How do we grapple with the concept of Fate? As moderns, we are conditioned to believe that all things are possible and within reach, even while knowing at some level that cannot be true. This crisis of the imagination has a practical solution: traditional divination. The 78 cards of the tarot, imprinted with archetypal imagery, are a pocket universe: they depict the life we think we know in shapes and symbols that stir the imagination and re-acquaint us with mystery. Drawn at random, a tarot card expresses a willingness to invite Fate into our lives as a friend; to embrace the gifts of chance. By doing so, we can heal our own relationship with uncertainty.
First, we will consider a working model of the “oracular moment”: how tarot intersects with the concept of synchronicity, and how we can accommodate these glimpses of acausal order in our lives. Then, we will start working on a personal “language of fate,” discovering how to use metaphor and symbol to unlock meaning from the archetypal images in the tarot. We will go on to learn how to configure the questions we ask the cards for maximum insight and agency, both for ourselves and others. And we will conclude with techniques that use our new fluency in conversing with Fate to argue, negotiate, and change our very futures: i.e., magic.
Each two-hour session will begin with a presentation and continue as a workshop-style discussion where we draw cards for ourselves and one another. We will seek to interpret their meaning with increasingly complexity and depth over the four weeks.
I. The Crossroads of Fate: Synchronicity and the Oracular Moment
II. The Shape of Fate: Meaning, Metaphor, and Divinatory Language
III. Inquiries for Fate: Designing Questions and Interpreting Answers
IV. Requests of Fate: Acts of Magical Transformation
