Tag: Tarot

The Forest in the Mirror – My Journey with Tarot

by Jamieson Wolf, posted in Tarot, Tarot Deck Reviews, Tarot Decks, Tarot Writing, Thoth Tarot

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 different facets of myself, 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 by Clive Barrett. I love the mysticism that Egypt holds 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 is 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. I backed away from Tarot because of my experiences with the deck and my teacher. I still felt that I needed some kind of guidance and found myself turning to Oracle cards.

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. I consider myself lucky that I got to meet Colette, but the shine that I felt followed her dulled after meeting her and so did my love for her cards.

There were other Oracle cards that were able to guide me through what I was going through, but I was itching to find another Tarot deck. I love Oracle cards, but Tarot would always be my first home.

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 were 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 must 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 recently donated upwards of sixty decks to a charitable foundation. This frees up space a little and it was good to go through the decks that I have and I was able to say goodbye to them and thank them for helping me find different facets of myself. I know that even though I just got rid of a lot of decks, that there will never be a last deck. There is always something that I can learn about myself and the road that I am on in this life.

I can’t wait to see where the cards will take me next.

Chapter Fifty-Four – 6 of Swords

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

Sophie was beginning work on a tarot deck.

She had gathered a few of her Pagan friends to be different cards. A lot of people wanted to be part of the Major Arcana cards, but I was fine with just being included in the deck. When Sophie told me that I could have my choice of the Minor Arcana, I thought about what I was trying to achieve on this new path without Francis. I had gone from being part of something to being alone and, though I recognized what he had done to protect himself, I wasn’t sure how to move forward.

“You’re such a Swords,” she said, describing the suit as if it were a personality trait. “You’re a writer and a creative like me and Swords are such a creative suit.”

I shook my head. “I just find them so violent.”

“They don’t have to be, it depends on how you look at them. You wouldn’t be the Ace of Swords, maybe the Two of Swords?”

I shook my head again. “Can’t there be another card?”

Sophie looked me up and down, wondering where to place me in her deck. After some time, she spoke. “How about the Two of Pentacles? You’re just starting on your true creative journey, so how about we give you some balance as you go forward?”

She had me dress in a white’s poets’ blouse and striped pants, as if I were some kind of circus performer. I took Sophie’s hand with my left hand, and I took hold of her boyfriend James’ with my right.  They had me get up on to a large tree branch and when I was balanced, they let go so that James could take the photo with Sophie directing him and making sure that he got the right shot. High up on the branch, I could see everything and everyone that was at the farm. Francis was the Magician card, and Lisa was the Star card. Jess was the Hermit and Fox was trying to be The Emperor, but Sophie wanted Fox to be The Hange Man, but Fox didn’t want to hang from a tree as James had suggested.

I had seen Francis walking around all morning and just as I stayed away from him, he stayed from me. I tried to keep my eyes from looking at him, but they were drawn to Francis and the surety that he conducted himself with. He walked around the grounds with such confidence that I was jealous of him. I didn’t feel nearly that comfortable with myself, especially with the storm that he had caused within me.

My eyes were drawn to Francis as Sophie and James helped me along the long tree branch. It felt like I was perched within the trees and I smelled the earth. I could also feel the wind moving around me. The day was hot and humid, and the wind was warm. I could smell honeysuckle and the ever-present smell of manure that was used as fertilizer from the farm next door. I could smell the leaves of trees and the mustiness that came from the shadows.

I turned away from Francis and the pain that he caused in me. I had tried to patch the holes that he had left in my heart, but I could hear the wind whistling through them. My heart sounded hollow, and I wanted to fill it with something else other than the withered heart that I had chosen to keep safe inside of a metal box. Looking out at the wide-open expanse of the fields in front of me, I let myself imagine the grass like a green sea that could take me somewhere else where I could let myself heal.

I looked away from Francis and what he represented and chose to turn away from him and toward what would come in the future instead. I knew that he had been my first love, but I knew that there would be others.

Sophie explained that I would have to balance on the tree branch on my own for a few minutes while James grabbed the shot from different angles and she made sure that I would be comfortable with that. The Pentacles would be added in digitally afterwards. I nodded and they both took their hands away. I followed Sophie’s instructions about how she wanted me to pose.

I let nodded again and put my arms out on either side of me to get my balance before I moved them in front of me. With my cerebral palsy, I wasn’t sure how long I was going to be able to stay on the tree branch, but right now, for this moment, I was holding my balance, and I didn’t feel like I was going to fall. I was surprised by how free I felt.

With my palms held open to the sun and my gaze on the sky and sea of grass, I felt like I was flying.

Chapter Fifty-Three – 5 of Swords

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

I was so angry.

