SPEAKER_02 0:00

I'm Alejandra Rusi, and this is the Rusi Hive. Conversations with people who treat their work and life as a creative practice. Today, we rendezvous with Letitia Barbier, who treats tarot as a pocketable museum, not fortune telling, but a creative language for making meaning. From her first childhood deck to thinking of museums as surrogate churches, she shows how archetypal images rearrange into the truth of the moment, expect art history, play, intimacy, and a little dose of trouble-making snake energy. This podcast is presented by Rico Moresca. Thank you for joining me, Letitia Barbier. Well, thank you so much for inviting me. Welcome to the Rusi Hive podcast. I am thrilled to have you here finally.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

Well, I will just say this. I'm happy to be back at Rico Moresca. It's very, very exciting to be able to catch the show and also do this with you.

SPEAKER_02 0:57

Wonderful. So I want to start by saying that I am not someone who knows tarot well at all. I am fascinated by the richness of the imagery and the complexity of the inner workings, but I really come to it with a wide open mind and um kind of a curious ignorance, so to speak. Because this is a podcast about creativity, I'm interested in tarot less as divination and more as a creative tool, as a symbolic language that can help us think, make sense of the world, navigate the cycles of life and creation, really. And from what I've read, that really resonates with the way you uh approach it. Yes. Yes. Yes. So through that lens, I have something that I call a hive card here. And it's a little text that I wrote about you. And it's um supposed to work as a kind of the opening to the conversation. Let's do that. Okay. Letitia moves in the threshold where curiosity becomes courage, where imagination chooses form. She works in the space before naming, where images speak in feeling before language arrives. The card becomes a mirror, the mirror becomes a doorway. She reminds us that meaning is not found. It is created in the moment we begin to look. My heart is melting. This is so poetic.

SPEAKER_00 2:27

I love this. It's just a sound. Well, it's just it's it's for someone who has uh what was your term? Like uh like a curious ignorance. I think you just like nailed it in a very, very uh beautiful way, bullseye.

SPEAKER_02 2:42

Wonderful. Bullseye, yeah, beautiful. You wrote that you had your first tarot epiphany at age 11.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

Uh I was able to take the bus with my uh friends, and uh on the way to the bus station there was this tobacconist. Uh and they it was like this kind of old-timey tobacconist who sold, you know, cigars, cigarettes, but also games, chess boards, and very lavish stuff too, you know, like like carved in wood or like really beautiful stuff. And in the in the window, uh they had a a card deck, and it was like this little box uh with the um the fool on it. And I remember seeing that um that box and that card, and it's like this, those are the cards that the man on the radio used to read. And so I asked my mom uh to purchase them for me for my birthday, I think. And I I just I started to read with them. And uh, I was not very good, obviously. I was um, you know, like an 11-year-old, like glued to the little book and trying to make sense of that that card game that looked so ancient. And you know, the Tarot de Marseille uh in France, the cards have been redesigned, but they used to be uh wood block prints. So they have this very kind of crude, timeless, archaic feel to them. And so for me, it was just like you know, it was this just very endless, endless um the vortex of I don't know, connect connection. And uh and that's how it started.

SPEAKER_02 4:12

So why do you say you weren't very good at it? Because you were just kind of playing with them, just looking at the images.

SPEAKER_00 4:19

Well, you know, like I was I was a teen, so like most of the reading that I was uh giving to my friends during recess were love readings. You know, am I gonna care, you know, do you think like uh Jonathan is gonna ask me for a date? Like, you know, like the death card, the judgment. Well, what do what does that mean? I was not really understanding, you know, like the the way it works, and that came really later. It came, you know, when I when I was in my 20s, I went to university. I have um a background in artistry, and so I was really interested in religious painting in the first place and religious painting at large, but really with the idea that I was trying to understand how we can imagine pictures being you know a vessel for uh sacred experiences. And uh, and so like it took me, you know, like obviously like years of like reading about you know like religious painting, esoterica, uh, and all sorts of other uh oblique domain to be uh able to understand that those images, the reason they were interpreted um this way uh is because they were supposed to have this very charged architecture meaning within them. And uh and then you know, like it's just like things got a little uh, you know, like life got very twisty and turny. I lived in Germany for a while. I always used tarot for my spiritual practice because I I do, you know, have a special, special connection with art and and art the arts experience as a spiritual experience. And uh they always were part of my very private spiritual practice. And then uh once I went to see a medium and she told me, Oh, you're you should read card, that's your job. And I was like, Oh, that sounds interesting. And uh I told that to my friends, and they were like, Oh, that's you have the look, that's cool. And uh and I didn't really took that seriously, and then six months later I had a card reading. Um, and uh the guitar reader who I did a new and did told me the same thing. It's very interesting, it just kind of landed. It's almost like I I forgot that I spoke that language, the language of the card. And it's just like I never had to relearn it, or it's just like suddenly I just managed to kind of like find back that language almost like if it was a mother tongue that I'd forgotten.

