CONNECTING WITH WISDOM AND WITH EACH OTHER
by James Wells © 2011
For several months, I've been designing a series of tarot circle games and playing them with friends and my significant other. These games are designed to invite authentic engagement between people. They're non-competitive; no one wins at the expense of another. Tarot circle games foster rich conversation and a sense of connection with one another. They surprise us with insights into ourselves and they sometimes spur us to constructive action.
My inspiration for the games came from various sources. The first is my own practice with the tarot in general. When working with clients, I use the tarot as a springboard for an interactive experience with them. I also have a background in PeerSpirit circle process, an adaptable conversational methodology that is inclusive and that entails attentive listening, intentional speaking, and relying on something greater than ourselves. One of my favourite tarot books is Tarot Games by Cait Johnson and Maura Shaw. And I've experienced a couple of enjoyable tarot circles with Mary Greer. Each round of the process took us into a different activity or a variation on how to read a card. All of these blended themselves together in the creative cauldron of my imagination and my own tarot circle games began to pour forth.
The games are essentially council circles blended with tarot cards. In council, one often designates an object as a talking piece, something that gets passed from person to person to indicate whose turn it is to speak. In the case of these games, the talking piece is a tarot deck.
In council, as in a tarot consultation, it's helpful to have a clear intention. Why am I designing a particular tarot game? What's our reason for gathering to play it? Once I know the intention, I can pick a card to place in our midst to represent it, to remind us about why we're there. For example, a game to celebrate the Summer Solstice might call for the Medicine Woman Tarot's Sun/Rebirth card to be set in the middle. For a game about being tarot readers, we could be reminded of why we're there by looking at the High Priestess from the Tarot of the Spirit as we play.
Also connected with a game's intention is a series of open sentences on the topic. These are simply the beginnings of sentences with a blank left at the end so people can look at a tarot card and speak what comes to mind as the completion of the thought.
During the course of the game, people take turns, one by one, picking a card from their hand and using it as a taking off point to talk about what comes to mind during that round. Each round has a different open sentence to spontaneously complete. For example, in a Summer Solstice game, one of the rounds might be, "What is coming fully into the light for me is _________." If someone has the Seven of Stones from the Medicine Woman Tarot in their hand, then when they play it for this round, they could say, "What is coming fully into the light for me is an awareness that I need to be a better steward of my resources. It would be helpful for me to set aside some of my earned money so that bill payments don't feel so challenging." Perhaps in a game about being a tarot reader, one of the rounds is, "The most evolved reason for me to use tarot cards is _________." If one of the players lays down the Eight of Water from the Tarot of the Spirit, they might say, "The most evolved reason for me to use tarot cards is to still my emotions in order to discover what's growing in the deepest parts of myself."
The beauty of these tarot circle games is that no previous tarot experience is necessary. I've had seasoned folks playing alongside complete novices and everyone felt included. One thing I like to tell players is to pretend to be one or more characters or objects in the card image, then to speak from the perspective of those characters or objects. By doing this, we've often been surprised to hear something other than our usual responses come out of our mouths!
After all the rounds have been played -- I often create three of them -- time is provided for a more free-form conversation to take place. Each person can respectfully comment on their own and others' cards and insights, ask questions, ponder things aloud, and hear wisdom begin to collect in the midst of those assembled. The conversation ends by passing the deck around one more time as a talking piece so that people can express one thing they've heard or said during the game that they appreciate and want to remember.
The tarot circle game experience can be enhanced by beginning and ending in a sacred way. We often smudge ourselves and the playing space with sage smoke. You can also ring a bell, breathe for a few moments in collective silence, or whatever feels comfortable for the group. We often follow our tarot game time with a pot-luck meal. It's grounding and bonding.
To see some of my tarot circle games, and other things on my mind, please visit http://jameswells.wordpress.com/
James Wells is a Toronto-based motivational listener, consultant, teacher, and facilitator who is dedicated to merging soul and strategy.
Great post, James!
Posted by: Arwen | 06/27/2011 at 09:18 PM