WTF Is Tarot

by Bakara Wintner

  Boundary Setting & Energetic Protection

  While setting boundaries isn’t the sexiest topic in the world, it is, in my experience, the most necessary exercise in any magical practice. This is true for many reasons. People are coming for readings in deep vulnerability; they are asking questions and revealing parts of themselves that they oftentimes conceal even from their closest friends. There is a responsibility you hold as a reader to the people coming to you, and the sooner you define your boundaries, the cleaner your practice will be.

  When I first started reading tarot, boundaries were a foreign concept to me. I took late night phone calls, confused professional relationships with personal friendships, had no recourse for last minute cancellations, spent unpaid hours responding to e-mails from clients who had follow-up questions, spent a lot of time worrying about what people thought of their readings and feeling guilty if I gave them unwelcome information. Everything I’ve learned about boundaries over the course of my experience reading tarot is a product of crossing them.

  It took time for me to understand boundaries as an act of self-love and self-preservation, and something that makes you and the people around you feel safe. No one enjoys feeling like they are getting something out of obligation, and honoring your boundaries builds a trust that allows people to believe when you say yes, you’re all in. I believed that if I said no to something that didn’t feel right—a last minute booking that would stretch me too thin, an event opportunity at a loud club full of drunk people on Halloween—I would lose something. It was fear-based decision making that did me no favors besides an expertise in what not to do. Read on.

  Dependence and Attachment

  While there is nothing more rewarding than working with repeat clients, it is important to stay conscious of the nature of the attachment being formed. Just because someone asks for a reading doesn’t mean you need to give it to them, or that it is appropriate at that time. I’ve had people contact me a week after their last reading asking for another. It is clear, in situations like that, that they either didn’t get the answer they wanted or are relying too heavily on the cards to make decisions. Sometimes, people request readings to look into short-term issues that will resolve themselves within days (fight with a partner, a job interview, etc.). I do not offer readings as Band-Aids for panic. To me, it feels exploitative and unethical. I will not capitalize on someone’s fear or desperation. There are readers who I love and respect who will do quick reads for people in a pinch, but it does not feel right to me personally. That is my boundary.

  Not everyone is happy with me in the moment, but it has built long-term trust with my clients. They know I will not always take their money just because they are willing to give it to me.

  Honoring Your Time

  Don’t get overwhelmed with the idea of charging for readings. You may not be looking to read professionally and therefore exchanging money for readings is not relevant to you. However, to give a reading is an expenditure of energy, and to give energy without receiving anything in return forges an imbalance for both the reader and the querist. When starting out, someone offering their time to help you practice may be exchange enough. However, when you become more comfortable in your ability to give readings, set up some kind of trade with the people coming to you. Money is just energy and by no means the only form of currency. The barter system is a beautiful thing. You can trade a reading for a dinner, a piece of art, a bottle of wine, a massage and the list goes on.

  If you are intending to read professionally, it is essential to place monetary value on your time. Oftentimes clients will e-mail after the reading with one more question, or want to follow up on things that came up during the reading. Schedule a follow-up appointment for a pro-rated amount (I offer 15 minute follow-ups) rather than sending a long e-mail or getting on a late night phone call.

  It took months of people cancelling appointments at the last minute or not showing up altogether, arguing with me about price and giving follow-up readings for free for me to decide to implement things like a set rate and a cancellation policy. This was scary. Any time we defend our worth—monetary or otherwise—we are probably going to scare the shit out of ourselves a little bit. I already felt like I won the lottery by being able to read tarot professionally and didn’t want to push it, but nothing was lost. No one fought me, or questioned it. I didn’t lose clients or get wiped off the face of the earth. Same story when I raised my rates, cut down on events and stopped offering in-home readings. Even my fussiest Manhattan clients made the voyage to Brooklyn.

  Knowing Your Limitations

  The scope of what the tarot can provide a person will never cease to floor me in its expansiveness. The healing and transformation I’ve seen occur from readings has brought me to tears over and over again. But—and this is a big but—there are indispensable forms of treatment that are not interchangeable with a reading. Chances are you are not a mental health professional. And even if you are, if someone is coming to you for a reading and not counsel on their mental health, then stay in your own lane.

  Part of honoring the responsibility others entrust in you is to know when to call it. I’ve had clients come to me supremely fucked up by readers who gave unsolicited and uninformed advice: recovering addicts told that total sobriety wasn’t necessary, people with mental illness advised to get off their medication, cancer patients instructed to change their treatment. I have personal thoughts on all of these matters, but a client isn’t coming to you for advice, they are coming for channeled, intuitive guidance.

