This Student is Ready

Why I was ready for my teacher to appear

Photo by Edz Norton on Unsplash

This is a quote that has a long (and pretty unknown) history. It’s been attributed to many different people over the years, but I’d like to think the theory that it comes from a Buddhist Monk is the more likely option. At any rate — it’s a quote that I adore. I have found it to be true in my life in so many ways, but it’s also not as literal as one might think. The first time I heard the quote, I thought it meant that a human being would suddenly show up in my life in the form of a “teacher.”

Oh, how naive I was.

The basis of this quote is not so much in the human realm (though it certainly can and has been in my case) but rather in the actual learning of something. Meaning, that sometimes we are not meant to learn a lesson or a skill until we are ready. A great example of this, for me, is spirituality.

I did not grow up religious, and I was quite adamant in my life that spirituality was a giant hoax. I detested organized religion, and because of that judgment, I let it color my thoughts, opinions, and learnings around spirituality. It wasn’t until I had done a lot of recovery work and introspection that I realized spirituality was completely different than religion. Yes, the two can co-exist, but they can also exist separately.

I truly believe that to have the kind of spirituality I have now, I had to do the work before I could open my mind to it. And when I had done that work, when an opportunity to learn about spirituality landed in my lap, I was ready to take it on. I was ready to learn with a completely open mind. Thus — when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

Fast forward to the last few months. It’s been a hell of a ride, and I’ve felt a bit spiritually bankrupt lately. I craved a deeper understanding of… something, anything, to help me revive that connection. I didn’t just want it — I needed it.

And wouldn’t you know… a series of courses about the Tarot fell into my lap exactly when I needed it to.

I’ve been “studying” the Tarot loosely for the past few years but found myself disenchanted with the limitations and the “by-the-guidebook” descriptions. When mystics and readers in my circle talked about using the Tarot for deep, internal work, I wondered, “what am I missing?!”

What I was missing was education. What I was missing was someone who had done her own internal work around the Tarot and looked at it through a completely different lens.

Lindsay Mack says she is a: queer, non-binary intuitive artist, mother, teacher, facilitator, podcast host, and founder of Tarot for the Wild Soul¹.

But to me, she is so much more. She is the vessel I needed in order to approach Tarot as a teacher.

Tarot as a teacher

What I’ve been learning from Lindsay Mack’s courses, specifically her Rewilding the Tarot course, is plentiful. I can’t possibly relate it all here, and to be honest, I wouldn’t want to because the learning is so very individualized. You have to experience it for yourself to see how powerful it is because the whole point is to learn how you relate to Tarot in a way that supports, empowers, and anchors you to your intuition and own inner wisdom.

But I will say that in studying Tarot through Rewilding the Tarot, once you feel a deep connection to a card, you can never go back to the base descriptions of it. You can never look at a Tarot card again and say definitively, “this is what it means.” I believe what Lindsay talks about in terms of the “overculture” and how it’s saturated the Tarot (and many other spiritual practices, if we’re being honest) is indicative of a larger problem in our society: the desire to want to whittle down something into concrete meanings and descriptors which give us concrete answers.

I’ve never been the kind of Tarot reader who uses it for predictive readings. I don’t believe it can do that. But, what I do believe is that Tarot has the capacity to ground and anchor us in our intuition and self-awareness. It can highlight and bring up issues that we already know exist but have been too fearful of approaching.

I really appreciate the way Lindsay says that each card is an invitation. It’s always an invitation to come home to yourself, but depending on which card you’re looking at — the invitations can get pretty deep and specific. Especially if you’re working with the cards in the arena of personal growth instead of predictive readings.

Mini Case Study

You know I love me some visuals to help explain a theory — so here is a little example to show you how I’ve used Lindsay’s approach to Tarot, along with one of her spreads that was perfect for this time in my life. I used her Grief and Big Emotions Spread.

