"What Tarot Card Represents Me?" is Only the First Question
Bringing Our Skills, Our Facets, and Our Work to our Tarot Practice
image: a black person drinking through a striped straw. they have hoop earrings and are wearing a gold sequin coat over a black turtleneck. they have a short cropped haircut. the background is a grainy, psychedelic black and white swirl.
Look, we all have our favorite tarot cards. That's normal, and understandable, and never going to change.
It actually makes a lot of sense. Most people come to tarot for personal reasons.
If at some point you found yourself pouring over tarot books late at night, or reading some nerd's tarot blog, you're in the minority.
I don't know if you've noticed, but the tipping point has tipped. (Though since you're reading some nerd's blog, I imagine you're aware.)
Fascism has risen. War is here. Cost of living is through the roof and we own nothing.
Like, at this point, why the fuck are we still using tarot like an individualist consumer product?
Anyone who's been here for a while knows I love a personality test. Even a personality test that involves tarot. Introspection is important and worthy!
But to what end?
We live in a capitalist system that asks us to know ourselves so that we know what to buy. We live in a consumerist system that believes our personalities are marketing profiles.
If we don't have an end goal in mind as to why we are learning tarot, it becomes yet another spiritual commodity.
Last week I made a reel about yet another white woman with grinch finger matts in her hair. She was singing a song that seemed to be a mash up of ever kind of cultural appropriation.
She was in Peru. She was time traveling on the pyramids. She was at the Pizza Hut. She was at the Taco Bell. She was at the combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell.
The response was to deride her, and lambast the obvious ridiculousness of her getup and message.
But my point wasn't "look at this silly racist white woman, ha ha." It was "this is how a lot of spiritual people look and sound lately."
As a sick person, as a disabled person, as a Black person, it concerns the shit out of me.
We live in a climate of hyper-individualism. We reproduce it when we only see people to criticize rather than growing trends. Do I wanna hang out with Grinch Fingers Sally? No I don't.
I also don't want to have unfollow Black herbalists every day who insist very similar things. Who talk about vaccine microchips and Dr. Sebi. People who say that I can cure my lupus with a natural diet.
It the problem was Grinch Fingers Sally we could all have a hearty laugh and move on. But the problem is much bigger and now is not the time to find a laughing stock and move on.
Why do people deepen their spiritual journey? What made you want to do this work for yourself, maybe even for others? What forces in your life made sprituality, tarot, and holistic living necessary?
When we ask "what tarot card represents me," the answer is usually a combination. Each card we find ourself in is but one facet, one skill, one mood.
That mood may be more or less dominant, but it's only one. This is amplified by the frequency with which people identify with the major arcana.
The Major Arcana may succeed in showing us our trends over time. Yet it is tarot's Minor Arcana that reveals who we are through what we do each day.
All together, where our eye goes as we lay out our cards can show us what skills we bring to our work in the world. It can show us what we're able to change and shape.
There's nothing wrong with wanting to identify with tarot on a personal level. But shouldn't stop there.
It's too easy for such a practice to slip into irrelevancy or commodity.
Intuition is a resource. Intuition is a gift.
Our intuition can and does help us navigate the oppression we face every day. Intuitive tarot can show us how to make a controlling boss give us a raise. Intuitive tarot can show us when it's time to break our lease and leave our moldy apartment.
And yes, it can help us figure out who we are right now, what we need and what we want. That's not trivial work either.
The lack of options that many of us face is a direct result of racism, homophobia, ableism, and capitalism.
Which is exactly why we can't stop with introspection. We should let tarot guide us to action.
Learn Where Tarot Comes From
Tarot was created and refined with the powerful in mind. Tarot is a complex tool, shaped by many hands with different intentions.
Readers are reluctant to discuss where tarot comes from. Many may not even know its history.
This is fine, but we can't ignore that tarot wasn't intended to be a key to personal freedom. Those who popularized its divinatory use, like Aleister Crowley, weren't great.
Many were bi, gay, or lesbians though. Which shows us how long occult spaces have been overrun by white queers with narrow politics.
When we look at tarot in this light, we see why we can't be neutral. It's too simple to think that it's meaning comes only from use.
Tarot shares the values in which it was created, those of the age of colonization. When we see an Emperor or Empress, we must still think of empire. If not, we have, in our own small way, become sympathizers.
You can learn more about the history of tarot in my FREE email course Tarot for Radicals.
Make Your Tools Work For Your Work
What happens after you acknowledge that tarot's origins aren't utopian?
We see what it still works for. Tarot doesn't have to be a roadmap to liberation when it can help us survive here an now. It's our job to navigate the now, as we do our work to build tomorrow.
How can your tools work for you? What do you need from tarot? As I asked earlier, what drew you to the cards in the first place?
When you can answer that question, you can start to develop spreads that speak to your needs.
This is why I say introspection is important.
If you know you're currently moving as the Empress, what criticism of resource hoarding can you build.
How can you share with others, like the Six of Cups does? How can you let people know about what you have to offer, like the Knights do?
If you know what archetype you're most prone to mirroring, you can figure out how to employ that to the good of all.
Learn It, Then Live It
We embody different archetypes at different times. This often means what we need from tarot changes.
When I started reading tarot, I didn't know why it was something I'd picked up. It was a simply a weird interest, a thing I could do.
Over time, I needed tarot to understand my environment. It helped me understand the intentions of others, and my own goals.
As an autistic person, this has always been a big help. These uses still exist for me. They're coupled now with questions about whether or how to pay for this or that. They let me know if a project is going to suck me dry.
They also let me know where to best put my efforts. It shows me where my work should reach and when to rest--and how.
Living tarot means allowing a practice to evolve over time.
Tarot is more than a means to self understanding. Our spiritual practice has practical use.
The more we look at who we are as a set of skills and responsibilities through tarot's archetype, the more tarot can call us to action.
"What tarot card represents me" is where most of us start. Maturing with tarot means asking harder questions. It asks us to let spirit push us to meaningful action.
Further Thoughts
hey, i'm cyree jarelle. I run Collective Cartomancy. I help queers, feminists, and leftists connect with their intuition using tarot and cartomancy. More on me.
Personal empowerment alone breeds a holier than thou attitude.
Purposeful action engages us with others, and allows us to put our spiritual principals into use.