Letting Go – Day 15
30 Days of Letting Go Day 15
By Jenny Griffin
A Melting Pot of Letting Go: The Tarot
This week we move from shamans and dreamers to a melting pot of examples from inanimate objects through art to a glorious climax. We’ll start the week with a short examination of the tarot and its representations of letting go.
The ancient art of the tarot tells a story of a journey from Fool to Universe, passing through trials and lessons along the way that lead to the graduation to another level of consciousness. The traditional deck consists of 74 cards, which is filled with allusions to letting go, moving on, turning your back on circumstances, and dying to the old. The story is not a new one – across time and around the world there are parables, stories and fables that offer advice and guidance on living a ‘good’ life. I see the tarot as the same thing – a guide, a tool to assess the potential opportunities or actions that could be taken in any given situation. A reading asks the client to let go of preconceived ideas about what the cards might mean, and asks the reader to let go of their own perceptions of what the client might ‘want’ of them.
Here are a few cards from the tarot and their very distinct messages about letting go.
The Fool (0) – the first card in the deck, and the beginning of the journey. It represents the letting go that one feels at the beginning of a journey: letting go of expectations, letting go of fears, letting go of potential problems that could arise. It asks the traveler to trust that the path will show up, and that their heart will lead the way. It’s akin to Birth, which we explored at the beginning of this series, as a way of letting go of who we perceive ourselves to be, what we believe we know, and how to control the outcome.
