Tarot

I'm a lazy tarot reader. It would be one thing if I did readings for others on a regular basis, but I don't. I don't charge money for a reading as it isn't my goal to make people pay me to tell them what their cards say. Not that there's anything wrong with doing readings for a living provided you're really paying attention to what the cards are saying. I've been to quite a few people who I could guarantee had no knowledge of the tarot and this was painfully obvious when they told me the usual schtick: you're coming into money, you're going on a trip, anything positive they thought I wanted to hear for my dollar. In fact, in all the years that I have been reading tarot, which is now approaching 28 years, I don't think I've ever once seen these things in my own spreads. While the cards can be pretty issue specific, they aren't that specific. I do read for friends when they ask me, which I very much enjoy doing. But when it comes to myself, most of the time it just seems like too much bother to get out the cards, shuffle them and throw down a spread. It doesn't get more lazy than that.

Every once in a while I'll go through a brief spell of reading a card a day, to see what that day holds for me, but again, that requires the effort of the process and when I am first hitting the floor in the morning, the last thing I usually remember to do is pop out a deck and pick a card, any card. I'm more focused on the trillion and one things I have to do that day and how there isn't ever enough time to get everything done that needs to be done, let alone sit down and spend some time quietly contemplating the card(s). Reading tarot takes concentration, it takes relaxation and a bit of meditation and first thing in the morning that's impossible for me, especially given the fact that I am not even remotely a morning person. I'm lucky to even be ambulatory and recognize my own name before lunchtime.

I do however do a yearly spread on New Year's Day. Many witches who do divination of some sort like to do it on Samhain, a traditional day for that sort of thing, but I started out many years ago doing this on New Year's day and thus it's remained. The witch's New Year is not only a beautiful time for this but an especially potent time for this, but when that calendar ticks over into a fresh new year, it just seems to me that that's the perfect time to see what the coming months have in store for me, not in October. I have kept a journal of these spreads through the years, too. It's not only nice to see what has transpired during this year, but in years past as well. It's a lovely way to mark the changes within me and the passage of my life from year to year. My hopes, my fears, my personal journey all laid out courtesy of the cards that fell on that particular winter afternoon. I was once telling someone how accurate this is, that most of what I read for myself on January 1 actually does come to fruition throughout the year and I was asked how many times I checked during the year to see whether my reading was spot-on or not. I hadn't actually thought about this before and I would guess to a skeptic the idea that I could be reading my own journal periodically throughout the year and subconsciously manipulating the events of my daily life to coincide with what the cards told me on New Year's is a possibility. But I don't do that. In fact, I seldom even read my journal until the following New Year's day when I sit and do my reading for the new year. I admit I will occasionally, if things in my life are especially trying or difficult, take a look at what I predicted and see if this was something that the cards had foretold, but otherwise I never think to check.

Still I wish I had the time, the discipline and the dedication to do regular readings for myself and for those closest to me. It's a beautiful art that I'm thankful to know. And even after nearly three decades, I never cease to be amazed at how intimate and accurate this divination can be in knowledgeable hands.