lesson 37: tarot + the dark daddy

(Quick note on this week’s deck. The Shadowscapes Tarot by Stephanie Law is one of the all time most stunning decks and is perhaps the reason I got back int tarot after a protracted break. I adore it.)

I thought it would be fun to play around with houses this week, like we do in Lenormand and also in astrology. Probably because astrology is much on my mind, since I’m doing a “decan walk” with Healing Burnout with Tarot and Astrology by Jackie Hope. In fact, I just finished writing the astrological associations of the cards on a few of my favorite decks so that I could see the decans as I work with clients. This time, I used my familiar arc of five, but gave it a second row. I’m now calling this a chevron. And the bottom row of cards can act as houses for the top row, but the top row can act as houses for the bottom row—and both can be paired with their mirrors and each other! How fun!

What’s also fun is my guy showed up first. The Devil! In the house of The Tower! and the Tower, conversely, in the house of the Devil. This is an erotic beginning, and it’s got a lot of big daddy energy given Mars and Capricorn. The Devil and Cap are one of the rare associations that make total sense to me. We know, of course, that the horned god of old is not necessarily the “Christian Devil,” but in associating the two, we enjoy rather a fun irony: Christianity taught us how to be witches by inventing our dark daddy. And at the center of this reading, we have the explosive sexuality—the liberation—that comes from welcoming him into your world. 

Sounds like I’m a bit of a Satanist, no? I’m not. Satanism is in fact a non-dogmatic, non-religious, fairly anti-magic way of approaching the world—sometimes with a fundamentalism of its own—that poopoos the idea that anything spiritual (Christian, Witchery, or otherwise) exists. It’s a fancy sorta nihilism, which I’m not necessarily immune to, but is not what I’m talking about when I’m talking about my guy, here. 

It’s worth noting that I tend to use the pronoun he when referring to this character, but that’s because that’s my relationship with this icon. You can and will find other things in this character and they/she/he are all valid, because the idea—the icon—represents essentially all that Christianity reviles: joy, sex, anti-patriarchy, queerness, anti-colonialism, divination, witchery, freedom, liberation, self-empowerment, community—the whole nine. When I talk about the Devil in my readings and in my spiritual practice, what I’m talking about is the seductive lure of what we do—readings, witchery, whatever it is we practice—as well as the love and tenderness that comes from this “evil” presence who understands us exactly as we are, who loves us for our flaws--and our desire to overcome them—and who understands our kinks, fetishes, what we really want, and why. He digs those things about us. And he’ll hold our hand while we go for the journey into them, which, I have found, is where unlocking our insecurities and self-esteem lives. He shows us how to love ourselves exactly for who and what we are and yearn to be, not for who and what society thinks is correct for us. 

That’s really what divination is for, too, when we think about it. We’re all trying to become the version of ourselves that is most us--that we love most, that we enjoy most, that we’re proud of and enjoy. And we, or many of us anyway, have to fight through the things that we’re taught about ourselves in order to make us fit into to the world at large. It’s amazing how early this starts happening. I think I’ve told this story before, but I was at a writing workshop many years ago at SUNY Stonybrook on Long Island. The children’s author and illustrator Peter Reynolds sat on one of the panels. He told a story about how he goes into schools all the time to talk about his books and his work, and he’ll always ask classes, “Who can draw?” He said in early grades, every kid raises their hand. But by the time we get into the early-middle grades, everyone points to the kid who’s an “artist.” We start getting told what we are well before we even understand what that means. 

Or, maybe even worse . . . we don’t. Or what we learn, instead, is that we’re a faggot, a piece a shit, a fatty, a foreigner, a [insert any of the shit kids call each other, and teachers and parents allow them to call each other, here]. We learn what we’re not: valuable, lovable, talented, smart, beautiful, worthy. And what we are . . . ? Well, we’re on our own, but since we’re not valuable, it doesn’t really matter. We are merely stepping stones for the kids who matter to run over and bully on their way to the top. 

