Divination Cards: An Introduction

Leaving a kids’ yoga class I’d taught for years, carrying all the luggage that entails, I’d stopped just short of my car, eyeing a playing card face-up by the drivers side. For two consecutive Wednesdays, I’d found a playing card by my car in this way. This, the third card in the series, was from a deck I’d never seen. Pictured as The Joker was a cowboy riding a bee; the lasso above his head making an infinity loop. I brought it home and sketched it in a journal. For as long as I can remember, I’ve copied things over in my own hand to better understand them. I couldn’t help but notice that, as I did, my hand was drawing some of the same symbols as “The Magician” in the Rider-Waite tarot deck. Now, at this time I hadn’t picked up a deck in over 20 years. Somehow seeing this card had unlocked a memory long since hidden.

Before I continue, I’d like to examine the symbology held in The Magician card. It’s number 1 signifies a new cycle. According to the system codified by The Hermetic Order of The Golden Dawn, The Magician corresponds to the planet Mercury. Hermes, as Mercury is known in Greek myth, is the ‘messenger of the gods’. The planet’s movements are therefore said to influence communication here on earth. If we look at the card itself, we see the protagonist holding a candle (lit on both sides) toward the heavens, as his left hand points down toward earth- ‘as above so below’. It may also be interpreted as bringing something forth from the ALL into the material realm.

Finding this card alone, I may have understood that some kind of alchemy was afoot, but most likely I would have ignored it and chalked it up to coincidence. Yet, this was not the first card I found. It was the third. All cards were discovered on a Wednesday. Wednesday in Latin is Mercurii (a.k.a Mercury). Back in ancient times, days of the week were named after their corresponding planets; I suspect, so that us humans would know how to best utilize the energy of the day.

The meaning of the number 3, this being the third and final card I found, may have many meanings. It could represent the Holy Trinity- Mind, Body, and Spirit or Father, Son, & Holy Spirit. In numerology, I am also a 3- a person with child-like enthusiasm & creativity.

The cards were all found by my driver’s side door, face-up. Yes, I did consider that some kind of serial killer was behind this whole thing, but apparently I’ve only watched enough Lifetime Movies to just entertain the thoughts, and not enough to fall into a complete state of hysteria & paranoia.

I believe this was the final card because I finally took the hint and drove straight over to my local metaphysical shop (Five Sisters). I’ve strolled it’s floors as a quasi-meditation before, so no one would have been surprised to find me there, but this time an angel-eyed woman approached. “Are you looking for cards?” she sweetly implied. I opened my mouth expecting words, but none came. “Maybe these angel cards?” she asked, handing me a nearby oracle deck. “I don’t connect with angels,” I replied. I’m not even sure where those words had come from. Until that moment, I don’t think I’d ever even considered if I connected with angels or not. In fact, I was not concerned with them at all. “Right. Fairies,” she continued, and handed me Doreen Virtue’s “Healing With The Fairies” Oracle Deck. “I haven’t used cards in a long time,” which is a truth that’d been buried deep in my subconscious for many, many, years. She smiled as she listened to my fantastical story of finding the three cards- The Queen Of Hearts, a Seven from an Uno deck, and lastly, The Magician. I bought the deck and left.

As a child, I often played “tarot”, carrying my grandaunt’s Naipes cards she’d brought with her from Cuba. I learned to shuffle like a pro from my mother and carried the deck like an extension of my hand, consulting them on all kinds of important matters- “would I get to play at my cousin’s house?”, “would I become a famous ballerina?”, “would I live in a castle?”. They were my constant companions until they weren’t. I don’t remember when I lost the cards, but finding cards again triggered a deeply buried longing.

Once home with my ‘fairy’ cards, I followed the instructions the woman at the shop detailed to me –

Instructions.

– Cleanse your deck using the dried herb of your choice (try a locally growing herb, as sage is over-harvested).

– Tap the box with two fingers, releasing it of all past energies.

– Touch each card in the deck, one-by-one.

– Hold all the cards close to your heart & ask them to be a conduit of information for your highest good, and the highest good of all.

– Ask a question, such as “what should I focus on today?”

– Shuffle until you feel it’s time to stop

– Pick a card from the top or lay them out in front of you, allowing your hand to drift over & stop on one.

– Sit with the symbolism of the card before consulting the interpretation manual.

The first card I pulled was “Making New Friends”, which on the surface should be a welcomed card, but it hit me right in the gut. This was a time when I’d just gotten out of a serious relationship & as often happens, friends were being divided amongst us. “New friends” to me meant ‘he’s keeping the friends & you’ll have to make new ones’, which also means ‘get ready to be really, really, lonely. So, I sat with that image & those feelings for a twenty minute meditation. For months I practiced in this way- pick a card, interpret, sit with the feelings. And little by little, separation between my thoughts, feelings, and Self got a little wider. And ‘lonely’ started to feel like ‘free’, and ‘alone’ started to feel like ‘intimacy with me’.

It’s been a few years since then, and I am now the proud caretaker of a few beloved decks, including the Raider-Waite Tarot (the classic) and a handmade deck “La Corte Dei Tarocchi” by Anna Maria D’Onofio. I consider using cards an integral part of my spiritual practice; not to find out ‘what’s going to happen’, but to accept and transmute what is happening. They also help me to look at those places that I’m subconsciously hiding from. Because we can’t change the things we refuse to see. I also went to “tarot school”, which does feel just as magical as saying I attended Hogwarts.

This is just part of my story, but let me emphasize- you do not need to believe that God/Spirit/Source/Yahweh can speak through cards to have this practice be meaningful to you. Cards included symbolism that helps us better understand our brain chemistry and emotional landscape. I first came across the importance of archetypes, such as those used in oracle cards and other cards for divination in Deepak Chopra’s “The Book of Secrets: Unlocking the Hidden Dimensions of Your Life“. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it.

I’d love to continue this conversation in the comments below, so please feel free to share your thoughts.