Art Rosengarten

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”

Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

The Table

A small black-lacquered round table sat alone at the far end of the long downstairs corridor, an ideal “divination zone” I thought, and so it was there that I set my things and prepared for the experiment. With my back to the end wall, I positioned a second chair at the table directly opposite me so to best assure privacy and quietude for our card games to follow. To my left, I placed a small statue of Vishnu, “The Preserver,” as reminder of his benign and fathomless reach of protection over all worldly creation. Under the circumstances, any help from Vishnu’s couldn’t hurt.

As is my practice of preparation, I then closed my eyes and began pacing my breathing to the rhythmic and steady procession of concentrated shuffles of the cards, sending a continuous percussion of claps and swooshes echoing down the long hallway. Generally speaking, the more trivial a questioner’s concern, the more ridiculous the entire “divination process” appears—as, for example, “Bologna for lunch?” posed the oracle would seem hardly worthy of such transcendent focus. The flipside, however, is equally true: the more crucial and indispensable the issue under consideration, the more it seems absolutely natural and necessary for this preliminary phase of the divination process. One senses the mandate to go slow and deep, mindful that great consequence arrives potentially with the turning of even a single card.

Cartomancy or divination by cards, like other forms of religious rites and ceremony, invites a certain willingness to engage the symbolic imagination with genuine sincerity, beginning in this case with preparations. As such, in my mind (even, if only in my mind) the cards were a collection of rare and beautifully illustrated treasure maps of consciousness, each card a necessary and distinct carrier of the pristine and essential coordinates of higher intelligence, though encoded in a esoteric symbol system of perennial wisdom. I imagined, as well, that in the act of blindly shuffling and reshuffling their sequence I was replicating the mysterious and seemingly random operation of karma, the hidden process that pervades and shapes the natural unfolding of events, and in turn, stamps each individual existence with certain higher challenges and directives for spiritual gain and loss.

To elevate the concentrated practice to the heights of our current surroundings, I added a simple centering mantra offered between each shuffle and breath, wherein the heart of compassion was invoked in the soothing Buddhist chant of The Four Metta Phrases: “May All Beings Be Happy” (clap, swoosh, cut, breathe)…“May All Beings Be Protected” (clap, swoosh, cut, breathe)… “May All Beings Be Peaceful” (clap, swoosh, cut, breathe)…“May All Beings Be Liberated” (clap, swoosh, cut, breathe)… and so on. The syncopated procedure filled the gaps before, between, and after each appointed reading, even if only serving to cleanse and refresh my own body and mind for the long evening. I hoped to generate sufficient energy for the considerable challenge before me: transmitting the wisdom of Tarot toward crucial matters of hope and despair, life and death, mountains and valleys.

First Blood

On cue as I broke from the preliminaries, I spied my first subject making her way down the long tiled corridor, pausing briefly by the hanging Bengali tiger skins, and then down to the divination zone at the very end. Smiling, but walking heavily as was not her custom, I raised a welcoming hand and motioned her to sit on the chair across from me. “Welcome to the divination zone,” I said. “J” was herself an esteemed and quite likeable member of the teaching staff, an accomplished traveler, author, and spiritual teacher in her own right. What better “test case?” I thought. As she sank in the chair I could see the underlying emotions quickly rise to her face and eyes that now seemed aged in their weariness, grief, and anxiety. I suggested simply that we let all the madness hang out unchecked, and try to sort some things out using the tarot cards. See what happens.

J. simply nodded. I inquired whether there were any specific questions or concerns to address? Her short strained smile gave way to the knot now tightening below the surface. “No, not really,” she sort of winced, “there’s just so much to process I don’t know where to start really.”
My house is very near the fault line in Berkeley—I know because we just put it up for sale a month ago and the realtor said as much…(pause). My daughter’s staying in the house now, she’s taken a semester off from college, and she’s watching over my mom who’s 86 years old and has diabetes and other ailments, and is generally in very poor health…And then, petty as it sounds, there’s the matter of my nearly finished manuscript sitting on the old living room desk--the product of five years of research and grueling writing, and…it’s all woven together like some horrendous nightmare … or I guess that’s simply the way life is, you know?

I nodded. She was right, of course. Everything that matters is stuck together in karmic molasses. Tarot readings certainly make that abundantly clear. Now J’s deeper feelings began spilling to the surface. Choking down tears, she cried out: “I just hope everyone’s alive and ok, that’s all…that’s all that matters. I’m really, really frightened Art.” I was pleased that we were getting down to business.

