The Tombstone — a divine blueprint for tarot reading

RABBIT RABBIT!

And it’s Octo­ber, so this is the spe­cific rab­bit I’m talk­ing about (or maybe this one).

Mov­ing right along with our series on con­tem­pla­tive tarot read­ing, the blue­print I offer you today is called the Tomb­stone. This read­ing will exam­ine the nature of our lives here on this plane and what we will leave behind when we move to the next. HEAVY, am I right? Con­tem­pla­tive tarot is not for the weak of heart! If think­ing about death depresses or fright­ens you, or you feel you’re not sta­ble enough to take on a read­ing of this nature, DON’T DO IT. If you can approach it with a curi­ous and coura­geous spirit, know­ing your safe and grounded, you’ll be fine. Also, be bold! Ask The Uni­verse BIG ques­tions! You’ll get big answers back.

Before we begin, grab your cards. I’ll wait. It might be wise to get grounded now (click play! Isn’t that easy?!):

[haiku url=“http://sassysibyl.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/groundingmeditation.mp3” title=“Grounding Med­i­ta­tion” graphical=“true”]

The metaphor we use in this spread is a tomb­stone (clearly), with the epi­taph writ­ten on it. An epi­taph is a short verse that hon­ors the dead. Typ­i­cally inscribed on the head­stone, the verse can be witty, seri­ous, per­sonal or a “mes­sage from beyond”. Some of my favorite epi­taphs are:

Jesse James (Amer­i­can out­law & folk hero — if you aren’t famil­iar with the tale, he was shot in the back while hang­ing a pic­ture on the wall):

MURDERED BY A TRAITOR AND A COWARD
WHOSE NAME IS NOT WORTHY TO APPEAR HERE

Swiss Psy­chol­o­gist Carl Jung’s tomb­stone is inscribed with:

VOCATUS ATQUE NON VOCATUS DEUS ADERIT

Which trans­lates to “Invoked or not, the God is present.”

William But­ler Yeats, Irish poet (you should really know who he is any­way!), has on his tomb­stone, some lines from one of his last, stoic poems:

Cast a cold Eye
On Life, on Death.
Horse­man, pass by!

So let’s review: An epi­taph is a state­ment that hon­ors the dead. It can be a tru­ism, advice, a bit of lovely verse, what­ever the deceased (while still liv­ing) had requested, etc. The blue­print we’re work­ing with today uses a rather famous Scot­tish epi­taph, “Con­sider friend, as you pass by: as you are now, so once was I. As I am now, you too shall be. Pre­pare, there­fore, to fol­low me.”

This blue­print does fol­low a spe­cific order. Deep breath, lay out four cards start­ing with the top left. Next will be top right, then bot­tom left and bot­tom right.

Let’s break down the metaphor with some sug­ges­tions for interpretation:

Con­sider friend, as you pass by: — How do you live your life? Where are you cur­rently? What is your cur­rent mode of being?

As you are now, so once was I. — What is the nature of life? What is the nature of my life? What is your per­sonal legacy to live out? What is your ances­tral legacy live out? Where are you called from? Who has called you to pur­pose? What do you need to consider?

As I am now, you too shall be. — What is the nature of death? What will be left behind? What will be remem­bered? What is your per­sonal legacy to leave? What is your ances­tral legacy to leave? What con­sid­er­a­tions should be made?

Pre­pare, there­fore, to fol­low me. — What is your poten­tial for liv­ing? What can be done for improve­ment? What can be changed? What might I change about my cur­rent mode of being?

Now the chal­lenge! See if you can dis­till the top two cards into one sen­tence. See if you can dis­till the bot­tom two cards into a sen­tence. In other words, see if you can write a two-line epi­taph that hon­ors your life, from these four cards.

Con­sider, with these four cards as the frame­work for your con­sid­er­a­tion, how you want your life to be hon­ored. Are you liv­ing up to your expectations?

It’s okay if you’re not. It’s okay if you can’t come up with any­thing. Again, these read­ings are to be done pri­mar­ily for per­sonal reflec­tion and as a jump­ing off point for journaling.

Go offline for a bit and try the read­ing. You can down­load a beau­ti­ful PDF con­tain­ing the spread by right click­ing and sav­ing right here!

The next post will be a video sam­pling this blue­print. In the mean­while, try out the spread and let me know what you think! If you post about it on your blog, please leave a com­ment below so I can scope it out! Until then, gen­tle reader, I leave you with the epi­taph engraved on the head­stone of Frank Sinatra:

THE BEST IS YET TO COME

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