The Devil, paired with his neighbor The Tower, begin the reading by saying that we are not what other people call us—but we can sure as fuck use people’s impressions of our valuelessness to our advantage. If we think of the Devil in the house of the Tower, we’re definitely getting dark daddy vibes (which is one of many nicknames I’ve given my man). We’re getting an explosive lover, a revelatory peek into who we are at our most essential, at our most core, at who we would be if we hadn’t been traumatized by “society” and its “expectations.” The Tower in the house of the Devil gives us a darkly satisfying method of destroying the patriarchy: by using its own tools against it. (That’s a heady idea I can’t fully develop here, but there’s something in it.)

Because this is a blog about tarot, it’s lovely to note that this is one of the things I believe are core to our work as diviners. Camelia Elias, who I’ve been vocal about having a major influence on my way of thinking about what we do, calls her style “reading like the devil.” That used to scare that fuck out of me! I had in my head still the fear of the devil thanks to my upbringing. But now I get what she means—or, rather, I get my version of what she means. That’s necessary to point out. I’ve borrowed from her the phrase “the cards don’t mean anything” and then gone on to interpret what I think she’s saying. It’s the same, here, with this phrase. And, no, I won’t be appropriating that from her beyond this post—but it does factor, here: reading like the devil means showing people exactly who they are, exactly the way they need to see it in the clearest, most impactful way possible.

I started by talking about the decans and at the time I’m writing this, we’re in the first decan of Aries—the first roughly ten days of the sign of Aries, which is the astrological new year. Aries is ruled by Mars as is the first decan of the sign, and so we get a very martial energy right here, right now—both in the time we’re living in and in the Tower card. My friend and I were talking about Mars yesterday, because she was born in the first decan of Aries and was feeling salty about Mars and its kind of toxic masculinity. And I proffered that Mars’s toxicity isn’t innate to the planet; it’s innate to our society. Mars doesn’t have to be toxic masculinity. It just has been because we have such a shitty relationship to masculinity and have had since at least Christianity, but of course the Greek myths tell us that even the Christians didn’t invent that particular poison. 

We need Mars’s energy. We need the impulse, the action, the blast, and the ejaculation. None of this need be exclusively penile. A powerful orgasm is a powerful orgasm, regardless of whose body experiences it. Yes, AFAB bodies typically experience more intense orgasms, but if you’ve never had an AFAB experience, than you’ll never know how much more powerful our orgasms might have been.

Sometimes readings need to be devilish. In this case, I, again, adopt my own version of what that means: My experience with the Witch Daddy is exceptionally loving. But he’s honest with me. He has talked me down from panic attacks, but he’s also let me sit in my tantrums because he told me to eat some fucking lunch and I didn’t feel like stopping what I was doing and so my blood sugar dropped and I’m being a bitch for no reason. He tells me the truth. Sometimes the truth is that I’m beautiful; sometimes it’s that I’m being lazy. But he always does so with the kind of generosity of spirit that a good daddy (not a father, we’re definitely in the realm of kink, here) would. And I think that’s the tone a lot of readers should aim for, too.

It’s the tone I aim for. Where I perhaps diverge from Camelia Elias is her brave willingness to say what needs to be said, regardless of whether or not the client is ready for it. I have a tendency to hedge my bets somewhat, which isn’t always a good thing. People find in that a tendency to negotiate with the answer. (“Ok, but you’re saying he could come back at some point, right?” “No, Diva Cup. He’s gone.”) But I also recognize that sometimes people can’t hear an answer they aren’t ready for, and so I try, where I can, to temper justice with mercy and deliver the reading in an honest way, but that leaves room for people to sort out their shit on their own. If I say, “this relationship is hurting you and you need to get out” I might be telling the truth, but I also might be saying something that will make the client dig in their heels and become even more dedicated to the relationship than they were before the reading. Humans are complex, that way. 

