WTF Is Tarot

by Bakara Wintner

  In a Reading

  Most commonly, when The Hierophant shows up in a reading it is a sign to seek guidance. Whether it is a therapist, teacher, mentor, healer or community, your own resources will not suffice. To move forward, you must reach out. Someone has something that you need. Studying, learning, quenching spiritual curiosity. Belonging to a group, or finding your tribe. Negotiating the role of religion in your life, or questioning your religious upbringing. Can mean connecting with tradition and ritual, but can also point to following convention or falling into line. Finding your own way to spirituality. Remain mindful of whose counsel you keep and who you give spiritual authority to.

  6—THE LOVERS

  Believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it.

  —Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

  union / completion / generosity / choice / equals / ease / radiance / connection / bliss / supported / intimacy / alignment / harmony / travel / ambivalence

  Card Meaning

  A welcome sight in any reading, The Lovers symbolize true partnership. It can be said that it is the marriage of The Empress and The Emperor by The Hierophant, the feminine and masculine elevating together and uniting in spiritual union. Together, these dualities equal something greater than the sum of their parts. United by mutual respect, common ground and clear communication, these partners amplify each other’s strengths. They are both freer and better equipped to handle life’s challenges because of their relationship to each other.

  They found home in what they have created together and are fuller, stronger individuals because of it. Too often The Lovers is immediately associated with romance, but it is truly a card of intimacy.

  The Lovers is a discovery of self through connection with others. There is a youthful quality to this card: It is near the beginning of the Major cards and comes before any of the shitty ones or figuring-out-who-you-are ones. There is a time and place for that. Here, we find relationships that mirror us, and in its reflection we gain clarity, or perhaps discover something entirely new.

  Union as a fundamental ingredient to freedom is a central theme of The Lovers card, which offers food for thought on relationships with others as well as ourselves. While The Lovers does not address the heavy-hitting matter of destroying duality altogether, it does show the masculine and feminine uplifting and reciprocating each other as equals. Within an individual, this looks like unlocking full access to both our Emperor and Empress energies, and the ability to call upon either or both if needed. We are no longer at odds with competing aspects of ourselves. Now that you’re not blocking your own shot, where will you go? Because duality is at play here, The Lovers can also represent choice.

  Water seeks its own level, always, and we will not find this balance with another until we know it within ourselves. Yes, that is an overused-advice-column-shitty-annoying cliché. But it is also the magical principle, “As above, so below.” Ask yourself this, what would a relationship look like if you were with someone who loved you exactly as much as you love yourself? If it directly reflects the amount of respect, consideration and intimacy you have with yourself, would you be satisfied? If your answer is sometimes, you’re in good shape. The Lovers is an ideal, and no individual or couple lives in this euphoric energy at all times.

  We do not have to be perfect, finished products to find love with another person. We do, however, need to not be at war with ourselves and to have a relationship with love not contingent on the other. This doesn’t mean we always live in a pure, unadulterated state of self-love. There are still days where you feel disgusting because you ate pizza five days in a row, periods where you’re not happy with an aspect of your life, or with life in general. But for the most part you think you’re all right. You’ve experienced freedom, selflessness, surrender and fearlessness in love, so you know what The Lovers feels like. You’d probably date you.

  If my experience as a tarot reader has taught me anything it’s that life is hard, family is hard, work is hard, but relationships are the hardest. We fight for and with love in a way that is distinctly unique. It is essential. We cannot survive without it.

  Anecdote

  My best friend and her boyfriend had been dating for less than a year when they decided to move across the country together. She’s an LA native, and while I tried my damndest to persuade her to move East over the course of our friendship, it was always met with a steadfast declaration that she would never leave California.

  North Carolina is a place that neither of them knew, but when her boyfriend told her he was offered a job there, her immediate response was “we’re going.” Out of all the reactions she could have had in that moment—worrying about leaving her lifelong home, jumping to logistics, fear of an unknown place, wondering what the fuck she would do in this new city—her most immediate one was that they, as a unit, were going. In the short time she’d been with this person, a shift occurred. Everything she thought she could never live without in LA no longer seemed as urgent, or as right, as going. Her considerations had evolved from personal interests to a collective well-being—a paradigm shift of me to we—where they, as a unit, would be happiest. When she called me to tell me about the move, I was absolutely shocked, but didn’t for a minute doubt the rightness of her decision. She stated it as a fact. There was no fear in her voice. She’s an extremely family oriented person, and it was clear that in this relationship she had found the same feeling of home.

  Five years later, they’re still in North Carolina, married and the most disgustingly in love couple I have ever had the pleasure of knowing.

  In a Reading

  Travel, freedom, deciding between two options. Good omen for romantic relationships. True, balanced partnership. Union of dualities. Balancing masculine and feminine energies. Two people who perfectly complement each other. Getting out of your own way—the ability to go where you want and do what you want. Feeling protected by the love around you. Mutual respect. Two equals coming together. Satisfaction and contentment. Young love. Developing our own belief system through making choices. Intimacy, attraction and sexuality. Clearly and honestly communicating with others.

