I love connecting with people. For 20 years, I connected with people through stories on my original blog, and then about a dozen years ago, I started connecting with people through photography. I like taking pictures, but I love that moment when you have built up enough rapport with your photography subjects that they relax and you see their true nature shine through. And if you’re quick, you can capture that moment in their portraits. Those have always been my favourite photographs, and favourite experiences in working with clients.
It may be that frisson of connection that I love most about doing tarot readings for people. There’s a moment in a good reading, just like in a photography session, where the seeker relaxes their guard, drops their skepticism and decides to trust me and collaborate with me in the telling of the story.
I was hired for a tarot party for a group of young moms recently. It was the beginning of a girls’ weekend bachelorette party, a sunny and cold winter morning. (I especially love morning parties, please hire me as your tarot reader for more of those!!)
The women were all about 20 years younger than me, clearly in the busiest, most hectic part of life balancing young children, work, households, marriage and everything that comes with that. As I explained to them that I don’t do traditional fortune telling or predictions, they nodded in agreement. “Think of me as your tarot mom,” I said, and they laughed. “The tarot cards have advice based on what you share. I can show you the language of the cards, and what you read into that advice, and what you do with that advice, is entirely up to you.”
Party readings are short by design, usually around 10 minutes per person, so we don’t usually get into a lot of detailed or in-depth analysis of the story in the cards. But as they sat for their readings, one by one, I saw the same patterns emerging for a few of them: so many major arcana, statistically more than you’d expect. “There’s a lot going on in your life right now,” I said when I saw a higher than expected number of major arcana. And of the five people I read for that bright morning, two of them looked at me with tears streaming down their faces. They were just overwhelmed by everything, and given a chance to pause for a minute and reflect on life, their emotions bubbled over.
Through a silly pile of cards laid out on a kids’ crafting table, I connected with these silently weeping young women, total strangers to me. In both cases, the cards showed signs of optimism, and I shared that. The predominant story for one was “stay the course, you’re on the right track and making good choices.” For the other, it was “things are messy now, but hang in there, this isn’t going to last forever.”
I share this for a couple of reasons. First, because I think one of the best gifts of the tarot cards is taking that moment to think, to reflect. What’s working in my life? What’s not working? Are there things hiding in blindspots that I should be thinking about? Are there patterns at play that I should be paying attention to? (Even if thinking those thoughts is a little overwhelming, and you find yourself in temporary tears.)
But also because I wanted to point out how you can use tarot cards in a conversation without ever using them for prediction. Sometimes, you need them to tell you what you already know, to validate you. These friends didn’t need the cards or me to tell them that they are busy, overwhelmed, and probably feeling guilty about slipping away from all that responsibility for their weekend away. But having me look at their cards and say “wow, that’s a lot. You must be tired” was enough of a validation to make them feel emotional.
Tarot reading, for myself and for others, has been full of unexpected gifts like this – insight, connection, collaboration, reflection.