By Jeanne Fiorini
Someone in the Portland area has a bumper sticker that cracks me up every time I see it. It says something like “Ra-Ra Isis/Go Isis Go!” It must be the juxtaposition of two very different concepts that makes this a hilarious statement, not to mention the mental picture of the most ancient representative of life-giving feminine power being spurned on by a modern-day gaggle of over-enthusiastic teens.
But I do love a good play on words, and this notion of Isis’ cheerleaders gives me cause to sing the praises of the Tarot. So, grab your megaphone and your pompoms and “L–E-T-S-G-O”: Let’s Go!
Give me a “T”
“T” is for Truth. We use the Tarot to seek out what is real and genuine, beyond what our personality would like to believe or what our expectations teach us to desire. We look to the Tarot for guidance, support, and confirmation of our choices and our actions. We listen for the voices of our higher knowing and our spiritual helpers in the words, symbols, and messages of a reading. If we didn’t believe we could find some truth through the Tarot, why would we bother?
Give me an “A”
“A” is for Authenticity. Pathways of truth are always pathways to authenticity. Authenticity requires an honest yet non-judgmental knowledge of oneself, a quality not easily come by. Guiding us along our own personal journey, reinforcing our uniqueness, offering hope for the manifestation of a life worth living, these are things that the Tarot can foster within us. John Keats said that the world is the “veil for soul making.” As an aide in the process of living and of soul making, it is not an overstatement to consider the Tarot a personal tool for authentic living.
Give me an “R”
“R” is for Reflection. Can we ever have authenticity without having first experienced self-reflection? When was the last time you took inventory of, not only the physical matters in your life such as your weight or how much money is in your checkbook, but your inner realities? What are your essential values, emotional truths, spiritual “must-haves”? Have these things changed over the years? How/when/why? Do you allow space in your life for reflection? The Tarot holds seventy-eight pictures for the events and passages of life, and will put it all right there on the table for you to see….and reflect upon.
Give me an “O”
“O” is for One. You are the single most important person in your life. You are the receiver, a unique filter of this worldly experience. You are the one who makes things happen…or not. You have this one life, this one body, this one moment to create whatever you will. Each day is one more chance at success. How powerful you are! Like the Tarot’s Magician, you are the center point of creativity. It is said that Salvador Dali awoke each morning and declared, “What wonders will I create today?” Do you greet each day as a opportunity to express your special one-ness?
Give me another “T”
“T” is for Transcendence. Are we able to experience both our uniquely personal self and our “higher” spiritual self? Do we know how to be in the world but not “of the world”? The Tarot is a place where these two worlds meet, where the concerns of the personal interplay with and are encompassed by the bigger picture of life. It is a place where we can touch a part of ourselves that is not limited by conscious thought. The Tarot gives us the opportunity to transcend not only the constraints of our mind, but also the limitations of space and time and of what we had believed to be possible.
It isn’t only the information, perspective, or the promise which a reading can convey that might be transformational. Recognition that the Tarot WORKS can be a transcendent experience in itself!
Does it change your worldview to know that somehow the story of your life can be described by a stranger and a bunch of cards? Because of that odd phenomenon, can you now hold a greater sense of what is possible in your own life? I mean, if Tarot cards can work, then LOTS of things you didn’t think could happen might actually be possible!
Radical possibilities open up when our mind is open to them.
While there will always be skeptics, there also will always be those who will, with eyes wide open, walk through the open doors of possibility. And as people pass through those doors and begin to walk onto the field of potentials, the Tarot Cheerleaders will be there, pom-poms a-waving.
Do you think we’d be there if there was nothing to get excited about?