Category: Tarot

Chapter Forty-Seven – Princess of Cups

by Jamieson Wolf, posted in A Tarot Guide, Memoir, Someone Else’s Life, Tarot

I still found myself at a kind of crossroads. I knew that there was a change of some sort coming and I didn’t know what to do.

I felt like I was so many parts of myself and still had to find a way to put myself back together. I had my life on before I ended up on the streets and the life after. I found it difficult to recognize where one part of me ended and where the other part began. When I looked within myself, I could see the sea and trace my path through the waters, but I wondered what I had given up getting here.

I found myself wandering back downtown and saw my street family just where they had always been. I saw Angel drawing on the pavement of the square and she looked up at me when my shadow fell across her drawing. Her face immediately broke into a wide smile and she leaped up to hug me. Her warmth helped pull me out of the water within.

“How are you?” She looked me up and down. “You look lost. Come and sit, write something to go with this piece.”

Pointing at her chalk drawing, I saw a woman that was looking out from behind a forest of trees, a winding river blocking her path forward. “It’s beautiful,” I said.

“Thanks, but your words would help make it shine a bit brighter.”

She handed me a piece of white chalk and I couldn’t resist the chance to write. Taking the chalk from her, I sat beside her drawing and looked at the woman. She seemed to be confronting the water in front of her. She didn’t look at it with hatred for blocking her path, but instead her stare showed awe.

“She’s looking to where the water goes,” Angel said. “Much like you did.”

I let out a laugh. “I didn’t follow a path of water though.”

Shaking her head, Angel gave me a smile. “You did though. You followed your own path to where you are now. We’re all made of water and stardust, so you were just following the path that was already within you.”

“I’m still homeless.” I told her. “I haven’t accomplished anything.”

She stopped drawing and laid a hand on my arm. Her touch pulled me away from myself and when I looked at her, I could see only warmth in her face. “Of course you have. You got out of here. You chose that for yourself the moment you walked away.”

“I walked away from you; from everyone I know.”

“Only because you were strong enough to choose a different path. You knew that you wanted more than this. You inspired me. I still come out here to do my work, but I got myself a small apartment. You can come by after we’re done and check it out. It’s really only two rooms and a bathroom, but it’s mine. You don’t know how much of a difference you make in other people’s lives, Jamieson. You’re just holding on to everything so tightly.”

She motioned at the chalk drawing of the woman standing in front of the river. “Do you think that woman will try to hold on to the water?”

“That’s impossible, no one can hold on to the water except when it’s frozen.”

“Right, so why are you trying to hold onto it?”

“I’m not trying to.”

“Aren’t you though? You just told me that you left behind everyone you knew. You didn’t, you carry us in here.” She touched my chest where my heart was beating. “You have to let the flow of your life take you where it needs to take you. You can’t lament what you’ve already lived.”

She did one final sweep of green with her chalk, giving life to the water that ran in front of the woman. “Be like this woman. You need to honour the flow of water and where it will take you. You didn’t leave anything behind, Jamieson. You’re only just beginning to discover who you are.”

I looked down at the drawing of the woman and I swore I could hear the water as it flowed in front of her. I could hear the words that she wanted to say, and I wrote them beside the drawing, letting the words flow from me, not holding anything back. After the poem was written, I sat back and reflected on what I had just written, all about the feel of the water as it moved past my skin, taking me on a journey that I was brave enough to take.

I realized that I had been trying to remain still when the water had been trying to pull me in a new direction. I had to embrace what the world had in store for me and rather than believe that this was all I would amount to, I had to let the water give me counsel.

I embraced Angel in a hug. “Thank you. How did you get so wise?”

“You should know as well as I do that any kind of creative drive, whether it be art or writing, helps you to see into other worlds. I spend a lot of my time in those other worlds and so do you. You just need to work on pulling yourself out so that you can engage with the life you’re leading.”

When I closed my eyes, I could feel the pull of the wind and could hear the sounds of water as it sluiced around me. I let the water pull me where it needed to and I made the decision to go with it willingly instead of fighting where it wanted me to go. Angel put her arms around me in a hug and we walked onward to her new apartment, the sound of water still loud in my ears.

