yaraluna said:
someone told me the other day ( and i read it somewhere too) that "the old systems don't work anymore. we are at a stage in our journey where we have to create our own systems". this reminded me of part of a post by Enrique Enriquez, where he tells you how reading cards is about you and the cards, and to 'create your own meanings'..."what are you going to learn from the books? someone else's interpretations?" he said something like that. i agree. we have to learn to have a relationship with the cards that allow us to communicate in feedback mode.
I guess I didn't get the memo about the old systems.
I've encountered
Enrique's school of thought before (salut,
Umbrae), and here's my take on it:
YES. Your relationship with the tarot should be immediate, intuitive, and evolving. Different cards can be interpreted entirely differently from moment to moment, dependent on the reader, the querent, the spread (or lack thereof), and so on. Since my primary perspective on the tarot is as that of an artist, I totally get this. If I'm creating a deck, each card should symbolically EVOKE the thoughts and emotions appropriate to that card, with a thousand shades of nuance and the power of free association baked right in for every individual who encounters the image. Now that I put it that way, although particularly true for the tarot, that's the goal of all great art in general, now isn't it?
HOWEVER, as for me personally, and I would venture to say the majority of people who are
really into the tarot, it's unfair and unreasonable to categorically reject the many generations of tradition, thought and artistic endeavor that have gone into the tarot as we know it today. If free interpretation and intuitive divination are the right-brain aspects of tarot reading, does that mean that there is no role whatsoever for the left brain in this game?
Just as you quoted
Enrique, I'd like to quote another user as well. The following is from
Enchanted and is from this hread:
http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=84727
Enchanted said:
I can only answer for myself, but why I study the cards and why I read the cards are two separate things. I study because I like to learn about different cultures, symbols, myth, history, art, astrology and so on. For me, tarot fuels a passion in everything that I have ever been interested in learning about, it's like a springboard for learning. Like where shall I go today, well I'll learn more about the myths associated with Artemis. I do it because I like to learn not because I think it will make me a better reader.
I enjoy reading, in a bookish sense, on AT and in books what other people think and other people's perspectives and experience, again that fuels my passion for learning. But if I don't agree on a possible meaning, I don't agree, but at the same time I don't dismiss it either, it is all down to individual experience, which is I guess the part I find fascinating.
How can this type of curiosity, research and study possibly do anything but
help with your readings, provide more symbolic avenues to be explored, give us further insights on difficult questions from generations of others who have been down the same path as our own?
The wisest, most well-rounded and complete readings emerge from a
synthesis of the right-brain AND left-brain preparations and development made by the reader. Regurgitating the LWB, OR throwing it away, both leave out important pieces of the puzzle.