Even with, the Six of Wands (which is one of the rare tarot cards that tends towards a very positive polarity), the author has this to say: OK. If you are a person who is cisgender and heterosexual, and you read tarot, especially if you read for other people sometimes, here's what I need you to do: All in all, I'm glad I read this and can put the author's knowledge and teachings to use in my own readings, but I do think that this book is just a fun addition to your tarot collection and not necessarily a must read book! Welcome to Tarot Bytes – the tarot podcast for people who want to learn tarot…but don’t have all day. Short, bite-sized tarot lessons. Episode 133: Queering the Tarot with Cassandra Snow Tarot helps us see the world anew. We must also let it help us act well. We must also let it push us to inspect the archetypes of patriarchy, and suspect them.

The story of Pope Joan was retold as fact for centuries, but today many believe she never existed. Yet she exists within tarot. Our retelling of her archetype makes her real. Queering Tarot How do we bring the practice of queering the tarot into our everyday practice? Begin by questioning what you think you know about tarot. Let it guide you towards more complex meanings. Stop trying to nail everything down. This book has given me so, so much more to consider in terms of interpreting the cards, especially in regards to giving readings to folks in the queer community. It's definitely not a book for beginners, and novices may still find it a bit overwhelming. I consider myself an advanced novice, and there is a lot to take in. As a writer, tarot is also one of Cassandra’s focuses, and she authored the newly released Queering the Tarot book from Weiser/Red Wheel Publishing. Cassandra’s tarot writing has been seen at Little Red Tarot, The Column, Take Your Pills and Northern Lights Witch among others.Don't feel obligated to read this book just because of what it promises--queer representation. It does not deliver. Because, in my opinion, the most valuable part of Queering the Tarot is the tools Snow offers for how to deconstruct and re-envision each tarot card. How to recognize that, whatever its origins, most of us learned tarot through a white, cisnormative, heteronormative, Christian-morality-heavy lens. Stepping outside of that framework can be difficult--but Snow is offering us the tools that can help us do it. In Queering The Tarot, Cassandra Snow deconstructs the meanings of the 78 cards explaining the ways in which each card might be interpreted against the norm. Queering The Tarot explores themes of sexuality, coming out, gender and gender-queering, sources of oppression and empowerment and many other topics especially familiar to not-straight folks. Cassandra's identity-based approach speaks directly to those whose identity is either up in the air or consuming the forefront of their consciousness. It also, speaks to those struggling with mental illness or the effects of trauma, all seekers looking for personal affirmation that who they are is okay.

In Queering the Tarot, Cassandra Snow opens up the world of tarot and makes it inclusive for the LGBTQ community and other marginalized folk. I think this may be one of the most important tarot books out today. It gives much needed representation and respect to a whole slice of the population that has been left out due to tarot’s tendency to focus on white, cisgender, heteronormative. Queering the Tarot is a wonderful book who’s time has come. It belongs on every serious tarot reader’s shelf." —Theresa Reed, author of The Tarot Coloring Book and co-author of Tarot For Troubled Times Let's get this out of the way now: unless this is the first tarot book you've ever read, you may have differing interpretations of certain cards than Snow does. But, of course, this is absolutely true of every tarot book you will ever read. KEEP READING ANYWAY. Why is tarot so popular? A huge part of the draw (get it?) is the beauty of the cards themselves: 78 little stories, each with multiple layers of meaning, that reveal stories about your life. If you’ve ever performed a reading or had someone read for you, you’re probably familiar with that eerie moment when the cards seem to know exactly what your problem is—and, like a gruff but loving aunt, they call you out on it! Many of us find tarot as we leave Christian supremacist ways of doing faith. This makes sense because tarot undermines dogmatic ways of seeing the world. Tarot asks us instead to see a web of connected symbols and archetypes guiding our lives. We see the archetypes in friends and enemies, in systems and relationships. I'm a queer and trans tarot reader who has been doing this a long time, and I really wanted to like this book more. Unfortunately there were simply too many interpretations of the cards that were offered as absolutes. "This is a bad card" or "This is a great card" are statements that simply can't apply to the practice when we look at tarot beyond a surface level.