Chapter Forty-Four – 9 of Cups

by Jamieson Wolf, posted in A Tarot Guide, Finding Balance, Memoir, Someone Else’s Life, Tarot

I looked around myself a lot.

I was always trying to find my place in the world. I finally felt like I had a family of a sort made up of both people I knew from the streets and the Pagan community. My life had gone from having no one to being abundant with people I considered family of the heart.

I was so used to hiding who I was. However,  since I had ended up on the streets, I had met so many people that welcomed me as one of their own. I still found it odd to realize that I knew so many people that wanted to know me. I carried a lot of self-hatred, both from my childhood and there was a small part of me that wondered who would want me?

It turned out that a lot of people did. Sophie had weekly dinners for a bunch of her Pagan friends. We would bring ourselves and meet at her house in Lebreton Flats. It would be a gathering of like minds and kindred spirits. The people gathered in Sophie’s living room changed every once in a while, depending on who was dating who, or who was visiting from out of town. but the core group of us stayed the same. There was Sophie and her boyfriend James, Lisa, Jen. The people I knew were joined by Franny and her boyfriend Michel with Janice and Kyle to round out the group. I was a little shy around the people I didn’t know, but they soon became fast friends.

We would eat potluck style with each of us bringing something different the dinner and we would sit and play games or delve into magic by creating spells or doing rituals. It was the magic that brought us together on a deeper level as you must open yourself up wide to be ready for magic and it brings people closer together. I often wondered if the thrum of magic was something visible, the air would be filled with rainbows and shadow.

I went through a lot of different emotions when I was among these people. There was sadness if someone was going through something difficult and we had to band together to lift the other persons spirits, especially if it meant that one of our group would be leaving us. The people changed over time, but the core group of us remained the same.

I was reminded of the people that I had met on the streets and the kind of family those people had been to me. Looking around the room at these people, I could not deny that I had been lucky enough to find another kind of family and I knew how lucky I was to have these kinds of people around me.

Sitting in amongst a gathering of Druids, Wiccans, Pagans and otherwise, I thought about how my street family may have given me back my body and my Pagan family had given me back my spirit. These people hadn’t known me but had accepted me because they saw my spirit and accepted me completely. The streets may have taught me to protect myself, but this world taught me to be free. It was a juxtaposition that I was still having trouble accepting. However, whenever I felt like I had lost my place, all I had to do was come home to myself and the emotions that my body held.

The people around me were full of emotions and over time, the people that shared in food, joy, sorrow and laughter showed me that I didn’t have to be emotionally cut off. There didn’t need to keep a wall between myself and the emotions that I had been taught to bury down deep within me. I knew that if I didn’t let them out, they would rupture within me. The Pagan community were full of light. There were a few bad apples, you’ll find that in any bunch of people, but everyone was completely open with their emotions. They showed me that while I had to practice ward and sigils to keep myself safe, I was free to share my true emotions with them.

It was an odd experience. I was so closed off from people before and I was being asked to be open. My life was abundant with the people that surrounded me, and the core group of people had my back. I knew that I could be completely myself with these people and it was frightening and wonderful all at once.

I had spent my entire life so far having to keep so much of myself hidden from my parents, family and friends. I couldn’t talk about my disability, the abusive home that I had survived, my sexuality or my gender. There was much that was off limits for me to be able to form lasting relationships with other people and it was exhausting.

Looking around at the people that surrounded me, at Sophie, Lisa, Jen, James, Franny, Michel with Janice and Kyle. We were an odd sort of family, but we were a chosen family together. My life was abundant with so many emotions and that was okay. I didn’t have to hide anything anymore.

Especially from myself. I didn’t want to hold on to so many unnamed emotions. When I got back to Lisa’s that evening, I filled a cup full of water and then wrote the emotions I had been holding onto for so long. I wrote quickly listing off everything I could think of. I wrote about my anger, my self-hatred, my fear of being who I truly was and being completely myself. I filled both sided of the small piece of paper and dunked it in the water.

