Sweet Chariot

After a looooong time away leaving this series unfinished - due to physical, mental, emotional, and, frankly, financial, issues to deal with - here's the next part of my blog series giving LGBTQIA+ perspectives on the Tarot cards.

(The story so far: Click these links to find pieces on The Fool, The Magician, The High Priestess, The Empress, The Emperor, The Hierophant, and The Lovers)

As always, intro first, for those new to the series or new to the Tarot: Playing cards used to be used for meditation and fortune telling as well as games, and somewhere along the line a fifth "suit" of cards was added, showing a journey full of spiritual symbols, called the Major Arcana ("Great Secret"). The artwork on what's now called the "traditional" Tarot deck (the one that pretty much all other decks are based on) was done by a mixed race bisexual lady named Pamela "Pixie" Colman Smith, and I'm of the opinion she snuck some Easter eggs into this art commission given to her by a bunch of straight white men.

So I've been making a series out of asking LGBTQIA+ people their unique viewpoint on the cards, and compiling their answers into blogs.

The next figure in the series, the next meeting on The Fool's Journey, is the Chariot.

The spiritual symbol associated with the Chariot in a lot of the guidebooks is the Archangel Metatron (who was brilliantly played by Derek Jacobi in Good Omens and Alan Rickman in Dogma!) - whose basic deal is, that no one can look straight at the face of God, so, when people think they're seeing God face-to-face, they're actually seeing her go-to guy, Metatron. Metatron is the face God shows to people. So, for a queer person, we're already in the incredibly relatable territory of having a face we show to the public, rather than it being safe to reveal our true selves, because we don't know if people are really ready, willing, or able to meet us honestly and openly being ourselves.

The usual keywords for this card are determination and self-control; and while this is normally comes across as being about things like career advancement and acknowledgement of success by others - outward things - someone throwing open their closet door has a whole deeper and more inward understanding of things like self-determination, being in control over who your Self is allowed to be, moving forward to a new stage, and being truly acknowledged by those around us.

The Chariot is usually taken as an indicator of great determination and will power; and as everyone who's ever been in a closet knows, it takes great determination and willpower either to come out, or stay in! The Chariot can be taken as an encouragement that even though we feel uncertainty a bout our situation, we need have no fear. Well I, for one, though I praise LGBTQIA+ trailblazers for being fearless, also hope I'm helping make a world happen where we don't have to be fearless. Spiritually uplifting sentiments like "be fearless,there's nothing really to fear" may world great for life coaches shaking people out of their comfort zones; but for queer people, as for a lot of other minorities, the reason for the fear is very real.

There's a lot of "come out of your comfort zone" energy to the Chariot, and that's great - but the closet is often a genuine safety zone for many. Having said that, a lot more people have what it takes to step out and live their lives, than they give themselves credit for. The Archangel Metatron is taught to be the divine thing we can all potentially become when we become free of bodily constraints, and out inner divine spark is finally fully lit, and there can be big reassurance for queer readers of the cards that we have more inside us that can shine, than we think. We're glorious, though we've been taught otherwise. Once the confidence is there to be that, then there's joy as well as courage to be found and felt.

Opening the closet door is scary and there's genuinely every earthly reason for it to be, but huge leaps forward in life can come our way once we do. A whole load more need for qualities like balance, self-control and hard work, will be called on from us when we face the world that can be ignorant and afraid of us - all bigotry, prejudice and hatred you may face, be assured, is rooted in nothing but ignorance and fear - but the Chariot, and the Metatron, can come up in the Tarot deck to show us that we have what we need, either around us, or inside us. Living openly queer is a task, but it's a task we're a lot more ready for than we give ourselves credit.

While the minority of people who'll hide their ignorance and fear of the LGBTQIA+ community behind hatred, prejudice, bigotry and anger, they're the minority, no matter how loudly they spread their message or how strongly they may be able to act. Being openly queer is in itself the exact kind of success story the Chariot signifies, one that's recognised as such by a lot more people around us than we have against us; an accomplishment in itself, and one that we deserve to feel just the kind of pride the Chariot depicts. That's why our flags, our focus months, and our support activist movements, are called Pride!

Calm control over our goals can mean a lot more than diligent career advancement. Manifesting fruitful success can mean a lot more than just focusing on image and desire. It can mean recognising that you deserve to be recognised as divine. Sometimes the way to be your real self isn't to just crack open the closet door and creep out, it's to ride a full on charging chariot.

(EDIT that struck me as I read this back: I realise I and my contributors are speaking from a big place of wealthy western privilege when we talk about such boldness, given that it will genuinely be the end of some people's lives if they come out in other countries. But if anyone in that situation is reading this, be assured: Those against you are only against you because of ignorance and fear - their reasons for holding on to their power over you have no other basis. The world is changing, slowly but surely, so that they are in the minority. And being you, truly you, is a brave and beautiful thing to do, whether it's in public or in private)

~*~

If you'd like an online Tarot reading from me, as a professional reader who puts these kinds of viewpoints into all my readings, you can reach me by clicking Here. If you'd like to join in a LGBTQIA+ Tarot group, with likeminded people, on bookface - I've not been keeping it very active lately, but I fully intend to change that very soon - you can find it by clicking Here.