LESSON 11: VOCATION, CALLING, AND “HEREDITARY POWER”

LESSON 11: VOCATION, CALLING, AND “HEREDITARY POWER”
Cards drawn: An arc of five - The Emperor (4), Six of Cups (2), Eight of Pentacles (1), Nine of Swords (3), Three of Swords (5)
Deck: The Wild Unknown (1st ed.) By Kim Kranz

I picked this deck off the shelf the other day after it caught my eye. I don’t use it much anymore, not for any particular reason other than that I tend to go hard-and-heavy with a deck for a while and, like the gangter of love that I am, move on. This is an important deck in my development as a reader. It was my transition from Waite-Smith cards to pip cards. And I still find this deck striking and exciting to work with. 
    
Which is nice, since the quintessential “work” card lives here in the apex: The Eight of Pentacles, here showing a spider working her web. The spider is an apt figure for this eight, because it’s not just about “work” broadly, not very often; more, it has to do with vocation. This word, used today mostly in the names of voc-tech high schools in the so-called US and in religious studies, has long been a part of my tarot vocabulary. It is the thing we are meant to be doing, the thing that unites our selfhood with our appearance on this planet. It is our raison d’être. Which is a mighty idea and one that we so often feel overwhelmed by. Most of us, I’m willing to bet, secretly believe or worry we don’t have a “calling.” And for those that do, capitalism is sure as hell probably standing between us and the thing we feel we were made to do. Add to that the number of people on social media calling themselves “hereditary witches” and like, and you can easily start to feel like you’re not good enough, or special enough, to do this work.
   
Quick digression: I find terms like “hereditary witch” deliberately exclusive. The use of the term is a choice the user makes to announce that, “I am different from you, better, special, because I inherited these gifts. You, plebe, may have inclinations and even talents, but you have not had them bestowed on you by the generations who preceded you. Envy me, average one, for I am truly called.” And I know many, many people would take offense at my assessment. And that’s fair. So, I’ll add this: If you’re offended by what I just suggested, that’s probably because that’s exactly what you’re doing and you know it and you hate that you just got caught. But that doesn’t make you a bad person. It makes you an egotistical person, which we all are in our ways. I don’t know anyone who has experienced the true ego death we’re told to pursue in so many traditions—and the more likely someone is to say they have, the more likely it is the haven’t. The dichotomy of spirituality is that the need to perform or advertise innate skills and position generally indicates a true and long distance between that person and the enlightenment they claim. People who are truly enlightened don’t have to tell you. They know others will know, and if others don’t know they don’t care because that’s not the point of enlightenment. 
    
People, mostly us white folks, love to share the magic of our ancestors—we cannot wait to tell people about so-and-so and their special skills. We’re far less likely to be honest about the fuckery those same ancestors foisted on the planet. And let’s not pretend that ancient cunning folk and the pre-cursor to what we call witches today didn’t have their own colonial tendencies. Let’s not assume that the midwives or conjure men of old were immune to appropriation, egotism, and even predatory behavior. If we’re going to accept and brag out our ancestors, we need to consider the whole person, not just the parts we like and that make us feel special. (This is of course not to say that all of these folx were problematic; only that they’re as likely to be as anyone else reared in christo-colonial culture.)

But of course this isn’t really about ancestry, it’s about vocation. It’s just that the word gets mired in so much ego bullshit thanks to social media that many people who have gifts aren’t going to explore them because they “weren’t called.” 
    
Everyone is a hereditary witch if they feel like identifying that way, because the practices of modern witchcraft (just as an example) were once simply science. Herbs, poultices, charms, spells, chants and prayers, lighting candles or lamps, setting intentions, working with the moon—this is how humanity humaned throughout our entire history, up until the point where folks came along and began declaring what was appropriate activity, healing, and knowledge for “modern” folks and what wasn’t. I’m pretty well read, and I’ve yet to encounter the story of a culture that lacked any (what we’d call today) “magic.” It’s just what people did before doctors and therapists. And, yes, many of those who practiced those arts were called to it by ancestors or spirits, but as many did it out of necessity and the ability to remember the names of functions of plants, say. 
    
All spiders can make webs. 
    
All humans can make magic.
    
