The American Renaissance Tarot Discussion Group
I’ve wanted to stage a deep dive into the deck I created with artist Celeste Pille for many years, and the upcoming presidential election has given me the perfect inspiration. The American Renaissance Tarot was originally published in November of 2021, during Joe Biden’s presidency, and it felt like we could all take a breath after the constant grief of the Trump years. But now that the stakes are raised up so high again, and the idea of what we want America to be is all over the public discourse, it seemed like the right time to stage a meditation on some core issues (and conflicts) at the nation’s heart.
Here are the basics: this will be a six-week course taught over Zoom from 10-12 Pacific time. We will start on September 22nd and continue through the last Sunday in October. The format is lecture/ discussion. I’ll spend the first hour going over cards in the deck that align with a particular theme (e.g. “freedom,” “equality”). The second hour will involve some journaling and guided meditations. The intent of the course is to help put you in touch with your own beliefs and ideals around a particular political issue - sexuality, for example, or women’s rights. The total cost for the course is $125, with the understanding that you already own the American Renaissance Tarot, which retails for $35. My ideal number of participants is 10-20 people.
I’ll be honest with you folks - I’m staging this class partly to help contain our election anxiety! It’s been a roller coaster so far, and I can’t imagine what other surprises are in store as the fighting heats up. I also want to be totally transparent: I’m a liberal and am planning to vote for Kamala Harris. Teaching this class feels risky to me, because strong emotions are involved when it comes to our political beliefs. I remember when a student asked me to discuss Donald Trump’s natal chart in my normal empathetic style and I completely choked, and growled out that I couldn’t be objective. It was a big fail for me as an astrologer. So I won’t pretend that “all perspectives are welcome” if I don’t believe I can live up to that promise.
If you’re a Democrat or anything to the left of that, I can say confidently that you’ll feel welcome in the class. Typically my students are a socially conscious or “woke” bunch, with a high tolerance for other points of view and the political differences that flow from age, gender, sexual orientation, racial background, etc. Another guarantee I can make is that we won’t all agree, and we won’t solve America’s hot-button issues in a Tarot class. We’re not even going to try. Again, the goal is for you to get clarity around your own engagement with all the airy, abstract political concepts flying around, so that you’ll be grounded in your own truth, regardless of the outcome of the election in November.
Here’s the rough outline of our six themes:
September 22: VISION. I’m using the term “vision,” but what that idea translates to in America’s early period is whiteness. Many 19th century Americans believed that an ancient white race inhabited North America, a belief which served their entitlement in colonizing a land that was already occupied by indigenous people. We’ll look at the cards that deal with that concept (The Fool, Death, the Pioneer of Wands), and then focus on the Wands cards. Melville’s epic Moby-Dick is told in that suit, and it’s possible to read the mad quest for the white whale as a critique of our flawed American vision (spoiler alert - the ship sinks and everybody dies). In the second hour we’ll focus on generating a positive vision for the America we want to inhibit.
September 29: OPPRESSION. In this meeting we’ll grapple with the Devil, which in the American Renaissance Tarot is racism. Racism is thick in our nation’s history and we can’t ignore it. We’ll go through the Coins suit and the various types of oppression described by 19th century African-American writers. I got a lot of flack for centering racism as a theme in a Tarot deck. It’s not “spiritual,” right? But for many Americans, it’s an everyday reality; for other Americans, it’s an area where they need to grow in consciousness. In the second hour, we’ll consider what the opposite of racial oppression is, and imagine how a nation might un-oppress its people.
October 6: WOMEN’S RIGHTS. Could you have predicted the current attack on women’s rights by the Christian Right? Unfortunately, I did. Women’s rights are a new and fragile idea in the long history of humanity. We’ll look at various 19th century takes on women’s rights by white women (the Empress and Temperance) and then consider the perspective of the formerly enslaved writer, Harriet Jacobs, via the Nine of Coins. Many women in this period sacrificed their need for partnership for the greater prize of personal autonomy. In the second hour, we’ll consider how far (or not) we’ve come since the 1848 women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, and then craft a vision for the ideal role of government in women’s lives.
October 13: SEXUALITY. Am I shocked that gay rights and trans rights are such a hot-button issue in the 2024 presidential election? Again - sadly no. In this meeting we’ll look at how the Queer writers, Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson, and Margaret Fuller, navigated their sexual expression in the 19th century. We’ll explore “free love” in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Blithedale Romance, which is depicted on the Three of Cups. Interestingly, Queer American writers largely evaded the public shaming experienced by their later British contemporary, Oscar Wilde. Was Queer identity somehow safer when it was less defined? In the second hour, we’ll visualize an America that supports the full expression and safety of its LGBTQ+ citizens
October 20: EQUALITY. Most Americans know that “equality” was a flawed concept from the start; Thomas Jefferson was the author of the Declaration of Independence and the originator of the idea that “all men are created equal,” but he was also a slave-owner. In the 19th century, movements for spiritual and emotional equality preceded the passage of amendments for making American “equality” more inclusive. We’ll look at the Spiritualist movement and its democracy of souls (the Moon card), as well as the mystical Cups suit. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s runaway bestseller, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, is told in the Cups cards, and her focus was on erasing the social prejudice that dehumanized Black Americans. In many ways, Stowe’s approach mirrors our current turn to “inner work” for addressing issues like white privilege. In the second hour we’ll meditate on what a truly equal society might look like.
October 27: FREEDOM. The American Renaissance Tarot tells the story of abolition and the fight to free America’s enslaved people. Though this was an epic battle, a controversy that raged within the heart of the nation from its very founding, the freeing of the slaves did relatively little to better the condition of African-Americans. The concept of “freedom” gained a lot of lip service following the Civil War, while new oppressive systems were being put in place to prevent people of color from full participation in American society. We’ll explore intellectual freedom (the Hermit/ Thoreau) and religious freedom (The Star/ Channing), as well as Harriet Jacobs’ ambivalent attitude toward her free status (the Sun card). In the second hour we’ll each arrive at an individual definition of “freedom” that reflects our political philosophy and ideals.
The American Renaissance Tarot takes inspiration from the rebels, abolitionists, and social justice advocates in our nation’s history, to fire us up about the possibility for progressive change. Our great poets, novelists, and prophets penned visions of America which still grip us today. America’s future won’t be made up out of whole cloth, but rather involve heavy negotiations with our nation’s messy history and entrenched ideals. If you are open to playing in the mythic realm, and mashing up the past to find the thread of the future, this class is for you! Reserve your spot by making payment at the PayPal link at the top of the page.
