Small variations on reading
for yourself, plus Death and the Three of Swords
We’ve had a lovely conversation going on in the tarot class I’m teaching about how we’re all doing the same practice, turning tarot cards every day and seeing how external and internal shifts link up with our contemplation of the images, yet with small variations in routine, synthesis, and methodology of interpretation. These “small variations” can be anything: from what time of a day a person pulls their card, to where and how they note coincidences of mundane life and spiritual practice, to which teachers or books people feel drawn to as guides into the general histories and traditions of a given card. As a teacher, it has been wonderful to hear my students express an understanding that the magic of the tarot—whether that magic is the power of greater concentration, a deepened sense of relationship with oneself, or, as one participant put it “the revelation of a relationship with the Divine that was never absent to begin with”—lies in their ability to honor and attend to the variations of reading that come up for them.
Tarot offers a unique ability to stay with the details against the backdrop of a larger tradition. It can be a way through the “atomized individuality” of Western culture under AI-infused neoliberal capitalism1 and into the richness and risks of a true Self participating in and creating alongside a larger world.
Happy almost end of the week! I was briefly tempted to write about Death below as the “looksmaxxing” discourse, but, alas, I did not. You can read about the interruptions tarot book project here, or about my forthcoming collection of essays with Sul Books here.
New Additions to the Majors
Death (13)
What does existence “know” about death? Everything and nothing. The Death card turns up, in all its skeletal, unceasing glory, when you’ve made contact with this question and these answers. As with every other card, there’s a chance this card’s appearance means you might stay on the surface, with the literal, here at the end of something—the rattling last breaths of the body, the gap in life where the beloved used to appear, the malevolence of deforestation, either nature destroyed by itself or something more shadowy, mechanical, industrial indeed. Guiding the path between Beauty and Victory, however, the Death card also has the potential to lead us into questions about the nature of a reality that suggests “victory” is either passive endurance or staunch conflict and that “beauty” is the void, the cessation of all life and love itself. Is that true? If these questions are the guides, along with the fixed water sign of Scorpio, we might find ourselves in deeper, more wondrous realms where death is the capacity to live, the womb of wombs. This is the “secret realm” of the most commonplace insight of all, or as art critic Peter Schjeldahl describes it in his essay ahead of his death of lung cancer: “Life doesn’t go on. It goes nowhere except away. Death goes on. Going on is what death does for a living. The secret to surviving in the universe is to be dead. Self-knowledge! Almost better never than this late. (I don’t mean that at all. But I enjoy the sound of it.)” Associated with the Hebrew letter “nun,” or fish, the Death card upright is a profound—often enlightening encounter—with love for an existence that, like a fish without water, like death itself, has no being of its own. Reversed, are you caught up in the horror of an ending as a way to re-entrench your own impoverished ideas about victory and failure, never mind beauty? Is it possible to set down the blame and indulgence, just for a moment, and to feel into the questions about what is actually happening? What does it mean for death to be the “secret to surviving in the universe?” What is actually here, always, in spite of and alongside the cessation of existence itself?
New Additions to the Minors
Three of Swords
Readers throughout this card’s history have focused on its “old wound” quality—usually the image features three swords embedded into a heart that no longer bleeds. Is this a dead heart? One that has healed around strange metal? Or does the “old wound” story belie a deeper truth—that this is a heart that has yet begun to bleed, one that has yet to move through the shock of its injury, however long ago the blow? Perhaps! As Understanding in Formation, the Lord of Sorrow offers the first thrust toward knowing what went wrong, and why, as well understanding how to re-open the wound with the intent of healing, stitching back together, closing the loop, once the proper flow has been loosed. Associated with Saturn in its exaltation in the cardinal air sign of Libra, the Three of Swords exposes the limitations of severity with oneself and others as a response to sorrow. Upright, you’re offered rain or tears as a spiritual experience to go along with removing the knife. Reversed, there’s a fear of letting the mind have full contact with the heart. What are you afraid you’ll find there? Why is that a problem?
March books are open:
Happy to pull a tarot card
as a guide for Mercury retrograde, or the upcoming full moon eclipse on the South Node in Virgo. Comment below with your rising sign and your specific question. Sending love.
Even the silliness of that string of words points us to something better and true …
Really fascinating to read about Death, these questions about what remains when existence ceases always leave me spinning as so much that exists in our universe is technically dead yet we still talk about inanimate objects like stars "dying." Of course, when they die, they still always become something else, something that you can again call dead and dying at once...
I am a Libra rising, yet again really questioning whether what I do for a living is really in alignment with my values. I wonder how I can find more calm when faced with realities of paying rent vs. making art?
Scorpio rising 🖤 I am preparing to leave for another year plus trip traveling on the sea. There is much work to be done and many fears and anxieties swirling through my mind and body. I am curious who or what could be a guide for me during this coming moment of change.
Thank you so much.