A “calling” isn’t something that only you can do. It may be a thing that you do exceptionally well, but not one exclusive to you and those like you. Anyone can read cards because our brains are well suited to divination. It’s part of who we are. Actually, it would be more accurate to say that all humans can divine. Reading cards is a matter of taste and preference. After years of experimenting with different divination techniques, I can say that some work better for me than others—but the ones that work will give the correct answer. The only difference are the metaphors or poetries through which I have to sort and translate the answer. Bones, lenormand, tarot—they all achieve the same ends. It’s not so much whether one is “called” to divination as it is that one is willing to explore and experiment with different kinds of divination until we find what works—and also remembering that most of us aren’t great at something the second we pick it up. We may have aptitude, but we need practice. You may have been born with a voice like an angel, but if you don’t practice, warm up, avoid cigarettes and alcohol, your voice will never reach its heights. Not everyone may have your innate gift for singing, but those who practice and take care of their voice could wind up being better singers or more successful singers, because they’re not resting on an accident of fate. 
    
Anyway, that’s my typically long-winded way of setting the theme of the reading: vocation. In this case, the vocation of divination and who is truly “gifted” with it. And you can see that, while I don’t read with one card, you can get a lot out of one card when you start letting the free-association kick in. But we do have more cards and lets turn our attention to them. 
    
The eight is flanked by the Six of Cups and the Nine of Swords. 
    
Ah, this pairing! It is the simultaneous joy and dread of being a reader. We love the cards (or whatever we use) and want to use them all the time. Our heart, our spirit lives for the idea of it! But our logical minds, boy do they hate it. There’s a few ways in which our logical minds get in our way. It’ll be different for each of us, though some of us may have combinations of all of them. The first way is that we can simply talk ourselves out of the reality of divination. “There’s no way this works,” even though we’ve seen it work many times. We can also doubt our abilities. “This may work, but I’ll never be able to do it.” There’s also the fear that, once the cards are laid out, they won’t make any sense. The Wild Unknown’s Nine of Swords is a particularly good representation of the chaos caused by that last fear. Because as soon as we worry the reading won’t make sense, it won’t. It’s like, the very fear of not being good enough is all it takes to make the cards go from clear, precise language to a cat scratch we’ve never seen before. 
    
Many of us swing back and forth between the Six of Cups and the Nine of Swords, and we may find ourselves doing that even in the middle of a reading. We are, it turns out, incredibly capable at being cruel to ourselves—while also being super in love with ourselves. It’s quite strange. But we do have two more cards and I like that they’ve shown up, because they’re nobody’s favorite—but I also think they hold the key to the whole reading. The Emperor and the Three of Swords show us a way through the dichotomies described above. Let’s first consider the three. The two swords cards sit on the right side of the spread, and both are multiples of three, but of course we move backwards. We go from the overwhelming, overthinking, overwrought quality of the nine, to the much less dramatic quality of the smaller card. It doesn’t erase the swordsiness of the reading—it is the dominant suit—but it does step it back, a bit. “OK,” it says, “we cannot erase our logical mind, but we can rein it in.” Consider how Kranz’s three is tied up with these red ribbons. It is keeping things controlled, keeping them from getting messy, getting cray-cray. It says, “Yes, you can use your logical mind—but don’t let it be the only source of truth.”
    
Of course, that is massively easier said than done. Anyone who has been told to “calm down” in the midst of a panic attack can attest to how unhelpful that message is, and that’s what the three seems to be saying: “Freak out, but less.” Brains don’t work that way. And so what do we do? We consider The Emperor. 
    
Yes, reader, I do too find him annoying—all his patriarchy and colonialism. But I do not read tarot in a way where cards are all good or bad. They are meaningless until they come into contact with one another. So, yes, dear old Empy could suggest patriarchal bullshit, but only if context demands it. This contextual situation, created by the four other cards, holds no space for that particular interpretation. It’s not relevant. “How do I stop myself from freaking out?” “Go colonize the world!” That’s not an answer. No, in this case, we need to consider the Emperor beyond the literal. Here, he’s a metaphor. And we need advice, something to emulate, so we have to consider the “good” qualities of the card.
    
