I discovered a second link between tarot and butterflies this week while preparing to teach Exploring the Minor Mentors of Tarot on-line for Story Circle Network in March (I wrote about the first link in Tarot Butterflies and Poem Disorder). As a poet /image celebrant in love with the narratives images impart directly, I find tarot helps me connect with my own soul and that of others. I borrow the term for the course’s title from Eileen Connolly who refers to the minor arcana as Minor Mentors. Engaging in several years of writing based on the cards with a tarot companion (Feb 19 addition: Mary Allen: Under The Tarot Moon, Tiferet Journal) inspired me to design this course and work with the cards in new ways. We’ll be using the tarot as a source of inspiration to generate writing, spending a week on each of the four suits: Pentacles (earth), Swords (air), Wands (fire), and Cups (water). You can read the full description here: Exploring the Minor Mentors of Tarot: A Tour Through the Suits (no prior knowledge of the tarot required).
Tarot has been part of my life for over twenty years
now. I scavenged deep in my files to find the logo I used in my life BK (before
kids) from when I gave readings in Iowa City. I also photographed a few
selections from my library to share with you. Preparing to pose questions to my
students--What is your tarot lineage? How
did the cards first come to you?-- I came across an entry I started but
never finished for a column:
The Royal Road: 100 Butterflies and a Bicycle
The summer I graduated from college, I was living in
the Sacramento Valley, surviving a record heat wave and the state of indecision
that descends on every undergrad: where
do I go from here? In search of shade, I threw on a pair of overalls and
headed out by bicycle towards the olive groves. Tar from the road stuck to my
tires while heat-waves wrinkled the horizon. Suddenly, the sky filled with
hundreds of butterflies fluttering softly in droves across four lanes of
traffic from Interstate 80 and down the frontage road, wafting over my hair and
shoulders, fluttering between my tire spokes and peddles. I braked and hopped
off, the road littered with pale yellow wings of the cabbage whites. What to
make of the omen, I wondered, and filled my bike basket with handfuls of the glittering
wings of the perished and rode home.
At that time I had trouble taking responsibility for
my future or claiming a space of my own, crisis plaguing my love relationship.
I meant to ask for a room of my own to write in but hadn’t, meant to write
daily but wasn’t. So I staked out a corner of the bedroom, filling a basket
with rocks and pine cones and the limb of a madrone tree the neighbor had cast
out on the curbside. Below the tree limb, I scatted the lifeless butterflies on
driftwood I had gathered earlier at the mouth of the Russian River where it
meets the sea in Jenner. I felt oddly calmed by the stilled butterflies, inert
and grounded just like I was.
Later that day, I found a deck of tarot cards tucked
into the bookshelf. It was my lover’s, but not being used, and from that day
on, the colorful cards became my quiet allies as I turned inward to begin the
long journey to wholeness through listening. Without the deck’s corresponding
book of explanations, I began my tarot journal by pulling one card and
meditating on its possible meaning each day, guessing at the interpretations,
reading each card as if it were a dream delivered in the night. I found a
temple nearby where self-teaching was celebrated and learned more about the
tarot under a woman named Reverend Jacqueline.
That summer of inner contemplation culminated in my decision
to formally pursue my dream of becoming a writer. I applied to grad school. In
the heartland I attended the program of my dreams. In addition to its university
community, Iowa City hosts an intense group of spiritual pilgrims, scholars,
channelers, psychics and body workers including (at that time) astrologers Quan Tracey Cherry and Bonnie Orgren. Both of them offered me a deeper look at the tarot
through the lens of astrology.
Eventually, post MFA, while scoring essays by day
and teaching as an adjunct English instructor by night, I’d give tarot readings
between shifts as a retail girl at The Vortex Crystal and Gem Store in Iowa
City. Working there meant exposure to a diverse braid of seekers and speakers. Sadly,
The Vortex has since closed its doors, but I will always remember the crew of brilliant
fellow workers (and our employers, generous and large-hearted enough to watch
over us all like protective parents). Nor will I forget what it was like closing
a late night shift, the store at last void of customers, the massive vibrant
brown and red hued Buddha in the front window next to the door-sized purple
amethyst crystal cathedral, snow falling steadily outside, diagonally, while I
vacuumed between the thousand beautiful items I hoped to someday be able to
afford.
Further
contemplation:
(April 10, 2014 addition) Tarot Writing Exercise:
Earth, Air, Fire and Water: Using The Tarot to Inspire Your Writing Practice
(April 10, 2014 addition) Tarot Writing Exercise:
Earth, Air, Fire and Water: Using The Tarot to Inspire Your Writing Practice
If you’d like to join us, sign up here. Cost for 6
week class for members of Story Circle Network is: $192 and for nonmembers: $240
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| Photo by Robyn Beattie |
Where
in your life do you offer the cup of your heart?
Prior
posts on the tarot:
A
few sites of some of my favorite established tarot scholars:
Rachel Pollack
I never met her--but there she stood on the back of one of the bedroom doors in our house, gracing a poster taller than my parents. I remember falling asleep to that black and white image: city street, sturdy legs, skirt billowing up, one hand holding down the pleats but not really. It was either my brother’s poster or a poster we pitched in for my father—I can’t remember—grade school. Maybe 7th grade.