Tag: tarot cards

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Fun Stuff Metaphysical Connection

Metaphysical Connection: Tarot Is Queer

Photo: Noipornpan | Dreamstime.com

Happy Pride month! June is going to be a rainbow party here in the Mid-South, where the LGBTQ community is making their voices heard. In the large overlap of the metaphysical and LGBTQ communities, there are many conversations about the words and terms used to describe energy. This conversation includes tarot, as tarot is a story of the flow of energy in our lives and the cause and effects of that energy and the choices we make.

The artwork of tarot has been evolving recently, with more decks being inclusive of BIPOC people as well as having more LGBTQ images. In a spiritual community, where love should be the law, having representations of queer and BIPOC people is necessary because they are a large part of the community and they need to know that they are welcome and important here, too.

Tarot is historically white. The mass-produced Rider-Waite-Smith deck was illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith, a Black woman who ran with the likes of Bram Stoker and William Butler Yeats. It was through Yeats that Smith was introduced to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and Arthur Edward Waite, who commissioned her to illustrate his tarot deck. Yet none of the people in the deck looked like Colman Smith. Even with the enormous popularity of what she created, Colman Smith suffered, like so many women, from the exclusionary attitudes towards female talent: She received a small, flat sum for her tarot deck and no royalties. Only recently has her name been added to the title of the Rider-Waite-Smith deck.

The current push for more inclusive decks has created a whole new genre of tarot. Although tarot is still historically both white and very straight in its imagery, all the new queer and inclusive decks have added a richness and depth to our tarot choices. As a professional tarot reader, I have many tarot and oracle decks — too many if you ask some. And most of them feature nothing but straight, white people. However, over the last few years I have added some new, amazing decks to my collection that include both people of color and queer people in the artwork. I have made the conscious effort to do so. I like to see people of different ethnicities and cultures in my decks. The world is full of people with different skin tones and cultures, and I want that reflected in my spiritual world, too. As someone who reads professionally for others, I want the people I read for to see themselves included in my tarot cards. We have all had moments where we relate to someone on TV, in a movie, a story, or in art that does not look like us or live the same lifestyle we live. But being able to see a person who has a similar skin tone or haircut or presentation that resembles yours is empowering, welcoming, and affirming.

If you are searching for a tarot deck that includes BIPOC and queer representation, I have a few suggestions to get you started. The Light Seer’s Tarot is my current favorite deck and the one I read for clients with. It includes people of various skin tones in different settings. The Modern Spellcaster’s Tarot includes a variety of skin tones and many LGBTQ people in various relationships. Without being a strictly “queer” deck, it is one of the more inclusive decks I have seen. The Modern Witch and Modern Goddess tarot decks feature women of all representations. The Queer Tarot and Pride Tarot both focus on queer representation with many BIPOC people included. Two of my favorite new decks just published are the Fifth Spirit Tarot Deck and This Might Hurt Tarot; both decks are queer and inclusive, for a world beyond binaries.

If you are new to tarot, or a professional like me, I encourage you to check out some of these decks and add them to your collection. They will add a depth to your readings, and may help your clients hear your message and take it to heart easier.

Emily Guenther is a co-owner of The Broom Closet metaphysical shop. She is a Memphis native, professional tarot reader, ordained Pagan clergy, and dog mom.

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Fun Stuff Metaphysical Connection

Metaphysical Connection: Your Tarot Card for 2024

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Getting a tarot reading near the beginning of the year is a common practice for those interested in tarot. Many people like to get a glimpse of the year ahead. Another way you can incorporate tarot is by finding your personal card, which can help summarize the energy of the coming year. And if you did get a new year’s reading, it can help confirm that message or clarify parts of the reading. Finding your tarot card can be a quick way to know what to expect and it is something everyone can do, even those who are not tarot enthusiasts. 

A tarot deck is divided into two groupings — the major arcana and the minor arcana. The major arcana cards represent the pivotal events of our lives, the structure of the bigger picture. The major arcana is made up of some of the most well-known tarot cards. These are the cards you’re likely to see used in movies or shows, but there are only 22 cards in the major arcana. Some of those include The Fool, The Magician, The Empress, Death, and The Moon. The minor arcana cards, which make up the bulk of the deck, tend to be more about the daily details of your situation. This is not to say they aren’t important, just that they represent the people, tasks, decisions, and events that fill our everyday experiences. These are the small details that add color and texture to the big picture of our lives. And if there is ever something in a tarot reading that you do not like and want to change, making adjustments to minor arcana messages is much easier than trying to change the direction of any major arcana cards in that reading. The minor arcana is the portion of tarot that is made up of suits much like playing cards — swords, wands, cups, and pentacles. 

To find out which card is your card of the year, all you will need is your phone. For this exercise, we are only going to focus on the major arcana portion of the tarot deck. Although there are 22 cards, they are numbered 0-21. When you do the math to get the number correspondence for your card, you will want a number between 1 and 22. It is impossible to get a 0 when you are adding numerical values higher than 0 together. To compensate for not being able to have 0 as a number, if your final number is 22, then that means The Fool card, card number 0, is your card for the year. 

