Speaking in Signs

Symbols, spreads, telepathy, and the things that need no words

Apr 20, 2025

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Run, Tarot, Run

When the world feels big and scary my immediate instinct is to run and hide—in my apartment, my head, or even inside my own tarot practice.

A man with long brown hair and a long beard wearing a maroon baseball cap that says “bubba Gump” stands on a long highway road surrounded by arid terrain with scrub bushes and plateaus in the distance. Behind him are a group of 50 or so people waiting to see what he’ll do next. — Tom Hanks as Forrest Gump in *Forrest Gump*

Though I’ve covered many miles doing mental loops with the cast of anxieties in my mind, eventually I always realize the only way to live is by putting my feet on real-world pavement.

Our tarot practices can fall prey to the same sheltered loops. Maybe we start taking the tarot a bit too seriously. Maybe we ignore it for fear of bumping into an emotional challenge or behavioral mirror. Maybe we harp on making the “right” interpretation instead of the intuitive one.

This shut-in behavior is the shadow side of our card of the year, the Hermit.

A man with a five o’clock shadow and a crazed grin that bears all his teeth shoves his face in a hole that was hacked in a white wood door. — Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance in *The Shining*

Though it’s nice to believe we can build protected worlds that aren’t impacted by other people, things, or events, the healthy Hermit knows the difference between solitude and isolation. A life sequestered in isolation is a like seed trying to live without soil. Isolation cuts us off from the context in which we exist. And context, dear friends, is everything.

No Spread for You!

An angry looking man with a thick brown mustache in a chefs clothing stands behind a counter. He holds one finger up as if admonishing the people on the other side of the counter. The text on the photograph reads “No spread for you!” — *Seinfeld’s* No Soup for You guy. Deeply problematic, but we’re reclaiming!

In tarot, the practice of assigning meaning to card positions is called a “spread.” Spreads teach us how to read contextually. Common ones include:

Past - Present - Future
Head - Heart - Spirit
Situation - Action - Outcome
Or the ever popular Celtic Cross

When we start reading tarot, these pre-fab spreads can be extremely supportive. Similar to the pre-fab life paths we’re served at birth like school-work-retirement, or dating-marriage-baby, or idea-creation-monetization, spreads act as bumpers that guide us when we’re honing our skills and learning how to listen to ourselves.

But when we dabble in tarot for long enough, we realize certain cards speak to us across spreads, decks, and seasons. Ones that land with an extra bit of oomph when they hit the table. When we push aside the tarot spreads, lower the bumpers, and let intuition lead, we see tarot (and like, life) isn’t a pre-scripted narrative but a conversation. Each subsequent pull or experience adds a unique voice that shapes the story. What would happen if we let ourselves be surprised?

Here are some examples of this conversation in action:

All alone the Three of Swords spells heartbreak. But Three of Swords followed by the happiness of the Sun gives “Since You’ve Been Gone” energy.

A woman sings into a mic on a dark stage — Kelly Clarkson belting “Since You’ve Been Gone”

The Lovers could signal a new partnership. But when the Lovers meets up with the High Priestess and the Moon? The person you may be romancing is yourself.

Queen of Pentacles could signal self care when paired with Nine of Pentacles or community care when aired with the Ten.

This month let’s break out of the pre-fab notions of how we should engage with tarot. Instead of picking up our decks, how can we pick up on a conversation that transcends the four-cornered boundaries of a card?

A rider Waite tarot deck is pasted over the body of a woman is being lifted over the head of a man in a dance move. A captive audience watches them. — Tarot after spending a summer with the ever-hunk Patrick Swayze in *Dirty Dancing*

The challenge: Let your world speak to you in tarot.

When we look up from our decks we can find tarot symbology everywhere.

At the playground.

A sitting giant lion mural is painted on a building wall. The lion smiles as small people stand on the lion and are in front of it. — *Strength* Photo by ALTARU TAROT

On the street corner.

A wheat-paste image of a woman with a baseball cap, long cape covered in stars, and long black dress with a white sash around the waste stands on a small pulpit with the word “America” engraved on it’s front. A scull with the roman numeral 14 sits at her feed. In one hand she holds a pistol with a silencer, in the other she holds a cross. — *Temperance* Photo by ALTARU TAROT

In the shop window.

Painted on a shop window is a religious looking figure holding a staff atop a large tower of four layers. Three of the layers have figures standing inside them. — *The Hi*erophant Photo by ALTARU TAROT

On the subway platform.

A masked woman with a blue and white polkadot dress is part of a tiled mural. A large moon with a face rises behind her. There are animals surrounding her and two acrobatic figures in blue print leotards swinging toward the moon. — *The Moon* Photo by ALTARU TAROT

Enshrined in street murals.