Expanding out a little (and see how much we can get with just two cards?), we’ve got the Hierophant in the house of the Sun (and, conversely, the Sun in the House of the Hiero), as well as the Six of Wands in the house of the Two of Pentacles (and vise-versa). The Hierophant is perfectly set up to act as all of those things the devil is anti: the shame, the gatekeeping, the pressure to be “correct,” etc., and the Sun highlights the ways in which this institutionalized bullying is accepted and acceptable. We live under the scorching heat of these expectations, and, to a degree, these expectations create a scorching heat for us that we can’t actually endure. We’re being asked to bend ourselves into shapes we were never meant to dance into and that’s not healthy. The 6/wands and 2/pentacles, on the other hand, suggests a major sense of breaking through. Both cards are associated with Jupiter, the planet of expansion and bigness. The Jupiterian nature of growing breaks the chains of expectations. The 2/pentacles connects to the Devil because it’s also associated with Cap, so there’s that big GOAT (greatest of all time) energy, again; and a resilience and ability to make oneself comfortable in any environment (think of how mountain goats seem shockingly comfortable and safe wherever they go, including the sheer side of a mountain). The 6/wands is connected to Leo, the sign of owning our gifts. The astrological combination suggests that doing what we do best (Leo and the Devil) is in fact the way to smash through (Jupiter) the Hiero’s bullshit. But the cards themselves also suggest that victor (6/wands) comes in part from being attracted to our own lives (2/pentacles—twos attract, pentacles suggest “life”) and, I’ll go out on a limb here, stopping the juggle we typically see on this card. (Why do I get to say this character is ending their juggle? Cuz it feels right to me.)

What’s interesting to me is that the bigness of the cards on the left (the Hiero and Sun) seems to overpower the smallness of the minors on the right—but in that comparison is the lovely elegance of what this reading seems to be saying: getting out of this bullshit actually isn’t a big, scary task. It’s simply . . . being ourselves. That ain’t easy, not by a long shot, but it’s not something that has to be endured. Becoming ourselves is quite enjoyable, in fact. the solution is simple, even if the doing of it involves the Devil and the Tower. 

On the far left, we have two pages: the Page of Wands and of Cups. Fire and water. Pages don’t get astrological associations. They’re fully elemental. It is said, by the esotericists, that they rule their elements. I tend to associate pages with air. Because pages learn, they’re airy. And they’re messengers, which is also airy. This would make it such that we’re looking at airy fire and airy water. Air is a boon to both those elements, because air (oxygen) is fuel to fire and water needs aeration for it to remain potable and healthy. Air is also curious, which is anther reason it makes sense for them to be pages. All of this suggests that we be foundationally curious about ourselves, about what we really are deep down—in particular in the realm of magic/spirituality/witchery, whatever you want to call it, because the combination of fire and water (and air) suggests these aspects of our lives, and the context of this reading (divination) demands it. 

On the other side of the spread, we’ve got the Queen of Wands and Judgment. The rest of the courts don’t get typical astrological associations, like the other minors; they represent, or “rule” three decans—but never the three decans of the same sign. They’re off-center. The q/wands rules the third decan of Pisces and the first and second decan of Aries (which is where we are now!—no time like the present, kids). Judgment is associated with the element of air, much like my pages—so we’ve got an air/fire combo here, with implications of strong belief (pisces) and that same connection to Mars’s energy (Aries). 

Queens are the master of their suit, the represent the highest achievement of their element. (Kings don’t; they represent having achieved and now reaching into sage or emeritus mode—queens, on the other hand, are doing the achievement as we speak, so to speak). The full embodiment of creative, powerful, gleeful, joyful force brings us to a great awakening in ourselves. The air of Judgment floods the fire with oxygen, making a gorgeous flare up of gifts—of talents—that makes us feel like the bad-ass the Queen of Wands suggests. (Despite the decanic associations of the q/wands, I typically associate the card with Leo. This is because I have a deck that I’ve had since my very earliest days with tarot that labeled her that way. As such, it’s always in my mind even if it’s not on the cards.) 

Remember, too, though that the Judgement card is sitting in the house of the queen as much as she sits in the house of judgement (there’s a title for something, right??). This is a queen-of-wandsy kind of awakening. A coming into one’s own bad-assery. Which, I can tell you having experienced the very early stages of this, can be quite intoxicating. (As can developing a relationship with the Witch Lord, or whatever you want to call he/them/she.) It is a mastery of self, and opening to our own power—and one done with fiery and devoted ferocity and curiosity (the pages mirroring on the other side) that gives us this awakening. Thus, curiosity about ourselves and who we are at our most essential is one of the ways we shitcan the bullshit way we’ve been colonized by crap and how to free ourselves of it.

What does this have to do with being a tarot reader? 

