There are no bad cards: Notes from a Tarot reader

“It’s going to be Death, isn’t it?” Elsa laughs as I shuffle my Tarot cards.

“Death is not a bad card,” I say for what feels like the millionth time in my life. “There are no bad cards.” We’re sitting at my stand at Oakenfest’s 10th edition as her two friends and her French boyfriend look over her shoulder.

The couple, of course, get the Death card in their pull. Their love is calm, balanced, and changes them both for the better. They nod approvingly at each other.

Over the past few years, I’ve grown picky with my deck, and who I read for. Not driven by mystical, clairvoyant ways, but by the rawest human emotion: I was tired of being misunderstood.

Tarot is not destiny but a form of guidance that reveals your present. But as the world grows more hungry and antsy to have anything they could want or need at their fingertips, most people turn to Tarot with anxiety, searching for clarity or validation that often cannot exist. Most people are looking for a clear-cut roadmap, not self-reflection.

And Tarot readers get annoyed, too. How could we not? Having to ask someone if what they’re chasing is something they actually want makes me feel like I’m speaking Chinese. “Am I supposed to discover what I want on my own? Is wanting a feeling meant to be planted, grown, and sowed by me?” I imagine them replying in German. Instead, they reject the cards for being “unsatisfactory,” often asking the same question again in different ways, or cutting me off with the classic, “So, should I or should I not do it?” rather than exploring what they would prefer.

On Saturday afternoon, Oakenfest is still calm. A cool breeze sneaks up on us. I ask a friend to grab a jacket from my tent, so I don’t keep my line waiting. I’ve informed them all of my 8:30 p.m. closing time, put in place so I don’t miss al-Tase3’s performance.

Lynn sits down with a friend, kuffiyeh tied to her cargo pants. I recognize her as a dancer I once watched perform. She tells me she has begun to question if her studio is right for her, despite the years she’s spent there. “It looks like a romantic relationship,” I tell her. Falling in love, attachment, falling out of love, but refusing to admit the truth.

Her voice shakes. We stare at the 10 of Cups together. A happy couple stands in their backyard with their two kids, dancing. They’re interrupted by Judgement, stylized as nhar al-hseb, a call for her to cut the cord, despite how irreversible it might be. “Can I smoke?” she asks. “I know this is very Lebanese.” I think no one ever teaches us how to make difficult, emotional decisions, or how to identify when attachment is running our lives.

She says she ran into her ex yesterday, and it’s his birthday in two days, but she’s decided she doesn’t want to reach out. Should she? Even though I recognize she’s only looking to Tarot to justify her decisions, her cards still weigh heavily on my heart. I tell her to be careful when it comes to him. Eight of Pentacles, the Devil: he’s too idealistic, stubborn to mold her into whoever he’d like her to be. While her hands are loose, his are tight. She says she needs to sit with it. I imagine hugging her, but when my cards are away, I am no longer inside her psyche. We go back to being strangers at a music festival, and the familiar awkwardness of a moment being broken sets in.

“I want a Tarot reading,” I overhear a woman say from below the perch I’m sitting on. She’s reading the poster I hung up on a tree trunk. “It’s my dream to meet Marguerita.” I can’t help but laugh.

Tanya walks weightlessly with long hair and a long dress, and sits with her friend, Adam. He has a green cap on, and his ears stretched out around black earrings. He stares at me bug-eyed, and I remember her hugging the tree trunk earlier.

“My dad wants me to stop being a nomad,” Tanya starts off. Two and three of wands, the Fool: she wants to take the summer off, but what’s the issue with looking for more in your life? “I’m holding the world in my hands,” she says when she sees the card. I have to admit I’m charmed by her. It is refreshing to have someone who is not stubborn to find either a command or validation in her spread, and instead be not only satisfied but even excited by uncertainty.

Adam cuts right to the chase when it’s his turn. Behind him, I hear the first performer of the night take the stage. The sun is already setting. My best friend sneaks in silently behind us to light my candles so we can see better. “A year and a half ago, I experienced a DMT death,” he says. “Not a near-death experience, real death.”

“What do you mean? Like you were resuscitated?” I ask him. He looks at me, confused. I hold up both my fists to demonstrate. “Dujj dujj,” I say. He explains ayahuasca, which supposedly emulates “death hormones,” and his experience was so intense he wonders if he opened doors, he should’ve kept closed. “Can I smoke? Why am I asking… I’m not at a doctor’s appointment…” he says, nervous.

No, the cards say. He was shaken but for the better. He travels from the Four of Cups to Wands and Pentacles, from idealism to someone who takes charge of their life and understands the future is in their control. The only way for something to happen is for you to do it.

After discussing his open relationship with his girlfriend, he tells me that a day before they were “doing acid in the woods,” and found a Lucky 5 poker chip.

I stare at him too long, waiting for a real inquiry. “I got chills when I saw it,” Tanya says. I realize this is all I’m going to get.

Other pulls

Valentine’s Day Tarot: What's in the stars for your love life

After a group of students takes over my stand (“Am I going to get a boyfriend?” “But I don’t see you wanting one in the first place.” “I guess. Or no. Maybe I do.”), I head to watch al-Tase3. By the stage, I see everyone who passed by my stand today. A friend asks me how her partner’s reading went. I laugh and change the subject. Adam lends me his lighter because both of mine were taken off my stand. The others give me closed-mouthed smiles, unsure what to do when I transform from a Tarot reader who they’ve shared a connection and personal information with to a girl next to them on the dance floor. My sister and I sit against a tree and watch the show.

A surprising amount of people have asked me in the six years I’ve been reading if I believe in Tarot. Usually, I just say the truth: I didn’t, but then I experienced it. Earlier, my sister interrupted a reading to tell passersby, “You have to get a reading. She’s so good! She once saw in a reading that a guy had cancer!” I wouldn’t have believed her unless I had been there. Plus, belief is always a choice: a choice to join a community, find your people, and stand in the face of fear.

When I was sitting on a bench earlier, I borrowed a couple’s lighter and told them about my day. “Can you feel premonitions without the cards around?” the husband asks me.

“Like Michel Hayek?” I half-joke, because I know what he means.

“No, like when you look at us,” he says, holding his wife. “What do you see? Should we have a baby?” he smiles in a half-joke, because he knows far more than I do. I remember all the people I had told today, “It’s enough to want something just because you want it.” I think about how today two different girls cried during their readings. One when she saw the Five of Cups, a card that looked like a dream she had where she mourned her imaginary dead baby. The other when she asked if she should become a mother.

“What did you tell her?” the wife asks. I say the cards were beautiful, because I know what she’s really asking.

Participants consented to share their readings for the article. All names were changed to protect their privacy.