  7—THE CHARIOT

  I see it, I want it, I stunt, yeah, yellow bone it

  I dream it, I work hard

  I grind ‘til I own it […]

  Sometimes I go off, I go off

  I go hard, I go hard

  Get what’s mine, take what’s mine,

  I’m a star, I’m a star

  Cause I slay, slay

  I slay, hey, I slay, I slay

  All day

  —Beyoncé, Formation

  drive / transition / execution / willpower / perseverance / progress / movement / adolescence / exertion / independence / velocity / determination / triumphant / naïve / brave / propulsion / focused / unstoppable

  Card Meaning

  If The Lovers represents the moment that we are not standing in our own way anymore, that we are truly free to go, then The Chariot represents going. Embodying rapid movement fueled by willpower, The Chariot shows us the mountains we can move when we are determined to get shit done. Unwilling to take no for an answer and singular in his purpose, there is no universe in which he can picture not accomplishing his goal.

  If the first seven cards of the Major Arcana are reconciling society, the second seven reconciling ourselves and the third seven reconciling our spirituality and purpose—The Chariot, the last card of the first row, is standing on a precipice. We leave home, whatever that might mean, to go and find our own way.

  I think of The Chariot as a kid going off to college: he’s determined, he’s passionate, he’s ready to claim his space in the world. But he’s also broke and doesn’t know how to do his laundry or cook without a microwave. The Chariot is our first glimpse of independence and adult life. We’re juvenile, we’
re dumb, but we’re also motivated and in it to win it.

  The Chariot’s got some knight-in-shining-armor-vibes going for him, but he’s also immature. In a romantic capacity this card can represent something that, while it may be fun and intense, doesn’t have the longest shelf life. You know that person you met and were so in love with that within the first forty-eight hours you already planned a move, your future house’s window treatments and children’s names? That is the energy The Chariot sweeps us up in. When we start a ten-page paper the night before it’s due and power through it using a combination of caffeine, desperation and Wikipedia, we’re channeling our inner Chariot. When working to accomplish a goal and wired with adrenaline, you have harnessed this archetype. You don’t need food. You ain’t got time for sleep. The Chariot signifies an effort, but it is an effort you want to make. When we align with this energy we are entirely present because the situation calls for our full attention.

  An overtly masculine archetype, the tax of The Chariot is collected in the form of a huge energy expenditure. For this reason, be careful to not stay in it for too long. It takes a toll on the body, enables the workaholic and threatens burnout. It is jet fuel in a lawnmower engine. Use sparingly for triumph and success.

  Anecdote

  One summer while I was in college, I accepted an education and advocacy internship at a farm animal sanctuary in upstate New York. Near the end of my time there, I was sent to Ohio to gather signatures for a ballot initiative that was in desperate need of some last minute volunteers. Spearheaded by a coalition of animal rights organizations, the initiative implemented some very basic but much-needed welfare reform for farm animals in the state.

  My supervisor told me to pack for a weekend and sent me to Columbus. In many of the counties we worked in, the main streets were ghost towns, and we needed to find people. We spent days outside of public libraries, hiding in Wal-Mart parking lots, making deals with gas station owners to approach their patrons, going door to door in trailer parks and subdivisions, sussing out registered voters and talking to them about farm animal rights—mostly in rural areas. We were heckled by farmers, threatened by police and kicked out of more places that I can count. Every morning the volunteers gathered at sunrise and called it quits somewhere around 11 p.m. Each day was met with gruelingly hot temperatures, canvassing miles in the one pair of flip-flops I had. But there was no fucking way we weren’t going to get enough signatures on my watch. I stayed past the weekend and for the remaining two weeks until the deadline. I washed my two outfits with shampoo in the bathroom sink of my motel room. We worked fifteen-hour days for over two weeks straight. I’ve never worked so hard in my life, but I’ve also never felt more energized, focused or purposeful. We got the initiative on the ballot. When I returned to upstate New York, I slept for three consecutive days.

  In a Reading

  A massive effort or exertion of energy. Exercising your will you achieve what you want. Steadfast determination. Not taking no for an answer. Singularity of focus. Quick action. Travel and movement. Goal oriented. Obsessiveness. Stubbornness. Graduation from adolescence into adulthood. Building self-confidence through accomplishing goals. Taking the reins in a situation. Feeling your leadership and the power of ego. Dominating something.

  8—STRENGTH

  Every desire of your body is holy;

  Every desire of your body is

  Holy.

