The Tarot of Me
I wrote about Tarot a couple of days ago, and I touched briefly on the idea of synchronicity. I've been doing not-quite-daily readings for myself for the last year or so, almost always a two-card draft with a peek at the card on the bottom of the deck as a bonus, overall energy card for the reading.
In that time, I've noticed that there are certain cards that will fall repeatedly in particular windows of time while they are relevant to what's going on in my life. The regularity of these cards seem to be cyclical, correlating with the phases of emotions I'm dealing with. Moreover, the vast majority of the cards in Tarot decks are ones that I have never, ever pulled. Of the 22 Major Arcana cards, there are maybe 6 or 7 that I've pulled and the rest have yet to ever fall. There is a similar trend with the Minor Arcana. Case in point: in the last week, I've pulled the Two of Cups 3 times. I shuffle the cards very well each day, doing at least 6 bridges and several overhands.
Any scientifically-minded person would say, of course, that the human brain is wired to find patterns where there are none. My brain notices when the same card falls many times in a short period of time, but it ignores the other cards that fall once and don't show up again until many months later. And besides, randomness doesn't mean that things never repeat. True randomness means that elements will repeat; randomly assorted spatial elements will appear to be clustered. If things never repeated or appeared clustered, then that would indicate that there is a non-random force at work that's ensuring repetitions don't happen and keeping things spaced apart.
And, as far as their significance correlated to things in my life, well, the human brain is pretty good at finding meaning even where it doesn't exist. Again, this is the idea of projection. Swap out a card that surfaces repeatedly for another one and I could easily find how the meaning of the other card correlates or illuminates the same situation in my life.
I'm not superstitious, and I believe in empiricism, but I try to remain curious about all things that interest me, and experimentation is curiosity put into action.
As the old Chinese proverb says, one should trust the faintest ink over the most vivid memory. As a small experiment I've decided to start logging my daily readings somewhere digital, where they are easier to review than chicken scribbles scattered in various notebooks I have lying around. I've started doing this over at a Tumblr I created called The Tarot of Jim
I suspect this will be of no interest to anyone but me, but it's one more daily ritual to give structure to the oddly amorphous shape of days that punctuate life during COVID.
In that time, I've noticed that there are certain cards that will fall repeatedly in particular windows of time while they are relevant to what's going on in my life. The regularity of these cards seem to be cyclical, correlating with the phases of emotions I'm dealing with. Moreover, the vast majority of the cards in Tarot decks are ones that I have never, ever pulled. Of the 22 Major Arcana cards, there are maybe 6 or 7 that I've pulled and the rest have yet to ever fall. There is a similar trend with the Minor Arcana. Case in point: in the last week, I've pulled the Two of Cups 3 times. I shuffle the cards very well each day, doing at least 6 bridges and several overhands.
Any scientifically-minded person would say, of course, that the human brain is wired to find patterns where there are none. My brain notices when the same card falls many times in a short period of time, but it ignores the other cards that fall once and don't show up again until many months later. And besides, randomness doesn't mean that things never repeat. True randomness means that elements will repeat; randomly assorted spatial elements will appear to be clustered. If things never repeated or appeared clustered, then that would indicate that there is a non-random force at work that's ensuring repetitions don't happen and keeping things spaced apart.
And, as far as their significance correlated to things in my life, well, the human brain is pretty good at finding meaning even where it doesn't exist. Again, this is the idea of projection. Swap out a card that surfaces repeatedly for another one and I could easily find how the meaning of the other card correlates or illuminates the same situation in my life.
I'm not superstitious, and I believe in empiricism, but I try to remain curious about all things that interest me, and experimentation is curiosity put into action.
As the old Chinese proverb says, one should trust the faintest ink over the most vivid memory. As a small experiment I've decided to start logging my daily readings somewhere digital, where they are easier to review than chicken scribbles scattered in various notebooks I have lying around. I've started doing this over at a Tumblr I created called The Tarot of Jim
I suspect this will be of no interest to anyone but me, but it's one more daily ritual to give structure to the oddly amorphous shape of days that punctuate life during COVID.