Artist: Oliver Burston
Book: Jane Lyle

Martin has been out of town for over a week. With this in mind, I choose the Lover’s Tarot and pull the Eight of Coins, reversed. It says to me [brackets mine]:

“Problems at work [what work?] or with your working life [implying that parts of my life might not be working?] are draining your energy [and everyone else tells me it’s the baby!] or filling your mind with negative thoughts [e.g.: “I am so lazy—” true]. You may feel as if you are in the wrong job [perhaps my partner should be pregnant and I should go to work?], or resent the time you must devote to work [always]. This may, of course, describe what’s troubling someone close to you [even if he expresses himself well and has never said as much]. There is little energy available for love or romance— practical difficulties [i.e.: a few hundred miles between two people] must be resolved before a relationship can flourish. [Be glad your lover comes home tonight.]”

[Insert humming, hemming and hawing noises.]

I think I am more inclined toward sarcasm in a reading when I don’t feel a connection to the deck I am reading from. I am embarrassed to say this, because it makes it seem as if I take this whole tarot-reading thing more seriously than I would take, say, an average college English writing assignment. This is not true: I was an English writing arts major and took every writing assignment quite seriously. I love writing. These daily entries are, to me, little writing assignments. I love everything about keeping a blog other than the fact that it limits what other things I may (or, recently, may not) accomplish during the day.

In addition to learning the meanings of the cards, I am also learning what I like in a deck. I like a deck that pushes me to learn something new. I like a deck that thinks outside of its box. I like a deck where I feel that the artist fell in love, Pygmalion-like, with the completion of each card. I like a deck where I can look again and again at the images and enjoy them. I like to see the genius behind the art.

Does this mean I will no longer read from a deck when I realize I don’t like it so much? Will I come to the point where I can actually get rid of some decks? I don’t know. Right now I still feel ignorant enough that I want to learn from as many sources as possible, even if I do not enjoy each lesson equally.