i've been telling people my real job lately

for millennia, spirituality and shame have seemed to go hand in hand anyway (if we are being honest)

Did you know? Yale University holds the most complete version of the oldest surviving, preserved tarot deck, the Visconti Tarot, in the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

But also near Yale, there is a Catholic church called St. Mary’s Church, which I visited this week after passing through Beinecke. Candles were lit and the place was empty — not a person in sight, but surely not emptied of the energy within.

I’d be lying if I said I felt nothing; I have always openly admitted I admired churches, not necessarily because I know their god but because I can feel their faith. How can one not feel moved from sitting in a place held as sacred by hundreds, the many prayers of centuries wafting through the pews, the soft burn of incense and low burning candles lit for worship?

my photo of the St. Mary’s Church interior

But the truth is that it is very easy to do what I was able to do here. It’s a kind of spiritual tourism, the benefit of witnessing and feeling an act of faith without investing myself in it. For me it is a moment of interest — for others, it is their life.

It’s a brave and vulnerable act to say that you believe in something wholeheartedly. And it’s nice to say I experienced something there, but it isn’t brave. My detachment and lack of commitment remove the burden of potential vulnerability.

“do you know what tarot is?”

In my personal tarot practice, and in the work I conduct with clients, there is no mistaking that the vast majority of my readings are spiritual in nature.

But I am not “loud” about this in public, and over the years, when asked about my profession my go-to answer had usually been that I’m a writer. This is technically true, as I am a freelance writer as well, even if over time it has become the side hustle that Lightwands originally was (and I am extremely grateful for this, by the way).

It’s tiring to explain what I do, and I don’t owe anyone in-depth explanations. This is what I would previously tell myself. A lot of tarot readers, I think, feel this way. The general vibe of these conversations will devolve into feeling a need to “prove yourself” rather than offer a genuinely neutral explanation.

As a semi-recent middle ground, when asked by new acquaintances what I do, I would respond to their question with a question: “Do you know what tarot is?”

This helps me gauge the kind of discussion I’d be likely to have with them, and then plan my next response more well-equipped than a few moments before. It also encourages them to tell me about tarot rather than the other way around, ensuring I don’t cover ground that doesn’t need to be touched.

But, my god, isn’t this a lot of work to repeatedly do? “It’s tiring to explain,” I’d say, and then proceed to take ten 5D conversational chess steps to ensure everything is discussed with peak efficiency and the least amount of awkwardness.

At a certain point I had to be honest with myself — am I doing this to protect myself (in a cool, energy-preserving, boundary-honoring way) or am I doing it to protect my ego?

it hurts the ego to admit when i feel shame

Faith is a lot like love. Admitting you hold and feel it seriously opens you up to the potential for criticism, ridicule, and interrogation. It can very easily drive a wedge between you and others who won’t hold it the same way you do, and others will project their assumptions about it onto you based on their personal definitions, potentially permanently altering all of your relationships.

This is all to say: it is also easier to say tarot isn’t about faith, to distance it from the concept entirely. I am willing to admit now that I have been doing this my whole life, tying it to anything grounded that I could grasp onto, solely to justify its existence in my life.

Tarot is an heirloom — my great-grandmother’s practice, and then my grandmother’s, and then my mother’s, before it was mine. Tarot is an art piece; I’m simply a devout fan of Pamela Colman Smith’s work, a supporter of independent artists today. Tarot is a tool for self-help, a key into my own psyche even if it carries nothing spiritual. Tarot is a storytelling tool, a collection of archetypes and potent storytelling devices. Tarot is a rich piece of history, interwoven with multiple cultures throughout the globe and significant in the realm of occult, art, and media studies. Tarot is a collector’s item — did you know my favorite cardstock is matte linen 350gsm?

Pamela Colman Smith, The Wave (1903). Collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art.

These things are true, technically, and also they are interesting tidbits that usually the general public doesn’t know or understand about tarot, so it’s an easy way to engage someone in discussion.

But it is more honest to admit that tarot has always contained pieces of the spiritual for me, that it was the first experience I had felt was really, truly a piece of the divine, sitting in the palms of my hands. Realistically, most of the experiences I have with a deck of cards are not explained by reason — in fact, they are barely explainable at all. And I am finally willing to admit that this cuts away at my ego here, the part of me that wants to be seen as rational, lucid, and analytical.

i can’t prove any of this shit. i shouldn’t try to

Someone out there probably has a fulfilling life’s mission of proving tarot’s legitimacy through rigorous scientific trials, demonstrating the reliability and veracity of the human intuition, or perhaps some miscellaneous otherworldly, divine source that allows it all to work. (I am rooting for them, of course).

But it’s not me.

Rationality and faith do not really need to go hand-in-hand; they are different lenses and tools that we use to create meaningful, healthy, and fulfilling lives. The sanctity of faith, for me, is the acceptance that I do not know anything — I simply feel it.

A Tiktok by @lad:

To say you have faith in something because you can prove it is really an oxymoron — faith requires an unprovable object in question. It is not rational. It is not provable. And it is more beautiful and worthwhile because it is neither of these things.

I was moved by St. Mary’s Church not because of the technical architectural achievement or because its existence proved anything in particular about… anything. I was moved because I just was, because something about the faith harbored inside of it reached within me too. I cannot rationally explain it — why should I expect myself to?

Lately, I have just been telling people openly that I read cards, no further explanations offered unless asked. It leads to weirder interactions but more instinctive, and therefore more honest, responses.

I like the honesty and the faith and the weirdness a little more than the rationality and the conversational scripts. More importantly, I like the feeling of freeing faith from rational bindings.

I no longer want to pretend I am a spiritual tourist in my own craft. How would others be moved by a faith I am refusing to honor? (I must be my own St. Mary’s).

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“Spirit is a mythological dream that requires a shared belief in a union between ourseves, our world and a higher power in order for it to exist and be useful to us.

When this belief exists, a fellowship is formed, and the secrets of the ancient world are transmitted across the gaping expanse of time where they are eagerly awaiting, and always ready for a new beginning.

If we hold true to our part of this fellowship — our belief in its dream mythology — we become the vehicles through which the spirit is gifted and reborn. This rebirth of spirit within us deepens our world with meaning and purpose, and allows us to reintegrate our life with all of life and the dizzying cosmos beyond.”

— Supra, The Hidden Path of an Oracle