  Sometimes, people just need help beyond a reading’s capacity. Anything can come up in a reading—mental illness, childhood trauma, sexual abuse, grief, physical ailments—but that does not mean that you personally have the tools to deal with any and all of these matters. I certainly do not. I do, however, have an arsenal of healers whom I trust and refer people to. This includes therapists, body workers, Reiki practitioners, hypnotists, acupuncturists, mediums, breathworkers, yoga instructors, shamans, intuitives, other tarot readers and, yes, doctors and psychiatrists. If someone’s needs exceed your ability to meet them, it is useful to have resources on hand for them and important to guide them to the help they need when you cannot give it. An extreme scenario of this is if someone comes in presenting a danger to themselves or others they should be immediately referred to a physician. Usually, a client will just need ongoing support in continuing their work. Many readers go on to train in additional modalities to provide a more holistic healing experience for their clients and see them through their process.

  Self-Care

  There is an agreement you make stepping into healership to soften the veil of your ego to truly feel someone else’s experience. But once the reading is over, this energy must be released. You are a messenger for the information of the cards, what they deliver to the client is not your fault or your burden. Oftentimes, a reading is just the beginning for a person, as it lays out a map of what they need to do in order to reach their highest potential. This is where the aforementioned resources are a valuable way of further supporting your client in the “now what?” space they sometimes find themselves in. You diminish your usefulness if you hold on to a reading after it is over. Healers have various ways of shaking off excess energy after giving a reading—from prayer and meditation to dancing to taking a bath to going for a walk to watching trashy TV. It doesn’t have to be super spiritual; it just has to work for you.

  Consent

  This one’s a biggie, but it is also very simple. If someone doesn’t ask for a reading, don’t give them one. If you offer someone a reading and they don’t explicitly say yes, don’t give them one. I’ve had people come for readings pissed off, skeptical, reluctant, insisting that this was all bullshit. But they still came. They travelled to my space to receive a reading. And, despite their hesitation, when I asked if they wanted to move forward with the reading, they said yes. It’s easy to get a little over-enthusiastic at the beginning when we are learning the c
ards and want to offer them to everyone, and that’s largely a positive. But respecting other people’s boundaries is paramount to a practice that is rooted in integrity. Only yes means yes, y’all.

  Dealing with Assholes

  When you tell people that you read tarot, count on some type of response. It’s just an interesting and weird and uncommon thing to do, and people almost always have a reaction to it. More often than not, the reaction I’ve encountered has been enthusiastic and curious, and I’ve met a lot of clients through organic conversation about what I do. Every once in a very rare while, however, I’ve encountered people that I like to call assholes who will come at me with various challenges about my job. Here is how I have broken them down.

  The Angry Skeptic

  “Well you know that’s bullshit, right?” is a common response of the Angry Skeptic. This is the only type of asshole that actually gets angry with you when you tell them what you do. It offends their humanistic, materialist sensibilities and, beyond that, threatens their entire conception of reality. They are often armed with irrelevant scientific facts and repeatedly let you know how much they don’t believe in this stuff.

  How to deal with this type of asshole: Science and magic are not mutually exclusive studies. Galileo believed in astrology, Newton studied alchemy and Einstein touted the importance of intuition in all matters. This makes the Angry Skeptic an easy asshole to take on. There is, invariably, a place where science and hard facts come up short in explaining our universe. Verifiably, scientifically inexplicable phenomenon. When a mystic stands on this edge, they decide to embrace the mystery with faith. Nothing about the act of reading tarot directly refutes science. In fact it plays into String Theory, the idea of a Multiverse and the near-universal agreement that we have not even begun to scratch the surface of this world’s mysteries. To pull information from an intangible source and interpret this information through image-based archetypes is certainly not a scientific practice, but it is not one that refutes logic or reason, either. When someone responds with anger to magic, it is because they feel threatened by it. The best way to diffuse this situation is to be as non-threatened as possible. Calmly answer their questions, nod to science when that is relevant and be unwavering but non-aggressive in your beliefs. Once they see they can’t rile you up, they usually move on—or ask for a reading.

  The Humorously Dismissive

  The Dismissive is not too different than the Skeptic, except they don’t use anger as a way to make you feel invalid. A bitchy smirk, sarcasm and bad jokes are the weapons of choice for this asshole. They may ask you to predict the upcoming lottery numbers for them, or tell you that they liked magic tricks when they were little, too. In a way these people are worse than the Skeptic because their ways of belittling are more subversive and difficult to detect than outright anger, but it comes from the same place of feeling threatened that you believe in something that they don’t.

  How to deal with this type of asshole: The aim of the Dismissive Asshole is to make you feel like what you are doing is illegitimate. The best way to combat this attempt at making you feel insecure is to remain stubbornly, maddeningly secure. To be apologetic or to minimize what you do is to let them win, which really means that everyone loses, because you feel like shit and they are still an asshole. When I deal with people like this I typically talk about how much I love my job, how lucky I feel that I get to help people all day, that I set my own hours and work on my own terms. I’ll talk about all the amazing people I’ve met and the stories that have moved me and how no two days are ever the same. Then I ask them about their boring-ass job.