Takeaways from Reading

So card one, Five of Cups couldn’t have been more spot-freaking-on. This card is about grief. And in this particular reading, I know exactly what it’s talking about. After losing two of my dogs, grief is a common thing to expect. Except… I’ve been avoiding my grief. And this card invites us to not only acknowledge the grief we have… but to surrender to it. To lean into it because that’s the only way you get “through” it. This card is politely asking me to make space for it in my life… but it’s up to me to say yes.

Card two, Six of Swords is so interesting for the position it’s in. How can I tend to the emotions that are showing up? Well, this particular six invites us to acknowledge that we’re in a transition period. And this doesn’t have to be a big transition, but it also can be. In my situation, I think life after loss is quite a large transition. So it’s acknowledging that I am in a transitional time, but it’s also inviting me to see if I’m giving myself what I need to handle that transition. What immediately comes to mind here, especially looking at this particular image, is “whose driving or guiding the boat?” Sometimes, in transitional moments, we feel so lost and out of control (this is true for me), and it feels like we aren’t even directing the boat at all. We’re simply letting it float, and sometimes… that’s literally all we can do. We don’t have the capacity or bandwidth to steer or guide it. We just need to let it go where it will go. And that feels very resonant for me right now.

I have to admit that card three, Temperance, threw me a little bit. I realized while doing this reading that I still have a ton of “unlearning” to do. My first thought with this card was: “huh? The message is… balance?” Then I reread what Lindsay had to say about the Temperance card, and it suddenly made so much sense. In her teachings (and I agree), Temperance is less about balance or equality and more about the willingness to expand beyond what we think we’re capable of. In the context of the cards around it… we have the Death card right before this card and the Tower card right after. And those are two hugely important cards in the Major Arcana. So it makes sense that Temperance says, “yes, you’ve been through a rebirth… a transformation. But it’s not done yet… you still have more.” And then it asks us, “are you prepared to expand even when it’s difficult? Even when it’s painful?” So, in essence, the Temperance card for this position is pretty telling — it wants me to think about acknowledging the literal losses I’ve recently faced along with the transformation that that brings and how I can still endure. How can I keep saying yes, even in the face of more possible pain?

The Six of Cups for this position made me cry because it hit me in the gut. This card is such beautiful energy. It’s about nostalgia and good memories, gratitude, and appreciation. But more than that, I think it invites us to ask ourselves how we can drop back into the little child that lives within us. And in this particular reading, the question of “how can I offer my care and attention to this” seems to be answered very gently with this card. But it’s more than that, I think. When we think of our pets passing (at least in our case), we imagine they are in some beautiful afterlife, back to their original, healthy forms, playing with no cares in the world. And in a way — that is also how some of us look back on certain moments of childhood. I guess in some ways, the two are interlinked. When I think of a happy, playful puppy, I think of a happy, playful child. And bringing that together in the essence of this card makes me think that the best way to offer my care and attention to the grief I’m feeling is by dropping into those memories where we (the dogs and myself) felt free. Happy. Playful.

Lastly, the Eight of Wands for the final position is probably the most curious of all the cards. To me, this card often brings swift and fiery energy to the table. To me, it has the sense of “let’s go, let’s go, let’s go.” At first, I thought maybe it was connected to my desire to get out of the grief space as quickly as I can, but the question of “how is this card here to help me move through this experience of deep self-tending” made me realize it’s not talking about the progress or speed of my grief. It’s talking about our quick decision to get Mya, our new puppy. Somehow, even though it was done quickly, it was exactly what we needed to move through our deep self-tending.

Going deeper with tarot

As you can tell, Lindsay’s gentle guidance to be curious and approach the cards as an invitation completely changes the way I approach the reading. That doesn’t mean that the cards still don’t show me painful things. It doesn’t mean that the cards have answers for me per se. But it does give me the opportunity to dig deeper into my inner wisdom and explore or excavate what needs to be seen. I think I’ve only scratched the surface on looking at the Tarot through this lens, and I’m excited to continue learning and sharing what I’m learning along the way.

Resources:

• You can find Lindsay Mack and her Tarot courses here: https://www.tarotforthewildsoul.com

• The deck used in this article is: The Unfolding Path Tarot by Athene Arcana

1. https://www.lindsaymack.com/