I have studied the Tarot for a decade now. It is still unfolding its secrets to me.
In the East, cream-colored temples soar toward the sky. Their heads bowed, long processions of orange-robed monks wind like a burnt-umber river across ancient stones. For a seeker, it must be paradise.
In the West, all the secrets are passed down in a battered pack of cards you could fit into the back pocket of your jeans. The golden arches glow neon in a faded sky.
In my early twenties, I hatched a most excellent plan. I really didn't like my boyfriend at the time, but that was all right. I needn't go through all that uncomfortable mess of, you know, stating my feelings and breaking up with him -- no! The way I saw it, since he was somewhat older than me and carrying around a pot belly that suggested impending quadruplets, he would probably die in...oh, thirty years, give or take.
THEN, I planned, I could have the life I dreamed of. It involved visiting artist's colonies, travelling to Egypt, generally being a merry old widow. In the meantime, all I had to do was tolerate him, which I could, more or less, do. It seemed a much easier row to hoe than actually speaking up for myself and, in general, this was an entirely reasonable plan.
One secret I'll give up: The Lovers appear in more than one card.
In their own card, they stand together shy and the nude, their hands linked. Spreading his wings, an angel offers his benediction. Sometimes Cupid cocks a harmless arrow. Flowers cover the ground. Fruit hangs heavy from the trees. I do not think that this is the Garden of Eden -- it is some other strange place, maybe somewhere without sin or shame, maybe a place of second chances.
Then The Lovers are together again, nine cards later, chained together and deformed. It seems as if they have missed some crucial chance. Now, The Devil looms over them, leering from beneath his twisted horns. The Lovers seem to have created their own existential hell. No matter what they say now, they cannot get out. How come I never noticed them there before?
A concerned girlfriend took me out to Applebee's. "You don't seem happy," she told me solemnly over a basket of chicken tenders.
"Oh, I am!" I burst into tears. Well, maybe not really.
But I couldn't leave him, I informed her earnestly. It would hurt him. I must not hurt anyone; it was against cosmic law. Besides, he owned all the video games. I was most of the way through Tomb Raider 2 -- where you can drive a motorboat! -- and I couldn't leave Lara Croft.
My friend crumpled her straw wrapper into a tiny ball. "I'll buy you a fucking Playstation with any video game you want," she said through her teeth. "Get the hell out of there!"
He say, "I know you, you know me"
One thing I can tell you is you got to be free
-The Beatles, Come Together
Thank God someone slapped some sense into me then or, as my best friend cheerily reminds me now, that relationship would have made me so miserable and fat that they would have had to bulldoze the front porch just to get me out of the house. That's good relationship advice, girls: leave a bad relationship while you can still fit through the front door.
So, I'm free. I don't know where the old me got the screwy idea that "even incidentally, even in self-defense, thou shalt not hurt anyone," but it seems to be a viral idea among women, especially the younger set, this new bulimia self-harm generation. Tough world. No one here gets out alive, I believe Jim Morrison once said.
Now I tell my clients that love is like a boxing ring. When you step over the rope, you can expect to hit and get hit. It's the happy cost of intimacy. Pain is guaranteed. Along with it can come dizziness, delusion, like flies on rotting meat. As The Devil reminds us, relationships can be petri dishes for this kind of thing.
If you can claim for yourself a bit of clarity in this world, like a good spot for your beach towel at the Fourth of July fireworks show, watching people wind themselves up in delusion and struggle around like larvae can actually be briefly entertaining, before it is devastating.
You never know when you yourself will be called back, reeling, into the awful dance.
The Empress and Emperor sit peacefully, their smiles calm. He wears armor underneath his robe. The Empress carries a heart-shaped shield with the sign of Venus.
They never occupy the same card. They live next door to one another, cards three and four. She is surrounded by grain and sweet-smelling grass, he by sun-drenched mountains. They share an empire, but neither invades the other's territory.
(Clearly, however, they visit: The Empress is totally knocked up.)