I watched as the water smudged the ink and softened the paper, making if soft. I swirled the paper until all of it was completely wet. I took the paper out of the water and began to shred  the paper into lots of little pieces until the cup of water looked as if it held wet snow. If I looked into the cup, I could see the letters that had been the words of my emotions, their ink fading even as I looked at them as the water continued to soak into the paper.

Standing, I walked off the back porch towards the edge of the garden. I poured the entire cup of water and paper into the dirt. I watched as the paper settled into the soil and if I tried to spell words with the letters I could see. With each word I spelled, I was making that negative emotion into something else.

I was letting go of the past and finally looking towards the future instead of merely living day by day. I wanted to dream of something more.

Looking down at the letters in the dirt in front of me, I tried to find a word so that I could divine what awaited me in the future.

Chapter Forty-Two – 7 of Cups

by Jamieson Wolf, posted in A Tarot Guide, Memoir, Personal Growth, Someone Else’s Life, Tarot

Francis and I were at a Pagan brunch when the first seeds of doubt began to find their way into our relationship.

Fox was sitting across from us at our table and there were plates of eggs, toast and bacon in front of us. I was telling Fox about a ceremony that Francis and I had taken part in the other night. I had stood for Air and Francis had stood for Fire as we made the four corners with a small group of other Pagans. A woman we both knew named Anna had wanted to perform a rite for herself and had asked a few of her friends to take part. It had been a wonderful experience performing magic with Francis and I was still elated by the whole experience.

“The room hummed with magic,” I told Fox. Beside me, Francis took my hand and gave it a squeeze. He had felt the magic, too and we had talked about it afterwards.

“Man, Francis. You lucked out with Jamieson, and you really robbed the cradle!” he said with a loud laugh.

Beside me, I could feel Francis freeze and then he removed his hand from mine. Beside Fox, Lisa gave him an angry frown and smacked his shoulder.

“What? What did I say?”

“You’re just fucking clueless, that’s all.” She said. Her tone was sweet, but her eyes were like steel daggers.

Francis chuckled beside me, but there was no humour in it. He waved a hand at Fox, but I saw the shape of a gesture in that wave. Francis’ middle finger was clear in the air in between all four of us before the rest of his fingers popped into view. “It’s alright,” he said. “It’s all right,” he said again. I could tell from the tone of Francis’ voice that it wasn’t alright. There was a grim set to his mouth that I hadn’t seen before. Whenever he looked at me, he was smiling.

After brunch, we took the bus back to his place. We barely spoke on the bus. Our relationship was normally full of conversation. We talked about everything, and Francis never put me down or called me stupid. We were equally fascinated with each other and the life I thought we were building together was one filled with magic, words, music and love. Francis and I were in the process of discovery, and I liked to imagine the path that we were forging together on the surface of the map within my mind. Everyone has a map like this, with roads already traveled and paths yet to be found.

On the map within me, I could see where our paths had converged, and the lines radiating from that point were brighter, drawn in shades of flamingo pink, sunset gold and the brightest cerulean blue. Looking back over the map, some of the lines that were drawn had been jagged and sharp enough to draw blood; a lot of them had. I traced the lines that blossomed like a flower ever since Francis and I had started dating and they flowed like water and air.

Which was I surprised to feel a jagged wall between Francis and myself as we rode back to his apartment. Indeed, there were no words shared. I tried to talk to him and figure out what was wrong, but he just kept shaking his head. We got off the bus and mad our way to his home in silence. No one else was home yet, so we just made our way to his room. I watched the man I love sit on his bed and crumple into himself as if the wall he had been a moment ago had just come tumbling down.

“You must think I’m an idiot, I’m sorry Jamieson. I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry for?” I asked, sitting down beside him on the bed. I was surprised that I didn’t put any walls up. I knew that we were about to have a conversation that I might not like, but I loved Francis so completely that it didn’t occur to me for even a moment to be fearful.

