I’ve been looking for answers. I want to understand what my experiences with musical synchronicity mean. I want to know where it comes from and why it comes. But most of all I want to know what I’m supposed to do with it. Tarot came to mind as a way to connect and explore. I have my own deck of cards, so why not?
I bought this deck, a standard Rider-Waite-Smith set, when I was in high school. Somehow my parents never made me throw them away. Somehow they’ve travelled with me from my parents’ home to dorm room and apartment and apartment and townhouse apartment and rental house and apartment and finally to my first homeowner-ed home.
I’d read somewhere, probably in a book loaned to me by my friend Nicole’s gay half-brother Les, to whom I first came out, that to protect your cards, you should wrap them in silk and velvet. (Or something.) I had access to silk because I loved silk shirts as a teen (and my parents were surprised when they learned I was gay, which to this day I’m still like Really? Silk and rayon shirts didn’t give it away?). I cut the breast pocket out of one of my shirts - a plum color - put my cards into the pocket, and wrapped them in a tattered piece of I-have-no-idea-where-it-came-from black velvet (if you please).
I don’t know if I’ve ever looked at them in 30 years. Maybe once or twice at most.
About a month ago I read a book from the library called _“Radical Tarot: Queer the Cards, Liberate Your Practice, and Create the Future_ by Charlie Claire Burgess. (bookshop.org affiliate link there)
I also had a reading with someone at RavenSongOracles. She gave me permission to record the session, but the app I used failed. I told her about the synchronicity I’m experiencing, and trying to understand if it’s real (it’s real). At the end, she gave me an exercise to try - put a word out there and see if it comes back.
So I did, and it did. Picked from a song and returned in a song. It wasn’t a word you’d expect to hear in two different songs within 24-hours. The song it came back in was a snippet, and a really silly one, which made it all even more winky.
In a follow up email, she told me that WitchLab, our local Occult, Oddities, and Antiques shop, had a tarot reading class coming up. I signed up and finished the 3rd of 3 sessions last Sunday.
I laid out my first spread this morning. Leaving, or being cordially invited to fuck off from, my SMART Recovery group was heavily on my mind, and while I riffle shuffled I talked out loud about wanting more insight into what’s happening with me, why I’m somehow awakened to these musical moments. Why I’m so in tune, if you’ll pardon the pun.
I laid out 3 cards (past, present, future) and a 4th card over them to represent a sort of overarching theme. Here’s what came up and my interpretation.
- Past: 3 of Wands (reversed)
- Present: 6 of Swords
- Future: The Fool (reversed)
- Overarching: The High Priestess
Nutshell Meanings
- The wands’ element is fire, and they represent passion. Threes represent having an extra path available.
- The swords’ element is air, and they represent logic. Sixes represent tending inner growth, letting go and moving on.
- The Fool represents a new, fearless journey. Taking a leap, taking a risk, and going for it without overthinking it. It is also the card I originally chose as my card when I first bought the deck some 30+ years ago.
- The High Priestess represents subconscious knowledge and connecting to insights through your higher self (spirit guides, angels).
Reversals can be interpreted differently, but I like how our instructor (a Good Witch) described them - as indicative of the card’s original meaning being blocked or being held back.
My Interpretation
I had a plan, and it was working. But there was something I wasn’t considering. Something bigger or longer-term. Maybe I wasn’t pushing myself enough to see it. Now it’s time to let go and move on. There’s an adventure to be had, but not letting go and moving on won’t let me get there. Let go and trust my higher-self. My angles and protectors are here with me. Don’t worry so much about why or how. Go with it because I’ll keep connecting with them or they with me.
The 3 Wands (reversed) is telling me that my working plan was going to SMART Recovery meetings with a specific collective of people I adore. I liked the structure, the stability of having a weekly check-in, and I experienced profound moments of healing and growth thanks to it. But there was a different path presenting itself for me to consider as a longer-term plan. A weekly meeting is one thing, but what’s my real plan? Something kept me from seeing it. Now that those meetings are over for me, now that my friends aren’t one big collective that could wrap around me when I needed them, I’m grieving that loss. That’s ok, but the 6 Swords is telling me I do need to let it go, and let it go for good. I need to move on, past the rough seas. I need to rely on logic in order to do it. This is an intentional, logical letting go. The Fool (reversed) (the card representing me) is telling me there’s a great journey to be had. Since it’s my own card, it could mean new methods of self-discovery and self-actualization. But currently something is standing in the way, and it’s probably my own doubts about the future now that my SMART Recovery chapter is over - at least in the setting I’m used to. The High Priestess is telling me to trust and believe in my higher-self. It’s telling me my protectors are present, and together they’re letting me know We got this, kid. Don’t worry so much and just let us show up when we show up, and listen with us when we tell you we see you, and we know you see us.
Our class instructor, Brooke (she/her), and she was indeed quite the instructor. Very tuned-in and just a hoot-and-a-half as a person. I’d love to share this reading and interpretation with her, and with the woman who recommended the class to me in the first place. Maybe later I’ll cross-reference this spread with Radical Tarot.
Or maybe I’ll just let it go as it is, and not worry so much about it.
We got this, kid. We got this.
