I don't get my cards read. And by cards, I mean Tarot. I've seen Tarot card readings ebb and flow over the course of the last several decades from New Hope, PA New Age shops to fortune tellers to novelty sessions reminiscent of the Spiritualist craze back to occult circles and now into reshaped self-care apothecaries. How the cards are used and what they're used for change on occasion. The cards remain the same (not really, but that rhetoric sounded nice).

I've never been one to have another lay claim to knowledge of my present or future. I've seen plenty of charlatans, and to be honest, I can sometimes be a control freak—refusing to allow anything like a thread of fate divined from a shuffled deck control my outcomes.

This isn't to say that I don't find value in Tarot. The Rider-Waite Tarot deck is named after A.E. Waite—noted author, occultist, and member of the Golden Dawn (amongst other organizations). He was well read, a critical thinker, and his meticulous research went into the construction of the most popular Tarot cards in modern culture. That research is based on long historical and mythological threads dating to at least the 15th century for both playing card games and cartomancy. More importantly, the Tarot is rooted in art and pictography which has a tendency to capture meaning beyond the surface level.

Paul Foster Case (and his Builders of the Adytum) would have you believe that these images are based on ancient knowledge of inner wisdom. Although Case was referring not to the Rider-Waite deck, but his own "corrected" version. The images were seen as universal symbols that speak to the subconscious mind. Case might not be far off. The surrealist movement was always enamored by the Tarot as symbols that spoke beyond the veil of the conscious mind—which was what much of surrealism was attempting to do. The Tarot symbols—as they've evolved—do contain hints at universal symbols and function in much the same mode as psychologist Carl Jung's ideas on univeral archetypes. This isn't to say that Tarot symbols are archetypes (although some may certainly be), but it's to say that the symbolism has a rich mythology and universality providing deeper meaning to those that investigate.

Case's use of the Tarot within his organization is far from fortune telling. Instead, the cards are meditated upon in a form of mindfulness and self-exploration—the conscious mind dissolving into the subconscious instead doing the communication and revealing to the person thoughts, ideas, and other keys to help overcome obstacles or find greater meaning. In this sense, the cards are used to slow the rambling, waking mind, and provide a central point of concentration, while the universal symbols bring to the surface moments of inspiration and personal development.

There are people who get their cards read that expect the reader to tell them their future, recite them their past, and speak to the dead. I'm not saying you can't run across someone with such insight, but more likely than not, a card reader is a psychologist or counselor helping you read signposts where you might need a second set of eyes if you feel you can't quite make out the message yourself. Even in the event that you solicit a reading, you should go into it looking to apply what knowledge you gain to the problem you're attempting to solve or the questions you're looking to ask. Don't leave that up to the card reader. Even if you're using the reading as a means of justification, you're certain to gain insight previously not discovered.

Much has changed for me over the course of the last year or two. I'm 45, and as I've reached closer to 50, I've been coming to terms with what that means. With the things I might never accomplish. Not quite Memento Mori, but along a similar vein—what should I really be spending precious time on.

I've made a lot of changes in my life—mostly with what I apply meaning to. Such wholesale changes can sometimes use additional perspective.

I've know Taylor Ellwood for over two decades now and just typing out that statement reminds me of how quickly time can pass. Taylor and I both ran in some of the same circles back in the early 00's. He contributed a lot to the early Key 23 group weblog and was the editor of two non-fiction anthologies I participated in. Taylor has always been a reliable hand. He's consistently and unapologetically done his own thing, which are probably the two most necessary qualities in any occult work.

Taylor does a lot of consulting work through his web site, and recently posted on Instagram about how he was doing a 12 month forecast for himself to gain some insight into the upcoming year. As someone who never gets his cards read, I liked that idea, and being knee deep in a lot of personal and extracurricular changes, I decided having Taylor as second set of eyes would be helpful.

I won't get into the details of the forecast, but I had a set goal of what I wanted going in. One particular task I was working on was my focus, and I didn't discuss any of it with Taylor ahead of time. I wanted unadulterated insight, letting Taylor pull the cards and read the images. Then I could take his interpretation and apply it to what I was working on, adding its own patterns to what my intuition was telling me. To borrow from my occupation, in many ways, it's like pair-programming—sitting at the same desk (or Zoom), working together on the same problem. Taylor brought insights from his perspective that I might have missed.

The key here, however, is trust. I didn't need a charlatan guardrail up with Taylor. I could relax into the process and run with the results. I knew he wasn't going to feed me any exaggerations. There are very few "card readers" I give that leeway to—hence why I don't get my cards read—but Taylor is one of those people. It made the process all the more productive.