He took my hands in his and they were warm. When Francis raised his head and looked at me, I was surprised to find tears in his eyes. “You’re only six years older than my son.” He let out a sob and I watched a tear slide down his cheek. “I don’t know what to do. What direction do I take?” There was desperation in his voice. “I love you, I know that, and your love is a gift, such a gift and I never thought I would find love again. I thought that I was destined to be alone for the rest of my life, and then you appeared as if sent by the gods. But you’re only six years older than my son.”

I knew that Francis had two children from when he was married before he came out of the closet. I knew that they were still a small part of his life, but we had never talked about them. Our relationship was still so new, and Francis and I hadn’t been together for long, even though our love was deep. He had never brought them up before.

“Well, did you want to talk about it?” I asked. I knew he was hurting over something, and I wanted to help him heal. I loved him so completely that I thought that love could heal anything.

He kissed me softly. “No, I just don’t know what to do. I mean, I’ve gotten lots of comments from people like Fox, but I love you and that goes beyond age. I love your spirit and I’m so happy to be in your glow. I’ve just been in a funk since the brunch. Fox’s comment really got to me.”

“What can I do?” I asked softly. I knew that he was still upset, that Fox’s comment had unlocked something within him. Maybe it had already been unlocked if he had been getting comments from other people about our age difference. I saw nothing wrong with being nineteen and Francis being forty-one. “Tell me what I can do and what you need from me.” I wanted him to know that we could get through this together. When Francis looked at me, I watched him search my face and knew that he was wishing I was a few years older. It had been the first time he had looked at me like that. He had always looked at me and accepted me just as I was and I didn’t see that within his eyes. It was there for a moment and gone in the next.

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “You must think I’m an idiot, I’m just being an idiot.”

When he kissed me, there was no hesitancy and no wall between our lips, so I gave into the kiss and let the sound of worry and anguish in his voice fade from my mind, sure that our love wouldn’t falter and that our map would be filled with so many lines, it would look like a spider’s web.

I hoped for this as much as I willed myself to forget.

The Forest in the Mirror – My Journey with Tarot Collecting

by Jamieson Wolf, posted in Personal Growth, Tarot, Tarot Decks

I don’t think there will ever be a last tarot deck.

I’ve come to realize that as much as I love reading tarot and delving into the mysteries of myself and the journey, I find myself on, I love collecting new tarot decks and other tarot related creations that call to me. With each one I find, be it a deck of Tarot, Oracle, Kiper or Lenormand cards, it’s like I’m finding a part of myself.

Tarot has become a part of how I breathe and that breath changes focus over time. There are times when I feel like I need strong guidance and wise counsel and other times when I need a soft and gentle hand to guide my way. I always find myself going to different decks for different situations. I’ve tried to stick with only one deck, and I did for a while. My first deck was The Ancient Egyptian Tarot. I love the mysticism that Egypt still brings to mind and using those cards was like communicating with a deeper part of my spirit. The Ancient Egyptian Tarot was with me during one of the most difficult times in my life and part of me.

After a break from card slinging, I learned to read tarot again with the Thoth Tarot and after I spent a lot of time with those cards, I needed to find a different path for myself. My path with the Thoth Tarot ended badly, though this had nothing to do with the cards themselves, but the person who taught me to read with them. I wanted to find comfort after a difficult time and knew that I had to walk away from the Toth Tarot. It was too wrapped up in who he was.

After such a bad experience with that was wrapped up within the Thoth Tarot, I needed to walk away from the tarot for a bit. I found myself drawn to The Enchanted Map Oracle by Colette Baron-Reid. They were a revelation at the time and provided me with soft comfort and much needed advice that I needed to turn my mind around and to not just focus on the positive but find a way to let go of the negativity so that I could see the path in front of me clearly. I had no idea that my path would lead me to meet Colette with my friend Christine.

When a friend gave me The Wild Unknown for Christmas, it was like I had found a piece of myself that I had given away a long time ago. I was hesitant picking up another tarot deck after what had happened with the Thoth Tarot. However, after a time with so much darkness, it was like finding light in the shadows, and Kim Krans uses colour to great effect within the art of The Wild Uknown, using the shadow to show how powerful a spot of light or colour can be.

