Oh hey, something exciting happened. My good friend Ariel said I can use her name in my blog. Wow! Thank you, Ariel. Another exciting thing is my Fat Folks Tarot deck arrived, a gift from two good friends who live elsewhere. What a supportive, kind gift to nourish my well-being. I was so happy. I asked Ariel if I could come over, open it with her, and pull my first card.
Ariel is an expert on tarot and does amazing projects, so creative. She is brilliant about many things. She has quite a few tarot decks, and I feel safe with her. So she’s the perfect person to connect with about tarot. And she loves me well and sees me as fully valid, including my fat body that I love unconditionally.
I need support around finally having my own tarot desk as an adult, because of my history with such, as explained in this big blog post tarot that feels important to me. https://www.listeningtothenoiseuntilitmakessense.com/2021/09/01/tarot-deck-journey/
prayer
“I’m going to pray before I open it,” I told Ariel.
“Ok,” she said.
“Dear Mother God, please bless this new deck as I open it and help me have good experiences guided by love. Please help me use this deck to connect with Truth, and have insight and fun joyfully. Thank you for my many blessings and the help of Ariel. I love you.”
The shrink wrap was ok to struggle with, to remove. Then I opened the Fat Folks Tarot box, and the cards smelled strongly of plastic fumes.
We were sitting at Ariel’s table, both wearing masks. I held a card to my nose, to get a better whiff. “Ugh!” I said. “Smells disgusting!”
She suggested I put them outside to air out. I was swirling the cards around face up, and we glimpsed some cards, seeing what our eyes were drawn to.
I like the fatness, nudity, attitudes. It’s all different artists, which is both good and bad. It can be fun to see a lot of art by one artist and feel immersed in that artist’s work, relaxing deep into it. This is more of a cool collaboration, and there’s something stimulating about the variety.
three of cups
The first card I pulled, I didn’t ask the question out loud, but my question was for insight about the deck itself, my experiences with it, an overview of what to expect with this Fat Folks Tarot. The card I drew was the three of cups. It’s got three people drinking juice together in a forest at night. They look safe, happy, and grounded, having a good time connecting in a relaxed, real way. There are sparklies all over the place.
Yes, juice is amazing. Hahaha! Oh wait, it’s wine, huh. Well, I don’t drink alcohol. And we used to always bring juice to radical mental health collective meetings. More often than not, it was purple government grape juice.
I asked Ariel what she knows about this card. She asked me what I see. I described the card and how the people look happy, the groundedness. “They look like I want to be friends with them!” I said.
Three feels like a good amount of people, to me. Two is great for love and intimacy, but three is more stable, to rest. Three legs of a bar stool is much easier then two legs of stilts. Two person relationships can get echo chambery. Three person relationships can feel way more level-headed.
Ariel mentioned people pouring their individual wine into one vessel, coming together to share our gifts. Yes, sounds exciting–exactly what I’m looking for. Community, friendship, sharing: grounded, stable love.
outside
Then I put the cards outside to air out. I spread them out on this mini picnic table which is kid-sized. I thought it would be sad if some cards blew away. So I decided to keep an eye / ear out for wind. It was calm, and there was no wind.
Then Ming showed up at Ariel’s house–he’d been out at a store and making phone calls. We’d argued earlier, and I was happy to see him. He told us about his time out in the world.
Ariel had just received this other deck in the mail Somnia Tarot which has astounding arty photos based on dreams with sleep paralysis, amazing. I asked her to pull me a card from her new deck.
She asked if I had a question.
“Yeah, let me think a minute,” I said. I could feel the question inside me, but I needed to ponder for a moment, before putting it to words. “What new direction can I go? What could I do with this new energy I’m freeing up? What’s something I should move toward?”
Ariel shuffled the cards. “Do you want to pull it?” she asked.
“Sure!” I said.
ten of coins
I pulled the ten of coins.
When Ariel asked what I see, I told her the coins look like the lids of paint cans. And the upsidedown v on each looks vulvic, which I love. The coins are hovering, lined up, above a chest. And there’s grass there like a park, and woods behind.
It looks like the coins are maybe stuck somehow to the trunk of the tree that’s right behind them. Or the coins are not stuck to the tree, but they’re lined up based on the tree, related to it. The way they’re hovering looks impossible, but it’s possible in a dreamy way.
“It looks like a treasure chest?” Ariel asked.
“Yeah!” I said. “I don’t feel a lot about treasure chests…”
“Maybe it could be a dumpster,” she said.
“Yeah!” I said, smiling. I love dumpsters, and so much treasure can be found in trash. Discarded stuff considered worthless can be so valuable.
Moving toward abundance, maybe stability, legacy, being more of who I am, as an example for the world. All that is so important to me. So I was very happy with this card, and grateful to think about my inner life as expressed in the physical world.
I’d asked Ariel about the suits, and I enjoyed hearing how coins are like pentacles, which have to do with the physical world, material earth stuff, what’s tangible.
combination
Ariel encouraged me to think about the two cards I’d pulled in combination. The cups is about emotion, love, feelings. So the happy connection I crave is great, and then the abundance and stability to maintain that sounds even more amazing. The cups suit is water, and the coins are earth, so yeah. I would mix those together and get a river, or adobe to build a house.
We were going to leave soon, and I asked Ming if he would gather the Fat Folks Tarot cards from outside for me. He was happy to, and reported there were no cards on the ground.
“You wanna pull a card?” he asked me. He fanned the cards in front of me.
I considered. “No, I’m full,” I said. But we saw the card on the bottom, and it was the Star. I asked Ariel about the Star. “Is the sun a star?” I asked. “Oh, there is a sun separate, huh?”
Ariel explained how she thinks of the Star as about hope. The stars shine in the darkest night sky. Yes, I love hope.
disclaimer
All events described in this post are according to my recollection. I could misremember something, or have misheard something to begin with.
Thank you for hearing my thoughts in the spirit they’re offered, which is desire to be helpful, telling my truth to you. That’s always what I want. I love you.
