Tarot Reading
I got into reading tarot cards in 2018. Here's what the cards show me about 2021.
The chaos of 2016 drove Maggie Moore to learn how to read tarot cards in 2018. In 2020, she put them away until she took them out again to do a reading for 2021.
by Maggie Moore
In times of great stress and anxiety, you might be more likely to believe in and pay attention to information that goes against your regular ideology. I get it. Standard methods of coping are not doing the job, so you reach for something new to help you understand. This might explain why I got into reading tarot cards in 2018.
For all the obvious reasons, 2016 left me searching for a way — any way — to understand the world around me. I wanted to find something I could believe in — something to give me a hint about what would happen next. A jump into full-on witchcraft made a whole lot of sense: It’s a study of power and energy, full of rituals and practices that celebrate the earth. And it was as far away from politics as I could get. Sign me up.
In this way, tarot reading started as a hobby and a necessary skill for any budding witch. I’d heard you were not supposed to buy yourself a deck, that the only real way you could acquire one was to get it as a gift. While in Philadelphia for a work party at a doomed non-profit, I decided to break that rule. I stopped into an occult shop and made my pact with the dark powers. All my initial research into tarot reading told me that decks were powerful objects that needed to be respected, so I wrapped my new prize in a scarf and waited to open the box until I got home.
Back in my Brooklyn apartment, I fanned the cards out on my bedroom floor and introduced myself to them. I held each one, taking a moment to absorb its face and observe how it made me feel. Important though it felt, this got tedious quickly, and I found myself itching to put the cards away. Not a very good first impression, but I was trying.
Back in my Brooklyn apartment, I fanned the cards out on my bedroom floor and introduced myself to them. This got tedious quickly.
If you’ve never seen a tarot deck before, you’ll understand why I got bored. The Rider-Waite-Smith deck, the most common for beginners, has 78 cards. You’ve probably seen the 22 major arcana cards (The Lovers or Death), and maybe you’ve seen some of the 56 minor arcana cards (the Three of Swords is pretty popular). The minor arcana cards are divided into suits (wands, swords, pentacles, cups) and, like a deck of playing cards, each suit has 10 numbered cards and four court cards (King, Queen, Knight, Page).
But the layers to the cards are staggering. Suits correspond to aspects of life (pentacles deal with money, wands are of the spirit, etc) and different suits interact and conflict with each other during a reading. Each card is intricately illustrated, filled with symbols and colors that convey its meaning, and each deck has its own distinct personality. Meanings are reversed when cards appear upside down, and I haven’t even gotten into what the different layouts mean.
I tell you all of this to show you that the tarot isn’t magic, but it does ask you to tap into the same parts of yourself that magic does: your intuition and your vision. The symbolism and complexity of reading tarot makes the reader sound like a fortune teller, but what they’re actually doing is offering a window into the querent’s life. Which is also why I immediately pulled back from tarot once the pandemic started. Nothing sounds worse than examining my internal life with a critical eye during a seemingly unendurable health crisis that has driven us all indoors. If I can’t leave my apartment, then my mind had better be untroubled by the pain of being known. So I ditched the tarot in order to better devote my inner resources to marathoning past seasons of The Real Housewives.
I tend not to have New Years resolutions. The middle of winter has always felt like an odd time to be reborn. But the darkness of our shortened days offers us time to regenerate, to muse, to dig deep within our minds in an attempt to find some kind of way forward by the time spring comes. So I’m coming back to the cards and letting them be small, beautiful lenses through which I can peer at myself and the world. I’m starting the year with a reading, and my question is: How can we heal ourselves in 2021?
I’m starting the year with a reading, and my question is: How can we heal ourselves in 2021?
I’m still early in my tarot journey, so I keep my readings simple. I’m only able to read the major arcana in a straightforward layout. My question is best suited for a three card draw called Mind, Body, Spirit. The order of the cards will tell me what I need to know about each facet of how to answer my question from the perspective of my mind, body, and spirit. Got it? Here we go:
2020 was a year marked with compounded trauma whose full extent we might not know for a long time. But that doesn’t mean our healing can’t begin in earnest in 2021. After a break up, or any other traumatic event, people tell you that closure is a gift you give yourself. The placement of Justice in the mind area reminds me that the journey towards peace begins within ourselves. This card also calls for a more ordered mind heading into the new year, which is a welcomed sight. The scales and righteous sword speak of empowerment, and they beckon me to step even further into my own power. Healing will begin this year with a clear mind and honest intentions.
The connection between mind and body here is less corporeal, and it offers us the opportunity for true expansion. Many of us spent 2020 tending to the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Do we have food? Will I make rent? Is it safe to go outside? The Hierophant offers us a ladder to a higher self. This can look like any number of things: meditation, going for a walk in silence, or just listening to what your body is calling out for. It’s also worth remembering that what flows from the body isn’t limited to the physical. The body is a conduit for the mind and spirit to communicate with the world. The Hierophant asks us to use the most of these gifts to create art that will feed us.
Any shift toward healing won’t happen overnight.
It’s important to remember that any shift toward healing won’t happen overnight. It’s okay to give yourself time to repair what was destroyed in the way that makes the most sense to you. The Hermit reminds us that being solitary isn’t just about being alone, but about trusting yourself. His presence in the spirit area sends a strong message: healing begins with yourself, and there is no better expert on your needs than you. Your spirit, and the spirits of those around you, will benefit from your introspection and exploration.
— — —
We all need a little help listening to our own voices and intuition. It can be scary to dive into the murky waters of your own heart. But the Hermit could not be speaking to me more clearly: the cards will play a big role in how I heal myself in 2021. All I have to do is let them.
My friend Maggie Moore, who last February wrote about how the movie 1917 got the intimacy of war right and in July wrote “Infinite Loops,” lives in Brooklyn where she is the Senior Digital Strategist @StandUpAmerica. Follow her on Twitter at @MaggieM012.
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