tarot/bibliomancy combo reading

Occasionally I supplement one type of divination with an additional one. It can help break open a narrow reading/interpretation, sometimes broadening perception or sometimes confirming the exisiting. I did this with a recent Tarot reading. I used the "World" spread from Rachel Pollack's Tarot Wisdom: Spiritual Teachings and Deeper Meanings, my favorite book on the subject. My question was in regard to my current writing project. It's like I'm trying to drive cross-country in a constantly stalling lawnmower.

For each Tarot card I selected, I used the Bibliomancy Oracle for a corresponding response. Below is what I got (with brief interpretations of the cards):




Card #1 (High Priestess position) – What’s the inner truth?: Empress (passion, embracing life with all its messiness & horror)



Corresponding Oracle #1:

There is nothing that controls our thoughts
more than what we think we see,
which we label “we.”

from “If a Garden of Numbers” by Cole Swensen

Card #2 (Star position) - What hope does it promise?: The Chariot (success, movement, persona)


Corresponding Oracle #2:

When will the sky quit falling?
(That’s our motto.)

from “Pathetic Pathetic Fallacy” by Patty Seyburn

Card #3 (Moon position) – What journey must I make?: 7 cups reversed (act on fantasies)


Corresponding Oracle #3:

My religion makes no sense
and does not help me
therefore I pursue it.

from ”My Religion” by Anne Carson

Card #4 (Awakening) – What great thing awakens?: 8 of Cups reversed (the lack of connection between head & heart)


Corresponding Oracle #4:

Ask a good question:
You’ll have success immediately.

from “How can we know the journey from the path?” by Kathleen Ossip

Card #5 (Gift of Rivers) – What is the gift: Ace of Pentacles reversed (problems around security, new phase in life)

Corresponding Oracle #5:

A little piece please. Cane again to the presupposed and ready eucalyptus tree, count out sherry and ripe plates and little corners of a kind of ham. This is use.

from “Tender Buttons [Apple]” by Gertrude Stein

Yeah, nothing like Gertrude Stein for clarity. With Ace of Pentacles reversed and this Getrude Stein quote, I interpret the "gift" as my moving out of my "safe" zone that I've been inhabiting for the past couple of years. I've been restricting myself, sticking to what I know. Perhaps it's time to count out the sherry, ripe plates and ham -- finding use in letting go of comfort. The gift is taking risks. I admit I have not been embracing messiness and horror, I've been kind of avoiding it.

One of the things I like about Bibliomancy in general is that it can give an answer with another question because sometimes we're not asking a "good" one and need to focus our direction elsewhere. Often it seems that I focus my attention in a tunnel vision sort of way under the guise of will and determination. I keep expecting it all to eventually "make sense." I decided I'm going to let myself get lost, the more lost the better, for how ever long it takes. To hell with the blueprints and map. I'll make that up when I'm done.

dream interpretation via the bibliomancy oracle

One way I've been using the Bibliomancy Oracle is to offer another avenue for dream interpretation. I'm finding the results to be pretty fascinating and an excellent method to discover unseen possibilities.


Dream Example: Chris bought a new car. The dealer convinced him to buy two black jaguars (as in the cats) to go along with his (non-jaguar) car. I'm unhappy that Chris did this -- what are we going to do with wild animals? We can't control them, I insisted. As I drove the car down our old street, three black jaguars headed for us.  I tried to avoid them, but they kept coming. I drove away and saw in the rearview mirror that they were in pursuit. I sped up and took highways that I wasn't familiar with that brought us to a high school sports ceremony dinner. It's not the dinner we were planning on attending, but it would do. I looked at my watch and it showed that two of the jaguars were 0 miles away, they were very close. The third jaguar was several miles away. My watch also told me how many tears the jaguars shed.

What is the first black jaguar?

Arms can move a head, that’s the trouble;
feet argue constantly with other feet
and treat the ground poorly.

from “Conspiratory Love Poem Addressing All Imaginable Possibilities” by Shafer Hall

What is the second black jaguar?

This is a night of evenly spaced-
out escalators. This is a night of werewolves.


from “This is a Night of Evenly Spaced-Out Escalators” by Zachary Schomburg

What is the third black jaguar (the one farther behind)?

what is love without arrows?

Mistake

from “The Young Astronomer In His Ecstasy” by Miguel Murphy

What do the jaguars want?

It must be so lonely. Selling shoes
for eternity, never learning any new jokes.
  

from “Of All The Dead People I Know” by Karyna McGlynn

What are the jaguars’ tears about?

remember the mystery/light when you were

new you can learn the body

again you can get wasted

like a language the desert is also a distance


from “Map of the Things You Forgot” by Cindy St. John

What will happen if/when the jaguars catch me?

one-twelfth of our lives is wasted
standing in a line.



from “They say” by Laura Kasischke

What is this high school celebratory dinner about?

Use your imagination. Close your eyes
and make a wish. Say the magic words.



from “Late Invocation for Magic” by Jim Daniels

Hmm, ok, I better go make that wish now.



Last night I asked the oracle for today's mantra:

Shut your eyes to what a worm he is, concentrate on his caress—but know

Every half-truth is bound to call up its suppressed synoptic double.


from “I Too Have Been to Candyland” by Anthony Madrid

Well, ok then, shutting my eyes as I type.