You might argue, “the very nature of being an emperor prevents this card from having any good qualities. The whole idea of empire is trash.” Again, true. And yet. Here we are, once again, facing an incongruent card that has to say something, because we have some true but not very actionable advice so far. I could “reverse” the card and make it say, “don’t do what the Emperor would do.” That’s fair, and it’s an example of how we don’t need to use literally reversed cards to work with “reversed” meanings—inverting the concept represented by the card. In this case, just think of what The Emperor would normally do, and do the opposite. But in tarot we already have a hard that does that. No, not The Empress. It’s The Devil. All the order and structure of The Emperor is subverted by the fluid, pre-empire chaos (the good kind) of The Devil. The Devil is who was snuffed out by colonialism. The Devil is “the old ways” and the pre-Christian experience. The Emperor destroyed that. (Isn’t it fitting, then, that in the majors, The Devil trumps The Emperor . . . and The Heirophant!) 
    
When I’m “inverting” a card, I don’t think about the opposite of what the card is upright (or in its “normal” state); instead, I strip the card of all its cultural realities (or as much as I’m capable of—I have bias, too, remember) and look at it in as neutral way as possible. Allow: What is an emperor if I take away the socio-political aspects of the card? A leader, male presenting, a “daddy” (typically, emperors need heirs and spares). What do Emperor’s do? Govern. Control. Rule. Mandate. They would argue they “protect” their “subjects,” though whether that’s true or not isn’t available to us in the card alone—just as the role of “leader” doesn’t necessarily imply cruelty or kindness. There have been vile, dictatorial leaders across all cultures, not just the christo-colonial ones—as well as benevolent ones. I’m of the opinion (bias) that all power (and fame, notoriety, “success”) corrupts—but again, that’s a judgement about the concept, it’s a projection on the card of socio-political concepts that, yes, are true in my eyes—but that don’t speak to this reading. 
    
Broadening, leaders strategize, rationalize, legislate, bully, cajole, convince, and procreate; they set direction, set parameters, set courses; they are (in their view) ordained by divinity to do this (ah! recall the concept of “calling” and vocation, earlier???); they party, they create treaties, they negotiate, they accuse, they flatter, they seduce, they rage and they absolve. Like any human, they contain multitudes. (Note how I’ve switched from “he” to “they”? Because, though The Emperor is stereotypically male, the card itself—especially in the act of neutralizing its politics—represents parts of all of us. We all have big emperor energy from time to time.)
    
When I’m reading for clients, what I’ve just gone through happens mentally and usually pretty quickly. What I’m doing is scanning my mind, not unlike a mental database or rolodex (remember those?), for all relevant contexts about the card—things I’ve said or thought before, as well as things that have never occurred to me. And I’m waiting for a “click,” a “doink,” a “ping” that that tells me, Ah! This is it! This is the access point for this card in this reading! It happened for me above, and if you’re paying attention I bet you can guess where it happened. Go back and re-read the last couple graphs if you don’t see it already. Go ahead. I’ll wait. 
    
Did you do it?
Oh come on, just do it.
    
OK, good. The point where the card clicked was when I remembered that emperors believe they are ordained by divinity to rule. This is true of many royals, including the kings and queens—but none more than this card. There is an association of “emperor” with a loftiness that somehow doesn’t apply to “king.” Of course, what that difference literally is, is that emperors are far more aggressively colonial—but, again, that’s not relevant here (though it might be in future readings). It is the belief that we are called, the belief that we are ordained, that we are chosen to do what we do—that belief, deep in our core, is how we counter the logical mind. It is about believing, as the emperor (historically) does, that there is absolutely not question that it is 100% true they’ve been called by “god” to do this thing. That is where our counter balance lies in this spread—the counter balance to the Nine of Swords, and any of the more negative tendencies of the three. 
    
Now—having said that, I recognize that I’ve come up with an answer that is perhaps even less practical, less actionable than the combo we looked at with the three and nine. “Just believe in yourself!” is among the worst fucking advice I can think of! But, we’re not done yet. Earlier, I considered the images on the Eight of Pentacles and the Nine and Three of Swords. I don’t always do that. If you’ve read prior entries, here, you’ll note that (in fact) I rarely consider the image. And, in this most deceptively simple of decks, there’s not actually much to “look” at. But it is that simplicity of the image that makes my examination of them unavoidable with this deck in this spread. 
    
