Buzzard Luck
“Just like a buzzard flyin’ high in the sky
I can’t kill nothin’, nothin’ won’t die”
from “Buzzard Luck” by the Powder Blues Band
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Don’t expect this to be an entirely coherent ramble unless I find somewhere to take it after my preliminary comments.
I’ve always prided myself on being able to read the tarot effectively and engagingly without knowing the querent’s specific question in advance. I’ve been working this way since 1972. But in truth it’s none of my doing; the cards enter into a subconscious “communion” with the person shuffling the deck and then speak their piece accordingly. I’m just there to give them a voice and to serve as an empathetic ear for the sitter’s reactions. But if I want the reading to soar and not drift aimlessly, it can take a “flight plan” and some “triangulation of coordinates” to stay on the map and ensure landing on the target. I create the flight plan through selection of an appropriate spread or creation of a new one to focus on the general topic area identified by the sitter; the navigational coordinates are provided by any unusually prominent cards that jump out at me when I do my initial “gestalt” overview of the layout (for this reason I prefer to lay my cards face-up). I ply the interstices between these major `”signposts” to come up with a roadmap that tells the story, replete with random bits of insightful “roadkill” along the way that lend flavor to the narrative stew.
This obviously isn’t the only way to read the cards, just one that Eden Gray mentioned in her 1960 book, The Tarot Revealed (in not nearly such lurid language). Some people feel completely at sea when they don’t have a question to sink their teeth into, and wallow along tentatively. Others insist that it takes too much time to sift through all of the possibilities when they can jump right to the answer. Some go so far as to say that it’s impossible to arrive at a correct interpretation without first knowing exactly what the querent wants out of the reading. I’ve never been troubled by any of these objections since I think that accurate observations are always forthcoming in due time (and such a narrow reading style makes me wonder “Where’s the fun in that?”). As I warm up to the arrangement of cards on the table, the story begins to tell itself, unfolding in response to my interaction with the querent and my own native inspiration, imagination and ingenuity. I like to think of myself as a storyteller first and a tarot diagnostician second.
What got me going on this train of thought was reading an essay that mentioned the manifestation of the Egyptian goddess Isis as a vulture that devoured the corpse of Osiris in preparation for his reincarnation. We might say that a tarot reader swallows the visual testimony in the spread, digests it a bit, and then regurgitates it in the form of sensible meaning for the benefit of the sitter, much the way a bird-of-prey feeds its young (that is, in morsels that are softened for consumption but still nutritious). I sometimes feel like a vulture way up in the sky, scouting and then circling a carcass to judge whether it’s “ripe” enough to swoop down on; it’s a process of patiently “zeroing in” on the answer through gradual revelation with the sitter’s active input. Where others emulate the hawk by pouncing triumphantly on the least bit of evidence, I prefer to take my time and scribe a few lazy loops in the heavens while I unreel the story-line at a comfortable pace for both myself and my client. This often involves digressing into storytelling tropes like metaphors and analogies that add color to the narrative and flesh out any points that initially come across as too thin or clinical, or which the sitter can’t grasp despite the customary amount of effort on my part to enlighten them. These are sometimes good for a laugh as well as being fun for me to concoct. I’m dedicated to having querents get some enjoyment out of our time together and not just feel that I beat them over the head with my profound wisdom. There are obviously times to be solemn with our pronouncements, but there are also occasions to be light-hearted in almost any reading.
Originally published at http://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com on February 13, 2022.
