Tarot: Your Life’s Guide
What draws the seeker to Tarot? Why choose this approach to life’s questions when there are so many other pathways such as Hypnotherapy and Acupuncture?
This led me to consider how different Tarot is, compared to say, traditional counselling. With counselling, the client gives you an understanding of their lives and motivations, clear information so that you can assist as ably as possible – with Tarot we tend to do the opposite!
It’s always a privilege to meet a seeker as you discover what mental tools people bring to the table! Recently I had the pleasure of meeting a man who chose the ‘listen and watch’ method for the reading. I always employ the attitude, communicated to seekers, that what you say is entirely up to you. If you wish to talk throughout, fine, if you prefer silence, that is fine. It’s your reading, entirely about you, I am the conduit and facilitator (depending upon whether you see me as interpreting spiritual messages or providing psychological insight.)
Later, the seeker in question explained that he knew exactly what he was looking for and what he wanted to find in the cards. He identified the characters and scenarios that I saw and had already lived through choices in his heart and mind many times. His attitude was fascinating and obviously helped him enormously – he wanted his options rubber-stamped, like a second signature on an important document. It gave him a confidence and seemed to unravel his thoughts from a messy ball of wool into identifiable strands which gave him clarity.
The mind-sort is what so many seekers look for, because so often the ‘hurt’ in our lives is due to complete confusion. We sense disquiet, we feel a disconnect or impatience, and this is often helplessness because we can’t find the mental ‘hook’ to pull the threads into a straight line. A careless word from a friend last week that has made us ponder, a partner brushing us off with a cheek offered for a kiss instead of the lips. What was that all about? Has he/she got an issue with me? Most often, it is nothing, but added up, over even just one day, can crowd the mind and lead us up blind alleys. At its worst, it can make us feel like victims and not in charge of ourselves.
Under the last of our Seven Pillars philosophy we have ‘Sovereignty and Empowerment’ that Tarot can give you power to equip yourself with in life. This was something clearly in evidence with this seeker. He left me with a spring in his step and with new confidence. On our website, a key aspect of Mindful Tarot is ‘seeing yourself clearly, right now’ and here was a truly clear example of this, right at that moment. The body language had altered – he wasn’t hunched over, eyes looking across only fleetingly, but sitting upright, even smiling, an inner confidence. To be clear, it wasn’t that everything was suddenly fabulous, far from it, but it was a feeling that he felt enabled to sort things out for the better.
As we know, Tarot is made up of the Major Arcana and Minor Arcana big and small mysteries or secrets. Significant way markers on our life’s journey, and the more mundane or day-to-day experiences. This is life. The cards, from the Fool onwards, highlight every theme of the human existence, and the job of the reader is to attempt to make some sense from these ancient beautiful and yet bewildering cards.
This client taught me so much about us human beings. He wanted some affirmation of his plans, and he got it. For him, the esoteric wasn’t required, for him it was the cards acting as signposts on a road he was already committed to travelling on.
In his case, Tarot didn’t predict the future, it facilitated it.
I wish him well.
— Nicky Osborne
(If something here lingers, you can explore this work further here.)
