From Toxic to Tarot

or how I learned cartomancy to spy on my ex

Even though it had been months since the breakup, even though the relationship itself had been embarrassingly short-lived, there was something about this one I just couldn’t get over. I’d never gone so crazy over someone, and though I tried my best to control the spiralling by painting obsessively, dynamiting my social life, and going on more Tinder dates than I can remember, I’d really lost it. I couldn’t stop spying on him. 

My OCD tends to flare up especially bad in my romantic relationships. There are many reasons for this, and they’re all best discussed in therapy. The fact is that this time, it manifested through the compulsion of obsessively watching his every move on social media. My life story would have been quite different, I bet, if he and his girlfriends had chosen to set their profiles on private. Alas. 

I didn’t want to spend countless, irretrievable hours on watching his life without me. As well as the OCD flare-up I was dealing with increasing and paralysing feelings of guilt over what felt like invading his privacy and what doubtless was a waste of my own time. Hadn’t I dumped this guy? Why couldn’t I let go?

I couldn’t stop, but I had to stop somehow. I completely forbade myself from looking at his social media, and for a while distracted myself with the prolific painting. Soon enough a painting a day did not quite cut it though, so I quickly found a loophole through which to check up on him while following my self-imposed rules: I began watching general Tarot readings by zodiac sign on YouTube.

In case you’ve never heard of or seen one of those, let me explain: there’s a considerable community of Tarot readers on YouTube who broadcast videos of themselves doing “general” readings, often categorizing the groups of strangers they’re reading for by zodiac signs. And so, every day, week or month they would upload new videos of readings for each star sign, and I’d watch my Libra’s every move while I painted my pictures. 

There was a whole process of trying to find readers that felt genuine, made sense, “resonated with” me.  The more I watched, however, the more quickly dissatisfied I felt with it all. It was too general, this person didn’t know me. The cards made vague sense, I could see how they could be strung together to make stories. But was clear I would have to learn to interpret them on my own.

I remembered an old Rider Waite deck I’d had in a drawer for years. When I was about nine or ten years old (one of the most troubling times of my life), a well-intentioned but out-of-touch aunt of mine gave me a Tarot deck. I had no idea what it was, and her explanation did not help clarify much in my child mind. They were cards, but you couldn’t really play any games with them, she said, and you have to learn what each of the 78 in the pack mean before you could actually use them. She wasn’t clear on how one could use them. I looked through the cards for a few seconds and then quickly lost interest until a decade and a half later and spent the rest of the trip unsuccessfully trying to believe in an imaginary friend. Little did I know those cards would become the closes thing to that, years later.

Somehow (and this is the part I consider magic), I didn’t lose that first pack of cards. Somehow they survived all my chaos, travels, and multiple changes of household. 

When the time came that I was fed up with YouTube readings my zodiac and jonesing for any update on my ex, I easily retrieved that old Rider Waite deck from its designated drawer, and drew an Ace of coins. Little did I know how perfect a first card that would be. I painted it.

That’s how I began to learn the cards —by painting them. I stopped watching general readings by zodiac sign, and instead, while I painted, would listen to Tarot podcasts and watch videos on the history and symbolism in the cards. The most difficult part was discerning the valuable content from the misinformation. 

I’m not a very spiritual person. My OCD and overactive imagination do lead me, and quite often, to magical thinking and believing in some far out things. But from the first moment I resented how most information and guidance I’d find on the Tarot required me to subscribe to a spiritual belief system that felt like it had been created for social media. I don’t easily subscribe to spiritual belief systems anyway, I’ve always preferred to bric-a-brac my own.

It’s not that I think spirituality is bad, and it’s not like I haven’t dabbled in witchiness, magick, and spell-casting (many a story for another time). But secular Tarot brings it to a whole new level of fun and mind games, and to me it felt more inclusive. Anyone can bring their spirituality into what they do, whatever they are doing. It doesn’t have to be the backbone of the practice. Even early on in my learning process, I saw in the cards a fantastic tool for all my creative endeavours, a constant source of inspiration, a hilarious and creepy party trick, a weird/fun flex, a never-ending learning process. None of this requires me to believe Spirit speaks through the cards, or try to summon my ancestors, or start talking about the Divine Feminine and my ascension to 5D. 

Like I said, I dabbled. For a hot minute, I did believe I was in telepathic communication with my Libra (and I still do believe that sometimes, as it has its use), just in another dimension. He wouldn’t know about it. The Tarot told me I was obsessing. It told me he had a new girlfriend. It told me he was having a great time.

Needless to say, spying on my ex with the cards got old pretty quickly. Not because I became enlightened—not yet, anyway. Not with that word. I just couldn’t stand learning that he was fine. As I couldn’t stand the nomenclature associated with the new-age spirituality surrounding the cards almost everywhere I searched for more information. Was sage really necessary? What about astrology? I was going to scream if I heard the word “Libra” one more time. I needed better sources. 

It was in this endeavour I discovered the world of facebook Tarot groups —and believe me, it is a whole world. And a greatly mixed bag. I’ve met so many people. In this vast sea of memes, repetitive questions, superstitious propaganda and shameless self-promotion, I found the best Tarot readers I know. I found friends and mentors, strangers on whom to practice, a seemingly endless source of ideas, information, and layouts. I also found my motivations for learning the Tarot to be embarrassing. I hid my Libra in a closet. My own toxic behaviours had shown through the cards with perfect clarity. So I found new motivations. 

I practiced on friends, dates, family, online strangers, fictional characters, poetry, novels, music. The possibilities are endless. I love Tarot most as a tool for inspiring or analyzing art, but I have come full circle— spying on other people’s exes.

Chill out, that’s a joke. Or, at least, a broad use of the word “spying”.  I have come full circle by helping others figure out how to improve their own toxic behaviours and how to, finally, get over their own damned Libra.