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THE GRAMMAR OF TAROT |
No, this is not an article on some little old lady who started Tarot ages ago. That's Grandmother. This is Grammar. This article was inspired, as are many of my articles, on a classroom experience. One of my first students had a real problem with creating longer readings. Since he had some experience with creative writing (scripts), a literary analogy seemed to open doors for making his readings longer and more in depth. I call it the Word-Sentence-Paragraph approach to Tarot Readings. Even thought this all may seem like common sense to many readers, I have found that putting it all in printed form adds structure to much of the unspoken way I read and makes my reading technique easier to pass on to new readers.
WORD
The source of the basic words of a reading is obvious to most of us. We discover key words for each of the 78 cards. The only stipulation I add is to tell my students that they will eventually use these words to create the paragraphs that make up their readings, so I encourage them not to accept the first word they happen across. I explain that if they can find a word that has a strong image for them as readers, their readings will be powerful, as well. The following is part of a brief exercise I give to students designed to start them thinking of words that paint a colorful picture.
Choose the word with the most creative possibilities
Bereavement Mourning
Confused Enigmatic
Ecstasy Elation
Creator Innovator
Balance Unity
Burdened Overworked
If there is confusion over which word is the correct choice, you pass the test. Yes, it's one of those trick exercises we all hated in school. I try not to give pairs with obvious solutions (Bereaved-Sad, Ecstasy-Glad). The idea here is to get the student to see all the colorful choices available and how subtle changes in a word choice affects them viscerally. I do this exercise in the first class meeting so that when the students begin journaling, they are already willing to dig deeper for just the right key word.
SENTENCES
If you have ever played the game, Mad-Libs, you will understand the Sentence portion of this technique immediately. In fact, I actually play Mad-Libs with my class to introduce this concept on the day we begin doing spreads for the first time. Mad-Libs is a printed pad of stories full of blanks where words are left out with a description of what type of word is needed (verb, adverb, adjective). The players shout out the type of word needed without seeing the story. The leader fills in the blanks as the words are shouted out and then reads the resulting story to gales of laughter and applause.
How does this translate to Tarot readings. I explain that the words with which we are going to fill in the blanks in Tarot are our key words we are developing. The sentences with the blanks come from our spread position definitions. For example, in a Mental-Emotional-Physical spread, the sentence for the first card would be " _________ is the physical aspect of your question" or "Physically, you should be concentrating on ____________ at this time in your life." I then walk the class through several mock-up Mad-Lib style readings. I have a list of 12 positions and I ask the class to draw cards to fill those positions. I then read back just the sentences with the added key words and what results is usually the basis for a very coherent reading.
PARAGRAPHS
This is usually the most difficult step for the beginning student - adding their own words and impressions to fill out the reading. I begin with a simple formula. I was taught in school that a paragraph should have at least three sentences. Using this concept I propose that they already have their Introduction to each card when they fill in the blank in their position definition. All they need after that in order to have a good paragraph is two more sentences, a Modifier and a Transition to the next Intro. Introduction/Modifier/Transition repeated until the student has read all the cards and then the final Transition is a one sentence wrap-up of the entire spread.
The only rule for the Modifier is that it must move the reading forward. Just restating the Intro statement is not allowed. Three ways I suggest modifying an Intro statement are personalizing, dialogue or flashback (if not working with the first card). Personalizing means applying the Intro statement to the specific situation of the client. Dialogue means asking the client what the Intro statement means to them in light of their situation. Flashback simply means tying the current card to a previous card in some way.
The only rule in the Transition statement is that it must make a logical bridge between the two cards on either side of it. This is where students usually beg for the ability to use more than one sentence - and I let them. After all, the main goal of this entire process is to make the new reader comfortable with a longer interpretation of the spread. After adding Modifiers and Transitions to the 12 card Tarot Mad-Lib mentioned above, I let the students create their own readings using this technique.
Is this all too process oriented? Am I producing a group of "fill-in-the-blank" readers? In my brief experience, I have found that after using this process a couple of times in the classroom to break the ice and to allow the student to hear themselves doing a longer reading, they abandon the process and are able to do confident, connected readings. If I hear a student doing very "fill-in-the-blank" readings after a several weeks, I have them do a reading for me and I control the reading by asking questions which change the order of the reading constantly. This usually gets the point across that flexibility, openness and quick thinking and reasoning are far more reliable and valuable than a formula.
If you teach beginning students, I hope that some of these exercises may help in your classrooms. Please contact me at Errol@TarotGuy.com with any comments or discoveries of your own.