April Tarot Reading with Jenny Forbes
talking about the month's contradictions, the pull of solitude, and co-creating reality with metaphysical practice
Co-writing the tarot reading with me this month is Detroit tarotist and fellow Discord member Jenny Forbes. Jenny and I share a lot in common—a love of French film, esoteric practice, and a (not-so) fantastical desire to live out our days in the archetype of the witchy crone, offering aid, kindness, and spells to those who cross our wooded path (while also being fine when no one crosses our paths much, ever). This newsletter, then, will be part-interview, part-reading, in the hopes that you will learn from and delight in Jenny’s wisdom as much as I have over the past few years of knowing her.
I have to say I laughed when I pulled the cards for April, because they immediately spoke to why I wanted Jenny’s help, in particular, with this month’s reading. My “quick and dirty” read on the Ten of Wands has always been “Share the burden,” and as I’ve written about recently, the cup cards—the realm of feeling, water, shapeshifting connections—have been terrible burdens for me lately. Who better, then, to offer particular insight that reaches toward, expands outward, than a Pisces Sun, Scorpio rising, self-proclaimed “goat lady” who has been quietly creating magic for the last half-decade with cards, plants, animals, and fastidious spreadsheeting.
CS: Jenny, thanks for doing this with me! Could you tell our readers a little about yourself—who you are and how you began to live by and with the tarot? What does your tarot practice mean to you against the backdrop of a world-in-crisis? (You know, super easy questions ;)).
JF: I’m incredibly honored for the opportunity to collaborate with you this way! I first came to the tarot, as you mentioned, about five years ago during my Saturn return. I had been in a car accident, resulting in surgery and years of physical therapy and sports medicine treatment, my Granny had passed away, and I had been through an intense relationship and breakup. When I think of how I was feeling during this time I had a radiant tenderness, as if my entire person was a bruise. I started out with some readings from others before getting my own decks as I sought a balm for that pain and personal crisis. As I began my practice I pretty quickly built one of the spreadsheets you alluded to to track my daily draws and discovered I was drawing Cups cards upwards of forty percent of the times I drew minor arcana cards. I ended up burning down my life, quitting my job in Oregon where I had lived for ten years, selling my car, buying a vintage RV, and moving to Detroit with my cats and dog.
Even after I got here and my Saturn return ended, one of my readers told me my cards were the wettest reading she’d ever given. So those are my qualifications as a Cups Consultant. I also have two-thirds of a degree in anthropology, so one thing I have always been aware of in my practice is the very timeless and human nature of divination. The search for meaning and for clues to help us to navigate things outside of our control is a constant throughout human history. I find releasing some of my worries into geologic time this way comforting as I attempt my own navigation of personal and global crises. Some of the things that catch in our minds aren’t truly consequential even in this lifetime, the broken cup, the misspoken word, I find reminding myself that there’s no geologic record of these trivialities can feel really freeing. Things that are much bigger than me are also transitory. So shifting focus instead to connecting with things that are observably lasting and overarching in the human experience helps me feel solid, and tarot and astrology are part of my engagement with that.
I find releasing some of my worries into geologic time this way comforting as I attempt my own navigation of personal and global crises.
CS: I love how you connect metaphysical practice to solidity, and to presence. It reminds me a lot of the work of Sylvia Federici, whose Caliban and the Witch is one of my favorite historical accounts of the inextricable relations between material production, gender, and magic.
As for our April reading, I also think the entanglement of Wands (magic) and Cups (feelings) points to a material weightiness.