The striking simplicity of these images, particularly those on the left of the reading, demands attention. I’m less likely to consider images when they’re complex, riddled with information, or symbol and context dense. It’s not that I can’t or don’t, just that my brain tends to pick up more context from simple, neutral imagery, than from layered, nuanced ones. (In richer images, I will find that certain aspects or elements of the card may provide information rather than the whole piece of art.) In this case, that simplicity leads me to note that both cards on the left feature an evergreen. The Six of Cups also features the tree’s roots—a colorful, magical, chaotic array that takes up almost half the card’s visual real estate. This reminds us that believing our calling isn’t easy—nor is it fast. Trees take ages to grow to full height and for their roots to get strong enough to hold that height up. The tree is tenacious in its will to live, to survive—and evergreens even more so, because they refuse to yield their cover when winter comes. They are themselves even during fallow times. 
    
We need tenacity, too, just as the evergreen does. 
    
And here we return to our buddy, the spider in the Eight of Coins. Spiders are tenacious, too. A rain or a human or any other thing may come along and thoughtlessly rip that web down: the spider’s home and its (for lack of a better term) pantry, all gone in an instant. What took the spider a ton of effort to make can be destroyed in seconds. Does the spider get despondent and worry that it’ll never be spidery enough? Actually, I don’t know. Maybe it does. But what’s more important is that it builds another damn web. It keeps trying, because that’s what it is born to do. Spiders make webs and they eat pests. That’s what they’re here for. That’s the part they play. And, like the spider, we too will return to divination because it’s what we do. 
    
One sign of a calling is returning to something that we’re not feeling confident about because we can’t help it. It’s got nothing to do with hereditary anything or being pulled in that direction by god. It’s that, if we care about it, we’ll keep doing it—and in the doing it, if we do keep at it, we will eventually find our way and “realize” that this “is” our “calling.” (I feel compelled to add that I’m not certain anyone has any one calling—we might have several, and why shouldn’t we?)
    
We will keep doing things we’re “called” to and if we keep doing them, we will get good. As Bob Ross used to say, “talent is nothing more than applied interest.” If you do something a lot, you’ll get good at it. This is the root-growing of the Six of Cups. The keeping on keeping on, the doing even when we feel like we’re not doing it correctly. Because we have to, we do. And if we do, we’ll improve and eventually discover that we’re “born” to this. 
    
“But what if I don’t come back to it?”
    
Fair question. Does that mean you’re not “called”? I mean, look: if you don’t ever feel like doing something you supposedly enjoy doing, then, no, you’re probably not called to it. But this isn’t some metaphysical, spiritual thing; it’s just the fact that when we want to do something, if we have the time, energy, and supplies, then we do it. If we never do it, probably we’re not as interested in it as we thought we were. You don’t have to be. It doesn’t make you a good or a bad person; it makes you someone who isn’t as interested in something as they thought they were. Because another thing about social media is that it makes us feel like, if we’re not doing all the things, we’re not doing anything. That’s false. In fact, many of us might benefit from trying to do less. We can’t get to everything in life, especially when capitalism robs so much of our energy and free time, so why not focus on the things that we’re most interested in? Like, if you don’t ever feel like doing it, why are you worried you’re not “called” to it? 
    
​You can still be a diviner if you don’t read tarot. If you occasionally use a pendulum or do some scrying, you’re divining—so you’re a diviner. You can still be a witch or whatever you express yourself as even if you don’t do divination. Not everyone has to do everything. Divination is a lifelong journey, as are many of the aspects of alt spirituality: herbalism, spell crafting, wild crafting, healing, counseling, etc. Any one of these things could eat up all your free time, and all of them contribute to the identity you’re hoping to achieve. There’s nothing wrong with specializing. 
    
This has been on my mind a lot lately as I’ve been reading at various events. I’m often asked what I offer other than tarot. So I’ll sometimes bring my bone kit or my lenormand cards and offer those. But, as I said before, they’re just different routes to the same destination. They’re great, as is geomancy and all other forms of divination. But the method I enjoy most, the system I seem to be most drawn toward, is tarot. Every time. I would chose to read with tarot over anything else and when given the choice I always do. The major reason I have casting and lenormand (as well as sibilla) in my toolkit is that people want something “sexier” than tarot. JW Ocker, who wrote a book I really quite liked (Season of the Witch, about the Halloween season in Salem, MA), expresses this in his chapter on getting readings. He has so many lame readings, he goes in search of anything other than tarot. But, like most of us, he jumps to the wrong conclusion—it’s not the cards that are lame; it’s the reading. And, because his attitude is fairly skeptical (and grows more so as he continues getting less-than-stellar readings), he creates a cycle where nothing can really meet his expectations—partly because he’s having so many readings in such a short time, and also partly (probably) because, like most casual clients, he doesn’t really have any clear question or idea what he needs from the reading. 
    
