I kind of want to live in the book Forest of Souls by Rachel Pollack. Instead, I’ll continue to share some of my favorite passages with you. You don’t HAVE to visit part one first, but that would offer some context, find it here.
When we left off, Rachel Pollack was imagining which cards God may have received, if God used a tarot reading to create the world. No big deal. There’s an observation here that I really like even plucked out of context:
We function best with people when we don’t try to tell them about themselves (‘you know, you’re very defensive. You need to face the truth’) but instead genuinely listen to people and then speak as honestly as possible about ourselves.
This is so true and something so many of us human beings need a reminder of. Imagine the shift in energy this sentiment can bring to interpersonal relationships. Of course, it is also wise advise for anyone who reads tarot for other people. A reading can come across as condescending when the cards are used to tell someone about themselves. And a reading can be transformational when the cards are used not to be prescriptive but to truly listen, to truly connect on a human level.
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Here’s a poignant little insight on the Five of Cups (or Five of Rivers as it is titled in Rachel’s deck the Shining Tribe Tarot).
The Five of Rivers concerns consciousness that can emerge from loss. In other words, through sorrow we gain new understanding…. to unlock mysteries… part of the process demands that we accept sorrow as a path to wisdom.
This reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from Khalil Gibran: “the deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.” I reference this quote frequently in association with the Three of Swords, but the Five of Cups covers similar ground.
This hits particularly hard for me right now as I’m going through one of the greatest sadnesses of my life. Now, I don’t want to romanticize sadness. I don’t want to do a ~*spiritual bypassing*~ and claim that sadness is a great gift, actually. But if you are living your life with any amount of awareness and connection, you will encounter great sadness. It is not avoidable. And I guess for me, I like the idea that understanding can come through sorrow. It makes it a little more endurable to sit with the sorrow. I’m not yet sure what the new understanding is for me at this time, but I’m open to experiencing it when the tide is right.
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Shifting gears, Rachel has this to say about the rules of tarot, and I heartily agree.
Something I’ve learned over the years I’ve worked with tarot is to give myself permission to break the rules, even the ones I make up myself.
Mic drop, eh? I came across a similar sentiment in the Tarot Celebrations book I talked about in my golden shadow post. The authors suggest that the only rule you need to read tarot the “right” way is to approach your cards with “an open mind and an open heart.”
I’ve been in the online tarot space long enough to know that there are in fact still people out there who are very insistent on their tarot rules and those people become extremely annoyed if you have a different philosophy. One of my favorite examples was when someone talked shit on me for suggesting it’s okay to remove cards from your tarot deck. I don’t play by your rules, or even my own. Stay mad.
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In another of her wisdom readings – the phrase Rachel uses to describe readings on intricate spiritual topics – there’s some insights on the Justice card that stood out to me.
Justice calls on us to be totally honest and recognize who we are… we need to act with complete integrity, a commitment that demands more of us than simply following the rules of social morality… Justice occupies the exact middle of the Major Arcana. This makes it a crucial point, either a barrier or a gateway, depending on how we approach it.
I’m not sure where I originally encountered the association of Justice with integrity, but it has been one of my core themes for this card for many years. Any time there is a horrible atrocity happening in the world (which unfortunately seems to be…like…all the time) I consider this. Obviously I value listening and learning from other people. But I also want to make sure that I’m in integrity with my own perception of a situation, not just falling into the ‘socially acceptable’ opinion.
That can be complex, but it can also be really simple. It is integrity for me to believe that every human being deserves peace and dignity. It is in integrity for me to say that oppression to anyone is oppression to everyone. It is in integrity for me to know that mass violence and genocide are NEVER justified.
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In writing the Forest of Souls, Rachel was inspired by the book Dreams of Being Eaten Alive: the Literary Core of the Kabbalah by David Rosenberg (brb adding this to my TBR). She shares the following quote from Rosenberg.
Most books and articles on the Kabbalah are about explaining and simplifying, which is all well and good, but there has to come a time when the explaining stops and the dreaming begins.
My goodness, YES.
Of course, as Rachel points out, this sentiment is equally applicable to tarot. I cannot tell you how aggressively I have been targeted lately by Instagram ads touting “the easiest and fastest way to learn tarot” and sometimes I feel if I see one more I will simply throw my phone into a murky lake. This isn’t to say I’m opposed to simplifying the process of learning tarot. Hell, I started with tarot by memorizing keywords for each card and I regret nothing. But those types of methods are really just…the tip of the iceberg, the prequel, the introduction to the introduction.
Rachel goes on to say:
Even dreams fall prey to what I call the Empire of Explanation, all those people so eager to explain, classify and make safe all our experiences. But do we really want to make everything safe? Some experiences, if we stay with them, can truly open up our world and give us the awareness – not information or doctrines, but awareness – that the world is bigger and more wonderful than we ever knew.
Siiiiiiigh. You see why I love this book so much?
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We often refer to ourselves as tarot readers, but what does it really mean to be a reader? In another reference to Kabbalah which is equally applicable to tarot Rosenberg writes “we must become more than knowledge bearers. We must become readers.” Rachel carries this further by saying:
To really read something you need to open yourself to it, with heart and intuition as much as with intellect… we must become more than knowledge bearers, we must become readers. To truly enter the cards we need to do more than learn about them, we need to use them. Reading the cards allows them to take you places you never would think to go on your own. It involves risks beyond knowledge.
From here Rachel turns to the four suits to consider how they might reflect the qualities of a Reader. Fire, she says, shows to read requires passion. Water brings deep feeling. Air brings intelligence. And earth brings a connection to material reality.
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Although I already wrote a whole post inspired by this next bit, I’d be remiss not to include it here. Rachel discusses a time in her life when she was experiencing a crisis and without any set question or spread, she turned to her cards and said “take me home.” I very much love this, and I’m certain it’s something I will do (again) for myself.
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There’s a powerful section in the book which explores the theme of ‘closing the heart.’ Rachel suggests there are three things that close the human heart the most forcefully: fear, guilt and shame. On shame specifically she observes “we become ashamed when we do not follow our own truth, but also, very powerfully, when we discover that society and the people around us, especially our families, consider some aspect of our true selves unacceptable.”
As the passage goes on she specifically discusses the shame and physical danger faced by LGBTQ+ children. Keep in mind this book was written in 2001 before as many people were advocating for these kids. Unfortunately, LGBTQ+ children are still shamed and endangered by lawmakers and other adults who should be protecting them to this day, so this message is perhaps even more relevant now. Rachel Pollack was truly a trailblazer in so many ways.
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Speaking again on the tarot’s remarkable ability to be grafted on to all manners of belief systems and philosophies, Rachel writes:
The tarot is not Egyptian, or Kabbalist, or Wiccan, or Christian, or Tantric. It only can seem to be all of them by being none of them. We can describe it instead as a map for the soul’s journey from a narrow, blinkered vision to the wide splendor of reality.
Yes! I don’t have anything to add, I guess. Just wanted to share that bit.
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Believe it or not, there are many wonderful passages I haven’t included either here or in part one because this book is just that good. But near the end of the book Rachel waxes on the Fool and so I’ll leave you with this, one of my very favorite quotes in the entire book.
When people try to pigeonhole us, or attach us to their own ideas or their group identities, the Fool reminds us that none of these things can really pin us down… (the Fool) refuses the demand to become safely Something, and remains, dangerously, Nothing.
I too, remain dangerously and delightfully Nothing.
See you next time,
Carrie