Sunday, June 6, 2010

Andrew on Reading D.C.'s Cards




"I am originally from Texas and will spend the next few months travelling around the country. D.C. was my first stop because I had an audition for the television quiz show Jeopardy. I think it went really well and I will hear back sometime in the next 18 months if I made the show or not. I like to read and think a lot and play trivia with friends, so I hope that will help me out. If not, I will keep trying until I get on the show. Oddly enough, as a tarot reader, I really want to get a bible category if I do get on the show. I grew up with all of that stuff and usually get them all right. 

"I remember when I was a lot younger and got my first tarot deck. I practiced a lot, but burned out on it. It can be a very intense experience. I ended up picking it up again when I started studying things of a more esoteric nature recently. There were a lot of similar patterns to what I was studying and tarot. It's an art form more than anything else. Now that I am traveling, I use tarot as a way to meet people, make some money, and learn about a place. 

"I am not a fortune teller. I don't tell the future, but I believe that there are echos of the future in tarot. When someone comes to me with a question, we take a few slow and even breaths together and then look to the cards for the answers. I like to touch the person 's hand as I am doing this to get a feel for their energy as I am going through the cards. When I lay the eight cards out, I look at the Major Arcana or the trump cards of the deck as the vowels of the sentence. The Minor Arcana are the consonants. Tarot is looking for the meaning of and between the cards and reading into the person while you read the cards. Seeing their reactions to things can be amazing and helps to add context to the additional cards and meanings behind them. 

(I asked Andrew to read cards for the city. He touched the deck to the ground, took a few breaths, and then laid out eight cards.)

"I think that D.C. is a place that has a lot going on. It is experiencing a rebirth and revitalization. But it is a place that is always under attack from people on the outside because it can be very abstract and elitist until you get here and see that is really a very honest, flesh-and-blood, and brick-and-mortar place. It is also under attack from people on the inside because of the segregation. There is a comfortable rythme that people have with the segregation and vast social and economic differences, but if three of four things go wrong in rapid succession, it could throw everything off in this city. People need to get to know their neighbors and realize that we have much more in common that we do in different. I think that humility is something that is good for everyone, but I wonder if there may be a deficit of it here. This city has so much potential to do great things." 

No comments: