The Red Tent

This was my answer to a question someone posted at ATF. Keep in my mind that it’s just an opinion - my opinion - and thus, you should feel free to agree, disagree or ignore. It comes from my personal experience, but i must say that i’m no more than just a young student.

So…can anyone read tarot? Or do you need extra intuitive abilities? Is it a gift or something you learn?

I never really knew what intuition is. It has never worked for me until i actually learnt the cards….until i sat down with a notebook and studied, and did readings, and thought a lot…

Some people actually have this spiritual ability or hearing of seeing things that enhances their readings. I don’t. For a long time, it made me think i had no talent whatsoever for reading…i don’t hear voices, see ghosts, talk to spirits. To compensate this lack of apparent natural ‘gift’, i studied. Then inspiration slowly came…and is still coming, ever coming.

You may think art is something inspired…but it’s actually, like many said, 10% inspiration and 90% transpiration. You can have a gift for painting, but i”m sorry, if you don’t learn what do you do with the oil/water, how do you mix the paints and pigments, what materials do you use, you won’t develop that gift. It’ll be a wonderful, but latent thing. You won’t be a Van Gogh unless you paint and practice almost as obsessively.

To be a great tarot reader, you gotta live tarot just like artists live their arts. Inspiration will come once you have worked enough. Picasso was always painting, even when he was uninspired…when asked about it, he said that when inspiration came, he wanted it to find him working.

A gift? Maybe. But lots of work is needed to make it become natural. When you see a dancer dancing, so easily, so beautifully, you don’t see the hard hours of practice behind it. To make the effort seem effortless - that’s an art. Making the complicated seem/become simple - an art.

I think intuition and work/study are connected, you need both to make an ability become an art. Intuition is not something you are just born with…is something you learn to listen, and learn to trust. Learn. ‘Success’ only comes before ‘working’ in the dictionary, you know.

A fellow ATF member called Forensic answered: “I’d think anyone with an open mind could. That excludes a bunch of people though.” I agree. Anyone could learn tarot…but to read well, you gotta open your mind and work, and study, and think, instead of expecting a sudden ‘divination gift’ to manifest.

Again, my opinion. Just that.

So…i never gave a damn about the Tarot de Marseilles. Yes, i admit it. Not that i hated the deck - i just thought it wasn’t pretty. Well, i thought it was ugly. And the non-scenic pips…a big turn-off. But we change, don’t we? Heck, once upon a time i thought the Fergus Hall’s Tarot of the Witches (yep, the 007 one) was the ugliest deck ever, and now it’s one of my favorites. Everything can happen.

So i got a Marseilles. I was deciding which one i would get and, more importantly, how i’d get one (i’d need to order it from another country = $$$), when fate solved that problem for me - i got the LS Universal Tarot of Marseilles in a trade train at ATF. I was excited, and it took a while to reach me…but it finally did. And now i’m not sure what do i do.

The book that comes with the deck - a thin, soft cover book that isn’t even a paper back - is filled with different information. Not just the good ol’ ‘this card means that’ or ‘you’ve got to cleanse your deck’ kind of babble. It actually teaches you possible ways to read with the cards, specially the pips, without just copying & pasting Coleman-Smith-Waite meanings. Lee Burten did quite a nice work, in my opinion…he gives you suggestions, without turning them into absolute unbreakable rules.

And thus, my Marseilles journey has just started. I’m not sure how will it be, but i can’t deny i’m insecure. When you give up trying to make other meanings fit in the cards and decide to read what you see…you see meanings transform, change or simply become obsolete, no matter how much you liked or were used to them. You have to learn to read images that at first don’t tell you much and, many times, aren’t even pleasing to the eye.

It’s not easy, but learning isn’t. One can always read with a book attached to him, but he will never be the reader - he’ll only be the voice to what the book has to say. Marseilles only gives you two choices - read the cards, or become a basic reader, with basic books as your crutch.

I’m sick of crutches. I really want to make tarot something important in my life, not just a hobby. I already have a notebook, a pen…so Marseilles, show me what ya got, i’m up to the challenge.

So…a fellow Aeclectic Tarot Forum member was looking for a spread for her subconscious. Apparently, her mind wasn’t letting her sleep or rest - it happens to all of us sometimes. I quickly designed a spread to help her - three cards, very simple & straightforward.
Days later, i found out it also worked for other people, to whom insomnia had decided to pay a visit every night. So i’m sharing it here, hoping some other sleepless tarot reader will enjoy it. Sometimes it’s nice to translate our subconscious language, in order to understand it’s message.

Here it is:

………1…….
………………
…2……….3..

1. What is my subconscious trying to tell me?
2. How can i deal with that (consciously)?
3. What might hinder me? (keep you from dealing with whatever your subconscious is trying to bring to light)

It’s short…because i personally prefer shorter spreads. But if you feel the need to add more cards, please, adapt this spread as you wish!

It was designed for tarot, but can be used with any oracle you prefer.

No…it’s not what you are thinking. There’s no iTarot yet, and i don’t have any Apple Deck to announce…hehehehe.

I was reading today the text by Steve Jobs, the creator of Apple, Pixar etc., delivered on June 2005 during a commencement. It’s a really beautiful text, but surprisingly, i found it related, in many parts, to the tarot world. I’m not going to quote the whole text…because right now i want to comment on two quotes that really touched me…

“…you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

I see here the Star. I say that because…in moments of hopelessness, my boyfriend told me many times to ‘trust that the dots will connect’. Sometimes it seems impossible..dots connecting? After everything else seems to be falling apart?

Many people take the Star as the fluffy-happy card, that tells you to relax, all is fine now. But hey…you just faced the Tower. When you look backwards, all you can see the ruins of something that was - and many times, the ruins of what you were. So how can you be all fuffy-happy?

