Tarot and other divinatory cards and objects have been used as powerful tools for self-understanding and expansion of one’s consciousness. The Tarot is a deck of 76 cards (divided in Major Arcana, Minor Arcana and Court Cards) that follows a system of meaning of its own. An oracle is any object considered to provide advice or prediction, usually known as a form of divination or counsel when one seeks for clarification on their path. It is actually very common — specially for Latin American people — to go to a reading or to know someone who knows someone who reads the tarot cards, tea leaves, búzios and so many other magical objects.
It is also possible to incorporate oracles as a personal and autonomous practice. One of the perspectives through which you can approach Tarot — or really any other oracle that is based on an iconographic structure — is to look at the images as if they were windows. Inside each window lives a story full of symbols, anecdotes, sensations and characters. When you look with a bold attention through these windows and combine what they show you with the present moment, you access several pieces of information. The narrative that starts to surface transports you to a symbolic and oniric landscape where you are an adventurer. The tools that allow you to look at the present through another point of view, leading you to new solutions and fresh perspectives, different ways of seeing yourself and the world you are a part of.
Oracles in general have this weird potential to encourage and inspire us to imagine further more and create multiple pathways. Different from the exclusive divinatory purpose (that is focused mainly in foreseeing the future), such way of approaching oracles helps us to get in tune with our own intuition and personal “oracle faculties” that we all have and carry within.
This article was originally published on Fresta #1. Please click here to continue reading 🙂
isadora machado 