It’s spooky season, my witches! In celebration of all things mysterious, I decided to go to my local Wiccan, Bridget, to get a tarot card reading done. A Wiccan is someone who follows the religion Wicca, which is an earth centered “nature” religion.
Not familiar with what a tarot card reading is? Tarot card readings are essentially fortune telling with tarot cards. Tarot cards are like playing cards with images on them. Each card has a name, number and a meaning behind it that can be translated into a fortune. If the card is facing towards you it means something different than if it was facing away from you. I’ve gotten a tarot card reading done once before, but I didn’t pay close attention to see if it came true. For all the skeptics out there, I decided to track my tarot card reading to see if the reading came to fruition.
Bridget has been practicing Wicca for one year, but has been spiritually active for four. Bridget defines being spiritually active as being aware of her power to read energies in people. I asked her to read me for the time period of one week.
Bridget prefaced the reading by saying, “a weekly reading is usually pretty accurate; however, this doesn’t mean that this is going to happen. You might see one of the things I’m talking about and recognize it, and you might want to alter things. Just because something doesn’t happen, doesn’t mean it wasn’t there.”
To begin, Bridget handed me the deck of tarot cards and asked me to divide it in half, twice. My division of the deck made three stacks of cards in front of us. After I had divided the deck, Bridget took the top card from each of the three stacks. She explained that the first card would represent the start of my week, the middle card would represent the middle and the final card would represent the following Sunday.
The first card drawn was Lughnasadh. Lughnasadh represents the first grain harvest holiday in the Wicca religion. The card was “reversed” or facing away from me.
“It is not enough to expect to receive, you must also give back. Since the card is reversed, sacrifices must be made willingly, if they are to have a spiritual or magical effect,” Bridget explained.
She said that the sacrifice signaled by the Lughnasadh card would probably be very small, like choosing to do one thing over another. She warned me not to stress myself out with school and suggested giving up something this week to help me focus on myself.
The second card was The Ring, which was also reversed. The Ring card is a symbol of commitment.
“Make sure your word of honor is trustworthy and hold others to that high standard as well. If you want to be able to depend on others, you need to be dependable yourself,” she explained.
Bridget cautioned that in group projects this week I should delegate tasks among the group, but also watch out for certain people who will not hold their end.
The final card was The Harp which represents praise, excellence and admiration.
“Bless the people you admire with words of gratitude and sing their praises to others. Accept praise that is given to you as well, with humility and gratefulness,” Bridget decoded. “Don’t focus on things you can change. Focus on what you do well. “
I left the reading knowing what I needed to focus on. Prioritize, trust the right people and give yourself and others credit. Simple enough.
Looking back on my week, I didn’t make a conscious sacrifice in order to prioritize myself. Every day I made decisions: going to class, doing my homework, going to bed and waking up. The “prioritize yourself” reading was very general.
This past week I had two group projects that needed to work on. One project, I was confident that my partner and I would do well. My partner and I made strong efforts to prepare for our presentation. We ended up doing well overall. I was wary about the second group project. My partner didn’t seem to be the most reliable, but I delegated specific tasks for them to do. Remembering The Ring card, I put in a lot of effort into our project. I did most of the work, but I wasn’t too rattled by it.
Finally, at the end of the week, my Harp card came into play. After successfully completing a group project, my partner praised me for memorizing the project so quickly. I just said, “thanks, I did what I had to do.” This weekend I also emailed my old piano teacher to reconnect. I found myself singing her praises to anyone who would listen.
Overall, a tarot card reading is a pretty general overview of what could happen to you over a period of time. It is intended to provide insight to spark self-reflection. Can a deck of cards predict your future? I wouldn’t recommend taking each reading deathly serious, but a tarot card reading can help you center yourself for the upcoming week or month. What do you think about tarot card readings?
[Pictures personally donated by Megan Carmen Photography]