You Don’t Find Tarot, It Finds YOU
Do you remember your first encounter with Tarot cards? Mine is clear as day.
The story goes back to more than 30 years ago. I was a young girl working at the reception desk of a hotel. There was a French tourist, a guy in his 50s at the time. Every day, he was walking up to the desk shuffling a deck of cards. It was like a second nature to him. He was always shuffling, obsessively.
One of those days, I saw the imagery in the cards. They were not regular playing cards, they were something else. Curious as I was, I asked him what they were. "This is a deck of TAROT" he said. I knew what tarot was but I had never seen a deck in person until that day.
He continued shuffling. Then he put the deck in front of me and told me to cut it twice. I followed his instruction. Then he held the deck and spread the cards onto the reception desk. "Pick three cards" he told me. Again, I followed.
I don't remember anymore what the cards were exactly, nor what he told me. He invited me to a cup of coffee after my shift to a nearby cafee house. That afternoon, he gave me my first tarot lesson. At the end of our meeting he said "Take this deck, it is yours now."
That day I had no idea I was about to embark on a journey of a lifetime. After our meeting I went back home and examined every single card. I bought a few books in the following days. It was all too much information at first. How does one learn all the meanings of 78 cards upright or in reverse? Even if one does that, how they interpret them next to the other cards?
Unfortunately, I put everything on the shelf, never to look again for nearly 10 years. I was such a novice that I probably didn't even know if I had chosen a decent book or not.
About 10 years later, I had another encounter with an eccentric woman in an antique bookstore. I was there only to browse some old books. Then I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around and saw this woman with bright red hair (maybe it was a wig), dark makeup and hippie style outfit, jewellery, the whole package. She made a sign for me to follow her. Mystified by the atmosphere, I followed. It felt like entering a different dimension, just like in the movies. Maybe that was truly her intention, but I followed.
A few seconds later we were sitting on big puffy pillows on the floor, she had a floor table with crystals, incense, and a deck of tarot cards. This one, I remember. I picked three cards: The Devil, 9 of swords, and The Wheel of Fortune.
"Ah! The Devil" she sighed. “Those desires and temptations that bind you in chains of your own making, this is in your past. But the darkness of it, it is still within you. You learned one heck of a lesson didn't you?”
She didn't have to explain anything, I knew exactly what she was talking about. As she moved her fingers over the next card, she saw the worry in my eyes. "You are suffering from anxiety and panic attacks now because of that, right?" I looked at her without giving a sign, a yes or a no. I just looked in her eyes. Motionless. "The swords are your illusions. But you will be fine. You will find a way to face and conquer your fears. This is not forever. But it's time you did some introspection. It's time you recognised your inner deamons. Don't let them keep you chained up in the illusions of the past."
Then she moved on to the last card. The Wheel of Fortune. "The wheel turns, a cosmic shift is coming your way." I took a sigh of relief. She smiled. "Your destiny is already in motion. That shift has already begun. Something very exciting is waiting for you, if you know how to see it."
Then she lifted the deck to see the card that was at the bottom. It was the Star. "You are meant to guide others with your intuition, and the wisdom you gained from your sufferings". Then she asked me what my zodiac sign was. I told her I was a Sagittarius. "You see, you are a natural born student and a teacher all in one" she said. "You will be fine".
As I was leaving, she said "A man with blue eyes is waiting for you on the other side of the ocean". I turned around and looked at her, puzzled. "Which card told you that?" I asked. "None of them, that's just the message the spirit is giving me now" she said. I smiled. "I am already married. And he doesn't have blue eyes". Our eyes met, I sensed a strange energy in hers, as if she was seeing through me. "The wheel is turning, and the shift has begun."
I went back home, walked up to the book shelf. I found the old deck. I shuffled it. I picked one card. It was the 10 of swords. That evening I told my husband: "I want a divorce".
What is your story? How did tarot find you?