I was also surprised at the thoughts that were going through my head. Every memory of Francis was now tainted and dulled in my head because of what he had done. The fact that he had talked to everyone but me saddened me; the fact that he wouldn’t let me talk to him at all, that he wouldn’t talk to me at all, infuriated me.

I had been sad for days, but gradually, the sadness passed into anger. The water that had surrounded me slowly evaporated as the anger took over. There was a storm in my mind filled with hot shadows made from my fears come to life. Every time I closed my eyes, I could see Francis and his form wavered as if I were seeing him through the film of heat from a fire.

As much as I loved him, I was so angry. I couldn’t bring myself to hate him, for who could hate their first true love? Lisa had told me it was okay to hate someone, but I took offense to that. My love for Francis still ran so deeply in me. I couldn’t stop the flow of my thoughts and emotions, even if there had been a dam put in place in front of the emotions. I had used my mind to place a barrier around my heart and the memories that I had of Francis. I made sure that the metal barrier in my mind was sharp and pointy so that it would hurt every time I tried to look at the time I had spent with him. It was easier for me to go keep my head up afterward and didn’t hurt so much to go on without Francis.

And yet, I would find myself taking out those memories and looking at them, even though I knew that I was hurting myself each time I plucked a memory from that metal box. I would try to look at the memories through a thin red haze. I knew that it was hurting me to keep looking in, but I wanted to see what I had done wrong. When did he stop loving me? I was so lost within myself that even though I kept going, I was stuck. I said this much to Lisa one night.

She’d brought home a rare treat. She pulled open her pack of cigarettes and presented me with a rolled joint. “You look like you really need to loosen up.”

“Why, I’m not uptight.”

“You are so fucking controlled, Jamieson. When was the last time you did something for fun? And you’ve been mired in the dark forest; I don’t mind telling you that. Francis isn’t everything, Jamieson. You need to stop beating yourself up and thinking of him that way. You’re everything.”

Lighting the joint, Lisa took a few puffs and passed it to me. I gladly took in a few puffs of smoke, hopeful that it would at least lessen the pain that I was in and soften the edges of the steel knives. I passed the joint back to her, and she took a few more puffs of her own. Soon, the joint half gone, we were both giggling like school children. My face hurt from laughing, having been kept in a frown for so long. 

The moment made me realize how long I had been hurting myself. I shook my head and looked at Lisa, her eyes large with mirth. “He really was a dickhead.” I couldn’t bring myself to call him an asshole like Lisa did on a regular basis since he had broken up with me. Dickhead was as far as I was willing to go. I still loved him. It hurt to admit this to myself, but I knew that my love for him would take a while to fade.

Letting out a laugh, Lisa said “Well, he does like dick, so it’s an appropriate nickname! I’ll call him that next time I see him.”

I didn’t think anything of it until a few days later. My pager went off, and I saw Francis’ number flash on the screen. My whole world seemed to pause and go still. I couldn’t hear the sounds of Lisa in the next room, or the sounds of traffic from the freeway near by. I stared at the number and wondered if I wanted to talk to him or hear anything that he had to say.

I was still wondering this as I walked out the door, lit a cigarette, and found myself at the payphone across the street. I put a quarter in and dialed his number and when the phone clicked and he said hello, the sound returned to the world around me. His voice could make me believe in any kind of possibility and I wondered which one I would find here.

“Hello, Francis?” I said.

“Hello,” I was surprised to hear the coldness in his voice. “Don’t you mean dickhead?” he asked. “That’s what you’ve been calling me.”

The volume of the noise around me went even louder. Francis’ words seemed too loud and his words felt like a slap. “I mean, I could have called you worse things. You’re lucky that it was just dickhead.”

“That’s what I am to you? I loved you, Jamieson. You don’t talk about people you love like that.”

“You do when they are being mean. You hurt me, Francis.” Even saying his name hurt me and I felt the pain in my chest, the swords clanking together. “I have a right to be upset after you did what you did.”

“I set you free, Jamieson.” I heard the click of a lighter and Francis took in a breath of smoke. “You should be thanking me. I’m not a dickhead.”

Louder than any other sound was the loud beating of my heart. I could hear it in my ears and the noise of it seemed to fill my mind completely. I thought of every other man I had been with, and I didn’t use my voice. My heart wanted me to know that I had one. I closed my eyes and watched as I took hold of one of the swords that surrounded my heart. In my minds eye, I held it out towards Francis.

Letting my eyes slide open, I took in my own breath of smoke. “You’re right, Francis. You’re not a dickhead. I believe that asshole fits you a lot better. You don’t get to break my heart and then tell me how I feel. This is on you.”

I hung up the phone before he could start talking again because I realized that what he said no longer mattered. I could grieve now, finally seeing Francis for what he was. It seemed that he had given me a gift in the end, the clarity that can only come from pain.

