Wonder & radical inquiry are at the heart of my divination practice. By ritualizing curiosity through tarot, we attend & attune to the mysterious veil of connectedness that holds & permeates each aspect of the collective. Rather than predicting future events, prescribing advice, or gesturing toward certainty, my tarot readings intend toward narrative nuance, imagistic complication, & embodied relationship in the present.

I began to study tarot with my former partner in 2019, during a period of pronounced uncertainty in the final year of my graduate program, at the threshold of layered personal & societal change beyond any imagining I could have conjured at the time. Through the cascading social reconfigurations catalyzed by the onset of the ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, I cultivated a relationship with tarot divination as a way to access my suppressed sub- & supra-conscious senses. Tarot helps me reach beyond the hyper-intellectualized, individualistic inculturation of my upbringing in the imperial core, connecting me with ancestry & animalhood I’ve been estranged from by empire.

The arcana of the tarot are composed from symbolic motifs commonly referred to as archetypes. Driven by anarchist influences & mad etymological curiosity, I traced the lineage of the word archetype to earlier roots which together I interpret as a ruling strike, or first blow. Wishing for tenderer spiritual guidance, I’ve come to refer to the symbolic language of the arcana instead as paratypes, substituting the prefix arch- for per-, a root meaning “forward,” and, by extension, “in front of, before… toward, near, against.” A paratype, then, is a forward thrust, a near strike. This lexical shift, for me, reorients my relationship to the arcana, turning them from authorities to abide into forebears to honor alongside personal autonomy. Paratypal inquiry is a desire for forward movement aided by closeness with earlier spiritual forces. These spirits do not claim omniscience, infallibility, purity, or originality—they offer their wisdom as touchpoints along the ageless path of deep longing, sites for reflection, resistance, & liberation.