SPEAKER_02 6:28

Yeah. So that's um that's how it started. So here you are now, but if you were to describe to me um kind of the arc of your life in a few vivid brush strokes, so Paris, Berlin, New York, yeah, how would you paint it?

SPEAKER_00 6:43

So this is this is a very interesting uh I will paint it in very bright colors. I think uh if it probably will not be just a painting, I think it will be like a multi-sensory experience. I like the idea that the painting could be like tarot cards, very small, uh, so they would be transportable. I think it will, you know, it will be like one of the it will be like one of those like uh or vacuumy uh type of painting when there is a lot of details and a lot of vignettes. And a little bit uh one of one of the reasons uh I ended up landing in New York is because I was working on uh an artist named Joe Coleman. Uh who's um uh an incredible painter, and I think that the that painting, the painting of my life, I would love for it to aspire for it. I would love for it to look like a Joe Coleman painting with like so many, you know, like little vignettes and text and and reference. And and when you look at some of his painting, he dedicated some part of his work to musician, with like you have like some lyrics and so like yeah, like some kind of a multi multimedia, multi-sensor experience. That will be my that will be my guess.

SPEAKER_02 7:54

So the first time that I corresponded with you, I was captivated by your alias.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 8:00

Letitia ante delictum, which is uh in your email, yeah, right? Ante delictum literally translates from Latin to before the crime or before the offense. Yeah. Uh, but what I think it means symbolically is before the fall. Yeah. This can mean a few different things. Uh, what does before the fall mean to you?

SPEAKER_00 8:23

Well, first is that my my my first name, Letitia, means joy in Latin. So technically it's joy before the crime or joy before the uh the fall. Thomas de Quincy made um uh uh wrote a book called The Joy and Crime or something like that. And I thought it was uh was such an interesting uh I I used to enjoy, you know, like uh a lot of um subterranean uh I guess in in English you'd say interlope. Is interlope still a word? I enjoy uh subterranean underground interlope uh lifestyles and people who somehow have like a double identity, or that's something I've always uh thought was interesting. And so like the idea of joy before crime, I think it was just like something linked to that, the idea of um having a an inner reality that doesn't necessarily reflect the outer reality. This is something that I also find very privileged uh in my lifetime. You know, I read cards for a living. Uh reading cards for a living in New York until very recently was uh illegal. It was an illegal practice, uh very much like prostitution. Really? Yeah. I had no idea. Well, there I have a I have a good friend, Mary, uh, who wrote an incredible book on um uh late 19th century uh fortune tellers in the Lower East Side. And they were like they were just women who were basically kind of like rejecting marriage or sometimes who had marriage and then men were horrible to them. And so they took uh fortune telling as a job because that's something very much like prostitution that women were able to do uh and be independently um stable financially. And I just I like that. I like the idea of you know, like when when you say at a dinner party you're a tarot reader, people usually have very interesting, you know, it's it's not considered uh necessarily a very um a legitimate profession. And I think uh part of the thing I love about it is like I try to show that it has a strong legitimacy because it is tied to other layers of um art history and uh the the human experience with images.

SPEAKER_02 10:43

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 10:43

And so yeah, so like my crime is to be a uh tarot reader, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 10:48

So the way I interpreted it was completely different. Oh, it's a right. So in theological language, the fall is kind of the first transgression before that ends innocence, the state before kind of self-consciousness, before narrative, before separation between self and world. So I kind of looked at that alias and I was like, that's very paradoxical because you you're placing yourself before the fall, but the fall already happened. Almost so that's what I projected onto it. Basically, I thought about it as returning to a state of innocence, which seems very important in kind of what you do, right?

