Beginings

Recently I discovered a rekindled interest in the tarot. Way back in another lifetime, 1991 to be exact, I became very interested in tarot cards. I bought a Rider-Waite-Smith deck and I read a part of the little booklet that came with it. This was before the internet and there weren’t a whole lot of resources to find out anything more other than what was in that little booklet that came with the deck.

The tarot deck sat on a bookshelf until I moved enough times to lose it. I didn’t really start thinking about the tarot again until about a year ago when My wife and I were visiting Sedona. I’d see decks in the stores and think about how much I’d like to learn about it and then think how silly it was and I’d walk away. On my breaks at work, I would find myself wandering a nearby bookstore and I would often wander into the astrology and occult sections. Mostly just looking but I would gaze at the myriad of different tarot decks and admire the variety. The different artwork and the different themes found among the small collection they carried. I would often look at the other cards as well. Angel cards, crystal cards, animals, etc. I've always wanted to learn about it but nowadays I think how others might see me or how they might judge me. Well this year is the year to change that.

A couple of weeks before Christmas this year, I saw the Stranger Things Tarot deck. Since I loved Stranger Things I thought that I might buy it. It seemed like a fun thing to have. But each time I saw the deck on the shelf, I would always put it back thinking about the bills I needed to pay instead of buying a tarot deck. $30 was a bit steep for me for something that would just be a display item for me. I’d usually put it back and leave the store. But it was always in the back of my mind. This past Christmas I found a card deck, in that same store, that I thought my wife might enjoy so I bought it for her. She’s very into astrology and crystals and such and we often talk about how these things affect our daily life. I noticed that the Stranger Things tarot was still on the shelf. The only one. No, I didn’t buy it that day. I was Christmas shopping and I had already decided that I wasn’t shopping for myself that day. I told myself I might come back to buy it though. Sure enough, two weeks later I was in the store standing in line with the Stranger Things tarot in my hand.

I got home and opened it thinking that it would be a fun little thing to add to my collection like the Lego Apollo 11 Moon Lander. Or the mini skatepark and the fire engine red stapler on my desk. And so too this stranger things tarot deck would add to the collection of things on my home office desk. (And yes I do fear that someday I won’t be able to do any work there because it’ll be covered in toys)

As I opened it up and flipped through the cards. I admired the artwork. The renderings were beautiful and I loved the choice the authors made in regards to which characters of the show went with the archetypes of the Major Arcana. The lovers had to be El and Mike! But I also started to wonder what the cards meant and the readings this deck might give. And that’s when it hit me that while I love this deck, to me, it didn’t feel like the right deck to learn with. Perhaps when I’ve learned more about the tarot I might be able to read with this deck.

I slept that night and the next day I decided that I wanted to learn more about the tarot. So I returned to the store and bought another tarot deck to learn from. And that’s where we are today.

Let me say here that I am not a practicing tarot reader. I have lots of respect for those who are and perhaps someday I might give my own readings. For now I know that I am simply someone learning and growing in all of this. I do not purport to be an expert and would never say so even if I had a thousand years of experience. I’ll say the same thing here that I say to my guitar students. I’ve played guitar for 35 years (which is more than two-thirds of my life at this point) and I still don’t know everything there is to know. I teach what I know as the instrument continues to teach me. And this is my approach to learning the tarot as well. I respect the cards and the teachings that they offer. They teach me as I learn and grow. My intent is to learn about myself and to work on my insights as I learn about the cards.

As I’ve read up on the tarot I keep coming across the same idea. To learn how to read tarot, it is suggested that you do a daily card pull and then journal about the card you’ve pulled. Writing any insights you find about that particular card. It makes a lot of sense to do it that way and I can see why everyone suggests it. There is another famous quote that is quite similar to this idea “if you want to learn something, write about it.” I’m not sure who said it but it comes up often in my life. There was a time when I wrote a blog on photography as I was learning it. It was a lot of fun that basically went nowhere except now I know a lot about photography and those who read my blog and a lot of fun with me as I explored and learned. And I’ve been thinking about doing the same thing with tarot.

So the idea here is that I’m going to write about the tarot as I learn it. Sharing my insights, and anything I find along the way. This will be a journal of sorts on my journey as I learn about the cards and learn to read the tarot. I don’t yet know where this is going to go or how it will end up but I hope that you will enjoy the journey with me and perhaps learn something along the way with me. I look forward to learning and growing and seeing what comes of this.

J