Tarot: A Tool for Introspection

By Cristina Gaviria, Creative Lead at myGwork

We are currently living in an extremely difficult time for mental health: we are living a very strong crisis all around the world with many factors around it. Currently, thanks to psychiatry and modern medicine, we believe that mental health can be cured solely through Western medicine. The problem with this medicine is that it can lead us to forget to think for ourselves, question ourselves, how to go deep within ourselves and get to know ourselves. As so, we are trying to cure a crisis by not looking at it directly, but by trying to avoid it through the use and abuse of other substances.

I believe that tarot is an extremely powerful tool for self-introspection and getting to know yourself will aid in your mental well-being. Disclaimer: I do not believe that if you have a mental illness, you will be cured solely through alternative ways, and you are encouraged to seek professional help if it is required. What I do believe is that we are abusing medicine, very strong medicine, when in most cases, what we are lacking truly is getting to know ourselves, getting to truly experience, discover and get to love what the human experience is in all of its spectra, with all of its difficulties: its thorough essence.

Tarot can be a very prophetic method for whoever has a channelling ability. But I don't want to center on the prophetic capacity, the supernormal capacities of it, but more of the tool it is us to get to know ourselves. The tarot starts with is divided into Major Arcanas and Minor Arcanas. The Major Arcanas have 22 cards while Minor Arcana have 56 and are divided into four suits. The suit of Wands, the suit of Swords, the suit of Cups and the suit of Pentacles. The Major Arcana starts off with card number zero, which is the card for The Fool. The Fool is an inexperienced being. They are going to take a leap of faith, a risk towards a new adventure, and are not scared of what is coming. So the card speaks about naivete, but also about the trust they have when embracing this new adventure. Then The Fool goes through the whole next 20 cards, which are the archetypes of the human experiences and humanity itself. We then have The Magician, the High Priestess, the Empress, the Emperor, the High Priest, the Lovers, the Chariot, Justice, the Hermit, the Wheel of Fortune, the Strength, the Hanged Man, Death, Temperance, the Devil, the Tower, the Star, the Sun, the Judgement, and it ends up with the World. This means that the Fool has completed this cycle and is ready to start anew, starting again, rebirthing again as The Fool in a new cycle.

From the Minor Arcanas, the suit of Pentacles talks about the material life, the physical life, and also the monetary part of it. The part of abundance, the part of everything which provides physically. Cups refer to everything which is felt and the emotional world. The Swords talk about everything that is rational, logical, and intellectual part of the mind. Finally, the Wands talk about the fire element, which is inspiration, passions, and everything which lights us up. It's also abstract, but it is not as rational or intellectual as the Swords. The importance of the readings, independent of whether they are prophetic or not, they will let you know how the energy is right now for you to understand and get deeper as to what you're feeling, how things are being inside of you, so you can deepen on yourself so you can question yourself more, and more thoroughly. Sometimes we believe that we need therapy, that we need professional help, when in fact it is that the world hasn't given us the tools to get to know ourselves, to get to know how we react to life, how we react to situations in the world. And that we are very, very scared of everything which is unknown. This makes us be wary of everything that we do not know, when in fact, everything that we do not know is an opportunity for us to get to discover ourselves, to get to know who we are under certain circumstances. Most importantly, it gives us an opportunity to truly apprehend what it is to live this human experience.

My invitation now really is for you to find the ways to give you well-being, make you feel comfortable in knowing yourself and question yourself. When letting go of the ego, which is extremely intellectual, it will try to rationalize everything, but allow it to guide you in another direction. Where we can understand that everything we conceive is not truly reality but is the product of what our ancestors have built upon. In that way, we must understand that reality truly is what we decide to make out of our circumstances and how we decide to see life. That is the difficult part because we are so rational and to live within a society which is so mentally driven, it's very difficult to truly embrace the creativity to see life from other perspectives and truly embrace these other possibilities.

What I'm asking you is to embrace it, and get excited about everything that's new and unknown. Because there in the unknown is where we will find new tools and new discoveries about ourselves. That is the core of life: to be able to discover ourselves, to experience what human life is, for just a very brief and short moment of time.