It would be similar for everyone who came into the zone that evening, given the cruel reality that no further information, no answers, no response, no exit would be forthcoming for at least another day. A lifetime, it seemed. We were left simply to stew, as the saying goes, in our own juices. I tried to remind myself that this is often the very best way to cook a really fine meal. Stew in your own juices, the way of the pressure cooker. J’s real question was now ready for articulation. She put it squarely: “How should I hold this mess now? What is my lesson here?”

The Spread

Given that only the Higher Keys were at hand, that is, the twenty-two trumps of the Major Arcana exclusively, I chose a short five card layout (once gleaned from the Jungian analyst John Bebe) that was designed trump cards exclusively, wherein the fifth and final position is determined by a numeric reduction of the first four cards. For example, should the divined first four cards be Trumps II (Priestess), IV (Emperor), VI (Lovers), and VIII (Justice), one simply adds these numbers (2 + 4 + 6 + 8) to get the sum of 20 (Trump XX, Judgment), which subsequently becomes the fifth and final card of the reading. The Fool (retains its zero value in calculations) but occupies as is customary the final deck position as the 22nd card. Sums exceeding 22 (and therefore bearing no direct trump analogue) are further reduced to their single digit root, thus 23 = 5 (i.e. 2+ 3) or Trump V (Hierophant) and so forth. The fixed spread positions were thus :

1. Working For Me
2. Working Against Me
3. The Known
4. The Unknown
5. Now Needed

A Cauldron Of Happenstance

Like all things a tarot reading never operates in a vacuum. One’s karma, a cauldron of interconnected factors that directly and indirectly contributes to the shaping of momentary events always exist in the mix. Though an identified issue grabs focal attention, subtler ingredients lie hidden below the surface like spices within the broth. Divination is the large stirring spoon that animates what’s underneath so that certain hidden elements bubble up to the surface. Below is synopsis of special ingredients in J.’s reading.

Query: How should I hold this mess now? What is my lesson here?

1. Working For: The Fool (0)
2. Working Against: The Star (XVII)
3. The Known: The Priestess (II)
4. The Unknown: The Emperor (IV)
5. Now Needed: The Hierophant (V)

Synopsis:

In Position 1--Working For, The Fool (Trump XXII). Signifies: fearlessness, sense of wonder and openness, beginner’s mind, spirit of innocence, play, and discovery. In context, the image was one of permission to disengage—in particular, from the dire and despairing mood that had swept over us all. A forgotten ally, The Fool basically counseled—“It is to your advantage to stay in the moment, to remain open and present, fearless if foolish. Better to play than fret.”

In Position 2—Working Against, The Star (Trump XVII). Signifies: emergence, enlightenment, guiding light, inspiration, hope. In context, the image actually discouraged conscious spiritual focus, taking refuge in hope or inspiration, etc. Better to stay with The Fool, perceive emptiness, do nothing. The Star appears like an untimely prayer or an unskillful remedy. It counsels: “Now is not the time for replacing despair with its opposite. Let go of that. Remain The Fool, without attachment to loss or gain, as positive efforts may actually be a hindrance at this time.”

In Position 3—The Known, The Priestess (Trump II). Signifies: deep memory, intuitive knowing, subtle wisdom, forbidden secrets. In context, the image reflects J’s own spiritual awareness as an advanced practitioner, in particular, of the subtle forces of mind and intuition. “Here you are considerably accomplished” it counsels, “remember who you really are and bring this knowledge to bear now.”

In Position 4—The Unknown, The Emperor (Trump IV). Signifies: order, structure, command, the father principle. In context, the image suggests circumstances are still in formation, unknown and uncongealed, fluid but in process. As such, response is premature, command uncertain. The Emperor cautions: “You can’t take charge at this time because nothing is settled. To do so would be folly.”

In Position 5—What Is Now Needed, The Hierophant (Trump V). Signifies: guidance and ethics, bridging the material and spiritual, authority, spiritual instruction. In context, the image suggests the predicament itself is a teacher and teaching. In practical terms, J. must return to her designated role as Buddhist instructor perhaps to hold the predicament as a model for others. In the role of teacher, J. herself must bridge the spiritual work with the situation at hand.

To be continued