The Tarot Asks: What Goes Up?
Reading by Rahne Alexander
“Sometimes, it does help to put selections into the hands of others — confidantes, family, the algorithm, the Wheel of Fortune.”
I’ve been thinking a lot about choice lately for some reason. I am, of course, pro-choice. Even though I’m a Libra, I do enjoy choosing, even if it doesn’t look like it from the outside.
This is one of the problems with choice — it can be a burden. So much can depend on what appears to be the most innocuous decision. What if instead of listening to Joan Armatrading first thing this morning, I’d started with Patti Smith? Or Patty Smyth? What if I’d decided to be a big old dog dyke instead of a wizened cat lesbian? What if I’d majored in journalism like I planned at first? What if I never went to college at all? What if I had gotten into enneagram instead of tarot?
For better or worse, the idea of a multiverse is a whole lot more popular than it used to be, and it seems to me like now a lot more of us are bracing for the moment when we turn a corner and encounter divergent versions of ourselves dipping, as Patti sang, into the sea of possibility. It’s an entertaining idea, and while it’s fun to imagine a version of me that is blissful and happy and always has a clean kitchen as well as a successful career, I always have to come home to this particular reality.
I was raised in a religion that on one hand preached that we all have choice — their preferred idiom was free agency — while at the same time preaching predestination. I grew up perplexed. After all, I am very much a Libra. I was a vegetarian for decades because it limited my menu options, which expedited restaurant orders. How can I choose something if I’m predestined to do it? This was already a cliché problem back in Oedipus’ day.
Sometimes, it does help to put selections into the hands of others — confidantes, family, the algorithm, the Wheel of Fortune. Even when you can actually whittle down a choice between two options, you still might need a coin toss to let you know how you really feel about a decision.
Last month, I decided that because my last couple of columns had felt so pointed and political that I wanted to do something this time that felt like I was leaving things in the hands of fate. So I let the algorithm choose the playlist and I decided to focus on the Wheel of Fortune.
The Wheel of Fortune
This is a tricky card whenever it appears in a spread for me. There’s always the obvious question: Is The Wheel appearing because it’s suggesting that a choice might need to be left to chance? Is there a call to relinquish control of the situation at hand?
Of course, when I’m reading for a client it’s often a matter of looking at the position of the card and its relationship to the other cards, and that usually helps to figure out the context of the Wheel. But when you’re pulling it out intentionally, what meaning can it have beyond “fuck around and find out?”
My choice to start with the Wheel means that I’ve spent my month meditating on the choices I hold on to and those I choose to relinquish. The way I’ve used the Wheel as a compass, and as a survival mechanism. A spectacular reminder of all the things I’ve said yes to, and why.
The Seven of Cups
The Seven of Cups is an amazing card. It’s about bedazzlement, rapture even. Our shadow figure is seeing things they cannot explain, but the poor thing is probably doomed to try. A writer, perhaps, or an artist. Poor thing.
The books call this a daydream card. The iconography in these glimmering cups is all very powerful — terrifying, riveting, clarifying, thrilling. And the books say, beware — it’s all great but if all this power just sits in this ethereal space and never materializes, well, whose loss is that?
I pulled this card in response to the Wheel and while my first instinct was to put it back and try again a few days later, I tamped that reaction down and decided to sit with it.
The Seven and The Wheel are both spectacles. It’s gameshow prizes, lottery jackpots. I often caution my querents about the Wheel, it’s always already spinning on a single plane. It’s a three dimensional object performing a two dimensional activity. They don’t call it the Sphere of Fortune. It provides only so many choices, and odds are it can only spin in one direction.
Perhaps this combination is an admonition to look away from the spectacle, and more importantly recognize that the material world still exists, and that daydreams mostly only materialize through work.
And as we know now more than ever, for a lot of us, it’s going to take a lot of work to retain the right to choose.
This month’s Tarot Tunes playlist is music of chance brought to you by the algorithm, which often pretends to act like chance, starting with one version of “Spinnin’ Wheel” by Shirley Bassey and ending when another version played, which is James Brown.
Rahne Alexander is an intermedia artist and writer from Baltimore, Maryland. She holds an MFA in Intermedia + Digital Arts from UMBC. A tarot reader for more than 20 years, she can be reached for readings at rahne.com/tarot. Follow her on Instagram @the_tarot_asks.
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