My neighbor’s teenage daughter picked up an interest in Tarot reading several months ago. She suggested that she give me a reading while I was spending time with her mom. To humor her (and have a bit of fun) I obliged.

As she presented the cards to me, she pointed out that even if the cards aren’t “magic,” they offer questions to consider and reflect upon. They’re like keys to doors of introspection.

Yet, the Tarot were so accurate

I asked about my art, my writing, what to expect from the rest of the year and the following year. I was astonished by the accuracy of the reading and how much the cards resonated with me. A few weeks later, she offered to do a longer reading for me, a Celtic Cross, which consists of ten cards.

Again, I was floored. I had my teen son come over a few hours later so he could receive a Celtic cross reading as well. He was actually scared, because it resonated so deeply with his current situation.

When I was in the family crisis that inspired the actions that resulted in my post about Responsibility vs Possibility, I was too overwhelmed with everything to ask a specific question. Instead, I shuffled the deck until a card fell out. The cards my teenage neighbor’s deck presented were those about anxiety and worry keeping me up at night, communication, raw honesty, and blending diverse elements (such as families).

When I did that first reading, between asking questions, a card popped out and she told me that a card that presents itself in this way usually has a large significance. That card? The Seven of Swords, which can relate to someone’s betrayal, lies and deception. This was right when I was in the midst of looking back and understanding my previous colleague’s envy, before considering what I did to make her feel envious.

A Christmas surprise

I was delighted when my friend told me that her daughter had bought me a Christmas gift, and even more so when I removed the wrapping and uncovered Our Tarot: A Guidebook and Deck Featuring Notable Women in History. Tarot cards alongside a non-fiction book?! I can learn about the meanings of the cards whilst learning about historical powerhouse women?! Count me in!

A quick shuffle of the cards presented to me The Fool and The Keeper (or King) of Swords.

The Fool

The Fool signifies the beginning of a journey and encourages the viewer to look to their intuition, consider their personal truth, and take steps toward fulfilling their life’s purpose.

What is my unique purpose? To learn, to create, to write.

The Keeper of Swords

This card represents a person with a keen intellect who strategically applies her knowledge to achieve her desires. This card indicates that you’re ready to share your knowledge with others.

What would more education look like for me and could I include others in my pursuit? If I delved deeper into my education, I would be breaking down my books and lessons I’m learning through living into a curated narrative.

Why am I making a blog post about this?

To me, these cards represent this space, this blog. I’ve held back so much here because of concern what a blog should be, based on what other people do. I thought if I was blogging I was supposed to be influencing, or at the very least promoting the posts on social channels, where people are. I concerned myself with evergreen content and search engine optimized content, with lots of tutorials uploaded to Pinterest to win a lot of clicks.

These habits will be hard to kick–the urge to be seen, the urge for my ‘work’ to be completed so much that I left this fully handwritten post in my journal for a week, because once I started typing it out, I thought it should answer the questions of “why” tarot are so accurate. (Is it Jung’s theory of Synchronicity? Conceptual Blending? Some kind of Quantum Phenomena?)

I want to write. Realistically, I know that most people are busy with their own thoughts or absorbing information through more engrossing mediums, like TikTok. The act of writing is cathartic, but the act of organizing the thoughts for a blog post creates a sense of calm within me–while before these thoughts were disconnected, sporadic, fast flowing, they become tamed.

Even if I don’t amass a following, or if people don’t click through the emails to read the posts, I’m going to continue to make order out of the disorder. Because even if you aren’t reading this, I still feel like I understand the situation better for writing it.

But you are reading this, aren’t you?