Tarotists specialize in deep listening. It is what we do best.
We listen and observe by cherishing our intuition and feeling empathy for our clients. We are often Empaths ourselves, picking up on the emotions of others and feeling them as if they are our own.
Tarotists harbor the unique ability to examine our reality as if the events of our life were cards in a spread. We can dissect and deconstructed everything that happens around us.
We deftly cultivate meaning behind symbols.
The Unites States and other countries are experiencing a Tower moment. The irony of Trump’s actual name being the same as the Trump or Major Arcana is not lost on any of us Readers. It doesn’t matter what side of the political spectrum you rest, support or lean on, you can see it.
Protestors are in the streets. Immigrants are being denied entry to the country. Trump and his people are bullying, yelling and firing anyone who disagrees with them with dizzying insanity. They use “shock events,” like the immigrant ban, to throw the country into chaos.
What are we to do? How do we react? Cry? March? Freak out? Move to Canada? Applaud? Cower in fear? Is the new normal binge watching the news instead of “The Crown?”
The day after the election, I was asked to perform a Facebook LiveStream for the New York Post. It was filmed, ironically, inside the Fox News Building on 6th Avenue.
The post-election Facebook LiveStream was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do for two reasons.
One – Reading Tarot on Facebook LiveStreams is, by nature, chaotic and confusing. The producer yells out questions from across the room as they appear on the Facebook feed. Hundreds of questions and trolly comments come in at once. The producer sees the feed, the Reader (me) only sees the camera and cards. It’s awkward.
Two – The producers and myself were heartbroken from the election results. Everyone wanted to know what they should do now that a narcissist, racist, and misogynist had been elected. Plus, I had just walked through the halls of the Fox News corporation. Fox News was responsible for so many Republican talking points and they are so skewed to the Right that I was riled up just being inside the building.
I was unable to deeply listen to questions on that LiveStream. And I wasn’t deeply listening during the election because Trump appeared so absurd, I thought no one in their right mind would vote for him. I was wrong. But since that day, I have been listening.
Listening to the hundreds of people I walk past on NYC sidewalks every day.
Listening to people who voted for him.
Listening to the pain and anger behind their reasons.
Listening to the ocean and trees for their wisdom.
Deeply listening to the machinery happening behind the scenes.
Deeply listening to those with specialized knowledge of politics and conflict.
My activism, like all of us in this moment, is a work in progress. I’ve never been confronted with events like this. Not even waking up on September 11th (we live about 50 blocks north of the Financial District) felt like this. I’ve never seen Americans pitted against each other. Never seen such venom and poison coming from elected officials.
So, as a Tarotist I continue to deeply listen and observe.
I observe your archetype, Trump. And it’s not the Tower. It is the Emperor.
The despot, tyrannical, impulsive, manipulative aspects of the Emperor.
We know that the Tower card represents the destruction of that which never fit to begin with, i.e. Pamela Coleman Smith’s vision of the circular crown atop a square tower.
My deepest prayer is that you are the wound that lets in the light. And that we will emerge a stronger country when you are gone. I truly believe we will be.
Because every Tarot reader knows that people are more alike then we are different. We recognize the destructive ability of fear because we help our clients work through their fears.
And we see you for what you really, truly are.
In the meantime, we’ll keep deeply listening… watching … observing … and reading events as they play out like the craziest Tarot reading of all time.
And we’ll tell our grandchildren about it someday.