How do we cope with reversals? If
you’re a beginner, as I was back in 1969, you probably have enough
on your hands just getting to grips with 78 cards, never mind what
they might be doing in different positions.
The Wildwood Tarot doesn’t
list reversed meanings in the book, mostly because neither Mark nor
John personally use them because they are visual readers who like an
upright image to read with. But this doesn’t mean to say that you can’t
use them.
If you look at tarot books the world
over, you will find that different writers give different kinds of
reversals. This is a big variable in tarot, mostly because
individual readers have learned their own method of reversal rather
than slavishly following someone’s method. Before you pull faces
at this variance, look at it this way: it means you are free
to decide how to gauge reversals for yourself.
If you are used to reading reversals
you will have your own methods already established, but you will have
already discovered that there are degrees of difference as to how to
read them. While XIII Death/ XIII The Journey reversed can mean
‘escape from death’ it could also have the connotation of ‘a
living death,’ for example.
Have you wished that you could go along to the forthcoming Wildwood Tarot seminar/workshop in Atlanta? Learn about the deck, directly from its creators, Mark Ryan and John Matthews?