I think the Star is much more about recovering from the falls… and trusting the dots will connect somehow. Trusting that things will be fine. Maybe now the things aren’t all right…but you trust they’ll be better - something inside tells you that they will, even if now it seems impossible. Instead of closing your windows and blame the whole world because the sun doesn’t shine, you open them and wait until dawn breaks.

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.”

He says that after he tells a story in which he almost faced death thanks to a cancer. For me, it’s a quote about Death. It’s like i found new words to explain the card when i read this quote.

I think Death might be just that…being released from other people’s voices, opinions, chosing not to listen to them and follow you own heart. Because many people are out there just to make you feel like you cannot do it - and sometimes, you are the one who convince yourself you cannot do it. You are your own enemy - you need to get rid of this part of yourself. You need to die….be reborn…and make you life be what you want it to be. Never settle for the minimum score, for the little satisfaction, for the least you can do, for the easiest path.

Changing isn’t easy, but facing Death - either physically or metaphorically - most of times leaves you without a choice.
I know these quotes apaprently have nothing to do with tarot. But they have a lot to do with life, and life has everything to do with the tarot.

Brazil is finally publishing some good mangas. And the new surprise is the series ‘Tarot Café’, by the korean (?) artist Sang-Sun Park.

The manga is about a woman called Pamela, coffee shop owner and tarot reader. During the day, she reads to to normal people. During the night, to supernatural beings, seeking answers and solutions to their problems. As she receives many clients and read the cards, her own personal story unfolds. In her past she was cursed, and cannot die. So the payment she gets for every reading (for the supernatural beings) are parts of a mysterious object called ‘Berial’s necklace’…the object that will help her to die…

AND, Pamela uses the Aquarian Tarot to read.*excited*

I will not tell much, because i think people should read this story. It’s great, and the tarot readings are surprisingly correct…makes the think that the author must be a tarot reader herself ;). My only complaint is that sometimes you cannot tell if a character is a girl or a boy…the boys look very girl-ish. Other than that, it’s really great! The opening of each chapter is a card that belongs to real decks (like the Tarot of the Witches, the Halloween Tarot etc.), re-drawn by the Sang Sue Park and featuring one of the Tarot Café’s characters.

Here in Brazil it’s being published by Editora Lumus. But i know that in other countries it’s published by Tokyopop.

Hilda Hilst was a brazilian poet/writter. She her work is fantastic…you don’t just read her writings. You feel them.

She has a quote that sometimes i feel like telling the people i read to, when the cards are bad and all. When they think that a Tower could never become a Star. Hilda Hilst wrote that to her father:

“E ainda que as janelas se fechem,
meu pai
é certo que amanhece.”

Translation:

“And even if the windows close
my father
the dawn is certain to break”

We may close all our windows and blame the universe because the sun doesn’t shine. Or we can open them, wait for the dark night to pass, and watch the sun rise.

I know, i know i’ve been away. Goddamnit. But it was for a good reason - i was in Italy. And this trip has gifted me with lots of new, unique decks, specially after i visited the shop ‘Il Meneghello Tarocchi’ in Milan, and met the brilliant rmind behind it: Osvaldo Menegazzi. I had expected a serious and quiet old man, that would look weirdly at me whenever i touched the decks. I had a surprise! Mr. Menegazzi is nice, and very proud of his work - and he has all the reasons to be so. All decks in his shop that he has printed/edited and the ones he creates himself (he’s an artist) are superb! Great quality, nicely chosen (most are reprints of rare decks he has in his collection). Boy, i DID wish i had a wealthy, give-away-money parents there (i can’t complain, because my mother helped me with a bit of money!). I bought three new decks, and Mr. Menegazzi gave me one as a gift for free. So sweet!

So i returned home with three new (signed & numbered) babies from his shop. ‘I Gatti’ [1138 of 2000], a Major Arcana deck created by Mr. Menegazzi himself, inspired on his own cat. Lovely! The other was ‘La Corte dei Tarocchi’ [547 of 1100], by Anna Maria D’Onofrio. A cute deck, with an OWL on the back of the cards! I had never even seen it before, and apparently Mr. Menegazzi likes it very much! The third deck i bought was one i’ve been wanting for ages: ‘La Vera Sibilla’, in this edition called ‘Sibilla Originale del 1890′. It evens comes with a quite detailed little…erm…little sepia book, lol! There’s something curious about it though…it says 1500 copies of this deck were published. However…my copy…is numbered 1679 o.O. Go figure…

The deck Mr. Menegazzi gave me is not a deck by him…not even printed by ‘Il Meneghello’…it’s called ‘Tarocco Balocco’ [233 of 500], a Major Arcana-only deck by Morena Poltronieri. At first, i thought this deck just weird looking an didn’t give much attention…but then…i started liking it. It feature old toys…so fun! The Star is a small astronaut…the Judgement, a jazz player (all toys!). Lovely little deck!

To prove you all that i was really there, here’s a picture of us! I spent only one day in Milan, but it was unforgettable.

Mr. Menegazzi also makes great works of art using tarot cards! Yes, big art pieces to hang on the wall, all featuring tarot cards, playing cards, original pictures…amazing. Unfortunately, for me, too big or heavy to bring one home by plane. Maybe next time

The other deck i got in Italy are ‘La Sibilla della Zingara’ (another sibilla deck), ‘I Tarocchi’ (a very funny and colorful Major-only deck, in Marseilles style) and the mini version of LS ‘Tarot of the New Vision’. With so many decks in my bag (the ones i got in Italy plus the ones i had with myself), i wonder how they didn’t stop me at the airport. Tarot contraband! Hehehehehe :p.