From Coco Tafoya via Unsplash
A big breakthrough for most tarot learners is realizing that the Major Arcana, the first 22 Cards in the Tarot Deck labeled from 0-21 tell the story of The Fool’s Journey. The first card, labeled 0 is The Fool, and is a card said to be entering into new adventures and journeys (however naively and childlike that entrance may be). The World, by steep contrast, is about ENDINGS to journeys, internalizing the lessons from our journeys and often, settling in to get ready for the next cycle. With that framing it’s easy to see how the other cards can tell the story of what happens next, who The Fool meets and even what traits and personalities The Fool inhibits on their way. Factor in the work Joseph Cambell did on mapping out what a Hero’s Journey looks like & Carl Jung did naming and describing archetypes and now these first 22 cards take on a world of their own.
One thing that we really overlook when learning tarot though is how important personal connection to the cards should be. A lot has been said, positive and negative about Unverified Personal Gnosis, but when it comes to divination it doesn’t make any sense not to develop that. While we can get substantial wisdom out of the cards by simply knowing the traditional meanings, stories & theory behind them for many people the cards won’t click until it matches up really beautifully with their own story. For EVERYONE, this deck of 78 Cards can hold any message we would ever need - but it probably won’t until we look at our story & the individual short stories within it and figure out which cards connect to what.
Image my own, with the Smith-Waite Tarot Deck: Centennial Edition.
Personalizing the tarot based on your own stories and ideals is unspeakably important to me. A huge step towards developing Queering the Tarot was realizing how different my journey was from a standard Fool’s Journey, then quickly realizing my journey still WAS in the cards. I just had to approach them a little bit differently. If you are marginalized within the society you live in, have had very weird things happen to you, or tend to not fit in in standard discussions about the tarot then that is a huge sign that it’s time for you to map out your own story and see what the cards have to say about it.
So how do we do that? To be good at something, you sometimes have to be bad at it first. So don’t worry if storytelling is not a personal strength of yours. Simply grab your recording, typing, or hand-writing tools after you’ve done some thinking about a personal story you want to learn or connect to the Major Arcana through. Tell your story, and then lay out your cards (in order at first).
Some very important notes about stories & this activity to remember:
You’ll probably want to do this several times using different stories.
Stories have a beginning, middle and end.
Stories do NOT have to be linear. There can be dream sequences, sidequests, long-forgotten memories popping up, etc etc.
Stories can and often do have subplots!
Stories have a purpose/theme/mood and lessons learned. Often, this is the part that comes from the tarot but there are exceptions to this.
As you’re mapping out your story, figure out which card from the Major Arcana goes where. Once you’ve taken note of these associations, get used to reading with them in mind. Obviously if you pull The Magician you’re not going to tell all about the Fool and how they ended up at The Magician. You want to be able to pull up what you personally learned about The Magician quickly. It takes time. It takes practice. It takes trust in yourself and the tarot cards. When you can synthesize what you learned from a book & what you learned from your own experiences though, your readings will be pure magic.
Here are some story prompts and/or next lines in case you get stuck:
The Fool: I am journeying towards…..
The Magician: I got good at….by/because...
The High Priestess: Deep down I know this is true…
One thing you’ll likely notice is that your story might not make sense at first. That’s okay. It’s YOUR story about things YOU’VE been through and learned, so let it take whatever shape it needs to. Just check in with your cards along the way and remember to trust yourself.
If you liked these story starter prompts, notes on what to remember re: your story or just the overall theme & activity outlined, I strongly suggest signing up for my Alternative Approaches to Tarot which asks you to bring yourself, your identities and your wealth of intuitive, creative & practical knowledge to the cards instead of trying to memorize a bunch of guidebooks. We learn so many ways to flex our fun & creative sides to still get a deep, nuanced understanding of the cards that honors their traditional roots while forging a new path all our own. It’s a 3-session class for $100 through Eye of Horus Minneapolis and it starts Monday, April 5th at 6 PM. Click here to learn more or sign up! If you catch this blog after tomorrow, don’t worry! I run this class fairly often so you’ll have time to catch it again.
Blessed Be Y’all!
Cassandra Snow