SPEAKER_00 11:31

Well, it's just it's it's interesting because like technically, I'm just I love I love what you said. I love the the biblical imagery here. I love the story of the foal. I think that technically in that story, I'd like to see myself as the snake. You know, and the tarot cards are apples, and uh, you know, because they they allow people to get granted a certain level of knowledge about themselves. Sometimes um uh it's knowledge that is, you know, like transgressive or or has like, you know, like like your tarot reading can really change your life, you know. Like I've I've experienced that myself, like, you know, at least one time uh and several times after that. But um but so that the idea that uh self-knowledge is should be punished is not necessarily something that I believe in. And I like the idea of uh, you know, like maybe, maybe there is no no real fall, you know, maybe knowledge is something that stirs us up always. And I I like, you know, I like the idea of being the the snake. I was at the the cloisters uh a couple of uh days ago, and they had you know they have this really interesting exhibition um on um uh sex and gender, sex, love and gender in the medieval time. And uh they had this very beautiful sculpture showing Eve taking the apple and then this like snake woman kind of like rotating around the tree. And I like that. I like that for myself as a troublemaker. I think that's uh interesting. But uh the technically, I also obviously the one of the things I love the idea of the going back to innocence. I think that what the a great a great deal um uh what makes Tarot so interesting is the playfulness, you know, the fact that um that we play with images, you know, and uh and when is it's like a Paul Eduard quote, Paul Edward, the the French poet said something about the exquisite corpse, the that era when they were you know doing the the experiment with the exquisite corpse, and he said something uh like, you know, we were playing with images and there were no losers. And I think it that's that's what uh really tarot teaches us is like that when we play with images, you know, like the the the the tarot gives us this kind of simulacrum that we play with, and you know, we either grow or uh earn something, but we we never really lose anything, we never really fall.

SPEAKER_02 13:57

Yeah, yeah, beautiful. So um about images as mirrors of a state kind of before language solidifies. You've spoken about growing up with the understanding that images could carry the sacred.

SPEAKER_01 14:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:13

Um and about seeing museums as uh kind of surrogate churches.

SPEAKER_00 14:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:18

Um, what shaped the early ways you learned how to look?

SPEAKER_00 14:22

I I used to go to church. Uh I I'm Catholic, so my family is Catholic. I grew up, my my father is named Michael Michel. So every time I would go to the church in Burgundy with my grandmother, she would just show it is like big statue with like son Michael and the big devil. And um, and so I I just you know, like the this is just a like I've I've always had like um a very um I don't know intimate relationship with images. And I think that the reason um I go to museum so often, I want to call that interactive experience, you know, like I think that the you know, I I I love cinema, but I love painting uh most. And uh I have had experience in museums where like I I just you know got kind of Standel syndrome type where like parts of myself shattered or like or I felt held by a painting. There is something that uh I I found very very funny and interesting is that you know I've I've lived in Germany and and France, now I'm in New York, and uh and it's also so good to, you know, like when I, for example, like a couple of years ago, uh Olympia, the um uh Amanda painting that came to uh the Metropolitan Museum. I I have been in front of that painting for uh probably like 20 hours in my life, you know. I've I've been to the museum. And there is something that that girl taught me. She taught me a lot of things. And so being able to see her in New York, you know, even if the room was crowded with like all sorts of people, you know, like there was something so it felt like just like having dinner back with a friend. And uh, and it sounds, you know, maybe a little um animistic. But it's just uh, you know, like I have uh images have great power, you know, like and if we let them, they can they can teach you stuff. Uh the the same way uh you if you see uh the picture of a a horrible car accident in a newspaper, it can uh wound you and then you can just like it can just tear something apart in you. I think images have the capacity to you know stitch you back as well, or sh point at things. And it's it's a very interesting phenomenon for me because it's it's beyond language, and it's uh it's a definitely a place of subjectivity. But uh, but it's something that I how can I say this? It's it's like it's a it's a relationship, very much like like the relationship we have with people, you know, like the seeing a painting 20 times in your lifetime and seeing how you face it, how you change since the last time you saw it, you know, like there is something about I don't know, it's like a strange mirror.

