lesson 41: if you don’t like it, do it different

Tyldwick Tarot, Neil Lovell

There’s always so many things I want to do on a given day, and my energy and motivation rarely matches that. Every time I add a new practice/obsession into my suite of tools, I find myself hyperfocusing on that new thing to the detriment(?) of others . . . although, if those other things truly wanted to be done, they’d make themselves more alluring. Show a little leg. Come on, other things. You know that gets guys like me going, right?

Anyway, this is to say that I wanted to write this yesterday and never got around to it. And so I’m keeping it short, or attempting to, because I also have other things I need to do. (Note from future me: I did not “keep this short.”)

This week I’m using deck I mentioned very briefly in my simple v. complex deck video as a deck that I really love but don’t use much because I have a hard time seeing the card title on many, many of them. I hoped that this second edition would bump up, or even enlarge, the titles, but no. Despite better card stock (the OG was gloss) and a sexy copper metallic edge, the titles remain inscrutable for me in most light. Including the light I’m writing in now. But I also think that this deck is something other than a “normal” tarot. It think this deck is particularly well suited to scrying. Not that I’m tried that, I find scrying equally inscrutable—more, even—than the titles in this deck. But those who are given to a softer frame of mind might find this deck a wonderful one to use for scrying and even path working. The deck, of course, is Tyldwick Tarot by the late Neil Lovell (1971-2018). Pour one out for Neil, folx. 

I’ve drawn three cards, due to the moodiness of this deck, with the reserved plan of adding at least two more if needed. Today we pulled:
Five of Staves (2), Four of Coins (1), Seven of Coins (3).

These cards, incidentally, are three examples of why this deck is so difficult to work with—and though I sold the original edition to benefit an organization a few years ago, actually not long before this second edition came out, I’d tried all kinds of different things to make the titles stand out—including using washi tape to write the titles on and sticking to the card. Nothing worked. It’s just a feature of this deck. It does not want to be seen that easily. 

Sometimes readings are like that, incidentally. Some readings simply want to play hard-to-get, the way this deck does. That can be sexy. It’s not particularly sexy to me, because I’m too dense to understand when someone/thing is flirting with me, but for people with more confidence, I’m told that’s sexy. I think that the fear of a reading being difficult to do, though, is more often a cause of people getting stuck. They anticipate having difficulty and so when they do it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy and they’re able to justify their feelings of worthlessness. I’m not saying that’s something I’ve felt, but . . . (It’s definitely something I’ve felt). 

The Four of Coins, our center card, actually indicates stasis—a rut. I’m quite mean to the fours, but I find them tedious. Conservative. The Four of Coins is often the most conservative of the lot, and its artistic depictions frequently indicate implied selfishness.

I like that this four is bounded on either side by odd number—five and seven. Five is the least stable number and seven the most self-reflective. 

The 5/staves suggests the frustration we experience from feeling stuck in life. Our energy gets enfuckified and we don’t know where to put it. Every option seems, somehow . . . , stupid. Like, “Yeah, I could put my energy into that, but . . . what’s the point?” This is how I feel when I get bored. It’s not enough that I’m bored; I’m also totally opposed to doing anything that is doable in that moment. All I want to do is something else. And that’s the 5/staves, here. We get antsy, edgy, cranky, and these are all very five-y words, particularly when in the suit of fire. 

The 7/coins says, “Well, then, what do you want life to look like? If you’re not getting what you want out of it, have you bothered to tell life what you do want?” I can’t recall where I’ve written about this before, and I don’t know if it’s from some of my tarot work or if it’s from an old play or draft of a story I’ve written—Oh! Actually, I do know. Hold, please. Allow me to share with you a peek at my former theatre life . . . 

This is actually a scene from the last play I wrote before giving up the ghost. It’s never had an airing of any kind. It’s kind of a riff on The Nutcracker, but if Clara grew up and realized that all the magic she learned as a child actually damaged her because now she’s always disappointed by life. This is the start of Act II, when the adult Clara, who has just been forced to kill the Rat King, meets the Sugar Plum Fairy—who, to quote the character description, is super butch—until they’re not. A masc-femme leather daddy in a tutu. 

Clara enters.

                    SUGAR PLUM FAIRY
Well, well, well. Step right up, little monster. I’m the Sugar Plum Fairy. I scratch my balls and I don’t make love. I fuck. Hard.

                    CLARA
And you have a big dick.

                  SUGAR PLUM FAIRY
 So you’re looking for a savior beneath these dirty sweets?

                    CLARA
For a good eclair, at least. 

                    SUGAR PLUM FAIRY
Well take a seat, kid, and I’ll show you my choux. 

