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An odd thought
Jan. 11th, 2014 11:12 amIf I were coerced into offering one piece of advice and one only to all young people starting out in the world, I would say this:
Get yourself a pack of tarot cards.
No seriously. Go into Waterstones, or an occult bookshop, or just about anywhere in Glastonbury, look at tarot packs till you find one you really like to look at (that's important), buy it (if you have the spare dosh) and take it home. I don't care if you're Christian, pagan, atheist, agnostic, Hindu, Muslim, Baha'i, or a member of an obscure cult that still regards playing cards as the devil's picture book (in which case you should definitely do it, because that's piffle). Get yourself a pack of tarot cards. I like the Mythic Tarot; Jan prefers the Aquarian. Pick one you like, and get it.
The first thing you'll realise, as you take them out and look at them, is (if you didn't know it already) that tarot cards have exactly as much sinister occult power as the plastic soapdish of your choice, and that nobody who has ever actually seen any could seriously maintain otherwise. They're mass-produced, good grief, by a printing press that was probably running off Ryan Giggs' latest autobiography and last year's edition of the Busty Substances Calendar at the same time. And this will teach you (if, as I say, you didn't know it already) a valuable lesson about people who try to get you scared of things that they obviously know nothing about; scared of knowing things that they don't.
Read the little book that comes with them. There's always a little book. Skip over (if any) the wearisome list of definitions of each card; if they mean something to you, that'll be more important than what they meant to someone else years ago; if they don't, the printed definitions won't be any earthly use. You don't need those. Handle the cards a bit, shuffle them around, drop a few on the floor (because they're always just that bit too big at first) and get to know them. Look at the pictures. Get comfy. They're your cards.
Try a spread, or a layout, or whatever the little book calls it. Just for fun at the moment. See what happens to the images when you put them down in different combinations. (No, they don't change, you fool. I mean what happens to how you think about them.) Maybe you find yourself making up stories, connecting the images in other ways, imagining what the symbols mean in different contexts. Find your own meanings, if any; that's important.
When you're bored with that, try it with a question in your mind. See if the layout or the spread gives you any ideas as to how that question might be answered. Maybe it firms up a decision you'd already made but hadn't fully committed to, like tossing a coin and getting the wrong answer. Maybe it points you towards an aspect of the question you hadn't considered. Nothing occult going on here at all; just thinking about things, using a visual aid that's been helping people to think about things for five hundred years or so.
The cards will not tell you "your Auntie Myrtle will get off the bus from Twelford at 3:48 p.m. precisely, and when she does so she will trip over a small Yorkshire terrier and sprain her ankle rather badly." They might, by a juxtaposition of the Queen of Cups, the Chariot(reversed) and the Fool, remind you that you were supposed to be meeting Auntie at the bus station at 3:30 and you'd better stop messing about with cards and get going. Or they might not. And this will help you to remember that not everything in life is an exact science, nor should you want it to be. Not everything in life can be reliably demonstrated or repeated under laboratory conditions, and that's a good thing, because diversity is always good.
And maybe, just maybe, if you're luckier than me (or some might say unluckier), looking at the cards will open up a door inside your mind and you'll learn something that later turns out to be true and that you could not possibly have known. I'm convinced that does happen sometimes; I think (though I'll never be sure) I've seen it happen once. The thing to keep in mind about that, though, if it happens, is that it's not the cards doing it. It's probably you. But it's not something you should ever count on, or brag about, or expect ever to happen again.
And maybe--quite probably, in fact--none of that will happen. No inner voices, no connections of ideas, nothing. In which case all you have is something in your house that you really like to look at.
I don't see a downside.
Get yourself a pack of tarot cards.
No seriously. Go into Waterstones, or an occult bookshop, or just about anywhere in Glastonbury, look at tarot packs till you find one you really like to look at (that's important), buy it (if you have the spare dosh) and take it home. I don't care if you're Christian, pagan, atheist, agnostic, Hindu, Muslim, Baha'i, or a member of an obscure cult that still regards playing cards as the devil's picture book (in which case you should definitely do it, because that's piffle). Get yourself a pack of tarot cards. I like the Mythic Tarot; Jan prefers the Aquarian. Pick one you like, and get it.
The first thing you'll realise, as you take them out and look at them, is (if you didn't know it already) that tarot cards have exactly as much sinister occult power as the plastic soapdish of your choice, and that nobody who has ever actually seen any could seriously maintain otherwise. They're mass-produced, good grief, by a printing press that was probably running off Ryan Giggs' latest autobiography and last year's edition of the Busty Substances Calendar at the same time. And this will teach you (if, as I say, you didn't know it already) a valuable lesson about people who try to get you scared of things that they obviously know nothing about; scared of knowing things that they don't.
Read the little book that comes with them. There's always a little book. Skip over (if any) the wearisome list of definitions of each card; if they mean something to you, that'll be more important than what they meant to someone else years ago; if they don't, the printed definitions won't be any earthly use. You don't need those. Handle the cards a bit, shuffle them around, drop a few on the floor (because they're always just that bit too big at first) and get to know them. Look at the pictures. Get comfy. They're your cards.
Try a spread, or a layout, or whatever the little book calls it. Just for fun at the moment. See what happens to the images when you put them down in different combinations. (No, they don't change, you fool. I mean what happens to how you think about them.) Maybe you find yourself making up stories, connecting the images in other ways, imagining what the symbols mean in different contexts. Find your own meanings, if any; that's important.
When you're bored with that, try it with a question in your mind. See if the layout or the spread gives you any ideas as to how that question might be answered. Maybe it firms up a decision you'd already made but hadn't fully committed to, like tossing a coin and getting the wrong answer. Maybe it points you towards an aspect of the question you hadn't considered. Nothing occult going on here at all; just thinking about things, using a visual aid that's been helping people to think about things for five hundred years or so.
The cards will not tell you "your Auntie Myrtle will get off the bus from Twelford at 3:48 p.m. precisely, and when she does so she will trip over a small Yorkshire terrier and sprain her ankle rather badly." They might, by a juxtaposition of the Queen of Cups, the Chariot(reversed) and the Fool, remind you that you were supposed to be meeting Auntie at the bus station at 3:30 and you'd better stop messing about with cards and get going. Or they might not. And this will help you to remember that not everything in life is an exact science, nor should you want it to be. Not everything in life can be reliably demonstrated or repeated under laboratory conditions, and that's a good thing, because diversity is always good.
And maybe, just maybe, if you're luckier than me (or some might say unluckier), looking at the cards will open up a door inside your mind and you'll learn something that later turns out to be true and that you could not possibly have known. I'm convinced that does happen sometimes; I think (though I'll never be sure) I've seen it happen once. The thing to keep in mind about that, though, if it happens, is that it's not the cards doing it. It's probably you. But it's not something you should ever count on, or brag about, or expect ever to happen again.
And maybe--quite probably, in fact--none of that will happen. No inner voices, no connections of ideas, nothing. In which case all you have is something in your house that you really like to look at.
I don't see a downside.