  Religiously Offended

  The Religiously Offended Asshole isn’t really an asshole, they just genuinely believe that what you believe stands in opposition to what they do, and they adopt asshole-like tendencies as a result. Unlike the first two assholes, however, they tend to be a bit more earnest in their concern. They just truly believe you’re a heathen, or a bruja, or otherwise irreconcilably hell-bound. Unlike the previous two assholes, the Religiously Offended actually believes in the power and efficacy of the tarot, but believes it is a plaything of Satan. It says right there in Exodus that, “You shall not permit a sorceress to live.” Well, fuck. In addition to being seen as witchcraft, the use of cartomancy could also be seen as worshipping false idols, both of which are biblically problematic practices.

  How to deal with these this type of asshole: We have more in common with the religiously offended than might be evident at first glance. The desire is the same: to develop a relationship to Source that we may rely on for support, guidance and community. The only difference is in the approach. While these types of assholes seek out this relationship through organized religion, there are many ways to reach for a connection with Spirit. The cards are a medium between a person and the divine, just as a Priest, Rabbi or Imam Khatib serve as conduits between heaven and earth. We are no more at odds with the Religiously Offended than they are with people of different religions. If what they believe is true and there is only one divine source, then these modalities and rituals are simply different paths to the same mountaintop.

  Culture Police

  Usually incorrectly overusing phrases like “cultural appropriation” and looking for a fight via social media, the Culture Police are the worst type of asshole. They are quick to call you racist for liking tacos, or listening to rap music. They don’t attempt to diminish or discredit the efficacy of the tarot, or harbor genuine concern for the state of your soul. Rather, they hold the position that you do not have the right to a magical practice because it does not belong to you from a cultural standpoint. I’ve had many uniformed keyboard warriors come at me telling me that magic rightfully belongs to folks of indigenous cultures. While certain mystical practices and religions—Voodoo, Santeria, Native American Medicine—are deeply rooted in culture, there is a way to respectfully and consensually study and practice these magical systems. With tarot, it is a different story.

  How to deal with this type of asshole: Knowing the origin of the tarot clears up this type of asshole fairly quickly. Cultural appropriation is defined as members of a dominant group exploiting the culture of marginalized or less privileged groups. The true origin of the tarot is unknown, with the first documented use of it as an esoteric object occurring in France. France is kind of like the ultimate asshole, with a long history of marginalizing and not much of being marginalized. This makes appropriating French culture a near impossible endeavor. Moreover, many different groups, cultures, religions and ethnicities have adopted the tarot and made it their own, which only enhances its power and enriches its story. Magic is available to all. Come to it with humility, with respect, honoring its history, with a genuine desire to learn and it will make itself available to you.

  ENHANCING YOUR MAGIC

  While the practices discussed in this chapter do not directly correspond to the tarot, they are all ways of enhancing your experience with the cards. Many people find that after beginning to work with their deck, they crave further connection to their intuition and spirituality. Call it a gateway drug. And since healing work is a winding rabbit hole from which there is no return (insert evil laugh here), there are several modalities to aid in providing ritual and deepening your understanding of the tarot.

  Developing a ritual around using your cards is a powerful way of shifting into a space where you feel prepared to use them. Ritual is defined as an established or prescribed procedure for a religious or other rite, and you can choose your procedure. Before using my cards, I clean my hands with Florida Water and smudge the deck with white sage. I light a candle, select crystals I feel are appropriate for the client, and ask them to write their name and birthday on a small piece of white paper. I prefer to pull cards on a solid wood surface.

  Is everything ruined if I cannot do this? No. I’ve read at airports on cheap carpeting under fluorescent lights, at events where open flames are not allowed and impromptu at restaurants, on the subway and in nature
. The ritual is for the comfort of the reader and creating an atmosphere for the querist. It constructs a safe container, and allows both of us to step out of the daily-grind mindset and into a still, sacred space. It does not, however, impact the efficacy of the cards.

  In a reading, huge amounts of information are transmitted, more than the cognitive mind can process in one sitting. There is a point where the brain stops racing to hold it all, allowing for the absorption of the message without ego interference. This is a good thing, but it can also be overwhelming for the recipient of this information overload. Supplementing readings with other types of healing work can soften the experience and help ground the querist.

  Chakras

  Chakras are the most helpful secondary resource I have found to strengthen my relationship with the cards. A Sanskrit word that means “wheel” or “circle” and referring to the seven main energy centers in the body, each Chakra has a location, color association and mental, emotional and spiritual function. In my deck, the colors in a card will often correspond to the properties of the Chakra associated with it and connect to the card’s meaning. Of course this varies from deck to deck. Nonetheless, to isolate areas of the body in order to identify and clear blockages is a useful and accessible tool during readings.

  Root Chakra

  Color association: dark red

  Location: base of spine, legs

  The Root Chakra is the energetic command center for our most basic instincts. In a primal sense, it corresponds to food, water and shelter. In a reading, issues in the Root are tied to security, money, grounding and a general sense of feeling safe in the world. Abuse, trauma and financial insecurity will all threaten the stability of this chakra.