The Tarot Asks: What purpose is fear?
Reading by Rahne Alexander
“Fear is never revolutionary.”
Thirty years ago, the year I publicly came out as trans, I happened to hear a lecture in which someone — Dorothy Allison, if I remember correctly — said, “fear is never revolutionary.” I was in a terrifying time of my life — I had no idea how I was going to proceed. The resources were abysmal, infinitely worse than what little we have today. The one thing I knew is that I had to try to figure it out, which meant taking a pretty lonely path. I had to risk losing everything I had, which wasn’t much.
The Eight of Cups
The Eight of Cups contains a full half a gallon of emotion, poured out into cups stacked into some sort of barrier. I read this card as a beach scene, and so for me these cups evoke a sandcastle. A cloaked figure is walking away, up the hill. Above them, a solar eclipse. It’s a weird day at the beach.
I think of all the other ways this card is depicted in my various decks; this is one of those cards that seems to really reveal something about the artist. Some talk about sorrow, others abandon; they all contain aspects of letting go and moving to higher ground.
When I set out on my personal journey, I too wore tents to the beach all the time, just like our traveler here. For a decade or more I didn’t dare go swimming or even into a hot tub for fear of being targeted for being a trans woman. We get it, Eight of Cups — you’re dressed for work, you’ve poured out all your emotion and left it out there for the beachcombers.
Last month, the Neglected Books blog tweeted a quote from Elizabeth Janeway’s 1980 book, Powers of the Weak. "Fear ... has a political purpose–to interfere with the normal functioning of the human beings who make up the mass of the governed ... to separate them, and sick each one in isolation and paralysis.”
I hadn’t thought of Janeway in quite some time. I’d read this book by the time I began my transition. I absorbed every feminist-branded book I could in those days; the used bookstores were full of them. It was nice to be reminded of her work, to be reminded of how many people — women and feminists, messengers and oracles — who have deeply influenced my thinking and feeling. It seems impossible to remember them all, or to be able to measure the degree of their impact many years later. Over time Janeway’s idea cathexed with others into the memetic soundbite version of these words to become the mantra, the motto, the spell I needed to continually cast: fear is never revolutionary.
If fear has political purpose, confronting fear also has political purpose.
“Fear ... has a political purpose–to interfere with the normal functioning of the human beings who make up the mass of the governed ... to separate them, and sick each one in isolation and paralysis.”
The Hierophant
The Hierophant is a messenger, an oracle. He is a representation of what “speaking truth to power” can look like, and feel like. The thing I like best about the Hierophant is that he’s going to speak to whoever is listening. I think of every tiny show I’ve ever played, how the smallest shows often turn into the most generative and fulfilling experiences.
In my reading sessions I prefer to de-emphasize religious interpretations of the Hierophant, although it’s easy to make that association. I see him as a seeker who is concerned with morality and in search of truth — but always skeptical of anything that presents itself as such. He understands the malleability of truth, the ways that truth can be twisted by the wicked and powerful.
I see the Hierophant as a figure who is always questioning his own power and his relationship to it. He’s mission-bound to admit that he doesn’t know everything.
One thing he knows for sure, though: fear will fuck you up, and they know it.
Fear is never revolutionary. Maybe these are words you need. Whisper it, sing it to yourself as you go through your day, for as long as you need to hear it.
This month’s Tarot Tunes is a meditation on the uses and abuses of fear. Stay strong.
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.