AUTHOR’S NOTE: Last night I was watching a documentary by and about Scottish comedian, actor and musician Billy Connelly (there are apparently several but this two-part series on Prime was filmed in 2018-19), and he made a point that “resonated” with me (not an expression I like much but it seems to be in vogue among tarot readers): his dedication to finding “just the right words to say something” (even if his words of choice often began with “f” and ended with “”k”).

I don’t know why I never explored his work until recently; as a big fan of (admittedly more polished) Monty Python I certainly should have, but perhaps I unknowingly lumped him in with the likes of peculiar British comedy acts Spike Milligan (who was Irish), Benny Hill or The Two Ronnies, and nothing could be further from the truth. He also seems to have turned into a philosopher of sorts now that he can no longer perform his brand of physical and verbal comedy due to age and Parkinson’s Disease. My own style of humor tends to be more subtle, but his attitude toward words reveals him to be a kindred spirit.

The tarot reader trades in words. As story-tellers we’re working with a “revealed” narrative that differs from fiction only in that we purport it to be true. But, at the same time, as professionals we’re dealing with another person whose mental well-being may be in a fragile state of emotional disrepair, so we must typically tread lightly. I’ve written on this subject a few times in the past, mainly on the question of how honest we should be in delivering unhappy tidings, with the upshot being that kindness must always trump literal content without sugar-coating it.

Here I’m offering a broader point-of-view: the judicious application of language to the cause (as frequently stated by “Tricky Dick” Nixon in a political context), of “making ourselves perfectly clear.” Intuitive flights of imagination arising from our visual impression of the images on the cards are all well-and-good, but they must still be turned into definitive words before they will have meaning for the seeker.

Given the upsurge of popularity in reading the tarot cards among younger people, I’m not convinced that those who venture into it always have the vocabulary to do it justice, although it’s probably fair to say that the individuals for whom they’re reading fare no better in that regard, so nothing is lost in the translation. Those of us who got into the practice of tarot via our exposure to parallel systems like psychological astrology are well-versed in the rarefied terms that speak to the psyche, but not everyone takes that path in reading the cards. Many are interested in outright fortune-telling rather than aiding themselves and others with insights about personal betterment.

But apart from our purpose in doing readings, there is a certain elegance in choosing the perfect words to tell the story, and I often dig deeply into my inventory to find them. This digression sometimes makes for a pause in my presentation while I search my memory, but it is usually worth it to come up with an exact match. My goal is to communicate as precisely as possible, so I tolerate no vagueness in my pronouncements.

On the other hand, there is the notion that we will occasionally come up short in this pursuit, so we should just keep on talking until something more appropriate to the situation strikes us. It becomes a question of which is worse, the credibility lost in staring at the sitter for a prolonged period of time with nothing useful to say, or the babble of “filler” material that dilutes the clarity and value of our offering.

In this sense, although my personal (and quite unpopular) opinion is that it is highly suspect in its legitimacy, the performance of remote divination resulting in written output delivered by email or text allows all the time we need to get it right. There are acceptable ways to make it work, but I’m not enamored of it even though it lends itself to diligent word-smithing. I much prefer thinking on my feet in a “live” setting.