When the Tarot Tells you the Truth

And you're just like, "duh."

I have this little astrology deck that I like to use sometimes; there’s a card for each sign, house, aspect, etc. I draw one to use as a guide for what to look at more closely in my chart, and sometimes I bring in the Tarot to deepen the conversation.

So today, I drew the Aquarius card. I have the Moon and Venus in Aquarius in my 9th house, so there’s plenty to explore here. I grabbed my Tarot deck and asked: what can you tell me about Aquarius being in my 9th house?

Hierophant and 2 of Wands. Extremely literal. The 9th house is about higher education/study, religion/spirituality, and (often foreign) travel. There’s the Hierophant and 2 of Wands for you!

Then I drew a card specifically for my Moon: King of Pentacles. Well, the Moon rules my 2nd house of finances and belongings, so this, too, is very literal.

For Venus I drew two cards, since Venus always rules two houses in a chart (because it rules both Taurus and Libra). I drew Page of Swords and 8 of Swords. Well, Venus rules my 5th house of children, and my 12th house, which is the ‘unseen’, the subconscious, the house of exile. So, again, these cards are literal with a capital L. Here’s a kid. Here’s someone blindfolded and isolated.

I’ll admit, I got a little fussy. ‘Yes, yes, I know this. This much is obvious. But tell me more, tell me what it means on some ‘deeper’ level.’ The cards did not cooperate.

I had to step back. I had to release my urgent longing for some sort of Grand Insight and face the miracle that was right in front of me. How fucking amazing is it that cards that are so literal and CORRECT can be pulled? That isn’t coincidence. That is MAGIC. That is evidence of something greater at work. (You can probably tell that I’m not a ‘secular’ reader. I don’t believe that the cards are just random. BRING ME THE WOO.)

Photo by Soulful Stock on Unsplash

And this happens All. The. Time. I’m sure this is how it works for you, because it’s really how Tarot works best. The cards say: here is what is happening right now. Here is what we can say for sure. And yet there can be a weird sense of exasperation that comes up when you pull cards that are so TRUE. “But I already KNOW this!” We want to rush through the present moment. Tell us what’s next, tell us what to do, tell us the secrets of the universe.

We dismiss this absolute WONDER that is happening right in front of us. Well, hold on, I should speak for myself. *I* dismiss the wonder that is happening right in front of *me*, far too often. “I already know this!” As if it’s BORING. As if the fact that illustrations on cardstock can tell me exactly what’s going on in my life/heart/brain is blasé. “Well, yes, but….”

No buts! No buts! Be with this miracle.

And furthermore: do I “already know this”? Do you? How often are we just skimming and skipping over our experiences?

Virginia Woolf said, “A great part of every day is not lived consciously. One walks, eats, sees things, deals with what has to be done; the broken vacuum cleaner;....washing; cooking dinner; bookbinding. When it is a bad day the proportion of non-being is much larger.”

I know that I spend great proportions of my day in this state of unconsciousness. And I know that’s one of the reasons the cards are so fucking literal with me: they’re trying to shake me awake with the obvious, to the here and now. It’s a feature, not a bug, that they are telling me what I ‘already know’, because the truth is: I don’t really. I don’t fully.

This is part of how I’m trying to work with the energy of the Hermit this year. Be with the here and now, this small and sacred ground that is being so graciously, humbly, miraculously illuminated. If I dismiss it, it is like blowing out my lantern. It is the ultimate hubris: to say the Now is not enough, as if it isn’t all that is.

For a prompt today:

Tell me something I ‘already know’, but which I need to sit with more fully.

I pulled 10 of Wands. It’s a card I pull a lot, and I’m always like ‘yeah no shit. Things are hard, I work a lot, blah blah blah.’ It’s that old refrain: ‘Tell me something I don’t know.’ But, do I know this? Not in my bones. I’m glib, I’m dismissive, I don’t want to acknowledge this weight. I don’t want to consider what it would mean to let some of it go, because the truth is: overwork is like a weighted blanket, under which I can pretend I am safe. So, yes, I need to sit with it, own it, let it ask me questions.

I’d love to hear your pulls for this prompt, and I’d love to know your experiences and emotional response to pulling cards that are so literally true. Do you get exasperated? Do you marvel in the miracle? Is it a mix of both?