Today I encountered1 the following quote from Benjamin Franklin:
“He that would live in peace and at ease must not speak all he knows or all he sees.”
That certainly seems true in life, but perhaps true when we read Tarot for others as well.
In order to explore the quote more fully, I shuffled my Tarot deck while contemplating it, and pulled the Six of Cups.
Well, golly, that Six of Cups sure seems to match Franklin’s words! Talk about peace and ease!
I think that undoubtedly, Franklin’s words are true.
I don’t know how much peace or ease we would have in my household if my wife called out every perceived failing of mine, nor if I were to complain about everything I saw as some failing of hers.
Likewise at work. The boss’ idea might be completely idiotic, but surely there is a better way of communicating concern than just telling him so. Ultimately, this holds true in all of our interpersonal relationships, no matter on what they are based.
But that brings us to Tarot, our focus here at The Keystone.
I hope that I haven’t written about this story before. It is a great story, but I’d hate to be one of those people who endlessly repeats stories until all those around know every word that will be said…
Many, many years ago, not when I was completely brand spankin’ new to Tarot, but when I was finally in a place at which I felt I had a really solid understanding of the cards, and their meanings based upon their positions relative to each other, and the question at hand. Back when I was a skilled beginner I guess one could say.
A very good friend of mine, and the woman he was head over heels in love with, asked me for a reading about the future of their relationship. Ah, fortune telling time.
Today of course, much older, and much wiser, I would refuse the reading. Reading about such a sensitive subject, with the potential for horrible disappointment, for very close friends, at the same time; nope not a good idea. But I refused it not. Not when I was young and dumb! I grabbed my cards and got to shuffling.
And there it was, plain as day.
‘Hell no, this thing isn’t going to last. The two of you are a disaster for each other. It’ll be done in a month, if you’re lucky enough to have it last that long.’
Something like that.
I still remember it well to this day, because it was horrible.
I don’t believe in lying about, or even sugar coating what the cards tell us in some sort of misguided attempt to protect the feelings of a querent. I believe that as Tarot readers we have an ethical duty to our querent to be honest about what we see in the cards.
But…
One can choose words with care. One can communicate what one sees in a nice way, without bluntness.
That’s not what I did. I said it straight, pretty much how I wrote it above.
Luckily, neither of them seemed to get angry with me, and it didn’t harm the friendship, but it certainly could have. Again, I was young and dumb then.
And, of course, as readings always do, the reading turned out to be true. Their relationship was over within two weeks of that reading.
I think ultimately that’s what we can take away from Franklin’s quote, and the Six of Cups in relation to it.
For the sake of those we care about, we should be truthful. But hard truths need to be stated carefully, and with a great deal of love and compassion.
Don’t just blurt ‘em out, like I did on the boat that day.
I can look back on mistakes I've made as a reader, that is for sure, Cameron. Saying too much or not saying enough. Or agreeing to read at all when it was inadvisable. Because "only fools wade in," etc. Especially in the early years. One day, when I was still quite new to it all, I got a phone call, a journalist, who said she was looking for a local psychic for a magazine feature. The test was to do two short cold readings for people who would be invited at random off the street to come for a free reading, to be featured in a national magazine. I debated with myself whether to agree. I had only ever read for people in a quiet, private space, and never with a journalist listening in. Maybe I would end up reading her, the journalist, by mistake? My cards said to go for it. I would learn something, and I said I would do it so long as the journalist stayed out of my line of sight, not to distract me.
One thing I learned was that whatever you say to a journalist, you may think you were talking off the record, and you may explicitly tell them so, but they want a good story, and that is what they are going to deliver. They may paraphrase what you said to get the best soundbite out of it, twisting the original meaning, upping the drama, and in doing so they may change the entire meaning of what you had said.
When I got calls later, from journalists looking for soundbites on national matters, for example, here in the UK, about Brexit, I knew what I thought about it, had written it up, and I told them where they could find what I had written. I wasn't going to give anyone a soundbite over the telephone. So that was one thing.
I learned something else too. I did a reading for a much older lady, first, and she came and found me later for a private follow up, and then I did a reading for a younger lady. I put it to this second lady that she had recently had good news at work, and it was well deserved. She was thrilled at this, because, she told me, she had just recently been promoted. But I also saw something that I did not raise at all, so I will never know if I had seen it truly or not. I saw news to do with a wedding...I mentioned this and the young lady said she was engaged. But I also saw clouds of doubt. These clouds were sufficiently intense, that I felt the marriage might never happen. Now, this would have made for a more dramatic article, had I come out and said it. And whether it was true or not, only time would tell. Had we been talking in private, I would have broached this with her, and created the opportunity for discussion if she had wanted to go down that avenue. But this young lady had been going along, minding her own business, when she was asked whether she would like to participate. It would have been plain wrong and cruel to expose her privacy in such a way, just to big up my "act," and that is also why I cannot stand reality TV.