The walk home from work was a cold, somber one for Lexi. Her mind kept wandering back to the possible connection that the day’s events and her tarot deck may have spawned. She wanted badly to believe that it was not her that caused the completely out of the blue event that swept the globe in awe and anticipation. Her breath floated out in small and tiny pufts as she rushed home to the warmth that her apartment had inside.
Her apartment complex sounded like the undergraduate dorms did when their university’s football team won the regionals back in nineteen-ninety-five. Everyone was whooping and hollering and the noise was almost unbearable. Lexi shook her head and pushed the door to her apartment and welcomed the inner warmth and silence her small living space offered. Locking the door behind her, she sighed.
” Awww yeah. That is much better. I can actually hear myself think now,” she mused. “Okay… so… what is the game plan for this evening.”
Her boots hit the floor with their customary thud. “Hmm, I would rather not work on homework, as my mind has way to much on it at the moment. Even though I have class tomorrow. Seeing that I am the professor’s pet though I am sure that he will give me an extension. So, then, hmmm… should I try another tarot reading. I know I want to but I am also afraid that maybe I should wait until I am one hundred percent sure that it is not The Windchaser Tarot that is causing all the events to happen.”
She washed a pot and began making a fresh batch of noodles for her goulash, “I know what I can do tonight. I can call Naomi. Maybe she can offer me some insight into what all this tarot lore means and how exactly it works anyways.”
While the water and noodles were boiling, Lexi snatched her cell phone from outside her right jacket pocket. It took her a few seconds to locate Naomi’s contact information from the list of frequently called peoples. While the number blooped and bleeped as it connected to Naomi’s cell phone she tucked it between her ear and shoulder. “I hope she is not busy tonight as I would really like to hang out with her.” She stirred the pot so it did not boil over.
“Come on, come on. I hate waiting,” she said as the phone rang. Finally on the seventh ring, Naomi answered.
“Good evening, this is Naomi. How can I direct your call,” the perky and upbeat voice came from the other end.
“Hey Naomi, it is Lexi. How you doing?”
“Lex, good to hear from you. I am doing fabulous. Just got home like literally a few seconds ago from a pagan group study. I love talking to the wee ones. You would not believe what some people think that magick is and can do for them. There was this one guy, who said that he loved throwing the different types of energy around, just to see how people reacted. I told him that that was an abuse of power and if he had been my boyfriend I would have smacked him up side the head and thrown all that crap back just to see what he thought about having some of his own medicine back. Another girl, was not sure if she believed in a deity but wanted to perform some ritual that would help her win the lottery in a very short amount of time. Wow, just totally blows my mind that there are so many idiots and noobs out there in this world. Of course the discussion was not all bad, otherwise I would stop going and hanging out with that crowd. Oh, I am sorry, I guess I sort of babbled off there a bit. So, what can I do for you tonight?”
Lexi let out a deep sigh from her end of the phone, a short enough time span that allowed her to carefully try and fin the words that she was going to say, she was afraid that what she was going to say, would label her as crazy, even for Naomi’s standards, “Well, I have a few things to tell you Naomi. Again, about that deck. I need to know a little bit more about the tarot and hot it all works. It is six o’clock now, do you think you would have time to hang out or chat on the phone about this?”
She heard a pause from the other end and a slight rustling sound, as if Naomi was searching for something out of a closet or purse, “Hmm, uhh… I guess so. I mean, I just got home and all.”
“Please, please, please Naomi,” Lexi begged with her best child-like voice, and as long and drawn out as she could, “I really think there is something strange about this deck and the whole tarot business and I need to know how it all works before it all makes me as crazy as a loon on sitting on a log in one hundred degree heat during the summer time.”
“Damn girl, if it is going to make you THAT crazy then by all means, I guess we need to get together and fill your head up with some juicy info. Now, where did you want to meet?”
“Er, I never really got that far as I figured that I was going to end up having to con you into hanging out with me tonight or you were not going to be home to pick this call up.”
Naomi’s high pitched laughter filled Lexi’s cell phone receiver, “That is funny. No really that is pretty funny. So, let us see here, where is a good place that we can head out to that accepts us playing with tarot cards but is not too distracting. I take it you have not had dinner?”
“Well, sort of. I have a pot of raman on the stove right now but I can just put it in the fridge for later. I do have a small amount of money so I guess we can go to some coffee house that offers good food and is open late. Problem is, I cannot think of a place right now. Do you know any good ones?” Lexi turned off the gas stove and let the pot of noodles cool down before she stuck them back in the fridge.