SPEAKER_02 17:09

So you have a degree in art history, and I find it meaningful that your understanding of the tarot's imagery really began through looking at art as you just um mentioned. And you've even described the tarot deck as a pocketable museum, which I love. What comes alive for you in that metaphor?

SPEAKER_00 17:29

I was I think I, you know, like the I'm I'm very happy to be a tarot reader now. I think that um I've I've created a couple of exhibitions in my lifetime, not like big stuff, but uh I think the work of creation is probably one of the fun, the most fun work in the world. And uh and being able to create a vision out of other people's images that have seen, been seen many times, and create create a completely new identity by putting two pictures together is like like like I'm when when you go, it's a good show, you know. Like I've I've seen, I don't know, maybe like I don't know, 30 Picasso exhibitions in my life, you know. Like I used to live in Paris, so there is a lot of it. And uh and it's just like some you some curators just like put, you know, there I remember one specific instance. I remember seeing an exhibition that was uh Picasso and Francis Bacon. Uh and that show was like incredible, incredible. And uh, and of course I love bacon too, but like being able to see how those uh work interact was is something it felt like such a gift. And so that there is something that we experience when um, you know, two different reality colids. And uh we see that we experience that in museum, and and it's something when you see it, you can't see it anymore. Once you see, you know, like they're maybe just like because a painting is paired with like a different painting, like you're gonna see, you know, like a one color, like like really explode visually, and you've never seen that before. And so there is something about like adding things together that brings the creates portal to new realities. Tarot functioned the same way. That's the basically the grammar of tarot just worked this way. Those cars, they never change, they're always the same. Uh, you have a limited number of it, but technically, uh, you can uh they can create stories about anything in anyone, and and really, bizarrely enough, speaks about very profoundly intimate things, although they've been, you know, like drawn by someone, like in my case, you know, like a hundred years ago or or even older. So there is something about the the the tarot has this this really um first, it's a very sensual object, you know, the cards themselves, you know, like there is something about own owning this little like pocketable thing and then just being able to see them and that's perfect size. I like miniature, so I just love uh cards so much. And uh they are small enough you can play with them, you can look at them, and you can you can't, you know, paintings we see them on walls at museum, like you can't touch them, you can't lick them, you know, you can't put them in your bra to just like absorb their power. You you have to behave, but like with the tarot, you could you don't have to, like that those images they're yours, and uh and you develop a really profound relationship with them, and then um being able to uh experience them on um, you know, like I I give uh maybe like three three tarot readings every day and I I I work with the card for myself. I've seen those cards like many times, but every time I have to, you know, forget something, and then they appear like it's the first time, and I'm they appear like it's the first time I see them. They, you know, like they enchant me back again for the first time every time.

SPEAKER_02 20:46

So before we go deeper into your reading practice, which I'm fascinated by, I've never had my cards read um in the creative dimension of tarot. I would love to give viewers and listeners um a bit of grounding. So for anyone who is coming fresh uh to Tarot, could you sketch like a brief history and um how it how it began and how we arrived at the main decks that are used today?

SPEAKER_00 21:14

It's very interesting, you know, like the uh technically um the history of divinatory tarot is fairly recent. Uh a lot of the decks that we use, um the historical decks, they're they were not, they were invented for play, not for divination. But I think it's just because the the images uh that are on them are so enigmatic, you know, they come from you know, like daily life from the Renaissance, they come from um really religious iconography, you know, the judgment card, the devil. Uh they come from, you know, like the kind of this kind of understanding of the world, the macroscopic, the macrocosmic world, you know, like that we have all this like planetary stuff, the world. Um, you know, like Wheel of Fortune as well, you know, like this is very kind of late medieval, early Renaissance uh iconography, the idea that there is this wheel that kind of like you know takes us ups and down, and fate is written by God. Uh, that's uh not something that we use in the tarot anymore. But um, and so that those images are very ancient, um, and they they are very enigmatic. And I think this is also why people felt compelled to just try to understand what they meant. What's interesting is the when you do the work as you know, of history, whether it's you know tarot or any type of art, like you the part of what's uh the hardest is to try to put yourself back into people's eye and people's mind. And tarot pushes you to do that, it teaches you how to do that because um yeah, you have to rewind uh part of your automatic knowledge and then try to empathically uh espouse the the images.

