by
Llewellyn
1. Your new book, Tarot Interactions,
focuses on becoming more intuitive when reading the tarot. What
inspired you to write Tarot Interactions?
I never thought I was an expert on the
tarot. I learned so much from authors I admire, like Rachel Pollack and
Eden Grey; I didn't want to re-tread ground they'd already explored so
brilliantly. I feel very strongly, as an author, that I have no
business writing a book unless I have something unique to say.
But, my late ex-husband, Isaac Bonewits,
always said I was an amazing tarot reader and I absolutely had to write
a book on the subject. He was a terrific reader himself, so it was very
flattering, but I always put him off. Still, it was in the back of my
mind that if I could come up with something unique, something that
really contributed to the existing library of books on Tarot, I would
write it.
I knew that there were certain things
that were unique about how I do readings. What I couldn't figure out
was what tied those things together. I had a sit-down with the
brilliant Elysia at Llewellyn, and together we came up with this idea
of interactions. Once she said that the word "interaction" was what
tied all my different ideas together, everything clicked. I wrote the
book very quickly after that; in fact, it's the one I've written
fastest.
2. You
are a Pagan High Priestess, and your other books (including The Elements of Ritual,
The Way of Four, and Merry Meet Again) are
Pagan-oriented. How does the Tarot fit into your daily life, and as a
Pagan?
A lot of the games in my "Experimentation
and Play" chapter of Tarot Interactions are games we've played in my Pagan group.
My day-to-day use of tarot is primarily
reading for others. If something serious is going on with me, I reach
out to other readers. There was a time not long ago when I had a series
of strange omens, which included things actually falling on me from the
sky. I was alarmed! When I did a reading for myself, the answer said
something like, "Something serious is going on and you don't know what
it is." Thanks a lot, tarot!
So I reached out to a few people who I knew were talented readers, and
I got some solid, helpful answers, and was able to respond to the
forces moving through my life.
To me, my Pagan theology includes the
idea that humans have more
abilities than are visible, that we are allowed and able to know the
unknowable, and that nature and the universe are full of information
that most of us in Western culture are taught isn't there. So all of
that adds up to the idea that divination is something we can use.
I use tarot in Paganism when I'm making
difficult decisions, like whether or not a certain magical act is
appropriate. It's a way of getting answers from a higher source, if you
will.
3.
So, what exactly is a tarot
interaction?
Click here to read
the full interview.
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