I’m often asked about my path to the Tarot cards. Here’s that story:
I thought the Tarot was all about fortune telling. You asked a question, you drew a card and you read its meaning in the book and that was it. It never occurred to me that they could be for something deeper, something more personal.
During our first class, my teacher told us that the cards were really doorways. That stuck with me and each card was like a little window showing me what I needed to know.
When I started taking Tarot classes, I thought I knew everything already. I had been reading the Tarot cards for years, had delved into different types of fortune telling.
I was also a bit of mess. I was coming off the end of a difficult relationship and my body was different than it had been and I was still coming to grips with how it was now. I was battered emotionally, physically and spiritually.
My teacher talked a lot about using the Thoth deck for personal growth. It was a revelation for me. I never knew that the Tarot could be used in such a way. It never occurred to me that they could be used for anything other than fortune telling.
We started off reading just based on colour. We had to draw a card for ourselves every day after we asked the cards a question. I kept getting repeat cards.
One of them was the Aeon, a bright and beautiful card that to me looked like arms giving me a hug. The Aeon kept coming up for me in my daily card draw. I wondered why it kept coming up. It wasn’t until we started delving into the meanings of the cards that it started to make sense.
The card represents insight, transformation, that we should leave behind our old perceptions and embrace higher learning. What it really represented was the balance between spirit and self.
I was, quite frankly, stunned. I had been going through a transformation in my life. I was struggling to find peace in my new life, reborn in the same body but a different person. I was drowning. The Aeon was a light amongst the darkness.
I realized then that I had to open myself up, that I had to embrace what the cards were trying to tell me. So my questions to the cards changed. Instead of wanting to know if I would find love, I asked them how to go about loving myself.
I felt an awful lot like the Fool that opens the deck. He’s starting on a journey and it takes him through the deck of cards. I was going on my own journey, learning about myself and about what I was cable of.
As my confidence with the cards grew, so did my confidence in myself. The cards helped to put things into perspective. Yes, I was a different person, no longer the same. However, the cards showed me that I was on the right path and that the journey would only be over when I was no longer willing to lean and no longer willing to grow.
That journey still continues. Every day, I learn more about myself, I learn more about what I am capable of. My spirit and my heart are aligned now and the world is no longer filled with darkness. It is only filled with light.
Let’s hope this Fool’s journey I am on never ends.
Spirit of the Wolf 