I held on to the sword like a dowsing rod and let it lead me back home.

Chapter Fifty-Two – 4 of Swords

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

I arrived back at Lisa’s with a broken heart.

Every breath I took into myself hurt and I wondered if this would be the way it was from now on. I dried the tears that had started again before I entered the house. I wanted to appear strong, but I knew that this would not last long. I’d resolved myself to the idea that tears were a sign that I was strong enough to cry. I just wished the tears would stop. I had cried all the way back to Lisa’s.

She seemed genuinely unsurprised to see me back so quickly. “Jamieson, you’re home early.”

I looked at her and saw her kind face and knew that I couldn’t keep it from her for any length of time. “Francis broke up with me.” I said, new tears sliding down my cheeks.

“I know, honey. I’m so sorry.”

That stopped me short, and I felt like I’d been slapped. “Why are you sorry?” Her words clicked into my head. “What do you mean, you know? What are you talking about?”

She patted the chair beside her and passed her pack of cigarettes towards me. I reached for the pack of cigarettes and pulled one out for myself. Getting up quickly, Lisa put the kettle on to boil. She was drinking coffee, but she drank it at all times of the day. She knew I liked a cup of herbal tea in the evenings. If she was brewing me tea, I was pretty sure that I didn’t want to hear what she was going to say.

She waited until the kettle was boiled and she poured the water into the mug. I could smell peppermint across the kitchen. Bringing the tea back to the table, she put the cup beside me and took my free hand in hers. “I know because we talked about it.”

“It meaning us? Like, Francis and myself?”

“Yeah, he’s been talking to everyone about his feelings for months now.”

“Months?” I felt the ground move beneath me. Looking down, I wasn’t surprised to see that the earth had opened up around me. If I looked too deeply into the earth, I could see the air moving within it and feel the wind on my skin. “What did you talk about?” I could barely get the words out. It felt like I was having to pull each word from my lips, the air to create them gone for now.

“Well, how young you were, of course. How he loved you but realized that he didn’t love you in the way you needed to be loved. There were so many years between you.”

“That didn’t matter to me!” I told her, letting out a puff of smoke. I watched it float to the ceiling to join the ether and wished that I could find a way to disappear so easily. “I knew he was having difficulty with it; he kept saying that I was only six years older than his son.”

“Then you see the problem. He already had two kids; he didn’t want a third one.”

Whatever words I was going to speak were slapped out of me. I closed my eyes and looked down at my heart which still bore the scars Francis had given me. I held my heart in my hands, and I cupped my hands around my heart to keep it safe. I would not let him hurt me. I kept my eyes closed when I spoke next. “Why didn’t he talk to me?”

“Because he didn’t want to hurt your feelings. He loved you in the beginning, Jamieson. But there was more than twenty years between the both of you.”

“That didn’t matter to me. I love him and never saw age when I looked at him.”

“Yeah, well he couldn’t overlook it.”

“Fine, but he should have talked to me about it. Who else did he talk to about breaking up with me?”

An uncomfortable look came over her face. “Everyone,” she said.

“Like, everyone we know? Define everyone. Like Darnelle and Sophie? Jen?”

“That’s a good start. But when I mean everyone, I mean anyone who would listen. He was so broken up about everything. It’s been going on for months.”

“But we’ve been together for months, almost a year.”

“He started talking to me about it soon after you got together. He loved you but didn’t know what to do.”

“Yeah, well, he certainly knew what to do when I was sucking his dick.” The words came out of my mouth unbidden. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” She pushed my cup of tea towards me. “Francis is an asshole. He may be all flash in the pan and sparkles, but I still think that when you have a chance at love, you don’t start looking for excuses to take your heart back.”

I closed my eyes again and could see my heart. It looked whole again. There were cracks that ran along the surface, but it was still beating. I could get through this. I had to get through this. For a moment in the dark, I was beside Shades while he fucked a woman, and I opened my eyes so that I could let go of that memory. I was always giving my heart to the people who didn’t want it. Here I was having discovered what love could truly be and the magic it could create, but it had been a lie, too.

Lisa could sense where my mind was going. “He loved you, Jamieson. I’m sure of it.”

“Then why did he push me away?” I asked. Fresh tears slid down my cheeks.

“I think he was pushing himself away. Not that I’m playing devils advocate, but I can’t imagine what it was like for him to love you and fear you at the same time.”

I let out a laugh. “Why would he fear me?”

“Because you gave him the love that he’s always been wanted and that terrifies him. He doesn’t think he deserved it, so he runs away from it, hurting people in the process.”