                    CLARA
What’s it all about, Smitty?

                    SUGAR PLUM FAIRY
Flop sweat. 

                    CLARA
I don’t understand. 

                    SUGAR PLUM FAIRY
Hunger pangs.

                    CLARA
Sorry?

                    SUGAR PLUM FAIRY
Dental floss.

                    CLARA
This isn’t make any sense. 

                    SUGAR PLUM FAIRY
That’s what it’s all about.
     You’re trying to escape the chaos. 

                    CLARA
Wouldn’t you?

                    SUGAR PLUM FAIRY
Never. 

                    CLARA
Why not?

                    SUGAR PLUM FAIRY
Chaos is all there is. Avoiding chaos means avoiding being, and I like being.

                    CLARA
I don’t. 

                    SUGAR PLUM FAIRY
Know why?

                    CLARA
No, but I’m for sure about to hear you say it’s because I’m avoiding chaos. 

                    SUGAR PLUM FAIRY
No, because you’re not avoiding chaos; you’re trying to avoid chaos, which is not the same thing. 

                    CLARA
I thought I was going to like you more.

                    SUGAR PLUM FAIRY
How many times a day to do say that to people, places, and things?

                Beat.

                    CLARA
Constantly. 

                    SUGAR PLUM FAIRY
Mmm hmm. 
     You thought you were going to like life more. 

                    CLARA
Bet your donut hole. 

                    SUGAR PLUM FAIRY
And what, pray tell, did you think you were gonna get from it?

                     CLARA
Something . . . I thought I was gonna get something out of it . . . not this, this . . . relentlessly grim, and increasingly dim descent into . . . ouchiness. 

                    SUGAR PLUM FAIRY
So you have no idea what you wanted, but you’re pissed as hell you didn’t get it?

                    CLARA
Yes. 

                    SUGAR PLUM FAIRY
OK. 

                    CLARA
I refuse to accept that I’m miserable because I didn’t have a clearer idea of what I wanted out of life. 

                    SUGAR PLUM FAIRY
How can life give you something you don’t even know you want?

                    CLARA
Because it gives me shit I sure as fuck know I don’t want every damn day. 

                    SUGAR PLUM FAIRY
Maybe it’s just tryin’a throw some shit down on the strip to see what the cat laps up.

                    CLARA
Excuse me?

                    SUGAR PLUM FAIRY
If life keeps throwing shit at you you don’t want, maybe it’s trying to throw you a bunch of different options to see what you’re actually looking for. 

                    CLARA
Oh my God. Oh God. Ew. Ew.
Did you hear that? Even as you said that, did you hear how ew that was?
You heard that, right? That wasn’t just me?

                    SUGAR PLUM FAIRY
(Cocks an eyebrow and a cranky pose.)

                    CLARA
That’s ew.

                    SUGAR PLUM FAIRY
Life isn’t a mindreader. 


OK, did you catch it? How can life give you something you don’t even know you want? That’s a big question. And when I wrote that, I thought . . . Whoa . . . Because I didn’t expect to write that. Sometimes when you’re writing shit comes through you would never have found otherwise, which is one reason I do enjoy written readings. But in this case, I think I managed to connect to a truth I hadn’t detected before. If we don’t tell life what we want, how can we expect it to give it to us? Is life a mindreader? Are our guides, ancestors, angels, or whatever we call them? I mean, you’d think, but . . . evidence suggests they’re not. And I think most people will bear that out—those, anyway, who aren’t the product of nepotism and legacy admissions. 

Now, look. I just edited out a couple long paragraphs disproving the point I just made, at least when it comes to my life. I gave examples of things I very clearly told life I needed/wanted and that life said, “yeah, no bitch.” But that’s a different thing. There are times in life when we know what we want and life won’t give it to us. There are other times when we don’t know what we want and life will just throw anything at us to see if something is interesting. We can have both kinds of experience. This reading is talking about the second one. 

And so what is this actually saying?

Typically, I prefer the message come directly from the cards rather than an something inspired by the cards. For example, I prefer a reading to say, “yes, look for a new job” rather than, “Oh, gee, it looks like things at work are ickypoo . . . yuck.” The first one doesn’t involve me having to make any logical leaps. The cards tell you what’s up. The second one requires me—or, really, the client—to see and react. Now, the second one can be more helpful if you’ve got a client with the ability to see themselves clearly. Not all do. Which is why I feel safer when the reading just tells you what’s up. Because if the client does get it, then I have to make the journey for them. “If things are icky at work . . . and you’re not happy there . . . and this isn’t what you want to do . . . . . ? Thennnnnnn . . . . ? MaybeYouNeedANewJob, Right???” 