  —Hafiz

  sexuality / alignment / grace / soothe / restraint / maturation / integration / softness / feminine power / cooperation / self-mastery / dominion / taming / primal / renewal / submission / instincts / compassion / influence

  Card Meaning

  Where The Chariot is the implementation of masculine force, Strength is an expression of feminine power. There is a marked sense of maturity, deliberation and self-awareness present in Strength, who took the wildfire energy of The Chariot and internalized it into a more viable slow burn.

  In traditional tarot decks, the Strength card depicts a woman holding open a lion’s mouth with her hands. This is not a display of physical fortitude. She has not overpowered the lion. Rather, she trained it and earned its trust. There is a wisdom and utility in her choice of handling this wild animal that ultimately serves them both. If the lion is our primal nature and inherent wildness, then Strength brings up the question of when and how we need to tame ourselves. Of course, there is a certain amount of self-restraint required as a functioning member of society. We cannot murder, be naked in public, steal, etc. But there is a more nuanced self-mastery Strength speaks to which is at the core of its lesson.

  When we connect the softness of the heart chakra with the fire of the sacral chakra, we arrive at Strength. Allowing for the healthy expression of sexuality, vitality and passion, this archetype affords the realization that we do not always need to bulldoze through a situation to be heard or get what we want. Aligning with this benevolent force facilitates the gentle expression of the will in a way that is both effective and merciful.

  Sacred sexuality is a cornerstone of Strength. My dude Oscar Wilde said, “Everything in the world is about sex except sex. Sex is about power.” Strength is the opposite of that. Ideally, sex is not a means to an end. It is aligning with our sexuality as a means of embodiment, pleasure and intimacy.

  We cannot and should not rid ourselves of our wildness; to do so would flatline life itself. But this archetype offers us an opportunity to have dominion over it. We are no longer at its mercy and are only enriched because of it. In Strength, we reach a point where what we want to do and what we should do are the same, where the higher and lower self are not warring with conflicting desires, where we may tame destructive impulses and transmute them into creative ones.

  How many times have we verbally slashed someone to pieces and justified it because what we said was true? How many times have we lashed out in anger and excused it because the recipient deserved it? How many times have we wielded our sexuality as a weapon and felt okay about it because we felt an emotional remove from the situation? Strength is the antidote to these behaviors. It allows for kindness in our honesty. Level-headedness in our anger. Openheartedness in our sexuality. It files off the jagged edges of the instincts that would otherwise tear us apart.

  There are different views in the tarot community of the positioning of Strength and Justice. In some decks, Justice will appear as card eight with Strength showing up a bit later as card eleven. However, it makes sense to me that Strength shows up as the natural evolution from The Chariot and Justice as the middle point of the Major Arcana.

  Anecdote

  A few mornings ago I woke up with my heart racing at the length of my to-do list. We had an event at the store that evening, and there were a zillion tasks to complete in preparation for it, in addition to needing to drive my dog to the vet, answer some urgent e-mails, take a shower and finish a writing assignment. I was running the errands with a girlfriend who suggested stopping for coffee before we set out to conquer the day’s tasks. We were already running late, and I had zero desire to kill any more time, but we all know that it is simply unwise to deprive caffeine addicts of their fix, especially if they’re doing you a favor.

  The coffee shop by our apartment is delicious and notoriously slow, but that morning it was next-level snail pace. The shop was virtually empty and we waited almost twenty minutes for our drinks. I was murderous. I was convinced the barista had some personal vendetta against me, considered complaining, asking for a manager, yelling at anyone who would listen, or making some passive-aggressive comment under my breath about how awful the service is at this place. But I also work at a shop and I (a) hate people who do shit like that and (b) don’t really want to start beef with another local business. The consequences just weren’t worth the savage satisfaction I would have gotten by being a nightmare in that moment. I took a breath, smiled and thanked the girl when our drinks came up and sprinted gold-medal-Olympics-style back to the car. We got everything done, and I can st
ill show my face at my favorite coffee shop, shame-free.

  In a Reading

  Showing restraint. Having the maturity level necessary to handle a situation. Do not act rashly or out of anger. Reconciling the desires of the lower self—exhibiting self-control but also being satisfied. Sexual awakening and the healing of the sacral chakra. Issues with sexuality. Solving a problem by being patient. Understanding that some things just take time to do right. Being subtle in your power—using persuasion, influence and working with others rather than using force.

  9—THE HERMIT

  The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.

  —Joseph Campbell

  wisdom / self-study / solitude / internal / introspection / hibernation / aloneness / contemplation / illumination / retreat / gestation / misanthropic / meditation / searching / passage / seeker / true north / austere

  Card Meaning

  The Hermit is one of the scariest cards of the tarot for me. Some people dread Death, or The Tower, or one of the shitty Swords cards, but there is something about the solitude, introspection and stillness The Hermit asks of us that never fails to freak me the fuck out. This is not necessarily a universal sentiment. Our reaction to The Hermit’s energy is commensurate to our relationship with solitude.