First Operation Shortcut

So there's a thing in tarot called the First Operation. This is where the practitioner selects a card to represent the questioner, which I initially felt resistant to for three reasons. First, it felt really judgmental and presumptuous to just say, like, "OK you're the Fool," or whatever. Secondly, there's 78 cards and honestly I can't be bothered to root through them all to find the one I want; which is also assuming I know them all by heart, which I don't. Thirdly, it's removing a card from rotation, and what if it would have been the perfect card for a certain position in the layout?

Misgivings aside, I'm warming up to the idea. I recently learned a shortcut for interpreting the "face" cards as passive/active and experienced/inexperienced. Combining that with basics about what the suits represent, I made this handy grid to more easily pick out a First Operation card. First Operation is not limited to the face cards, but they're frequently interpreted as personality types or actual people so it's easiest for me for now. Check it out!

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Smells Like Tarot Spirit

I’m the dork that like to do readings for dead rock heroes. Today I saw a video of Foo Fighters doing a ‘Teen Spirit’ version of Rick Astley’s ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ and I was tickled pink by how much fun they were having. I wondered what Kurt would have thought and I was moved to pull a reading about it. In the first two cards I can see the trajectory of his success: His creativity, ambition, risk-taking, and charisma was the embodiment of the Knight of Wands. At the end of his life he had a spiritual crisis - represented by 5 Pents - where he felt creatively destitute. He felt like a fraud and thought everyone could see him failing. In the end, the 6 Pents seem to say he feels joy seeing his band mates carry on, having fun, being successful, and forming personal connections with their audience. What do you see?

Literal Tarot

Taking a lesson from other tarot learners and practitioners, I wanted to pull a card of the day to set my intention. What does that mean? According to several Google search result summaries, it is the act of stating what you intend to accomplish through your actions. Mostly I accomplish scrolling through Instagram, daydreaming, chasing the dog away from the front window, drinking coffee - oh - and doing the work I'm being paid for. I don't intend to be distracted all day, but my actions are distracted so I thought setting intention might help. As I shuffled I visualized my daydream come to life: new house on a chunk of property beyond the burbs; start up a home business that will eventually become more profitable than my day job; have enough to live on in retirement. Then I cut the deck to reveal Two of Pentacles. This tells me I'm successfully juggling multiple priorities... for now. I'm also getting caught up in day-to-day demands but losing sight of the big p...

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Cristini P's Tarot Journal

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