The Sunday Series #3
An unexpected "Tarot Everywhere" story . . .
Welcome everyone. I’ve made a last-minute change this Sunday, and instead of introducing a new survey, I decided to tell you about a “Tarot Everywhere” encounter that caught me by complete surprise.
Quick backstory: For a while I’ve subscribed to the Writing Mastery Academy, which offers a nice selection of very practical courses—mostly about writing fiction, but also focusing on some general principles of craft. WMA was one of the resources I selected (after umpty auditions) when I set out to learn more about storytelling, primarily to improve a narrative nonfiction project I’ve been working on for a LONG time.
Every once in a while, one of the WMA instructors holds a live Q & A session. Yesterday, the call featured Jordan Rosenfeld.
I’d heard her in a previous session and liked her precise, thoughtful approach, so I tuned in while doing a few rote tasks. There were some interesting tips, mostly about how to approach particular challenges that were facing writers on the call.
Near the end, Jordan remarked that she had recently begun a Substack—and I quickly visited, planning to add a mention of it in my own new Substack, The Misfit Writer.
On a quick scan through her posts, I came across this one:
Of course I clicked right through, and learned that she had recently taken a first trip to New Orleans, where—
On Royal Street I found a Tarot deck with a bold shiny crow on the box, an Elvira like priestess holding a murder on its side. As someone who has befriended and fed my very own murder, it felt right—if not a witch’s familiar, perhaps at least a messenger to help me navigate my way.
Despite being well versed in the symbols of the written word, I’ve quickly found the symbology of Tarot to be another story. While others my age are learning Spanish or Portuguese to travel to far flung places, I’m trying to travel inward, a place lined with pentacles and cups, stumbling along the fool’s, not the hero’s, journey, humbled by it all.
This inward journey has a very particular context, which is embedded in a double meaning of her Substack’s title, Writing in the Pause.
Here’s what the short description says:
That’s true in a general way—but there’s also a section of the Substack she describes as “hot (flash) takes on the gifts and burdens of perimenopause.” And that’s where the Tarot fits in.
“I’ve clutched after metaphors and ritual,” she writes, “trying to turn this sweaty, raging, confounding process of my own into something meaningful.”
Which might describe a different kind of Tarot door—or might be one of those places where many paths meet . . .
Snapshots included in the post show a pair of decks that reflect two opposite-yet-inseparable sides of transformational experience. On the left is Murder of Crows Tarot, and on the right, Starlit Garden Tarot.
One more quote from Jordan Rosenfeld’s post:
The experience of laying a spread of cards challenges the part of me that likes to know, to control, to logic my way into the world through determined independence, all things that perimenopause has been slowly wrenching away. The cards don’t offer up easy answers, after all—they remind me that there are different kinds of knowing, and that maybe it’s time to lean into the ways that feel like feet dangling on air at the top of a carnival ride.
Though I’ve gotten used by now to unexpected Tarot connections . . . this one seemed especially surprising for some reason. I’ll have to figure out why, and let you know.
In the meantime—if you’re interested in writing, or creativity in general, you might like Misfit Writer. Drop by!
And if you haven’t yet participated in the first two Tarot surveys, I really (truly) hope you will. It just takes a few minutes, and your responses remain private.
See you Thursday! C