In this case, there’s a lot going on—and I can’t say for sure the readings were actually “bad.” His sense of divination may be one of the reasons, as well as expecting something more like the movies than reality. Again, if he had no particular questions and kept getting readings about “nothing,” then the answer will likely keep being “nothing.” But I too have, honestly, had my share of shitty tarot readings. (And I’ve for sure given some.) That’s not tarot’s “fault.” But, because tarot is so commonplace in the public imagination, I spent a lot of time learning other forms of divination so that I could offer my clients better stuff. Thing is? Nothing is “better” than tarot, because all divination tools are just wonderful if the reader is adept and the client is ready and willing and the timing is right. 
    
This is to say that I think more and more about letting go of other divination systems, because tarot is so useful to me—more useful, easier to read, clearer—than anything else I’ve learned. And that’s partly because I’ve spent my entire adult life learning it and it’s partly because it connects with my brain in a particularly successful way. It is, in fact, my “speciality.” Anything else I offer I offer just to attract folks who are “bored” of tarot. But, again, they’re going to get the same kind of answer regardless. It’s just a different path I take there. 
    
This is my way of saying, “you don’t have to do all the things—especially if one of the things you’re doing is getting you exactly what you need.” I’m also going to tack on, though, that I don’t regret learning other systems, because I was constantly taking what I learned there and applying it to the divination system I’m most comfortable with. I became a better—a much better—reader by incorporating practices from lenormand, playing cards, sibilla, and even casting into my tarot readings. I became a better reader—a much better reader—when I started mixing Waite-Smith and Thoth and Marseille and all other tarot methods together. I learned more about tarot by doing non-tarot stuff, so it wasn’t wasted time. But, honestly, I could easily never pick up a lenormand deck or my (carefully crafted) casting kit and be just fine. So: you don’t have to do everything. 
    
(Did I mention I’m trying to make these blogs shorter? Yipes.)

A Read of One’s Own
Given the length of the lesson above, let’s keep this week’s spread simple. Draw three cards to provide evidence to you that you are, in fact, “called” to be a reader—whatever that means to you. 

A brief example: I’ve drawn, The Empress (2), Son (Knight) of Pentacles (1), The Wheel of Fortune (3). It’s a funny thing, whenever I ask a question like this—one that is identity based, in the sense that I have learned to contextualize myself and my specialness in terms of this art—I get a little stressed and hope I get really mind-blowing cards that make everyone go, “Ah, yes! He really has the gift!” But that has never ever happened. In fact, most of my life I’ve been reminded by just about everything that I in fact do not have the gift. And these three cards actually annoyed me with their seeming irrelevance. But, of course, I wanted an easy answer that would impress the fuck out of anyone who got this far in reading this. That’s not how divination works, though, is it? It doesn’t tell us what we want to hear; it tells us the truth. 
    
The Knight/Son of Pentacles is someone in search of life. It’s also worth noting that in the Harris-Crowley Thoth system, the Knight (which would really be the king) of Pentacles is my significator, based on the astrological decan of Leo I was born in. If I were being pedantic, I would need to see the Father/King of Pentacles here, but fuck it. Anyway, that’s not really relevant, it just popped into my head. The Son of Penties is out there looking for the world, looking for experience, looking for money, looking for life. The knights in tarot (sons in this deck) are hunters. They seek. It is the innate seeking nature that matters, here, and the down-to-earth way of going about that. 
    
The Empress—and we saw this card’s counterpart in the original spread of this lesson—shows up, suggesting to me intuition, dedication, bad-assery, gounded-ness (she’s not an earth card, but she’s very earth-y), creativity, openness, receptivity. And the Wheel of Fortune is the chaos the Empress and the Son of Penties is trying to make sense of—and can do, because of their nature.
  
 So the answer to the question, “How do I know I’m ‘truly’ ‘called’ to be a diviner?” is that, because of my seeking nature, my desire to explore the world and life, my creativity, my intuition, my gounded-ness (when it comes to other people’s shit, not my own), my receptivity, I’m particularly well suited to make sense of the vagaries of being a human in a chaotic life. 
    
And obviously that I’m also a hereditary witch. Because on the internet, if you say it about yourself, it’s true. 

​Until next week, plebes. (Winky face. Hearty eyes emoji. Laughy face.)