Introduction

I think I’ve been trying to find a way for a while to express all of what’s happening with me, how I feel, what I’ve experienced. I could pretend like I’m writing this for all the other millennial girls in the late to mid twenties sitting in their respective one bedroom apartments, wrapped in a fluffy blanket, smelling whatever three wick candle they picked up at Homegoods this morning in a vain effort to capture one molecule of seratonin to keep them going into this week. I could pretend like I want to open my world and invite others in to look around, kick off their shoes, and get comfortable. But in reality, I just need to get some of this shit out of my head and onto paper so I can take a look at it and understand what I’m working with.

Tarot is something that was always very mysterious and intriguing, and if I’m being honest, a little intimidating. Tarot in pop culture was watching these women who really piled on the eye makeup pulled ornate cards and immediately divine meaning from them, obviously in a way that either forwarded the plot or heavily foreshadowed the ending. I was not raised in a household where mysticism or anything New Age was celebrated; we really put the W in WASP. Don’t get me wrong, we were a white liberal family who voted Democrat in every election, and my parents still genuinely put in the effort to stay educated and learn about a wide variety of human experiences. But I was overtly taught that psychics were trashy and anyone who believed in that “crap” was trashy as well. Yikes.

My tarot journey started when in November 2018 when I was in a particularly low spot. It felt like my career was stalling, and I was still at the very beginning. My roommate at the time had just gotten a promotion over me and started dating my supervisor all within a couple of weeks. I could barely sleep, and I was having a daily emotional breakdown at my desk at work. In hindsight, clearly I was having a mental health event. In dire need of a break, a friend and I travelled to a neighboring small town to have tea. Afterwards, we wandered down the main street, and into a bookstore. While browsing, I stumbled upon a book called “A Little Bit of Tarot”. The book seemed extremely digestible, and it was pretty cheap, so I bought it. After reading a few chapters at home, I drove to Barnes and Noble right before closing, and bought my first tarot deck (embarrassing that I bought it from B&N, but desperate times called for desperate measures). It was a Rider-Waite deck, and I did my first reading with just the Major Arcana.

After that, my weekends were spent practicing reading with my friend, and trying to memorize the meanings of the cards. I felt like I wasn’t getting it, and everything felt very clunky. And then I discovered the Witchlab, our local witch store. That store changed everything for me. I met the proprietors, who were some of the warmest, most welcoming women I have ever met in my entire life. They told me about a comprehensive tarot class they were offering at the store, and I knew I just had to be a part of it.

The class was wonderful. Everyone had a different type of deck, and we all shared different experiences, and chatted over wine. Tiffany, the instructor, taught us tarot through the fool’s journey. We explored symbolism, numerology, elements, and intuition. I came out of that class with a book full of notes and knowledge that had me feeling extremely confident.

Let me introduce you to my decks at this point, because they’re going to essential be narrating with me through this book:

• Rider-Waite – I consider my Rider-Waite deck my old reliable. It sort of has a masculine energy, and I feel like every time I use him, I have to really warm him up and connect if I want a good reading. Even when I get a good reading out of him, it usually takes some serious meditation and conversation for me to divine meaning from it. That being said, I do find readings from him extremely rewarding and insightful. If you’ve never seen the Rider-Waite deck before, think Renaissance illustrations. Or if you’ve ever seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail, very similar illustration style. Lots of primary and secondary colors.
• Prisma Visions – God bless this deck. I cannot read with it at all. I love it so much because it is one of the most beautiful things I own, and I would love nothing more than to be able to read with it, but there are several problems. The cards are very thick cardstock which prevents me from being able to easily shuffle. Additionally, while the illustrations are downright gorgeous, I have a lot of trouble connecting with them. They’re very dark, and they make me feel almost hopeless when reading with this deck. The illustrations in this deck remind me of impressionist paintings. It’s a very blue palette, with bold splashes of color on some cards.
• Wayhome – This is my favorite deck. Big feminine energy, and I can read her no problem. The cards are very beautiful, and the symbolism is updated and accessible. When I read with this deck, it’s like reading the pages of a book. I’m no art expert, but the illustrations appear to be a combination of ink and watercolor. It’s really hard to say. The cards utilize more white space than the other two decks, and utilize a lot of rainbow.

I am starting the book at this point. I’ve taken a tarot class, I’ve read one book, and I have three decks. I’m not an expert on tarot, I’m not an expert on intuition, and frankly, sometimes I don’t even feel like an expert on me. There’s no plan here, aside from following the Tarot deck, which is kind of by design. I’ve tried to sit down and journal before, but I always come down with what I have dubbed “Anne Frank Syndrome”, meaning that I either consciously or subconsciously try to structure my journal so that it is digestible to an outside reader. It manifests by me feeling like I have to tell my notebook my life’s story before I really get down to brass tacks and tackle what I want to say, by which time, I’ve usually run out of steam and I never get what I need to down on paper, AND I feel like whatever I write needs to be in its final format as I write it. No drafts, just beautiful language, final copy worthy content flowing out of my finger tips. So what we’re going to see here is a slice of life, just a collage of human experience. Maybe there will be a plot you can piece together, but maybe not. I’m going to follow the Fool’s journey and see where he takes me. Or put this down and go back to streaming The Office, or Gossip Girl, or maybe like Buffy for the 329843729847th time. No judgement here. (except for number 20. If you know, you know.)

Thanks guys.