#nonbinarynovembertarotchallenge

Shuffle your deck. Draw three cards and interpret them as your current relationship to gender. Where is there conflict? Where is there revelry?

Relationship to Gender (Chariot): Without realizing it, I’ve been going through life with a pretty binary view of my own gender. (A person driving a cart pulled by a black and white horse, who is looking at where they’re going instead of at the horses that are pulling them.) I have a lot of friends who are trans/nonbinary, but I’ve assumed that if I wasn’t having a gender crisis, my place in the conversation was to be ally who listens and tries to be supportive while staying out of the conversation as much as possible. I thought: If I’m not having a crisis, I must be appropriating the trans/nonbinary conversation by talking about my own relationship with gender. Lately, I’ve been reexamining parts of my identity that I’ve taken for granted. In the process, I’ve realized that it is very possible for aspects of yourself to go unexpressed for a very long time without making a lot of noise about it. I think it’s time to spend some time musing on those horses.

Conflict (9 of Cups): The thing that sticks out to me about this card is how ambiguous the gender of the character is. I was musing this morning on ways that I’ve expressed my gender over the years, and I remembered a haircut that I had between 2014 and 2016 that was a little bit like the person in this picture. I wore my hair that way because I wanted something in my presentation that wasn’t feminine, but I struggled because I didn’t want to be more masculine. I didn’t have a word for what I wanted to project. At the time, I called it “queer,” but I was never happy with that term. After a couple of years of wrestling with it and eventually realizing that my sexual orientation wasn’t as queer as I thought, I gave up and let my hair grow out. 

Celebration (King of Cups): When I look at this card, the first thing I notice is the king’s beard. Do something suitably hipster with his hair, and put him in a flannel shirt, and you have a perfect picture of The Progressive Portland Lumberjack Guy Who Swipes Right On My Tinder Profile archetype. There is something in my gender identity that isn’t feminine, but I don’t see it as making me less feminine. It’s like I am very feminine and have something else, and I love to perform the feminine side of the heterosexual masculine/feminine dance with people who understand that it’s a performance. 

I’m psyched to do @hillbillyoracle‘s NonBinary November Tarot Challenge again this year! 

Last year, I used ‘The New Tarot’, a deck printed in the mid-1970s, and it was my very first Tarot deck. Its images are all high-contrast black&white artwork, and all human/humanoid figures in it are for the most part, very, very gendered.

This year, I’m going to use ‘The Numinous Tarot’, a deck printed in 2018, and my latest acquisition. It is very, very deliberately not gendered, and the art is in vibrant color.

On the altar above, the card shown is V The Visionary, which is what came up after my first thorough shuffling on the question of how the deck feels about working with me this month on this challenge. Among the key words for this card, which is the Hierophant renamed, are truth-seeking, self-determination, and spirituality. I think we’re going to have a fine time together, and I expect I will learn a lot about myself and my relationship to gender in the process.

Also above, I must confess that the other day when I reblogged the gorgeous green isopod by @itsthebeastpeddler, I did so immediately after buying her. I couldn’t believe she was still in the shop when I got there! Her name is Sebastian and she’s going to follow along with me for this.

I pulled the first two cards and instantly understood.

Darkstripe is pictured when he tries to lead Sorrelkit astray and kill her. I think that’s referring to how I was raised a strict conservative Catholic and was led to believe (and my dad still pushes) I can only be a woman.

Fireheart represents that I have been strong and brave and going through a personal journey. It isn’t always easy but I am following my heart and it will be for the best.

Friday November 2nd – The Two Genders

Shuffle your deck. Turn your deck over and look for the Fool. The card on the left of the Fool represents your relationship to femininity and the card on the right represents your relationship to masculinity.

Since I’m trying to learn my oracle cards a bit better, I chose the “align your life” card as the fool. Unsure how this will play out but here goes.

I’ll start with the tarot cards because I feel it’s going to be more accurate.

I love the fool card so much in this deck. Anyway, both the cards beside the fool have the ability to cut and make you bleed. Sometimes the idea of gender applied to myself hurts, but sometimes it doesn’t. I believe yesterday had the coins suit show up in the feminine spot, which still would lead to that being a costume for me. I purchase the parts and apply them as society dictates. 

I’ve always related to the swords suit the most. While I love wands for their creativity, and I do relate there, I apply everything with logic and distance from emotions. I’m going to scrap the usual meaning of that card and just take it to mean masculine is where I exist to some degree.

Onto the oracle cards

Saturday November 10th – Childhood

Shuffle your deck and find the Six of Cups. The card to the left is what baggage you still need to unpack and the one on the right is how to heal it; this is in relation to gender.

My cards:

Left- Temperance: Moderation, Hope, Reconciliation

Right- The Moon (Reversed): A failure of nerve

Interpretation:

Nonbinary November Tarot Challenge: Day 1