SPEAKER_02 22:59

So if the tarot de Marseille is kind of the archetypal structure, uh-huh, and there's the writer weight. The writer weight, yes. Um the troth.

SPEAKER_00 23:09

The trothing, yes.

SPEAKER_02 23:11

Um and they're all very, very different from the very kind of uh superficial reading that I have done. Um do you use all of these decks and what changes um with the experience of of doing it with each?

SPEAKER_00 23:26

Well, technically I can use any deck. Like I can use uh postcards, you know. I can use like, you know, like if we take, you know, like the catalogue of uh Rico Moresca and then we tore pages and I can just like shuffle the pages and then read the art, you know, I can use mostly anything. Because those decks they were created by different people, uh, they have a specific energy. Like a lot of people uh have the tendency to believe that because the thought is very esoteric and also the art is from the you know, like the first half of the uh 20th century, it has this kind of like art deco futuristic feel to it. Um it might not not necessarily be as it might be a little more opaque uh to some people. Um it's also um it has a I think the Toth deck has a a heaviness to it, a density that is just very, very specific. I can read it, I won't read it uh for people because I just don't think that I will. I think to be able to read this deck, you really have to soak in the esoteric system that it was it came with. And um this is not necessarily my way of reading cards. I'm more of a uh you know, spontaneous, um intuitive, I guess, intuitive uh reader. What makes it so interesting, uh I think now is that a lot of artists have been doing, I've been interested in doing tarot. So like the idea that tarot, in and of itself as like uh a device is something that artists will be interested in kind of like cracking up and and and exploring uh is very, very fascinating to me. So like within the past, you know, like 15 years, we realized that Leonard Accangton did a uh set of major arcana, uh, which were not playing cards, they were like wooden icons. So technically you can't shuffle them. Yeah, thank God, uh, through Folger Press. They've been made into paper, so we can actually play with them. Uh Austin Ospen Spear, very important um uh esoteric artist, uh, also did a card game uh that is um you know his own visual world, uh, but it's you know in card form that has been retrieved. And so I just found that very fascinating that people with a very strong visual identity are taking this template that is very, you know, like uh normalized. Tarot, you have 22 major arcana, you have 56 uh minor arcana, and uh and you have this very kind of structured uh totality matrix that you can with your own personal creative eye you can explore and and there will be like some spark as you create it. I have a couple of friends who uh who created tarot decks, who also are like really brilliant artists, and uh it's a commitment, you know. You know, like it's just it changes you. You know, if you do a tarot deck, the the tarot will just like you know like turn you like a sock and then rewire you back. So it's just it's it's very interesting, I think, for for artists to um, you know, like move through the the visual clusters of ideas that those uh images are supposed to be and see how they resonate with them.

SPEAKER_02 26:42

So I am very curious about the actual moment when you sit down and with someone for reading um talk to me about this. Like what actually happens with the cards, with you, with the other person in the room, like what is all of it.

