Every once in the while I like to tell a story about a client (in this case two clients) and their reading.
L. has been my client for several years. Mid-forties, married with two young children, L. is a high functioning, articulate, bi-lingual Canadian, Gemini.
Three years ago, L. decided to move. He changed countries in Europe a couple of times, moved back to Canada (Toronto) and now lives in Quebec. Another move is immanent. His woes have left him suffering PTSD. For too many reasons to list, his life has been frustrating, frightening and ill-fated. We’ve all been there. A never-ending, uphill battle. Rather like Sisyphus and the boulder.
On October 30th (the AM of Devil’s night), he asked me to tell him some good news. “Something good is coming finally, PLEASE”, he lamented.
I turned over the Devil card (expletive).
Just as I was about to sing him the comforting song about how the Devil card doesn’t signal disaster, we were disconnected. This happened not once but twice. Cut off in mid-sentence. No explanation about why this happened or that it had even happened. Our calls just ended at that moment when I was opening my mouth to sooth and assure. I sighed. L. is not out of the dark yet and clearly (I felt) I was not going to be permitted to soften the blow.
Immediately on the heels of this reading with L., I met with a man in his ‘70’s. He had enjoyed a good life until, inexplicably, after 30 years of working for a company he genuinely liked and respected, he was fired. A man of fortitude and positivity and resistant to notions of retirement, he sailed off and found another job. A great job. One he loved every bit as much.
A few months into his new job, the old company, the ones who had unceremoniously dumped him, launched a law suit against him, his new company and his son (who was also working for the same new company).
Relentless, like going after a “mosquito with a baseball bat” as he described it, they were gunning for him. After spending $100,000 on a legal defence, he was no where near the end of the nightmare. Very likely he would be utterly ruined financially by the end of this arduous road. His wife had seemingly overnight (undoubtedly due to the stress) started exhibiting signs of dementia and a serious heart condition.
I sighed as I turned over the Devil card
A different deck, for a different client. Just as I was about to sing my comforting song again, a VERY loud buzz saw started up right outside my office window. I looked at him helplessly realizing I would have to scream to be heard above the din. Sitting together a full 5 minutes until the racket stopped, he had plenty of time to contemplate that Devil card before him. He looked at me with very sad eyes and said, “I guess things aren’t going to go great for me, are they?”
In both cases I was muzzled at just that moment when a positive reframing was so desperately needed. I pondered these two readings in a row and their similarities. They were both destined not to hear how the Devil card wasn’t that bad.
I first met the Devil card the night before Halloween 1974 (yes another Devil’s night!) when a few of us (women) gathered around a candle-lit table to play with my new Tarot deck. I turned over the Death card, the Tower and finally the Devil card. Yelping and scrambling for the lights in a blind panic, we decided to discuss this matter under the safe reassurance of bright lights. What kind of day had we all had? Who had we met in the last week that’s creepy? It led to a lively discussion, taking us down an exploratory path we would never have wandered without the trigger of the Devil.
The Devil’s card and night corresponds with the fall harvest. Eat, drink and be merry because soon winter will be upon us. We’ll be happy to savour those luscious memories as we bite into a bit of dried meat we’d smoked and saved. The Devil is about being in the moment, indulgence, material/physical pleasure and laughing until you’re gasping for breath. That’s when things are going well.
On the shadow side, the Devil is about entrapment, addiction, over indulgence
and being stuck in a negative loop that you don’t know how to get out of or break. It’s about loving that meal, sexual encounter, easy money so much you’d sacrifice everything that has heart and meaning in your life to taste it again…and again…and again. The Devil teaches us to be circumspect even when abundance is in great supply, to be disciplined in our indulgences, to savour yet save and not to be fooled into believing that anything comes easy. Everything exacts a price.
We might imagine that we live in a time when addiction proliferates more than at any other time in our her/history but I’m doubtful.
I think humans have always struggled with addictions and entrapment. We’ve always been vulnerable to loving our pleasures a little too much which is why all the spiritual teachings throughout the ages include a narrative about them. And, why a spiritual perspective has always been its best cure. Perhaps its only one.
The spiritual vision elevates our perspective. It’s grander. It’s the long view. It helps us to see behind to the epochs of our ancestors and the ones of our descendants to come. It shifts our focus off ourselves if only for a short while. This can be surprisingly freeing. Life can be so damn painful, it’s pleasant to focus on something and someone else for a change. Especially when all we can see of ourselves at this moment is our misery.
Carl Jung spoke of addiction as a spiritual problem and in this I believe he was right. If you notice you are addicted to something (and I’ve yet to meet one single person who isn’t!), ponder what it is you’re REALLY wish you were reaching for when you reach for the object of your desire. The question the Devil asks, “What are you prepared to sacrifice to have more of this than you need?” Because sacrifice you will. Whether you’re aware of it now or not.
The Devil card points to entrapment.
A trap we have set for ourselves with our material desires. An addiction that we hate but are powerless to resist. A job that pays us well, but one we despise. An unhealthy relationship that we sustain because the financial cost of breaking up is too high. An escalating debt that forces us to work every minute we’re awake.
It dawned on me that the Devil card was challenging me most of all. How hard it is to ask someone how their attachment to the material plane is the root of their problems? How had their over-attachment to the corporeal blinded them to the risks they were taking that would end up costing them everything?
The Devil demands we ask these tough questions of ourselves and others sometimes too. The “Light Bringer” wasn’t given this moniker for nothing.
If you want to purchase this beautiful deck CLICK HERE The Image of the Devil Card is from The Alchemical Tarot by Robert Place