By Christian Skoorsmith
First
off, I never believed in this stuff. I’m a proudly rational person.
My adult life has been spent thinking things like tarot are
ridiculous, charlatanism or self-delusion. So, it was with a measure
of embarrassment that, last summer, I followed kismet and my
curiosity and started exploring the cards.
I
ordered my first deck online, from the privacy of my office. I
studied on my computer partly for the convenience and partly for the
ability to quickly shut the browser, lest I be found out. I did my
first reading (for myself) in my bathroom, so no one could discover
me. My second reading was in my bedroom, with the door open and the
risk of discovery looming, but still alone. I even contacted a
professional tarot reader nearby and registered for an upcoming
class. I couldn’t believe what I was doing: what was I becoming?!
Later that week, I sheepishly confessed to my wife what I had been
doing.
To
my extraordinary surprise, she was instantly and easily supportive.
She even asked me to share a reading with her. And to compound my
amazement, I agreed. It was one of the best conversations we’d had
in years.
We
have three young kids, so occasions are rare and brief when we don’t
have kids, dishes, laundry, housecleaning or scheduling in urgent
need of attention. Parents of young children will understand, of
course, the dilemma of those rare moments of “free time” and the
desire for adult intimacy weighed against the bone-weariness of
managing a house full of bright and energetic school-agers.
Our
evening tarot sessions became our secrets rendezvous, something
strange, exciting, delightful, and tinged with the elicit. We daren’t
tell anyone about them - our friends and family knew us a resolutely
intellectual, skeptical sorts of folks. What would they say? We
didn’t even understand what or why we were doing with all this or
where it would lead. The shared secret became all the more precious
for that.
It
was like a little honeymoon when we would wait all day (think about
it all day) just to meet each other in the bedroom, close the door,
and have couple-time. Only instead of a romp between the sheets, we
were on top of the bedspread looking into our subconsciouses and
peeking at the machinations of our relationship, our family, our
lives.
My
wife, driven by desperation or disposition, often chooses the moment
just before falling asleep to bring up involved, complicated and
oftentimes distressing topics to work through. You can imagine how
little this resonates with my personality. Her expectations of my
attention, solidarity and creative thinking at this hour are rarely
met, and we exhaust ourselves further trying not to get into an
all-out argument. To be honest, part of my hesitancy to even get
involved in these conversations is that I don't know what to say or
do. The classic masculine problem, it would seem. If I try to help
(as my masculine socialization has taught me to do), that isn't the
right response. If I nod and listen, that isn't active enough. I
can't bring myself to parrot her phrases back to her, to prove I've
been listening, because that feels insincere. Most frustrating for me
is that her emotional-verbal processing is circular, so she says the
same things over and over until she feels better, and she is
understandably frustrated when I appear bored or distracted the
fourth or fifth time around. Moreover, I have learned not to expect
anything I would call a solution or a resolution. (That's not why
she's telling me her feelings, I realize. She's not necessarily
looking for a solution. But still, I can't shake the feeling that
these are long stories with no narrative arc and no conclusion at the
end. Who can blame me for nodding off?)
We’re
not a unique couple, surely.
The
morning after one of these mutually unsatisfying talks, when we
usually exchange apologies and pledges to do better, I suggested that
the next time we had an issue to discuss, particularly if she wanted
me to engage in the conversation (as opposed to just listen), that we
“consult the tarot.” At first, of course, she balked. Honestly,
so would I have, if the words weren’t coming out of my own mouth at
the time. (And even then….)
We
enjoyed our other tarot-conversations so much. We were playful and
productive, surprised and insightful. Piecing the narrative of the
cards together, outfitting it with our question or issue or personal
story, and knitting a cohesive whole out of the random patchwork of
these images and symbols would tap into our right- and left-brains.
We would be more likely to come up with a novel understanding or
solution. I reasoned that, at the very least, the cards would shape
the way we talk about the issue, give it a plot line, and would point
us toward an actionable response at the end. She would get my
attention and involvement, I would get structure and an end-point.
She agreed.
It wasn't long before we had a test-case. Our eldest daughter is a gifted dancer but inherited her parents' aversion to practicing a lot, and she was expressing her desire to quit dance and take up swimming. We try not to be over-directive parents, but we were both feeling that dance could end up being a very important part of her life if she stuck with it. And we both know the feeling of wishing we had stuck with some skill throughout our childhood and ended with the kind of mastery we saw in others around us. We wanted to foster independent decision-making but also recognized our roles as parents steer kids toward good decisions, sometimes making the choices for them. (Yes, you will eat the broccoli. No, you can't play in the intersection.) Registrations for dance and swimming loomed, financial plans needed to be made, and conversations needed to be had one way or the other. So we took it to the cards.
In
tarot, there are 78 unique cards, divided into five suits, each
depicting or associated with a different aspect of human life or
experience. A card for heartbreak, a card for material/financial
success, a card for new ideas, a card for new interests or desires, a
card for acting rashly and another for the proverbial dark night of
the soul, and so on. A few cards are selected at random and placed in
a “spread” or design which determines their “place” in the
story and their relationship to other cards. A position for past
events that have a bearing on the issue at hand, and a position for
the issue at hand. A position for you, another for others. A position
for things working “for” you and another for factors working
“against” you. And so on. The cards each have meaning in
themselves (like individual words), but their positions (their
grammar) count too. There are lots of different spreads, some more
complicated than others, some using fewer cards than others,
depending on how long you have to read the story.
Tarot
is a kind of mind-map technique: a visual representation of
information allowing for more efficient processing. The beauty of
tarot is that it is at the same time both directed by one's
interpretation and dictated by the random selection of cards.
Whatever card came up in whatever particular position is what you
have to deal with. "The cards never lie," the saying goes.
(There can be better and worse interpretations of the cards, of
course.) Our question of what to do with our daughter's dancing had
to fit into the card spread we saw. The sequential revelation of the
cards provided a framework for our reflection and a tempo for the
conversation. As each card was turned, we shared what we thought it
meant and how we were feeling.
Tarot
has the uncanny ability to quickly cut through the crap, and reframe
the question away from others and toward oneself. It became clear
that the question we wrestled with was not about our daughter, but
about ourselves and our conflicted feelings about our wishes and
regrets about our own lives, and our concern about preventing these
in our children. We would turn a card and discuss, sharing our inmost
thoughts and feelings, challenged by the cards to sound our
subconscious depths and listen for echoes. Oftentimes re-framing the
question is itself a tectonic shift.
We
spent an hour in earnest and engaged conversation that evening.
Longer than we had talked in one sitting for a long, long time. We
were able to process our emotions and thoughts, learn about our
underlying motivations and concerns, explore a question playfully and
creatively. We had ample time to express, but we also had a tempo and
end-point. I had something to look at and mull over, and my wife had
my attention and earnest engagement.
Virtually
all tarot spreads end with some sort of advice, suggestion or
conclusion. How we interpret the card (or cards) is up to us. To
every card, there is a spectrum of meaning. But by the point where we
turned the last card over, we pretty much knew the road ahead. After
an hour of searching one's feelings about an issue, one has a fairly
good sense of where things lie. The details of the solution aren't as
important as how we felt about the decision and the prospects for our
kids' futures, and the future of our parenting.
Tarot
didn't make us fall in love with each other again, but it did remind
us why we were in love with each other, to begin with, which is a
precious gift too. We find time two or three nights a week for a
quickie - a short tarot reading. And find that these few moments of
intimacy lead to more.
A
little deck of pictures and symbols has made our love life richer,
all around. That makes a marriage worth being in.