the journey, so they stay open to each other.  Up until they feel or know they want to see the person naked, or don’t—or want to see them naked but that it’s just too much of a thing . . . That’s receptivity. 

Aggression is, “I’m gettin’ laid tonight!” Reception is, “I’m open to getting laid tonight if it’s worth my time and energy, but not otherwise, and either outcome is fine.” 

Sorta. 

Anyway! This is yet another weird journey, but I enjoy it. I like when cards take us unexpected places. And that’s, for me, the great joy of writing this. 

A read of one’s own

There’s so much going on in this week’s post I didn’t even know what to title it. But I think the main take-away, at least from an action oriented standpoint, is to consider aggression and receptivity.

I suggest three cards each to answer these questions:
“Where can my work be more aggressive?”
“Where can my work be more receptive?”

Another thing you might try a three- (or more) card reading on:
“Why are fortune tellers (or whatever term you choose) important right now?” Here’s a quick sample from me for that question. (Deck used, Shadowscapes—only because it’s closer to me right now than the one I used to wrote the post.) (See photo, below.)

Oh I love tarot so much. 🤣 Here’s what I got:

Wheel of Fortune (4), Eight of Pentacles (2), Temperance (1), Eight of Cups!(3), Ten of Wands (5)

There are moments when you lay out the cards and you don’t even need to interpret them to feel the delight of “knowing.” These cards—including the two eights—really couldn’t be more perfect!!! I felt my body sort of sigh with glee? is that a thing? when I saw these cards. (Doesn’t hurt this deck is a stunner.) Here’s how I’d interpret them:

Because we blend (Temperance) the practical work of life and the spiritual work of life—because we work in both the practical and spiritual realms of life always (8 penties/8 cups). Out potent energy (Ten of Wands) can actually influence the fates (Wheel) with our deep (water) connection to divinity (fire+water—8/cups+10/wands). This isn’t magic. It is the translation of the universal flux (Wheel) into the daily flux (8/penties). It is, however, ART (which is the title of Temperance in the Thoth deck, which I love about it). Our work generates steam (fire+water) that makes it possible to actually blend the universal and practical (wheel+8/cups)—which is really what divination does. Thus, we are artists who blend the universal into the daily, generating steam for our clients. With steam, they can power their own wheels of fortune—the mini ones that are basically the 8 coins in that card!

What a joy. 

Be good.