This is the second kind. And what’s it is saying to us is, “If divination isn’t giving you what it want, tell it what you want it to do.”

When I was coming back from my tarot burnout break, I was reading much better than I had beforehand—in the time I’d “rested,” I’d internalized a lot of what I’d never had time to absorb while I was greedily inhaling all the information I could about the cards. But I knew something wasn’t “right,” and around that time Lenormand started grabbing people’s attention in a major way. The conversation became very either/or. “Tarot can do this well, but lenormand does this other thing better.” Or, “tarot is so mushy and spiritual, and lenormand is DTF” — basically. And it’s like, I get why people felt that way . . . but also . . . no. If tarot isn’t doing what you want it to, ask it do something else. It’ll follow your lead. 

I only know this because I did it. Around the time lenny started getting big, and I recognized that I didn’t really gel with it, I started to despair. But then I thought, “Well, look: we asked tarot to be all this mushy shit. We told it to. Well, not us; our forebears. But they made it that way. It didn’t start that way. It wasn’t even meant for divination. It was a game. And if that’s true, than tarot can do anything that we ask it to. So I’ll ask it to do something else.” And I did. And it does. And that’s where Tarot on Earth came from. 

You can do it, too. What are you missing in your divination? Where do you feel stuck, stunted, or frustrated? Where are your energies being eaten up by things that don’t really matter do you? And why? If you don’t know, don’t worry—that’s what this week’s spread will be about. 

But before we get there, it is worth asking ourselves these questions without the cards to guide us. See what we think, and then see what the cards say. Are they in line? If not, — and this is the more exciting situation — where is the gap, and why does it exist? This is very cool, in my opinion, because when things don’t match, I think there’s so many interesting things that can happen in that tension. But also don’t worry too much if you can’t figure out why it’s different. Or do a reading reconciling the two. It’s possible both answers are two different symptoms of the same source ill. That’s a pretty sure bet, actually, and my guess is that the tarot reading will be the one that gets closer to real disease. It doesn’t have the same protective bias you do.

A final note: One thing I intended to do in this post and forgot was to change the way I read these three cards. Partly to show you that you can read them multiple ways, but partly because I assumed I’d be working more with these images. I never got there, but an area in which I might be at risk of getting stuck is the way I tend to ignore the artwork. I chose this deck precisely because of its art. So, here’s how I read the same spread differently: The 4/Coins shows a brick wall with this window filled with coins and mystical symbols (the Zodiac, among other things). It makes me think of how the commodification of spirituality makes it so that we are more likely to get suck (four); we need to “brand” ourselves so that our clients will “remember” us—and we need not to deviate from that brand or we’ll be forgotten about. The 5/wands, with its Greco-Roman shield showing boys leapfrogging—sorry, no, fighting—reminds me that the battle between commerce and spirituality (coins/earth contra wands/fire) has always been a “thing.” The solution is to ask yourself, “what do I really want out of LIFE?” (7/coins). Let what’s important to you be your guide. This may actually take a fare amount of deep study, given how this 7 seems to closed off. But closing off is also how we get stuck. We don’t expose ourselves to the world, which kinda poisons the well—or leaves the fountainhead in his image on just a trickle. To understand what’s really important means breakout out of that walled garden (more of a 9/coins energy, tbh), in order to compare what you have to what you could have. Which I take to mean, exposing yourself to all kinds of divinatory systems and methods and taking things that light you up.

A Read of One’s Own
This spread is a bit of a choose your own adventure. I recommend reading through the whole thing before trying. 

1. Shuffle with the intention that you’ll draw a set of three cards, face down, that will explore an area of your divination practice where you either are or are at risk of falling into a rut. 
2. Lay the three cards face down. Place your hand over the three and select the one that “calls” to you. This card is the main place where you might be in a rut or at risk. 
3. Choice #1: If this card makes sense and/or is an area that you would like to explore how to solve, repeat steps one and two with the intention this time that they explore ways of avoiding or getting out of this rut.
4. Place our hand over this new three and select the the that “calls” to you. This is the main tactic you can use. The other two cards support or expand on it. Turn them over—or not—as you need them. 
5. Choice #2: If the card you chose in step two doesn’t make sense, or if it’s something you’re simply not interested in changing right now, hold your hand over the remaining two cards and choose the one that “calls.” This represents another area you might address. Repeat steps three and four. 
6. Once you have all the cards read that are going to be read, take up the remaining face-down cards (if there are any). Shuffle these (if necessary) and lay out/turn over. This provides you general advice on your journey. 

Let me know how it goes!