The heart in a pinch

Most of the work we perform with the cards is about relationships; our relationship to others, to our money, to our health, and to our awareness, the latter, if we're lucky to have any.

I'm amazed at how often the cards show that people engage with others not because they want to, but because there's a promise on the table. When the promise is not offered sincerely, or is the result of shallow thinking, there's only disappointment.

In this picture here you can almost sense the Pope's irritability at not getting what he wants, what with the two sets of swords above his head, suggesting not getting enough value from the path of love. But what value, when the path of love is informed by this question: 'what's in it for me?' While this is a good question in the right context, in the context of making transmissions of the spiritual and educational kind, it is the wrong question.

I could write a whole book about just these cards and this predicament, but I'll stop here with this reflection, as what I really want to say is that reading cards is fun, fun, and more fun. I never get tired of it. Look at this Pope blessing the lesser bundle, yet not as an act of acceptance, but rather as an act of resignation, allowing the heart to be pinched for no good reason.

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Cards: Converse Marseille Tarot by Grimaud, 1930.

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Even on the cover

Do I have more interesting things to say about the Pope? Why indeed. he is even on the cover of my book, What is Not, the book that busts all your perceptions of this card.