Tarot de Marseille Talks Dorian

At the time of my birthday a few months back, I shared that a dream I had encouraged me to work more with Tarot de Marseille (which was validated by the Line of 5 reading I did afterward); since then, I’ve been working with the system on a daily basis.

I’ve been mixing things up, alternating between working solely with the Minors (a practice I got from Sherryl Smith over on her blog Tarot Heritage) and working solely with the Majors (a practice that a lot of TdM readers engage in, but I got from the pages of “The Marseille Tarot Revealed” by the late Dr. Yoav Ben-Dov).

For the month of September (2019), I decided to commit to working with the Majors only, pulling three cards and reading them in a line as my daily draw.

However, on the morning of September 5^th, I really felt strongly to work with the Minors instead.

I was awakened in the early morning hours (around 5 am or so) by the effects of Dorian, the hurricane that has been moving along the southeast coast the last few days (I live right outside the Charleston, South Carolina area).

Since I was up, I decided to go ahead and pull my cards for the day (before conditions outside got progressively worse). Using the CBD (Conver Ben-Dov) Tarot de Marseille, I drew Ace of Cups, 8 of Swords, and 6 of Swords.

The first thing that got my attention was two of the three cards were from the suit of Swords, which for me can indicate problems and troubles, blocks and obstacles. My thought was that this made sense, given that a major storm was right off the coastline.

My attention then went to the first card, Ace of Cups. One of my meanings for it is home, which made sense, because I was in my home at the moment, and had no intention of leaving it due to the storm.

In looking at the card, I noted that the home was resting on the cup, and the word elevation came to mind. I thought about the possibility of homes and buildings getting flooded because of storm surges caused by Dorian—symbolized by what looks to me like water streaming out from the bottom of the home/building on the cup. The thought came to me about people needing to find ways to keep the water out.

I’m looking at the card again, and I remind myself that the building can also represent a church (another one of my meanings for the card).

And it hits me: Charleston is known as “the Holy City”—and is prone for flooding on days when the forecast calls for several inches of rain, never mind what a hurricane off the coast could bring in.

In the moment, I’m a bit blown away to get this from the card. If I were using any of my Rider-Waite-Smith counterparts, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have gotten that.

I shift my attention to 8 of Swords, and the first thing that comes to me is power outage (8 is a number that represents power, and Swords being problems and troubles). Along with that, I then think power structure and power grid (the formation of the swords on the card).

Just at that moment of writing those words in my journal, the power goes out.

I turned on one of my battery-powered candles to see if I could continue to record the reading in my journal, and I realized 8 of Swords is also a card of analysis for me.

I decided to put the journal aside and leave the cards out.

At that moment, the power comes back on. I decided to continue.

Turning my attention to 6 of Swords, one of my meanings for the card is the end of a matter once and for all. It’s also a card of progress and moving on. All of those I attributed to Dorian. Today was said by the meteorologists to be the only day the people in my area would experience the effects of Dorian, because the system was moving on (slowly, but moving on).

And then I noticed that the numbers on the Swords cards go from 8 to 6—showing a decrease in intensity, perhaps signaling Dorian weakening over time.

And then I was struck by an idea, much in the way I was struck with “the Holy City” of Charleston for Ace of Cups: For me, the suit of Swords is associated with the element air.

I thought about air, which then became atmosphere, which then became weather and then storm (Swords suggests a problem in the air, atmosphere, or weather).

I concluded the reading there. As I closed the journal, putting it away for the time being, I was in awe of what the Tarot de Marseille had to say about the storm—and how the Minors especially wanted to get their point (no pun intended) across.