“Let see here,” Naomi started to think out loud, “Half-Cup Illusion Cafe just might be open. Have you ever been there?”
“No, I have not even heard of it,” Lexi said. “It sounds rather interesting.”
“It is. It is this funky little cafe that opened a few years ago on the opposite side of town just near the train tracks. They cater to the late night bohemian types and always have dark and wonderful art galleries up on the walls and interesting snacks to eat. The area is a bit run down but I would be willing to give you a lift over there if you want?”
Relief filled Lexi’s voice, she was not to interested in driving along to the parts of town that were pretty seedy, “That sounds like a smart idea. Safety in numbers or so they say. How long are you going to be?”
“Give me about ten minutes and I will be at the opening to your apartments, okay?”
“Sounds like a plan. Gives me time to maybe freshen up a little bit too,” Lexi said as she went into her small closet to find something more suitable to wear. She hung up the receiver and found a nice black sweater and jeans to wear which complimented her Doc Marten boots.
Looking at herself in the mirror, she was mildly surprised, “I have not felt this gothy since I stopped dressing in mostly black for Dylan. It has been a long time and I honestly feel more comfortable wearing this than I did in the stuffy nice clothes that I had to buy.” She added a touch of foundation to her face and smacked a bit of bright blood red lipstick on her lips to bring a bit of life back into her face.
Ten minutes later she stepped into Naomi’s old Honda Prelude, “Hey there, going to the Half-Cup Illusion Cafe?”
“Hey you,” Naomi said, turning down the stereo, “hop on in. Sorry about the mess but I normally do not have a lot of visitors in my car.”
Lexi carefully lowered herself into the chair, as her boots pushed a pile of stale fast food restaurant boxes and bags crumpled into tight little balls and a few cans of Mountain Dew into the back recesses of the car’s floor boards, “Thank you for driving me around tonight. But I really did not want to go it alone. i have heard all the bad things about that area and feel that it really is better if we go in numbers.”
“Yeah, I know that one. And hey it is no problem, I really do not mind coming over to get ya anyways. You know I love this stuff. It is sort of fun going from one pagan group study circle to another. Ah, now where was that when I was in college. Of course during my undergraduate studies I ended up going to more parties than anything. Either way, it was a lot of fun and had I been back to that age, I would probably have done it the same way too.”
The two girls giggled over that statement and they continued to chat about school, classes and other non-pagan or tarot related items until Naomi’s Honda Prelude pulled into the parking lot of the Half-Cup Illusion Cafe.
“Yay, we are here,” Naomi said turning off her car and slowly pulling the key out of the starter. “Grab your things and let us go inside.”
A splash of cool air washed over Lexi’s face as she stepped out of the car, “Oooh, it feels like winter is coming swiftly.” She pulled her jacket closer and zipped it up a bit more to try and warm herself up. “Well, Naomi, lead the way and I will follow you.”
Naomi nodded and led Lexi through a maze of cars and then through the strong grey weather worn door of the Half-Cup Illusion Cafe. The smell of coffee and strong tea mixed with fresh homemade pastries filed Lexi’s nostrils, “Wow. It smells really really good in here. And how come I never knew about this place before?”
“I dunno… maybe because you are not as hip as you once thought you were?” Naomi said with a wide, playful grin that spread from ear to ear.
“Ooooh that was mean, you get me RIGHT here,” Lexi retored clutching her hands over her heart and feigning a perfect stumble.
They wandered around the Half-Cup Illusion Cafe for awhile so Lexi could get a feel for the atmosphere and the clientèle. There were a few bookshelves around the tiny cafe. They were sparely decorated with books and instead had ancient portraits of people and places that could have been salvaged from estate sales and garage sales. A few spider crawler plants and ivys sat in tiny brass pots on the shelves giving the book cases a more outdoorsy feel. They wandered slowly to the front counter and placed two orders of chai and Lexi got a vegetarian sandwich while Naomi ordered a falafel. The clerk at the counter took their money and slid the five of spades on a stick to them. “Place this on your table and the waitress will bring your food out to you when it is ready.”
Lexi grabbed the sign and nodded as she watched his labret move in and out of his lip while he spoke. Finally they found a good spot to sit down in a private corner of the Cafe where they felt that their conversation could be private enough without having too many people attempting to listen in to what they were saying. An photograph of a gargoyle taken under ultraviolet light decorated the wall space above their booth.
“Okay, so you got me here, what is up?” Naomi asked as she tried to fold her feet under her cross legged.
