Tarot card

I visited Fremantle WA last month and was quite excited to take a look at the Freo market as I heard that there were quite a few new age shops and whatnots there. There weren’t really that many to generate any excitement being the usual crystal stalls and alternative healing but what caught my eye was a tarot reader right at the entrance.

She was a plumpish lady with wistful penetrating eyes. Actually I did not get to sight her at first as she was away from her stall. On her empty stall table was a deck down side up and I noted that to be a mystic deck. Ah!…quite up my street I thought.

I kept circling back to that particular stall and finally got to catch her with a client. But unfortunately I did not get to lug my camera with me this trip and with the memory card of another camera running low had no shots to show.

I was fascinated with card reading as a child and had my share of visiting “famous” card readers in KL those days. During my secondary school years, I started reading every book available on this enchanting hobby but as I could not get a deck (wouldn’t have afforded one even if there were any around) used the playing cards instead.

One lady who inspired me with her humility and astonishing accuracy was a Bak Tai which is Mrs. White in Cantonese. She lived in those heritage houses fronting the old Klang bus station and would only accept gifts of fruits as payment. Bless her!

Coming back to the tarot; over time I find that to use them to divine events and fortune is not the point. Rather, they are glimpses into our inner self and from this fleeting glimpse allow us to work out our path in life.

To want to look into the future is what most want but that should not be the way out of life. Just like in the story of MacBeth, the witches can portray as showing you the future but may only show you half of it. In any case, to believe in that tiny glimpse of a future becomes only a lack of self will for the only right course that is to be charted is the one we do ourselves.

The tarot works the same way as dreams do giving us little gifts and pointers to guide us so that we can better able understand our inner self and through that make wise choices of our outer actions. This remains to me the most valuable gift that the tarot offers. It is simple yet profound. All we need is some basic understanding and an open mind.