Most of you know I'm a tarot card collector. I enjoy reading, but above all else, I'm a collector. I realized something today regarding my decks that sort of made me laugh ... and think. I happen to be a big fan of things that make me both laugh and think, so I thought maybe some of you would, too.
I realized today that my feelings about certain decks are very much tied to different states of mind or aspects of my personality that they appeal to. I guess I so often hear the phrase "being in tune with" your tarot decks and I never tied it back to that connection most people have to all sorts of meaningful inanimate objects in our lives. People get very attached to certain things for various reasons such as a 'charm' from someone who made it through a war and back. When I am going through and looking at my decks, each one influences or stimulates a different vibe in my brain.
I noticed it when I got my new Zombie Tarot. It's a very tongue in cheek deck and I love the sense of humor of the creator. It's the part of me that giggles and nudges the person next to me to join in. I guess of known on a certain level that I have this type of connection with my decks, but I never committed any structured thought to it. Now I'm sitting here pondering it and I feel like a little light bulb just stuttered and then lit up over my head!
For someone like me who has multiple decks, when reading for ourselves, our deck choice depends on our mood at the time. I have dark, shadowy decks and silly, whimsical decks. I have traditional, reproduction decks and I have themed decks for when I may just be in an "Alice" mood. My Zombie Tarot will definitely be for when I'm feeling silly ... and maybe a little mischievous.
I'd love to see my brain under a brain scan when I'm going through my decks. I'd just like to see in what ways it effects the energy flow in there. It's fascinating to me how colors, shapes and symbols influence our emotions, our thought patterns and our perspective on things. In truth, that's what makes tarot work ... those connections.
Here is where I would love to see the science on this. Sadly I'm not a neuro-anything, so I have no idea how to even approach that study. I hypothesize that when we lay down cards with the intention of understanding reality more clearly, our unconscious mind focuses on what we need to see with our conscious mind, enabling us to see beyond or in a more all-encompassing manner. There could be any number of combinations out there on the table, but the message - that "thing" we're supposed to be getting insight for - is going to be the same. The cards are a tool to tie the part of our brain we know about to the part of our brain that we don't.
I feel like I'm sucking the mysterious hoodoo-ness out of tarot, but this is my blog, so I write what I want. It always goes back to science for me and while I know not everything in the universe is explainable yet, I don't think that means it will stay that way. We are always discovering new things and disproving old thought systems. I love tarot because of it's (in my opinion) inexplicable ability to work the way I believe it does. I think there's definitely something metaphysical going on there, and I think it's worthy of some looking into.
Ok ... geek out ending ... now.