At the oracle of Delphi, the words Know thyself were emblazoned for folks to consider. I think this suggests that divination is, for the client, an act of knowing ourselves. But I think beyond that is an instruction to the diviner--to the reader. Know who you are, what you believe, what you do; know what you’re excellent at and what you’ve been convinced you’re not good at based on other people’s fuckery. We have to know ourselves well, I think, in order to reach the kinds of divination that many of us long for. 

This makes sense, although it’s not something many people want to face. We want to be good at everything right away and don’t want to deal with the fact that sometimes it takes a while—a while of getting over our own crap—before we can really do that. To imply that we can’t be good readers until we really know ourselves implies that we can’t get good at this without years of therapy and counseling and other healing. And, in fact, that’s not at all reality. I and many other readers were good at this work well before we really knew ourselves. But we also had to get over a lot of crap before we felt that way. Even if the crap was just the fact that tarot reading is Satanic or evil, as was the case with me—to say nothing of the feelings of worthlessness that I’ve struggled with basically since entering school for the first time. Maybe it’s partly that we need to get over our old crap before we know we’re good readers?

You can be a good reader without that self knowledge. But you can’t break free and into the devil’s world—you can’t, to again steal from Camelia Elias, “read like the devil”—until you begin unpacking your own relationship to him/she/they, and what the Hiero has taught you about yourself, the true and untrue, the imagined and real and toxic. 

Know yourself. And you will be a better reader simply in the process of learning. You will find your readings getting better because you will not only understand the cards differently—you’ll be less concerned with what other people think about them, for example—but you’ll also start understanding the world differently, and the many ways in which it abuses so many of us. 

To be a good reader, we have to see the world clearly. The more we do that, the better a reader we’ll be. And we can’t really see what the world does to people until we see what it has done to us. The major risk, here, is that many people (particularly people of privilege) assume that what the world did to them is the same at what it did to everyone else, and that’s simply not true. To put this into context, I was leading an anti-harassment training at work this week and the topic of privilege came up. I heard one of the complaints that people are too sensitive and “If I survived, you should be able to do that, too. Just get over it.” 

I turned to the group and I said, “Let me tell you something about myself that might not make sense at first: Every time I walk into a room full of what I assume to be are straight men, I have to change everything about how I act. I butch it up, I change my word choice, I try to lower my voice an octave, and I curtail my snark. I do this because life has taught me that straight men will beat me up if they see me the way I really am outside of their company. Who in this room has ever had to do that?” No one raised their hand. “That,” I said, “is privilege. You don’t have to do that and I do.”

“But you don’t have to do that,” someone said. “No one here is going to hurt you.”

“Yeah,” I said, “but how do I know that? Because my life experience has taught me differently.” I have walked into rooms—or public parks—full of men and gotten my ass kicked for being a queer. Femme. Dangerous. I had to spend my entire childhood protecting every single person I knew from the threat of my femme-ass behavior, even though I was the one who was really in danger. If you didn’t have to do that, that’s privilege. That doesn’t mean I’ve had it harder than everyone. I don’t know what it’s like to have my work devalued because I’m a woman or because I’m Black or because I speak English as a second language (which should be a badge of honor, given what a fucking insane language this is), etc. So there are other ways in which I do have privilege. But that’s the point. We have to understand that our unearned advantages and our lack of privilege are all dependent on a lot of things. And if (white) people (primarily) would get their heads out of their asses and realize that we all have advantages and disadvantages that come from being who we are, than we could go about the business of making life easier for everybody--rather than doing this incel/right wing “Christian”/man bullshit of expecting everyone kiss our asses and continue to make our lives easier at the cost of everyone else. 

Anyway, we have to be able to see in ourselves both the good and the bad in order to understand our relationship to the world and to our unearned and earned advantages and our unearned disadvantages. And we have to, then, begin to unpack that everyone has them—but they are completely different for everyone, too. Being able to see that makes us better readers, too.


A read of one’s own
 ​What do you need to know about yourself? What gifts have you hidden or let remain unused? What influence can the Dark Daddy have on your readings? Do readings on all of these. But please note that the first question—that’s really tough to read about, because if we could easily find the answer we could have done it already. This is a good week to exchange readings with someone else!!

Hope to see you soon. Happy Aries season!
​TB