Eccentric Flower:199903/a story for elizabeth
From Eccentric Flower
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nineteen march a story for elizabeth I gave readings. Once upon a time, back when I was embezzling sandwiches from my employer just so I'd have something in my stomach that day, I even charged for a few of them. This was a time before the renaissance of the New Old, before crystals appeared around every neck and even the Wal-Mart sold Tarot cards. To get a decent deck, you went to New Orleans - but you didn't do readings there, not unless you were prepared to be competitive about it. I am unusual - the first Tarot deck I ever saw was not a Waite deck. It was a French medieval deck, dating from when Tarot was evolving from a game deck to a fortunetelling deck. It had no scenes on the suit cards. I did readings first with a Waite deck, though. Just like everyone else. I do not particularly believe in Tarot cards as a method of divination. I am not sure I particularly believe in divination. I don't believe in answers coming from a supernormal or supernatural source. If there is such a supernatural source, either they don't have the answers either, or they're not telling. We humans have to depend upon ourselves to provide our own revelations. That, to me, is the use of Tarot cards. They trick you into seeing what you already knew but didn't want to admit to yourself. They are for prying information out of your subconscious. And "prying" is the word I want - they are a remarkably trite and blunt tool. But then, so's psychoanalysis, so why cast stones? I read Tarot, Piers Anthony's one good book, back when it was still being published in three parts. The protagonist has to choose a deck to act as his guide. The planet he is on manifests interactive hallucinations as living scenes from Tarot cards - which deck he picks will determine what kind of experiences he has. Struck by some minor honesty in it, he picks the Crowley deck - and regrets it forever afterward. I bought a Crowley deck some years ago. It was a dark time and I wanted a dark deck. I wanted a deck that would tell me what I wanted to hear - that the world is a rotting place full of futility and pain. I got what I wanted, and more besides. The Crowley deck is misanthropic, and misogynistic in particular. With my peculiar set of values I was an especially poor fit for the deck - the things I admire most are the things the deck is most likely to condemn. I would get readings that would subtly underpin the idea that I was worthless, that I had gone nowhere and done nothing with my life and was not likely to do so in the future. They would make me want to shut myself up inside and never emerge, or slit my wrists and bleed into the bathtub. As I said, I don't believe in divination. My readings were only telling me what was inside my own psyche at that time. But here's the catch: Just because something is inside my head doesn't mean it's true. The Crowley deck was lying to me. Feeding and reinforcing my own lies. I keep the deck wrapped in a flannel cloth in an ornate wooden box, just big enough to hold it. You're supposed to wrap Tarot cards, to shield them from "bad vibrations" or some such. But that's not why the deck is in the box. I haven't taken the deck out of the box in over a year. I haven't used it for a reading in over five years. "Bring me her heart," the Queen says. "Bring me her heart in this box." But she only says it in the Disney version.
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