The Tarot card that I am going to explore in this post is called The Seeker. He is the figure that corresponds to The Fool in the Arthurian Tarot.
Here is a picture of my copy of the Arthurian Tarot: rather old and battered, as you can see. The deck has since been re-published in a new packaging. You can read detailed reviews of the Arthurian tarot here, on the Aeclectic Tarot site, the ultimate destination on the internet for all lovers of Tarot decks.
Here is the Seeker himself. I see a young man with his feet on a rainbow bridge, setting out to explore a very big world.
To me a Tarot card is a gateway that I can go through to enter a different world. It is like Alice going through the looking glass. This card, like all the cards in the Arthurian Tarot deck, actually depicts a handy archway for the reader to walk through.
Some things in the picture jump out at me. The rainbow bridge, for starters. The rainbow is rather a trite symbol in itself. I understand that the Seeker’s soul is emerging, as all souls do, out of the realm of pure potential into the realm of manifestation, much like Schrödinger’s cat. But there is something else.
There is a special jolt that you get when you realise that the Tarot knows a secret about you that no-one else knows. My secret is – or was, now that I am revealing it – that I use a rainbow visualization to centre myself before reading a Tarot card. The Tarot does this to you sometimes. It searches your soul. I have learned that you had better not try to read a Tarot card unless you are prepared to be read in return.
So now I know for sure that the Seeker is me, other parts of the image come into focus. Whatever the Seeker is seeking, there is a very long road to walk. The path winds into the far distance in both directions. The Seeker has to go one way or the other. He has not yet chosen. Which way to the destination that he seeks? Left? Or right?
Paths are funny things. Do they ever lead to a final destination? All paths meet up. You can walk off into the sunrise and return out of the sunset without ever turning around. The conclusion is a truism: the journey is the destination. The present moment is all we have. Enlightenment is in the here and now.
Hardly a new idea, I realise. I am disappointed. The Tarot hasn’t told me anything I didn’t know already. Then… a new understanding dawns.
This card is called The Seeker, not The Aimless Wanderer. The Seeker is on a quest. It might be the quest for the holy grail, for all I know, but it really doesn’t matter what this seeker is seeking. The point is that a quest is never undertaken for the benefit of the quester. In fact, the opposite. The quester risks everything, even death, to find what must be found to bring about the healing of the world. Quests are dangerous missions to go on, not pleasant strolls into personal fulfillment.
A Tarot reading is nothing unless it has a positive and practical conclusion. In this case, the outcome is that my attitude to enlightenment has been changed.
Maybe it’s not all about me. Maybe it’s about love.
Infinity Tarot 