Woo-woo Writing Aids: Using Tarot in Your Work
A couple nights ago I was at a writer’s dinner party. After we’d each had several a couple glasses of wine, the tarot cards came out. We each had a reading by our host, and then I gave her an abbreviated three card (past, present, future) reading. Much hilarity ensued. (This was at the end of the evening, after several a couple bottles of wine had been downed.)
My reading was abbreviated because though I love tarot cards and have multiple decks, I rarely use them to give others readings. Rather, I use them for insight into myself and my life.
And tarot cards are also fabulous for writing. They are visual, many of the traditional decks feature cards that tell stories, and they are rich in symbolism. You can pull the same card on different days and see new things in it every time.
While tarot cards are most often thought to be used only for divination and to foretell the future, nothing could be further from the truth. And they are also not affiliated with any particular religion or lack of one. (I once talked about using tarot cards for writing at a workshop in the south, and was met with worried stares and lots of resistance.) Rather, tarot cards can be used for insight, guidance, clarity, and perspective.
All things that would help your writing, right?
The Basics
A tarot deck consists of 78 cards, divided into the Major Arcana and Minor Arcana. There are (usually) 22 Major Arcana cards and they deal with the big picture. Things like concepts (justice, strength, judgement), characters (the fool, the magician, the lovers, the hanged man) and scary stuff (the devil, the tower, death). Some believe that the progression from the fool, which is the first card, to the world, which is the last, map the hero’s journey. (And there’s an oracle deck with this as its theme.)
The Minor Arcana are all the rest of the cards, and they are divided into suits. Most of the time, but not always, wands, swords, cups, and pentacles. And they, too, tell stories, and deal with big concepts.
A massively wide variety of tarot cards exist in the market these days. There are so many of them that you may have a hard time choosing. The Rider Waite deck, designed in 1910, is the original standard…