A multi-colored, cubist mural of two people embracing is panted on the side of a brick building. Bushes peek into the bottom half of the frame. — *The Lovers* Photo by ALTARU TAROT

Inside your local watering hole.

In a dark room, a red neon light outline of to female figures touching tongues is on a wall. Below them are six round paper lanterns. — *Two of Cunts* Photo by ALTARU TAROT

If you look at the world as your tarot deck, what themes come through?

Are the Cups following your thirsty ass? Are the Nines driving you to your edge with their “almost but not quite yet” message? Maybe the Majors are spelling it out for you big archetype style.

I’ll be posting a note on Substack where you can respond with photos of what you find.

I Saw A Sign

No, not that kind of sign. But wait…maaaybe?

As you know, the tarot is fluent in symbolism and metaphor. Hermit work is learning to notice and interpret how the world speaks in much the same way.

Is an animal appearance ever just an animal?

Is that number combination truly random?

Is the word you keep seeing just a word?

To be honest, I have no idea. But what I do know is the world feels more connected and magical when we imbue it with creative meaning.

The book “Signs” sits against a blush pink background. A crystal orb sits next to it. — Image by Tricia Rose Stone

In her book Signs: The Secret Language of the Universe, psychic-medium (I know, hang in here with me for a second) Laura Lynne Jackson discusses how the universe (or god/dess, ancestors, higher self, etc.) is always communicating with us if we’re willing to listen. Jackson emphasizes that while some signs are more common—ladybugs, flickering lights, coins, repeating numbers, etc.—we all have the capacity to build our own symbolic language that lets us know we’re supported.

A series of symbols and signs including a the shadow of a green rafting tube, a lady bug on a four leaf clover, a street full of green stoplights, green birds on a line, a white arrow painted on the ground with green grass growing through it, a digital clock with the numbers 11:11 — A series of symbols and signs by various artists

This way of viewing the world made me think of how tarot can be just a deck cards or, if we let it, give us a rich vernacular to vocalize what words alone can’t always capture.

Being open to these signs is how the world will speak to you in tarot this month. So take off the headphones. Set down the cell. Sit with your surroundings.

Maybe the tarot speaks to you in snippets of other people’s conversations. The song playing at the grocery store. The name of that podcast episode. The book title in the window. Maybe it's the appearance of hearts, wands, coins, or swords. Maybe it's a color, an image, or a number.

What signs speak the loudest?

How do they sound?

When do they appear?

You Talkin’ to Me?

Speaking of non-traditional forms of communication, have you heard of The Telepathy Tapes? I’ve debated for months about whether or not to write about the podcast but it’s just too witchy to pass up.

Launched late 2024, the podcast quickly became Spotify’s most played, briefly bumping one that rhymes with Hoe Slogan from the number one spot.

Its main claim? Autistic children with limited to no verbal ability can telepathically communicate with their caretakers, teachers, and each other.

I’m not going to get into the how, why, or even the validity of this claim (though I encourage you to check out the pod and come to your own conclusions), but I do want to highlight a philosophical concept the podcast discusses at length: the materialist versus idealist paradigm.

There is a lot to say on the topic but basically:

Idealist = I think therefore I am

Materialist = I am therefore I think

A man and a woman stand beneath a metal statue of a naked man sitting on a rock with one fist under his chin, thinking about life. — Auguste Rodin’s *The Thinker* as portrayed in *Night at the Museum*

An idealist looks at the world from a mental standpoint, believing reality is fundamentally mental or spiritual in nature and that what we experience is a construct of our own minds, which is impacted by our beliefs and values.

A man with short dark hair and dark sunglasses holds up his right hand as hundreds of bullets fly toward him. The bullets are suspended in midair. Below him are the words “I think therefore I am” — Keanu Reeves as Neo in *The Matrix*

Materialists view the world from a, well, material standpoint believing the only thing that can be truly proven to exist is matter. This view means that all things, including consciousness, are a result of material things interacting with one another.

The Telepathy Tapes posits that the reason so many of us—including the scientific community—balk at the thought of studying something like telepathy, is because we’re stuck in a materialist paradigm where only that which can be measured can be real.

In materialist reality where the material alone doesn’t always make sense, what if we made room for the magic that cannot be measured? What conversations would we have? What reality would we find?

Signing Off

Some more idealist fodder to get you connected to the symbols and signs of the universe 🌀

The Telepathy Tapes as well as a rebuttal “Telepathy: Is it for real?” by Science Vs.
Laura Lynn Jackson and Jay Shetty chatting psychic abilities

ALTARU TAROT

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