Embracing the Nonsensical
the unknown has a place
Sometimes I get overwhelmed by the immensity of choice when it comes to tarot. Every tarot card has so many different meanings. Meanings that have been acquired over centuries and added to by many different teachers and interpreters. Tarot cards have also lost their meanings over time. A card that once might’ve been an indicator of class, gender, even appearance, has evolved with grace and fluidity to embrace a changing world.
No matter how practical one wishes to be, and no matter how approachable one wants to appear to the non-mystical thinker, there always comes a moment when a tarot reader must take a leap and decide which meaning a card has in a certain situation. Is this intuition? Is this fate? Is this pure chance? Is this our flexible, adaptable brains, finding meaning as they always do?
Two questions I’ve been asking myself recently: where do I draw the line between magical and non-magical thinking? And what has prompted me to believe that magical thinking holds less value than reason and evidence?
I have a very detailed, focused and analytical mind. I often miss the big picture. I like to put things in places, arrange things, make sense of the world. But I must also understand that the world is not a problem to be solved or a story to be understood. I am not in charge (how true this is!).
What do we lose when we discount wonder and awe? What is forgotten when we impose sense on the wonderfully nonsensical?
As I’ve mentioned in the past, when I pull tarot cards I usually like to do so with a question in mind. Otherwise, the brain can grasp and grapple, unsure where to focus or what to address. Truly, tarot is quite incredible. A card can mean so many different things in various situations!
How do we figure out the message we’re being given? Is there a message being given? Or is it, again, simply our magical, flexible brains, creating synchronicity? You can see my bias showing here. I am hesitant to say unequivocally that some message from a possibly mystical unknown source is being given to me, yet I feel confident in the flexibility of my brain. Isn’t it funny how that works?
The older I get, the more I realize that extremes stifle well-being. Depending solely on facts and rationality halts wonder and exploration. I cannot exist in a world where everything must be proved. For one thing, how exhausting and rigid would that world be? Yet I must also balance any urge I might have to believe unquestionably without caution or curiosity. Dogmatism, blind unquestioning belief, these are dangerous too. They also stifle and make rigid what should move and change.
I think I have always been too scared of being overcome by something unprovable that I have drifted too far into rigidity and order, into a desire for proof and facts. This is me, though. I wonder where you think you might fall on the spectrum? Are you more open to the nonsensical? Do you believe in magic? If not, why not? If so, why?
Perhaps this push and pull within me is why I am so drawn to tarot. I think tarot can so beautifully meld sense and nonsense to create wonder and magic. But there has to be a certain element of release, of allowing in the unknown and the unprovable. We will never know whether we were fated to draw that single card and only that card. We will never know. But we cannot let our doubt, our need to prove everything, stop us from finding reasons to believe and hope and find new connections.
Allowing the nonsensical to exist might be one way to heal this broken human world.
EXPLORE FOR YOURSELF
As a little experiment to end this post, I drew three tarot cards from a deck and laid them out. These cards aren’t in answer to any question I asked. They can be read any way you see them.
What thoughts/narratives/epiphanies come to mind for you? What story do these cards tell you? Do they prompt memories or new ideas? Are you one of the cards or are you all of the cards?
To get things going if you feel stuck:
Cards can be read
Directionally (what direction are the cards facing, are the people in dialogue or facing away? Could this signify something?)
As telling a story (left to right, is something happening?)
By noticing how the cards make you feel (are you drawn to or away from certain cards? Why?)
By looking at the colors, landscapes, shapes, motifs, metaphors, plants or animals present in the cards
By looking at the time of day or night depicted
By examining facial expressions or body language in the cards
With numerology or elemental associations (fire, water, air, earth)
By noticing lack or inclusion (what’s present or left out?)
And so many more ways! There truly is no limit
Lastly — remember that gender is fluid in tarot! These cards may present as female, but if you are a man or gender neutral and reading this, perhaps you can still see some element of yourself or your situation depicted?