Nostalgic dragons

Every time I walk down a certain street in the town where I work, I think about my first tarot deck. Seminal event, I’m tellin’ ya. I rarely bought anything frivilous for myself, but I’d been ogling this deck with dragons for months, and I finally decided to ask my local new age shop to order one for me. And the day I went to get it… I still remember it so clearly. How mild the weather was, how this precious THING was suddenly in my hand, and how, when I came home and started learning the cards, I just immediately got it.

Shortly thereafter, I got the chance to use it on an actual human, and when she confirmed that it all made sense to her, I was over the moon. Now, I don’t believe in magic or anything, but I do tentatively believe in synchronicity. Also, I think using the cards is just sort of a meditation, like praying. One single image can mean a thousand things, but one of those meanings rises to the surface in answer to a question you already know the answer to.

Although how that works when there are other people involved, I have no idea. I’ve had some nerve-wracking experiences laying the cards for people I don’t know, but I don’t think I’ve ever made a total ass of myself. Once, I even read for a guy on radio, so I guess he has proof on tape. He never got back to me, though, so I don’t know if it turned out the way I said.

I don’t lay them much for myself anymore, since I tend to see my worst fears instead of what’s true, but I did lay a Celtic cross when I was accepted into the PhD programme, and I’ve had reason to chuckle at that reading many times since then. I used a LOTR deck, and the reading was full of hobbits, which I took to mean that I would feel like, well, a hobbit, ie like a total noob among the worldly-wise knights of academia. How right I was.

I also remember that in the Outcome position, Shelob’s cave turned up, and that’s where I’ve resided for a couple of years now. If I’d known how accurate that prediction was at the time, I might have turned down the position, but I guess I’m glad I’ve decided to make it to the end. I know it’s a logical fallacy that you need to finish things that have taken a lot of time and energy, but then Frodo did finally get out of that cave and everything turned out alright in the end.

[And this is where an elegant reference to the beginning of this little text would have gone, but I can’t be arsed to think of one]