SOULFOREST
Sincerity Overrides Unknown Laws


Tarot for Writers

As I write this I have just returned from Goddard College, where I teach Creative Writing for the Master of Fine Arts (MFA/W). Goddard pioneered what is called the "low (or intensive) residency" method of teaching. Everyone in a given program (there are five at Goddard, including a B.A. program) shows up for a weeklong residency on campus, including lectures, classes, and workshops. Then teachers and students all return home, and the students begin mailing packets of work to their advisors, who send back detailed "response letters."


For my workshop contributions during the residency I have developed methods of using Tarot cards to inspire writers and poets. We can use the cards to help us understand our characters, to develop plots, to get us out of difficult places in a work, or to "find" images that will inspire poems. Here are a few spreads I created for this July's version of the workshop:



Spread For When Stuck, Or To Get Started

This simple spread uses three cards, and can help a writer see how to start a project, or work through a difficult place.






Possibility A Issue Possibility B


In this reading the central card helps us see an existent story or poem in a fresh way. If we wish to start something new, card 1 will help us with ideas or themes that we might want to express. The two side cards give us two possibilities for what we might want to do in the poem or story. We can see them very literally-a Two of Cups might indicate that a character meets someone and falls in love-or thematically. The same Two of Cups could say that the writer needs to develop the theme of love and commitment. The two outer cards would hint how to do that.



Past, Present, Future For Poets

This spread, based on the most common Tarot spread, will work for fiction writers as well, but I have adapted it especially to help poets see how to create a fresh poem.






Source Central Image Development

Card 1 (the "past") helps the poet see a theme, or idea, or inspiration.

Card 2 (the "present") suggests a central image around which to organize the poem.

Card 3 (the "future") indicates a way to develop the work from the initial idea or image.



Poets In PaRaDiSe

In Hebrew words consist of consonants only, with vowels added at the bottom. The Hebrew word for Paradise is PaRDeS, similar to the English, because both derive from a Persian word, paradeiza. The four letters PRDS have come to symbolize the four levels we can interpret a text. To achieve al four levels means we will arrive at a "paradise" of understanding. For a full development of this idea please see my books The Forest of Souls, or The Kabbalah Tree. Here, I can give the basic meaning for each letter. P means the literal meaning of the text, what it actually says. R stands for intellectual understanding. D gives us a wider contextual awareness; we might see where the same phrases or images occur somewhere else, or simply what comes before or after a particular statement. S refers to "secrets," the hidden or mystical meanings that occur in significant works, and that we cannot really get without the previous 3 levels.



Here is how I have adapted these levels for poets:

P Image or images we might want to use in the poem

R Technical direction-a card to suggest how to build the poem from the image.

D Development of meaning-though meaning is vital to a poem it actually emerges very often out of the images and structure rather than the other way around. Thus, I have included it as the third level.

S Truths, revealed, hinted, or suggested. This most subtle level of a poem very often develops all on its own, or at least out of some unconscious place in the poet's creative mind. For most poets, it does not often work to set out to reveal a truth; that layer of the work will come on its own if we fully attend to the other layers. And yet, if we see what card emerges for this point it can help guide us in the other three letters.



The Celtic Cross For Writers

The Celtic Cross is the most famous Tarot spread, found in almost every book on the subject. For writing, I have focused on adapting the traditional positions to character and plot. Doing this spread will give you both a detailed and overall understanding of a story or novel, whether the work is underway, or brand new.







1. central situation

2. (laid sideways across the first card) basic conflict

3. unconscious drives (usually of the main character)

4. back story (events not actually told, but useful to keep in mind to understand the character or situation-some writers develop lengthy back stories for their main characters, keeping them in private journals)

5. aspirations-what the book or story is reaching for


6. plot development-what might happen next, or overall

7. main character-an action or quality of the protagonist that helps drive the story

8. antagonist or secondary character

9. hopes and fears (the character's, or perhaps the writer's)

10. where the book is headed right now


To all writers and poets who will use these spreads, I wish you great success in all your work.