Motley Is A Fool's Uniform

This month's PA meeting was an interesting talk on the Tarot given by Rachel Pollack (whom I consider to be an SF writer since that was the context I first met her, but in reality, it's best to say she is a tarot expert who also writes SF), who is currently touring Oz as a guest of the Tarot Guild. She introduced the group to some basic ideas behind the Tarot imagery and interpretation, using her Shining Tribe Tarot. Very interesting, especially when she combined the ideas of the tarot with experiences of her pagan workings. It was interesting, especially in the later part of the Major Arcana, to observe the differences between my interpretations of the sequence (inspired as it is by Zen and Alchemy, and best represented by a pop-art deck from the 70's) and hers.

Dangnammit! I just remembered I forgot to ask her a question on how whe felt about significators (a card which supposedly identifies the querent). I like them on psychologically grounds because they remove the card that the person is most likely to identify with from the spread (however this doesn't work if you force people to have one, so not having one is just as valid as having one. Mine is usually the Fool, for some strange reason. <grin> Anyway, it can be a fairly contentious issue amongst practitioners.

And before anyone ask, I use the tarot as a meditative tool, rather than as a divinitive tool. So no futures or lotto numbers for you! Admittedly on the occaisional instances I have done such it's provoked severe responses (the trick in divination is to watch the querent's response to the imagery and implications of the card, and if you are naturally rather insightful it can cut quite sharply). There is a trick in tarot, but it is grounded in psychology, not mysticism. If there is indeed any diffrence between the two.