“You got to promise me first off that you will listen to me as I speak and do not try and place judgment on what I am about to tell you. But yeah, I think something odd is up with these tarot cards. I did my first reading last night and today… Iraq became an independent nation. I was puzzled about what the cards said but when I read US Today and watched some of the CNN news feeds. And it hit me, I think that the cards spawned the events, or at least predicted them and it sort of freeks me out. So I need to know, are readings like this common and will I expect to see this more often? And how does tarot readings work anyways. I know how to do them but it would be nice to sort of know how it works philosophically.” Lexi then launched into a break neck pace summary of the reading she did and all the cards that landed into each position.
Naomi slowly nodded in response to all that Lexi divulged to her, “Ah yeah. I see.” She paused a few more minutes as she sipped her chai and collected her thoughts. “I guess I probably should first reassure you that there are many people whose tarot readings do coincide with major events. I recall having done a daily three card reading the morning that the twin towers fell, you know, the whole nine eleven event? Yeah, well a lot of us reading tarot ended up getting really weird and bizarre readings that morning that did not really seem to relate to us until we turned on the television and saw what was going on. Sometimes, especially in world and life changing events I guess that the cards can and tend to pick up on the larger energy that fills the world and then it goes into the cards and the cards then tend to focus on events relating to that moment in time. So, where as you may ask the cards for guidence on yourself, but instead they see or get a higher calling and pull in that higher energy. Does this make sense?”
Lexi had a perplexed and confused look on her face, “I do not know. I mean in a way I guess it makes sense that if you believe that energy out in the world can be pulled into and then examined in the tarot deck but to have it mesh up with the larger world is a bit disturbing, do you not think?”
Naomi nodded again, this time a bit faster, “Yeah I understand that. It does feel a bit weird when it happens first time but after awhile and as you work with your Windchaser Tarot you will learn that it feels good to know that your readings can and do reflect the greater picture out there in the world.” She then took another sip of her tea.
The waitress then came up to their booth and set down two plates of sandwiches. “Here you go a number eight and a number twenty-one. You two girls need anything else?”
“No thank you, this looks good,” Lexi responded as she picked up the first half of her sandwich and put it near her mouth. “Please Naomi, continue.”
“Sure thing,” Naomi said as she snuck a bite of her falafel, “Okay. So first off, it is okay that you got this reading. Over all, I am sure it was just a nice albeit weird coincidence that your reading came out to match the events of this world as they unfolded today. It is a bit weird that you got that reading as your first one, but who knows maybe you have a very strong psychic connection to this world and that it is just now beginning to develop itself in you now that we got you hooked into the tarot. So I hope this makes you feel a bit better. Does it?”
“Yes it does but I am still a bit worried,” Lexi said truthfully.
She paused again as she took another bite of her food, “Now, onto your second question. How does the tarot work? Well this is going to be a harder one to answer, as no one really really knows how the cards work. I guess quite simply answered you could say it works because people believe in them and have faith. But in a way if you remember what I just said about the whole nine eleven events and energy work that is one way that people think how tarot works. It draws in the energy for the particular moment and captures one possible snap shot of what energies and thoughts are influencing your world at the moment. So that is one way that the cards work.
Other tarotists believe, that the cards work and fit in with other systems of belief, like the Qubalah or that the images tap into hidden thoughts and similar patterns of experience in accordance to our psychological makeup. Some people think that the cards were created to help evaluate our inner experience and the tool can help us to better understand ourselves by relating to the cards and creating stories out of them.
People are drawn to the cards for various reasons. Some love the way the images look. While others and I know that believe this, and I think you do too otherwise you would not be asking about all this higher feelings things, that the tarot can help enrich and guide us while we are experiencing things in this plane of existence as humans. It helps to give us a way to connect to our subconscious and examine our selves rationally with a tool that help give us information that otherwise is not accessible to us.
And of course, the science of it all is that the tarot is somehow wired into the whole global or universal energy of common experience and that when you shuffle and deal or throw the cards it connects into that synchronicity and helps draw unknown elements that may help us learn things or warms us of trends that we are currently involved in and how to aviod them or what the consequences will be if we keep moving down those trends will be. So, yeah… after all that is said and done there is your explanation.”
“Wow, I had no idea that it was going to be so elaborate and complex, I figured that you would just simply say ‘Because it does’,” Lexi joked.
They spent the rest of their dinner talking about some of the other experiences that Naomi had in reading tarot for herself and others. Lexi even learned that there was a lot of accredited associations that you could also belong to. She pulled her notebook out and made a mention to call up some of the local chapters to hear their thoughts and views on tarot and how it all worked. If anything she was determined to start using all this tarot information as fodder for her dissertation.