It is the deck that I always return to, no matter how many decks I own. It’s where I feel most at home. The Wild Unknown is the deck that somehow gives me breath in a world where I sometimes don’t feel like I can breathe. I have three cards tattooed on my right shoulder so that I can carry them around with me: the Ace of Wands, Strength and the Ace of Swords. Every day, they remind me what I can create, how I can overcome and what I need to cut away.

Even so, as much as The Wild Unknown holds a part of my spirit, it likes to wander and find itself in new places.  I’m always drawn to find a part of myself in something new and if it has gilding on the edges, I’m gone. I have always been a sucker for shiny things. After experiencing The Wild Unknown, I was drawn into the world of Prisma Visions. The Wild Unknown Tarot helped me through a period of growth where I became completely myself and opened me up to what was possible. The world of Prima Visions Tarot was an explosion of colour that lit up the dark and showed me what my world could look like, and it was a world that I wanted to explore. I felt like with each card that I was being drawn into a world where there was finally balance between the light and the dark. I found those cards when I needed to let myself shine because I didn’t want to hide who I was anymore. Those cards showed me that it was okay.

I could go on, but we would be here for a while. When people ask me how many decks I have, I truthfully don’t know the answer. I would wager somewhere between one-hundred or two. There have been decks that have been sold to others or given away to one of my friends who was in need of a little bit of wisdom, but other than that, they have stayed.

I’ve always thought of Tarot cards like doors, they invite into a world of the artists creation. The person who has created the deck is alive within each card, each pigment, each sword, pentacle, cup or wand. The decks that call to me are often at random or ones I’ve been told about, or I spot them on my journeys in stores (both mortar and online). If I know that the store sells Tarot decks, that’s the first thing I go to look at. I almost always find something to take home.

It’s not about just buying a new deck. There has to be some kind of spark or story, waiting to be unravelled and lived in. I’m a firm believer that Tarot decks are spirit keepers. I write and paint. I know that a little bit of the magic that I create lives inside each of my paintings. My books always hold characters that are parts or pieces of me, every writer does this. Our lives and imagination inspire the rest.

I think that tarot decks are like that, too.  The decks always hold the spirit of their creator. They’ve had that vision, that idea, that story that had to be told with tarot cards. They are world creators, giving their idea a canvas to live out their tale, to hold the energy that they want to imbibe the deck with. Every time I open a new tarot deck that called to me, I am opening a door within myself that has either remained closed, or I didn’t know was there in the first place. I usually sit with a tarot deck, flipping through the cards and letting what I see tell me a story. Then I sit and read the guidebook, so that I can see further into the forest. The guidebook gives me the bones of the deck. It is, after all, the deck creators’ story and vision. They take the forest of cards and help to bring them to life.

My tarot collection of tarot decks has become something more. It’s like each deck is a page in the book that tells my journey, mirroring a different part of my path. It’s a large book that I have compiled, much like a tarot deck that is really a book filled with mirrors. I’ve always used tarot for personal reflection and growth, and each card is a reflection of who I am, that’s how I’ve always seen them at any rate. These decks that have been created with care by so many different deck creators and artists. They may have created a forest to lose myself in, but it’s my intuition that gives me the light to shine through.

Either way, I’ve come to realize that there will always be a new deck that catches my eye and tugs at my spirit. I know this and I’ve come to a good place with it. I know that with each year that passes, there will be many more pages to add to the book of my life. I can’t wait to see where the cards will take me next.

The Symbols of Jennifer Cooper Steidley – A Tarot Disassembled Deck Review

by Jamieson Wolf, posted in Tarot, Tarot Books, Tarot Deck Reviews, Tarot Decks

I’m convinced that Jennifer Cooper Steidley is a Symbol Goddess.

I’ve been a longtime fan of her independently released works including Tarot Disassembled, Tarot Assembled and The Symdala Tarot. They are wonders of symbolic imagery held within the tarot and given a new light and life. They take the Rider Waite Smith Tarot, perhaps the most famous tarot deck, and break every card down into the symbols that each card holds.