The first thing you will do is add your birth month and day to the current year, 2024. Let’s look at an example. For our example, we’ll use a birthdate of February 10th. You can add 02 (for the month of February) plus 10 (for the day) plus 2024. If you add 02+10+2024, you get 2036. 2036 is much bigger than numbers 1–22, so we will need to reduce this number. Next, we will add 2+0+3+6, which gives us 11. Using this method, card number 11 — the Strength card — will be your card for the year. 

You could also let the universe decide what your card of the year is by simply selecting a random tarot card from your deck. If you use this method, you can use just the major arcana portion or you can use the entire deck. Shuffle your deck and then randomly pull a card. 

My personal card for the year does summarize my tarot reading for the year, as well as focuses on the big work I will need to do. It is not my favorite tarot card, but it is appropriate. If you choose to discover your card for 2024, I hope it brings you the same clarity and guidance that mine has brought to me. And if you have any tarot questions, feel free to bring them to The Broom Closet and we’ll be happy to help you out. 

Emily Guenther is a co-owner of The Broom Closet metaphysical shop. She is a Memphis native, professional tarot reader, ordained Pagan clergy, and dog mom.

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Change Was in the Cards for Memphis Tarot Readers

CREDIT: Toby Sells

Toby Sells

Erin Larivee (left) and Emily Guenther read tarot cards for clients in person at South Main’s The Broom Closet and online.

Change was coming. It was in the cards.

Emily Guenther and Erin Larivee saw that change in their cards last fall, one card specifically.

“The Tower Card is one of the change cards but it’s my least favorite,” said Guenther. “It’s a big change; it’s disruption. It’s your life being turned upside down. It’s the rug being pulled from under you. And, a lot of times, there’s no preparation for any of this.”

Guenther owns The Broom Closet, a metaphysical shop and spiritual supply store on South Main. There, she reads tarot cards for clients under the name Reverend Omma. Larivee reads at the shop, too and is considered a hedgewalker, a spiritual term for someone who easily walks between the physical world and the one beyond the veil.

Both of them said they began seeing the Tower Card appear for more clients more often last fall. Back then, Guenther was even walking through her tarot class through an exercise on picking their card of the year. She picked the Tower Card.

“I’m having meltdown in front of the class, like, oh my god, this is going to be the worst year of my life forever,” Guenther said. “Little did I know it was for everybody.”

While there are many professional agencies advocating for tarot readers, like the American Tarot Association and the National Tarot Readers Association, none of them offered any trend information related to readings and the coronavirus. Then again, it may be difficult to extract and report upon personal data from private readings.

Just like much else, COVID-19 has pushed once face-to-face tarot readings into the digital world. Guenther said she resisted at first, “I wanted you to touch my cards. That’s how I was going to read your energy.” She relented and said a virtual reading “doesn’t interfere with the messages and the ability to give a good reading.”

“It’s not about being in the same space,” Larivee said, noting she’s done readings on Zoom and Skype for years. “Sharing energy is sharing energy. It’s not about being in the same space.”

No tarot reader could have really predicted COVID-19, said Guenther and Larivee; readings just don’t work that way. Tarot is ”like a picture in time,” Guenther said. While readings can show where things are headed, “it’s not set in stone,” she said, and they can help clients pick a path.

Unstable times did not produce an uptick in overall clients, both readers said. That is, questions and uncertainty about the global pandemic did not send many more people seeking answers or stability in a tarot reading.
[pullquote-1-center] But the global situation has made for some consistent messaging in many readings, as people worldwide deal with the same issue. People worry about their lives in the context of the world-changing pandemic, Larivee said. From many of those readings, she said a common theme has emerged: “normal is never going to be normal again.”

Toby Sells

Erin Larivee and Emily Guenther read tarot cards for clients in person at South Main’s The Broom Closet and online. Above, Larivee reveals the change-gonna-come Tower Card.

“Someday we will have something normal but something’s going to change,” Larivee said. “We may not be living with a mask, I don’t [perceive] that. But normal is changing. I’m getting that very frequently.”

Guenther joked that many seek a tarot reading to answer questions primarily about two things: love and money. Since COVID-19, they’ve seen people turn to them for a third reason.

“I think tarot reading is a bit like therapy and counseling,” Guenther said. “So, I feel like a lot of it is just people needing someone to talk to that they haven’t already been talking at for a few weeks now.”

There’s another trend both Guenther, Larivee, and others are seeing in their cards, or not seeing.

“I’m seeing [the Tower Card] less frequently,” Larivee said. “A lot of the members of the community that I know personally and professionally have been noticing the exact same pattern,” Larivee said. “That’s been consistent nationally and globally.”
[pullquote-2-center] Guenther, too.

“I’ve notice I’ve stopped seeing it quite as much, which gives me a little bit of hope,” she said.

What’s in the cards for you? Book a tarot reading with Guenther, Larivee, and other readers at The Broom Closet website. The Broom Closet, 546 S. Main St.