Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Tarot's Take on Election-Time

So, in a fit of whimsy I decided to do something I ordinarily do not do much at all: read directly about current events; and do a reading with a predictive aspect to it. That is to say, amateur fortune-telling (ha!) about the upcoming US Presidential elections. Decided to use the Master for this as it has a kind of 'wordly' feel to it.

(A note: a am unabashedly biased liberal and this reading will reflect that. This is just for fun, and I'm really not even trying to maintain some semblance of political neutrality.)


So starting from the left, we have the page of wands. This card makes me think of the current [Republican] contenders for the nomination/potential opponents to the President in the election. The page is young, inexperienced - he may have a lot of passion and ambition and ideas, but mostly his ideas are still just that. He wants to prove himself, his message. There is potential there, certainly. However, he is quite young, and looking at him, the word 'childish' comes to mind. Combine that with the dog behind him, which makes me thinking of the dog in the Fool card and well...let's just say this is a pretty close approximation to my feelings regarding the Republican candidates in general this year. Ego driven, immature, ignorant - hell, the fact that candidates that have no realistic chance of winning are still in the running, weakening their own party's chance rather than withdraw and consolidate support is just so...the childish me, me, me impulse. But, less negative take on the card, this seems to be showing the current stage of things, the untried with 'fresh' messages proving themselves...

The center card, which going in a kind of chronological fashion would seem to represent the election in full swing, is the six of swords. The six goes back to the Lovers in the major arcana, a card of choices and decision-making... interestingly in this deck the Lovers card shows a blind-folded cupid about to release an arrow...which I think is a rather interesting metaphor given the fact that imperfect access to information is such a major component of democratic elections. No one really knows what candidates are going to do once elected - some level of obfuscation if not outright dishonesty seems to be expected these days, where you have candidates blatantly tailoring their position to their audiences and, well. So choice of ideas, a battle of ideas which yes, seems to describe this political season rather well. Idea against idea,words, communication battle which is so much of what elections are these days, with imperfect information and someone will win but who and at what cost? Look at those swords stabbing downwards through the victory-wreath...

Lastly we have the Chariot...to be honest, I have a hard time trying to read this removed from my bias because...well, the Chariot is about winning a battle, short term victory, success and to me, the only outcome I would consider as such would be a re-election of the current President. Backing me up in this assessment, at least, is that well...it's the chariot, rolling forward. Victory that has momentum of time, not a sudden shift or change...even though this card has no horses in sight, the old phrase about not switching horses mid-race comes to mind. Also, the Chariot tends to be about uniting opposites, harnessing the power of black and white, masculine and feminine, yin and yang to your advantage; in politics, that kind of uniting requires taking on some semblance of a moderate position, which, in the primaries at least, seems to be the last thing the Republican candidates are concerned with. How can unite all those forces if you are spouting racism, misogynistic, classist, vitriol? So yes, I am - tentatively - predicting a re-election of President Obama...

If anyone disagrees with my read of these or has anything they want to chip in, feel free :]

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