Even Cats Read Tarot Cards

Wild Cards Open for Enrollment

Darling reader,

To be a card reader you must echo a cat’s characteristics. A nocturnal prowess requires shining all-seeing eyes. Its not just the night of uncertainty we must learn to navigate with dexterity, but as we cultivate the skill to see through and across the threads of time, we see the soul evolve, we venture toward rebirth, dying nine-times over till at last we are liberated.

From Sumer, to Crete, Greece to India, felines have been closely associated with female Divinities, for they are both cunning, self-aware, shape-shifting and free of male control. Long before male gods and kingship constructed their likeness to the lion, the Goddess has had lion’s draw forth her chariot, guard her temples or offer themselves as the very seat of her throne.

Sekhmet, the Egyptian Cat Goddess from the old Kingdom, c. 2600 BCE, establishes an animal assemblage that was worthy of reverence and veneration. She was regarded as a deity of fate, holding in her hands human destiny.

An elegant self-reliance produces a proud assertiveness that reads regal and courageous at once. Card readers are capable of cohering meaning out of the shuffle’s chaos. They are true to their own nature and instinct, and so they belong to themselves, not a father, nor a lover; though they may be known for a prodigious sexuality.

The cats who read cards learn to build rapport with impetuous spirits, while pursuing the ambitions of her own prerogatives. We disappear and re-appear at will with a mystical, spiritual grace. With a skilled stealth and speed we consult the Oracle to become a kitty curdled up against eternity without beginning or end.

The cards themselves also have a cat’s character, displaying a complex ambivalence of terrifying ferocity as well as a supportive tenderness. They remind us all life is imbued with Spirit, and as that Spirit pervades the whole of the natural world, our reverence and respect is due any time we pull out a pack. The cats, the cards and the feline femmes who read them maintain a seamless, symbiotic relationship with the more-than-human.

And so my dear reader, to inure an ecofeminist awareness of the interconnectedness of all life, I am writing to announce Wild Cards, a seven-week class in untaming the tarot, so that you can read like a beast, is open for enrollment.

This course, formerly known as Auguring the Animal, is entering a new iteration and I am so excited to teach this truly unique material and embolden the sense we make of animal omens, familiars and decolonial comrades, as animals undoubtedly continue to be the subjects of colonial domination and displacement, the objects of colonial knowledge and at times the agents of colonial conquest and settlement.

By divining a dialogue with the animals present in our tarot decks we can better relate the animals of our natural world to the cultural and supernal worlds we share. This course continues to build decolonial epistemologies through the focused of prism of revolutionizing our animal considerations and thus animal relations.

We will approach these images from perspectives beyond the lenses of alienating taxonomy. By looking into the eye of the raven, the eye of the stallion, the eye of the dingoe, and on we will see a “submerged perspective” looking back. We can then engage a disobedient reading of animal images, representations, and stagings toward oppositional purposes to their colonial context of creation. Thus, this course disrupts anthropocentrism, which is the fourth logic of white supremacy.

Considering literacy as an ecosystem enables a communion with the more-than-human, toward a liberation that is not at the expense of the animal or the natural, but alongside, within and in reverence toward the animal, the natural, the wild, the queer, the native.

Wild Cards aims to position animal knowledges as a possible means for students to understand the epistemic shifts necessary for structural decolonization, while enabling the consideration of animals as cultural mediators and agents of decolonization. This course offers a decolonial ethic that accounts for animal bodies as resurgent bodies. The tarot will be our counterpoint to create a circuit of coherence amongst the various cultural layers, significations, and vantages that coexist within the cards animal references. No prior experience with tarot required but always welcome.

I’m happy that students from the last round of this class are continuing to join me in community space in The Cartier Club (our first meeting was such a sweet synergy and our next meeting is November 15, the Taurus full moon, where we will be discussing this lunation cycle relative to our charts & lives. Definitely join us if you want ongoing psychic community).

As always, the students who study with me provide uncanny contributions in oracular explorations. I’m excited to see this class continue to deepen and expand as more students enter its wilds.

Here’s what students had to say:

Each class was like a portal into 7 different worlds, full of stories, myths, tarot cards, unveilings, and rich connections. Christopher brings a lot of material to each class and offers a perspective that can't be found elsewhere -- on the cards, on history, on ancient symbology. Each class brought forth a surprising blend of animals, their related tarot cards, and important examinations of colonial frameworks that need a critical eye and a reframing as we carry on with our own tarot practice. It takes a little while to digest the richness of the material, but my perspective has expanded widely through this learning experience.

I'm a somewhat self-taught tarot reader, with exposure to several different teachers and writers over time, plus lots of practice. This was the first course I've taken that really peels back deeper layers to unearth greater historical context around the cards. I think I've wanted this more in-depth study for a while, but wasn't sure where to find it. Interestingly, it was the idea of working with the animals and the concept of augury that brought me here, and now I'm eager for more. As Christopher says, "The tarot is an archive." Their teachings really lead us into the Great Mysterious Library of the Tarot, and Christopher is the perfect guide through this layered archive that reaches across centuries and continents. - Cecily S. of Typerwriter Tarot

This class was wonderful. The dynamics between everyone were so sweet and open and creative, in great part because of the way you facilitate discussion. Focusing on the deck through animals and both their connection to colonialist history and freedom(s) and separation from it was such an opening. A new perspective to work with when giving a reading for myself or anyone else. So creative and unusual, as all your classes have been so far.

You consistently bring me into deeper consideration of the cards - and not only their images and archetypes or given meanings, but as portals into a new way of being with the world. Through your teaching, I've come to understand tarot as something much more than simply a deck of cards or even a daily divinatory practice, it's just one small part of an entire ontological crossover and newfound trust in my connection to spirit.

-Penelope R.

This course made me feel so affirmed in my identification with creatures & nature with this relationship/ethic as a means of decolonization.

This course, as my formal introduction to tarot and divination, has given so much dimension to my understanding of ecological existence/being past, present, future; & I feel very excited to explore tarot & divination as a way of knowing & affirming life.

The time in class was definitely well spent! I enjoyed being in class so much & I wish it could go on indefinitely. The class environment centered relationality not just in emphasizing the interrelationship of humans and animals in the class material, but also in the way that you hold space. You brought us into relationship with one another at the beginning of each class by drawing cards and checking-in while providing opportunities to form personal connections to the material by having us draw cards or drawing cultural connections through art, music, film. I find I learn and retain the most in spaces organized like this. I most enjoyed opportunities for active participation such as time taken to observe, analyze, & make meaning of the imagery of specific cards. I found the information well organized & made sense chronologically throughout each session & in its progression throughout the course.

-Gianna P.

Learn To Read Tarot Like A Beast

Nov 22 - Jan 3 / Fridays, 3:30pm PST / payment plans available.

An animal divination will bring you into a deeper awareness of yourself for the significance you afford them is a reflection of your passions, motivations and yearnings toward an agentive personhood. So I invite you to see with me from submerged perspectives. Transform your images of, and revel in, the strength of nature. Let us consider how to create a more egalitarian, wilder world.

x,

Christopher