I nodded and got up from the table. I took my tea and went out back, sitting down on the back stoop in the dark. I could see bugs surrounding the lamp by the door. I listened to the wind and the sounds of traffic and other people in the distance going about their lives, unaware that it felt like mine had ended.

In my minds eye, I saw myself holding my heart to my chest. I knew that what it needed was love and care. I couldn’t give my heart to another; I had to keep mine close and love it as much as I could. I would focus on loving myself, instead of loving others who could not love me back. I took the four shards of metal that had been left in my heart and gently pulled them free. I took the time to fashion a box around my heart that would protect it and keep my heart from harm.

I would give my heart the rest that it needed so that it would be able to heal in peace. It was the least I could do after everything that my heart had seen me through. I opened my eyes again and looked into the shadows, knowing that I had to find my peace after I had time to grieve.

I lit a cigarette and the smoke faded in the shadows much as I wished to do.

Chapter Fifty – Ace of Swords

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

I had given the pages to Lisa ten minutes before, and I’d already had two cigarettes.

I hadn’t written a short story for such a long time. I had filled page after page with poetry, bit and pieces of dialogue, but I hadn’t written anything close to a short story since my days in high school. I hadn’t felt that I had anything to say as a story, but there were too many words in my mind, too many syllables sneaking past my lips that I had to find a way to get them out of me.

A story seemed like a good way to use as many words and letters as possible so that I could relieve the pressure that even poetry couldn’t ease. For every word I put down, ten more came to the surface. They didn’t fit in my poems, and it was as if these words found the form of poetry too confining, all shoved into form and shape. When I wrote poetry, I tried to follow the flow of the poem and convey what I wanted to say in as few words as possible. These words felt different. I could hear conversations between two people, and I knew that those words didn’t belong in a poem.

I needed to cut through the cloud of words if I was to get any kind of peace. Opening my current journal, I wrote the first thing that came to mind. It was a short story about a boy named Oliver that didn’t believe in magic, and yet magic was all around him. A troll showed up under his bed and the troll had a flatulence problem and kept farting throughout the story. When I was writing the story, I wrote what wanted to come out and had a fantastic time. Yet, when the story was done, I thought it was silly and stupid. Part of me had been reluctant to show it to Lisa, but she had seen me scribbling away and she wanted to know what I had written.

“You know, this is as good as Charles de Lint,” she said.

I blushed and mumbled my thanks, trying to find words that could express my joy at having Lisa compare my story to Charles de Lint. I knew that she meant it, too and how much she revered his work. Both Lisa and I loved Charles de Lint. My biggest influences for wanting to write in the first place were authors like Stephen King, Tanya Huff and Charles de Lint. I wanted to tell my own stories, but I didn’t think I had anything new to say. Lisa had pushed aside my worries. “Jamieson, every story has been told already. You just have to find your voice and tell you own.”

“If every story has already been told, then why would anyone want to read my writing?” I had asked her.

“Because they will have been waiting to hear what you have to say.”

I hadn’t been so sure, but I had sat down and written my story anyways, regardless of what the internal critic yelled at me. When I got to the end of Oliver and the Trolls, I wrote down the beginning of a new short story. I didn’t know where the words were coming from, but I didn’t want to stop their flow. As Lisa had sat there reading my story and flipping through the pages, I had told myself that even if she didn’t like it, I would keep writing. I knew that I had a story to tell.

“Seriously, Jamieson. I mean it. I mean, I love your poetry but it’s all dark and moody. This story is the first time that I’ve read something of yours that’s funny. I mean, you’re a brilliant poet and I love the spells you write, but this is the first time that you’ve done something funny. It’s so good. You got dark and full of shadows down pat, but I think you have a real gift with humour.”

That surprised me. Up until I had written the story, I hadn’t even thought of writing something funny, but it’s what came out. “I wanted to write about a boy discovering magic,” I said. “There’s no reason that magic has to be huge and terrifying. It’s all around us if we have the eyes to look.”

“Jamieson, the biggest magic in the world if laughter. I know that this story will make people laugh and there is so much magic in that. You need to try writing more. What happens to Oliver next?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, why not find out?” She clicked open her lighter and lit a cigarette for each of us and passed one to me. “I know that all artistic folk like you exist on another plain from the rest of us, you have to in order to hear what you do and be so driven to create. But I’m glad you cut through the doom and gloom a little and found your voice.”

She took a puff of her cigarette and let out a huge plume of smoke and I couldn’t help being reminded of the caterpillar from Alice and Wonderland who spouted wisdom in the form of a riddle. I wondered if I had finally found my voice, or at least another facet of it.

I thought of Alice going down the rabbit hole and I knew that by cutting through the fog of self doubt and writing something different from what I was used to, I was going down my own rabbit hole.

I wondered who I would be when I found my way out on the other side.