Dancing With Cards and Swords: Personal Storytelling Through Tarot
The Power of the Internal Narrative.
Eight of Swords.
My arch nemesis.
Over the last nine months almost every time I’ve drawn tarot cards the suit of swords has appeared, eight of swords a reoccurring character.
A blindfolded figure amongst 8 blades, this card was a reminder that I could become a warden of my own prison if I allowed a situation to get the better of me.
Swords are a difficult suit for me.
They bring into sharp relief choices that need to be made, the demons that have to be faced or accepted.
The magic in these cards works.
Yet I don’t believe in the healing power of crystals.
I have no idea when mercury is in retrograde.
Spiritual isn’t on my list of self-identifying adjectives.
Just over a year ago the idea that I would even entertain drawing tarot cards would have caused me to laugh.
That all changed when I realised their potential to affect my experience.
It dawned on me during a phone call. My friend began to tell me about the card she drew that evening.
She had had a rough day.
The card had made her feel reassured and calm. She had learned significant lessons and got dirty but required work done, the card had led her to acknowledge and be comfortable with this.
This wasn’t the first time she had spoken to me about tarot but the way she described her introspection made me realise there was more happening here than what she described as spiritual.
Saying this I don’t want to discount anyone’s spiritual experiences with tarot or other tools. Reality as an experience is processed through our brains - our brains are not the same so I have no means of having or speaking to your own experience. Who am I to dictate whether it is real or not?
Following this revelation with the tarot, I purchased my own set of cards and started drawing them for myself.
I began to see life a bit differently.
Our lives are ruled by narratives.
They come in many shapes and forms, external feedback from the world around us and the internal stories we tell about ourselves. I consider it critical to seek new ways to shake my narratives up - to challenge the way we all interpret experiences and receive ideas.
Your inner storytelling dictates your experience.
The tarot cards are a different way to interact with your personal story.
The cards themselves tell the story of Fool’s Journey, the first card (0) of the 22 major arcana cards. You are no doubt familiar with one or two characters from the major arcana such as Death (13).
The other 56 minor arcana cards are the tools given to the Fool by the Magician (1) to aid them on their journey.
Cups - Water, Emotion and Love
Swords - Air, Logic and Intellect
Wands - Fire, Creativity and Willpower
Pentacles - Earth, Materialism and Wealth
The Fool starts as a naive and optimistic youth before undergoing a series of meetings and challenges that lead to transformation and maturation. This culminates in completion and fulfilment before starting again on the next league of the journey, the cycle of life. You might recognise symmetry here with the Jungian idea of the hero’s journey and other schools of self-actualisation.
You will likely be most familiar with the artwork from the Rider-Waite-Smith deck (pictured below). The potential for learning about history, symbology and other esoteric subjects is endless.
However, you don’t need to study the meaning behind the cards at length to have a meaningful interaction with them.
The information and insight they offer already exists inside your head.
Tarot can be harnessed like a guided mindfulness exercise - not unlike directed meditation or journaling. They provide another medium in which to pry the knowledge and ideas free from the depths of your busy mind.
So how does one do some personal storytelling with tarot?
My two regular uses involve either:
Asking a particular question or for information regarding a challenge being faced
Drawing at the end of the day to reflect
In the end, how you decide to use the cards is personal. There is screeds of information on different ways to approach the cards on the internet.
My one recommendation is to attempt to intuitively read the card before studying the meanings. When you draw the card, before you look up the meaning of the card, you consider what it makes you think of or feel. Why are you thinking and feeling that way?
Then look into the meaning - study the card.
Sometimes when you draw the implication behind the card feels a little surface and generic.
However more often than not it is striking the lens the card provides. You begin to perceive a challenge or experience from within a context you would never have considered.
For instance, drawing any card out of a cup suit will often make you consider something from a more emotional outlook or swords from a more pragmatic point of view.
Sometimes they smack you in the face as unwanted reminders about situations you are ignoring and or being pigheaded about.
As a creative tool, I’ve begun to use them with fictional writing. Stuck in some way or not sure where to take a thread? Draw a card and see if it inspires anything.
Use wisely as it can both curb and fuel the overthinking mind.
Tarot has been added to my growing repertoire of mental and mindfulness exercises. It feels fun and exciting to draw, sometimes even a little ominous which all adds to the experience of reading tarot.
So perhaps if you find yourself mulling over an issue, draw a card and see where it takes you.
Spiritual or not - the card’s ability to influence your perspective, to tell your story, is its own kind of magic.
My outlook or use for tarot has been received in mixed ways from people I’ve spoken to. If you use tarot or some other form of cards such as goddess decks or the Thoth deck - I would like to know about your experiences and interactions with them.
My personal deck is a beautifully illustrated cyber-punk roleplaying deck: Eldritch Overload. This isn’t an affiliate link just me sharing cool stuff! The cards and guidebook are stunning and now prized possesions. Check it out!
One of my favourite tarot readers offers to draw for characters from a story. I love it, it really helps to cut through to the heart of things if writing hits a stumbling block.
I came to tarot through Everway, which is a TTRPG that uses a deck of oracle cards instead of dice. You draw cards to resolve encounters and to guide character creation. Playing an Everway campaign with a couple of Jungians got interesting very fast....
One of the decks I use (Daughters of the Moon) has a goddesses theme, but it still follows the Rider-Waite card structure. It's unusual though because the cards are all round, so you don't often have neat reversals. Usually a card is partly tilted in one direction or another. It always gets me slightly uneasy if I'm not familiar with a particular goddess and don't actually worship them. But sometimes it still feels like the right energy. I guess I think of it more like collective unconscious/archetypes... that may be tied into something greater, but I'm okay with not knowing for now.
The concept of the circle cards is interesting - I will have to check them out!