Yes, of course I read for my cats. I do talk to them but it’s not clear to me that we always understand each other, and tarot helps to clarify. But I also find that reading tarot for cats is really nice for honing one’s sense of the literal meaning of the cards. It’s a grounding exercise, especially if you tend to live in your head like I do. Reading for the cats, sometimes the cards will say: “The cats are asleep. Can you not plainly see that?”
And that’s what happened tonight. Initially I was reading about something else, but then I thought, let’s see what I need to know about how the cats are doing (I’ve moved furniture around recently and I’m never sure they’re pleased with that). So I pulled for Shinobi, asking, is there anything she needs me to know? (These cards, by the way, are from the Halloween Tarot; Halloween knows no season!) Answer: the Four of Bats (this deck’s version of the Four of Swords), because she’s asleep, you idiot, and she needs you to know that you shouldn’t disturb her.
So then I asked, well, what will she need me to know when she wakes up? And got the Fool. I take the Fool to mean that she will need me to wake up and be a good companion for her, although it is entirely possible the cards are just calling me a Fool or saying she’ll think me one or both. (Because she does think me a fool. You should have seen her watching my then-16-year-old and I try to catch a spider that was dangling from the ceiling, once. “You two are scared of that tiny spider, aren’t you?” Her expression was puzzled and extremely amused. “You do know that it’s far smaller than you and nonvenomous?” OMG she was entertained by that.)
So then I turn to Sappho. What does she need me to know? I shuffled quite thoroughly and got what? The Four of Bats again. The cards were being very patient with me. “The cats are asleep. Did we not make that clear? Do you not see them? They do this every day at this time.” So I asked, for Sapph, what will she need me to know when she wakes up? and got The Moon. In the Halloween Tarot, the Moon card shows a wolf who seems to be howling at the Moon, and indeed, that’s what Sapph did as soon as I started to try to transcribe my reading for her here. Well, actually, she yelled at me more than the Moon. But it is the middle of the night.
Yes, sometimes the cards are just that literal.
I could go on, and make a connection to how lately, I’m seeing a connection to our politics, and to some of our most disturbing political groups, in the Lenormand–though only if I look very literally at it. But I won’t. Because you don’t need that right now. You need cat pictures. And here they are.
Quiet Mystic 