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Hi all:
I’ll add one more here on a Friday afternoon since I had hoped to say more
about technologies/practices of intuition ranging from meditation to astrology
– and specifically about tarot. I loved learning about Adriene’s Eco-tarot –
because I, too, am interested in alternative decks – especially queer and
feminist ones. I now use a mix of the traditional Rider-Waite, the Motherpeace
deck (which is a classic of lesbian feminism), and Michelle Tea’s genderqueer
take on Rider-Waite. I also just discovered another lezfem deck from the early
80s – amazing black and white block-prints – republished and reinterpreted by
queers in Montreal. (See She Is Sitting in the Night: Revisioning Thea’s
Tarot, Metonymy Press.) Given the current schisms between lesbian feminisms and
transfeminisms, there’s some good magic going on in these mash-ups, which seek
to adapt ancient traditions to contemporary needs.
And they make room for mixed feelings of all kinds. I see that
Adriene describes her eco-tarot readings as allowing for access to feelings –
and to an opening onto tears – of grief? Or just contact with something
otherwise hard to know and feel? My first serious encounter with the tarot was
through a colleague/mentor who suggested a reading as a way to help me address
a problem I was having with my job. And I drew The Tower … and the Star card.
She had me read the cards in whatever way I wanted – not difficult for a
scholar of close reading – and I’ve used them at different points of confusion
or impasse ever since – but as it happens with renewed focus during this time
of pandemic. With so much beyond our control, and so much turning inward
because we can’t be with other people or in other places, the cards have kept
me company. And since it looks like the Age of Aquarius is going to be darker
and more chaotic than I imagined as a child of the 1960s, I need all the magic
I can muster.
Thanks all for a provocative set of threads.
Ann (Cvetkovich)
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