My Tarot story

I was lucky that my Mom knew people. I knew them too, even though I was a child because they gathered in our living room, did Rei Ki initiations when that wave was beginning in Balkan, and talked about everything that is normal today and known (bioenergy healing, auras, chakras, parallel realities, mind control…). Still, then the children at school buried me in the snow because I’m a “witch” (I wanted to tell them what can be done), and the neighbor was joking (hm, maybe not quite joking when I think about it better) calling our house a witch’s seat.

A game of consciousness

Anyway, we had those books, a lot of them, because Mom had a scientific mind. In fact, part of her (the one related to the fact that she was born with the Sun in Pisces and the ascendant and the Moon in Scorpio) KNEW THINGS. Saw. Felt. There was no way you could fool her. She would hear you on the phone, and almost, she knew everything about you. We played in restaurants by picking people at a table and reading auras, guessing what they do, what they like and read, how educated they are, from what families they come from. We would remote view them and finally approach them to check how accurate we were in our observations. She was bored all day building sand towers on the beach, so she decided we should practice telepathy. So we did it.

Such a character. And I am grateful to her for developing that part in me. But no matter how much she loved the mystery, she wanted to understand it all. Explain empirically. Find some logic and rational background to everything. That’s why the house looked like an occult library. Praise her for that.

Psychology occupied a particular wall of the library. She loved psychology, claimed that practicing it without astrology was like writing with a goose feather next to a typewriter (hey, there were no laptops at the time, remember!) And she was in love with Jung. And you guessed it, that’s how TAAAAAAAROOOOOOOOOOOOT came into our world…

I was five years old, and I listened to Mom excitedly say that she couldn’t wait for the magic cards to arrive.

“What are magic cards, Mom?” – I was delighted.

Portals into dimensions

“Well, those are your windows to peek into what can be in advance. So if you don’t like what you see, you can change it. But there are also signposts. Who tells you that there is an abyss in front of you and that you better go another way… Who helps you to see what is hidden or has not been revealed yet “.” – she would start, and when she started talking about a topic so immersed in it, you could remain enchanted for days after thinking about that wondrous world is hidden around you. And if you only knew how to enter it, you could unlock all life’s secrets…

And so I, after 40 days of inpatient anticipation (and constant questioning “when will the magic cards arrive?) I’ve finally met The Tarot. I snatched the package from my mother’s hand as soon as the postman handed it to her, feverishly unwrapped the cards. But now – what to do, and how to do it? In my hand a box of cards, and in me suddenly some strange fear. What am I going to do with it now, and how?

“You have to concentrate on an issue that is important to you, something you want to know. And the cards will answer you. They are like a group of your friends. You shuffle them, thinking about what interests you, and when you feel ready – you draw a card. It’s as if out of a basket with a lot of tiny fairies, one pops up and tells you the answer just for you and just for that question. You talk nicely to her, thank her, and put her back in the basket. And that’s it, “she explained.

Answers for anything

Simple. I just had to remember what do I want to know. At the time, my central dilemma was whether to go to school or not. I was five and a half years old, and I was able to start first grade. Part of the family favored me going because it’s better to start early, so you have some time advantage. On the other side, there was a part of family members who resonated differently. They were convinced that the best for a child is to go as later as possible because it is a shame to deprive a kid of a year of play.

I was divided: at the same time, I wanted to meet new friends at school, but I also wanted to have fun around without the obligation to have to learn math, for example. The environment didn’t help: Mom for school, Dad for play, I love both, I trust both, how to decide?

And that’s it, now I had my case to investigate with Tarot. So, I concentrated carefully, started shuffling the cards. I remember feeling somehow happy at that moment. Somehow safe. Feeling as if now, between my palms, I am holding a small warm creature that can help me with everything – say what is right and what is wrong. Who guards me. I was as happy as when you wrapped yourself in a warm blanket or were hugged by someone you love. Absolutely happy.

So I spontaneously pulled out a card. And another one. And one because I really liked it. Two more in a hurry, even though my mother had said that it would be enough.

You see, and you know

And then… I fell in love. I know it sounds like a cliché, but it’s not. I opened the first card and boom!!! It was so magnificent!!! All those colors… Shapes that change shape. Everything is vibrating around you. Yes, Mom was right: the cards are alive. And everything is clear to you when you look at them: you can hear them speak, smell the atmosphere they create it…
You know precisely what they’re telling you. And I knew – school was my option. I opened the other four, although there was no need anymore because I had my answer. But still, I wanted to see more of them out of admiration. Gorgeous, colorful, hypnotic. I stared at them for a while, probably a lot because Dad had already come home from work and found me sitting on the floor looking at them.

So, what do they say? He asked after Mom explained what I was doing.
Aaaaa – I shook up excitedly – they say I should go to school because it will be fun and easy for me. That everything will work out for me – I informed, all proud.
And then he provided me with the first lesson in interpreting cards: “Ok then. But you know, things won’t happen by themselves. You are the essential player in the story. You are the only one who will make it possible for everything to go smoothly with your work and effort. Otherwise nothing. It’s like you have a great chance to win the lottery, but you don’t play it, so you don’t win – he said and left.

The obsession begins

Typical of him, he made me angry back then with his cold, logical mind and rational approach to everything. Now I thank him for giving me the KEY TEACHING: we are, with our will, thoughts, and deeds, the ones who make the prophecies come true or not because they are all just possibilities. Some are more probable, some less, but a man changes the probability of something happening by his actions.

And so it began. I couldn’t detach myself from the cards. At first, my mother forbade me to “hang” on them, but we agreed that I could play with them when I write my homework and fulfill all my tasks. But only around the house, and not a word to anyone, especially Dad.