The decks are full of symbols, and you’d think that would difficult to read with, but it shows us the pieces and players each Tarot card holds and the energy within. What’s more, her cards let us move them around to tell our own story. Tarot Disassembled helps us take a look at the tarot cards we know so well by breaking each card down to the symbols they contain.

Tarot Assembled breaks down the symbols even more by giving us a gorgeous pallet of colour. I can’t be the only one who responds in a different way for different colours. I feel morose or thoughtful when I see grey, joyous when I see yellow, thoughtful when I see green.  Steidley has each let us gaze not upon a card full of symbols, but one single symbol that the Tarot contains. Tarot Assembled has us take a look at the tree that makes up the Tarot and in contemplating the single symbol, we can put the Tarot we know back together.  

The Symdala Tarot takes the symbolic journey of the Tarot even further and creates a mandala out of each card. These mandalas give you space to pause, reflect and see even deeper into what the cards mean. What’s more, the words around the edge of each card and the symbols within these circular cards create windows and portals into different parts of ourselves. The cards ask that we meditate upon the images and words that the card holds and I love that about them.

I love the guidebooks that come with each of the decks. They are compendiums of the symbols to be found within and what these symbols mean. They are a wealth of information and knowledge and each time I open one and delve in, I find myself happily lost in a world of words and symbols.  I love how Steidley has given me a new way to look within the cards that I know so well and see something new even though I’ve been using the RWS Tarot for years now.

Case in point: I was drawing a card for myself from the Symdala Tarot the other night. I have been going through some health issues and wasn’t surprised to draw the 9 of Wands. What intrigued me was the bandage at the centre of the symbolic mandala. I had never seen a band-aid in the 9 of Wands. I went to my RWS and found the corresponding 9 of Wands card and right there on the man’s head was a bandage. I stopped and looked at the card from the Symdala Tarot and the RWS side by side and I really appreciated how Steidley took a card I knew so well and helped me to see something new within it. It’s like this every time when I’m using her cards.

I was beyond thrilled to hear that Tarot Dissembled was being published by Weiser. I love this deck so much because it started me on my journey of looking deeper within the cards. When I first started using the independently published Tarot Disassembled, I would draw a card and find myself being drawn to a particular symbol. Even through the symbols were all separated, if I followed them, they told a story. When I would read with other decks that were based off the RWS Tarot, I would see symbols that Steidley had brought out into the light. I’m can see the symbols so much more clearly.

More than that, she helped me to fall in love with the Tarot again because she made its language simpler to understand. After so many years of reading Tarot cards, things can start to seem a little boring. I sometimes lose my enthusiasm about Tarot, like everything else in life. Sometimes you need a break. I love all of my decks (and there are a lot of them) but there’s just something about going back to Tarot Dissambled that gives me a reset and much needed reboot. Having the symbols laid out for me reveals the language that Tarot uses to communicate. The decks by Jennifer Cooper Steidley are all like this, but Tarot Disassembled has a special place in my heart because it’s where I first saw the skeleton of each card through the images that she created.

Tarot Disassembled brought so much light into my life and not just because of the symbols that were finally given the limelight they deserved. The whole deck is a fabulous riot colour and it was my hope that when the Wieser version of Tarot Disassembled was published that it would honour the spirit of the deck I knew so well.

Thankfully, the Red Wheel/Weiser Books edition of Tarot Disassembled is just as amazing as the independently published version of the deck. The cardstock is lovely, the matte finish whispery and the yellow edges are amazing. My favourite colour is purple, so I was thrilled beyond words to find out that it had been added to the colour pallet of the cards. It was a joy to go through a deck that I knew so well to see if I could spot the differences in the cards.

I think what I love most is the fact that the Red Wheel/Weiser Books edition of Tarot Disassembled preserved the heart and spirit that makes the deck so special. The guidebook is still the wonderful grimoire of symbols, legend and lore and the cards are spectacular. I’ve got my first and second edition of the Tarot Disassembled, and they are thrilled to welcome their new sibling.

The Tarot Disassembled deck and guidebook by Jennifer Cooper Steidley and published by Red Wheel/Weiser Books is absolute magic.

You can learn mor about Jennifer by visiting her website here: https://www.jennifersteidley.com/