DNF @ Swords (at 50%). I have better things to do with my life than force myself to read a poorly written depressing book that excludes and stereotypes so much. I think I'd be much less bothered if the author had said the book was more about their own experiences with tarot/being queer, rather than a book of "how to queer the tarot" for everyone in general. Like if they said this is a book of how they queer their tarot--I'd be more okay with it. But instead, it's marketed/written as how we should queer our tarot based on their experiences/rules. It read very much in a "my way or the highway," which is ironic, given how exclusive and at times, bigoted the author seemed to be. All of which is really off-putting. If you couldn't tell by this point in my review, haha. But not all queers are living in their shadow all of the time. We need to amplify queer joy as much as anything else. On the positive side, so many tarot books are cisheteronormative and this one gives a basic fill-in-the-gaps for beginner tarot readers or readers who want to learn how to provide non-cisheteronormative tarot readings. For example, the Ace of Wands can be viewed as a phallic symbol (not my style of interpretation, but it is for some) and the author makes a point to explain that a phallic symbol is not necessarily a sign of a man/masculinity. Not all people with penises are men, and many men don’t have penises. This can be helpful for readers who are new to trans-inclusivity. I still start this off by saying I was biased before reading this book. I had heard enough bad things about it that I had zero interest in it. But when enough people told me it was a valuable read despite those bad things, I decided to give it a shot. (Spoilers: it's awful.)

The most common keywords for the Six are progress, victory and triumph. When I hear the words victory and triumph though, I don't just think of the success or win that comes with them. These words bring battle, rough terrain, and hard-fought success to my mind, and that's important to note for this card. This isn't just a good thing happening--it's something you've fought long and hard for finally turning in your favor. It's triumph over adversity, specifically."I feel like the author takes her own experiences and generalizes them out to being "2SLGBTQ+ experiences" in general. There are a lot of "we..." statements in the book that, to me, don't reflect intersectionality and presume a very particular reader. For example, phrases like "in our society...” are utilized frequently and demonstrate a clear presumption that the reader is American. I felt like the whole book presumed an American reader in their 20s or 30s who lives in a bigger city – a rather narrow focus audience. This is vitally important because a lot of the cards' conventional interpretations simply don't work for queer querents (henceforth queerents) like they do for cishet folks. For instance, while a cishet person might see the Hierophant as a card of spiritual stability and community, a queerent's past experiences with the homophobia of many mainstream religious institutions might leave them bracing for abuse or even expulsion from someplace they've thought of as a safe haven. On the flip side, while a cishet querent (especially a white one) might balk at the chaos and destruction of the Tower, a queerent might gleefully welcome the chance to strike down discriminatory structures and build something new. Of course, this is also a fantastic book for tarot readers who are themselves LGBTQQIP2SAA, especially newer readers who are struggling to connect with the cis- and heteronormativity of mainstream interpretations. Snow takes the cards' conventional meanings and their own experiences and shows us that this magical tool absolutely is "for us."

Weighing in as a queer, nonbinary professional tarot reader with over 20 years of experience, some parts of this book really rubbed me the wrong way. I'm sorry, what?? This was rather jarring to read, and completely alienates, I'd assume, a good chunk of the audience pretty early on in the book. What of the ace community? What of those with sexual trauma? This felt really random and out of place here.

Bookstore

When we allow a loosening of meaning, truth can shine through. Personal transformation can then enter. Queers know well that there is more than one way to tell the truth. Living the Tarot There are some truly wonderful points that I'm glad were put to print, but they were drowned out by what felt like a beginners interpretation of what some of these cards can offer. It specifically looks at the cards from through a queer lens, as well as a sex-positive, polyam- and kink-friendly one. It doesn't shy away from discussing sexual or polyam themes, and that's fantastic. In addition, while there are caveats not to ever, ever assume or make concrete calls on a seeker's gender identity or sexuality - and rightly so! - there are also interpretations for readings that are about a seeker who's exploring or asking about those aspects of their life. "This card frequently appears when..." and "often this can indicate..." are a couple of the phrases used to point those things out. Again, nothing concrete or "this is how it is, all the time, no exceptions" because let's face it, humans don't do that and neither do the cards, just layers of interpretation that can help a reader to assist the person they're reading for.