And I played. Read what each card means. I studied the Tarot more seriously than topics from school. And it didn’t look like learning. It was more like breathing, something necessary to delve into. I was more and more secretly falling in love with what my mom hated most about cards – the divination aspect. Fortunetelling part of it. I know that it is totally contradictory to the mentioned vital teaching, “we create our own future and reality, and this is how we get directions,” but when you are six, you want to be a magical hero who knows the future and can warn the world of possible danger.

First practice

And when your building is home to a super cool punk-darker girl with purple hair who goes to high school, and you meet her while digging in your bags in front of the doors searching for the key to the front door… somehow it happens that you mention your secret weapon – the Tarot. Yes, I wanted to impress her because she was so cool, so I offered her a reading. She was exhilarated about it.

So that afternoon, I performed a reading for her, despite my mother’s ban to do that publicly and instructing me not to tell anyone about it.

But this was an opportunity to make a friendship with the most incredible person in the world, as it looked like back then. She looked like she was from MTV (which had just arrived at tv channels), was angelically beautiful, and insanely dressed. So, It was worth the risk. Just as we were in her room with pentagrams on the walls and Joy Division posters doing divination, her older sister came from work and entered the room.

Seeing what we were doing, she brightened up and asked if I would divine for her too. How proud I was. Of course, I will, yes! And so I happily shuffled, pulled, and opened cards for her. And wow! I immediately saw some money. In fact, not some, but decent money. I observed she would get a lot of money and be very happy about it. Loads of money as if she got an inheritance, but she will be smiling, which means that no one died, so she inherited, but that money came somehow nicely. And also very quickly, like in two or three months. She waved her hand in disappointment and said there was no chance of that happening. She explained that she has an average salary as a person who works at the post office, but that’s all it is. In addition to that, she pointed out that she has no rich friends or relatives – she doesn’t know how she can get a more significant amount of money.

Her explanation left me sad as if someone poured water on me. But what can you do? Mistakes are possible – besides, I’ve just started reading the Tarot at that point, and there was a good chance I messed up something and misunderstood. So, I moved on with learning and living.

I got it right!!!

School, Tarot, Tarot school… I started to learn even harder so that the feeling of misinterpreted reading from that experience never happened to me again. Three months passed like that. One day, I came home from school. Mom opens the door and looks at me angrily.

What happened? – I ask her, my brain spinning about what was possibly going wrong: my grades are fine, room clean, cards in their place in the box, so what could have been happening???
Please sit down. We have to talk – she says in a cold tone. Never a good sentence.
I sat down on the couch and found out.
“This afternoon, a neighbor from the first floor came. And she brought THIS for you – she says and handles me envelope.
Neighbour says that you helped her get a lot of money, so she gave you this as a sign of her gratitude. She won the lottery because you FORTUNELLED HER!!! – Mom almost yells.

Although worried because she caught me… I was so happy inside. Because I got it right! I saw it correctly. She did get a lot of money in the end.

The neighbor said – mom proceeds – that she doesn’t usually play a lottery, but when you FORTUNETELLED money, she did and got it!

I was already queasy when she started that monologue, but the way she repeated the word “fortunetelling” was devastating. On that one frequency that makes you shiver… I couldn’t even look forward to SEEING GOOD… Contempt and anger, the angry dragons that hovered over me, and I shrank under the rain of glowing lava and icy lightning flashing from it, made me beg the winds to take me somewhere far away quickly…

Prediction or creation?

As I mentioned, my mother despised that aspect of divination. It was the first thing she told me about the Tarot and kept repeating it. Yes, absolutely, the Tarot is Absolute Authority in terms of psychological development, creating reality through perceiving the possibilities of some decisions and the like… But fortunetelling is for “immature, uneducated and insufficiently intelligent who do not know how to face their responsibilities and fatalistically wait to fate befell them.” She didn’t tattoo all of us with her favorite quote, but she made sure we engraved it in the cerebral cortex. And it says, by Lord Chesterton: “I do not believe in a destiny that falls on people no matter what they do, but I do believe in a destiny that affects people if they do nothing.” Amen.

And then her daughter FORTUNTELLS AROUND!!! Through neighborhood. WITH HER TAROT.
But eventually, she forgave me. Yes, I earned my first money from cards, also earned a first grounding, but it was worth it!

Inspiration above inspirations

Anyway, that’s it. Since then, the Tarot and I have loved each other. I meet and study him in love today, and I am grateful for that because no passion has held me so long (now over 33 years old) – basketball has been around for a year; judo, two months; artistic dance, four; acting school, five; painting school, three; singing in choir two. Month. And this lasts and lasts, and thank you because every moment is like the first moment (yes, I know, the goal is to be like that in love relationships with people).

The Tarot teaches you this best. It shows you every moment. Every moment is like the first because no matter how many times you meet and card, it can always happen that you do not know what it is saying at that moment or that you need to try to understand it more deeply. Because its meanings are not fixed, that is, they don’t exist actually. They are formed through the story cards shown. And the real message is behind that when you pass into the galaxy that opened its eyes to one of those windows.

Constant vigilance

Yes, it is easier for you to travel through that galaxy when you understand signposts and warnings (astrology, numerology, meanings of letters, numbers, symbols, and colors), but still, the way you connect is always new, always individual. The definitions of the cards are like a pastry shop window. But you don’t know the taste of the cake until you try it. And it’s not the same yesterday as it will be tomorrow because, lo and behold, maybe the aunt who bakes them put more cocoa somewhere than the other day.

Either way, the Tarot is life. It keeps you awake and aware that only change is constant because everything, like a deck of cards, is constantly shuffling and spinning in a circle. Rotates. Turns – to turn, in Latin: Rota. Tarot. Rota. Tarot. Circle of Life. And the Blessing of the Cosmos, but as I discovered in some subsequent writings. Kiss.