SPEAKER_00 26:59

Okay, okay. Let's just like you know, let's tell them all. Yes. Uh well, as my friend Anna, uh, who, if you watch this, her name is uh Cult Mother on the internet. She's a brilliant uh tarot reader, uh, Anna Grave. Uh as she told me once, tarot is a work of intimacy. And so technically, what what's uh what's very special about it is like you you meet a person uh face to face uh in a context that is gonna be um mapped by um a visual tool. The first thing I'm uh when people sit with me, I try to explain to them how tarot works. And so I tell them, uh, for example, that um I see it as a as a poetic discipline, and like very like any great work of art, whether it's a movie or novel, uh it's fiction, has the power to change us. And so the story that we will uh encounter together where they're gonna be in the middle of, because that's also part of the you know, that story that the cards are building uh doesn't have to be true to uh be efficient. And uh and I try to explain to them that obviously uh my work is not to pigeonhole them into like some terrible fate, and that uh they should uh express themselves as much as they want to during the reading, that it's um really a collaborative work, that uh my voice is not that important, that I'm uh I'm a funny person, so I try to humor them by saying like I am just a meat puppet of the cards. So, you know, the idea really is that uh the cards are gonna show us things and then we can kind of co-create together. And then and then start like um I ask the person what they what they need, how I can best help them. Uh they tell me part of their story, depending on that. I will uh either design a spread for them or or do uh you know like several readings. And and it's this very kind of, I mean, that's the way I work. I like I like to improvise. I like to, you know, I'm a flanner. I like, you know, I like to just get lost in the cities, you know, like that's my that's my hobby. I just walk aimlessly in the street, which is hard to do in New York because everything is on the greed level. When I give a reading, I like to start with three cards, then speak about them, and then like ask the person how they feel about this and if they have any question and go from there, and then just kind of step by step um do that. But part of my role is uh to I'm I'm like a wrangler of images, you know, like I am not specifically, you know, like the a lot of people tend to believe my voice in the context of the reading is more important and they feel intimidated, and so I try to try to like remove that as um as swiftly as possible. But uh there is also this thing of like, you know, just unfolding this weird lyricism that the card has. And so like it comes in so many different forms. It comes in um, you know, like uh, you know, metaphors, uh idioms sometimes, wordplay. There's a lot of language poetics that are uh involved in the in the card. The sometimes it's because like you know, I like a I watch a lot of films and I I do see a lot of art. It comes in the shape of art or film references uh that will just like basically you know like un try to explain the the meaning of a card or a situation. And I think people respond people respond to that. Um what's fascinating is that I'm just really amazed um how the the card seems to know things about us that are very intimate. And uh I can't rationalize this. I can't, and yet I've I've noticed, you know, like people are moved by those experiences. I think that this is maybe the the real secret of the tarot is it's really like a a work of art that is ephemeral and for one person.

SPEAKER_01 31:30

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 31:31

And uh it's a for I see it as a form of sacred theater, you know, like not that I'm like playing the part, but like I just like I'm like the a person who counts fairy tales, a con a conteuse. Raconteuse, is that the term in English? Well, I think that like it is about like it's like a form of uh sacred raconting, if that makes sense. And uh what I love about it is like it it's um I think it really belongs in the in the like a at a place between, you know, that kind of bridges medicine and arts, you know, soul medicine in a way. I think that it has a a lot to deal with, like I, you know, like a trickster spectacle, tarot. And uh I don't know, you know, I'm not conscious of uh necessarily the the way it functions. I can't I just like I teach the card, but I don't know how to teach how I read.

SPEAKER_02 32:29

Um so what you're describing is so layered. It's so layered. It's so there are the cards, each one is like a powerful symbolic image. Then there's the way they relate to one another, forming this kind of, as you said, ephemeral temporary architecture that exists only in that moment. Um then there's you with your knowledge and all your background, um, your way of listening. Then there's the other person with their query and their story. And it feels like a creative process to me, the whole thing. Um, like meaning appears only when all of those layers meet.

SPEAKER_01 33:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:06

But there's also um kind of an ingredient of mystery and randomness.

SPEAKER_00 33:11

Well, it's just that this is the like the you you said it, it's like there is something very gished out, you know, about the I I read cards for people. I barely read cards for myself because the magic is not there when I do it, you know. Like if I want a real tarot experience, I need to ask a person.

SPEAKER_02 33:26

That makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 33:27

Uh, but uh, I mean, I can just, you know, for small stuff, I'll do it. But like it's it's just like the there is this um emotion that is created. I can't um rationalize it, but like being able to be with people and with those images, it's it's like it's just um the hair is thick, you know, like it creates like it's not the same form of uh dialogue that you have with a regular person. It's like heightened emotional. Um it's like everyone, me, them, we're in this space of like um secured vulnerability. And it's just like there's not so many places that where we can allow us to say, which is why I think that's that's why people are so uh uh interested in being in that space. And because it's very hard to be in that space alone. And uh yeah, it's like um it's like a how do you call that a temenos or something, like a sacred uh sacred space. And uh I've had I've had reading experience that were just like I mean, like that's the thing, it's like it's it's there is some sometimes like there is like my mind-altering things that happen. Like I've I mean, I'm not telling, you know, like fun stories about the reading, but like I had I had people, uh I had people like have very strong experience. One of them uh once uh like went into a uh trance. You know, it was an older lady. And uh, I mean I've been you know to seances and and you know I frequent the people who were like you know evolving in those like liminal spaces where you know like magic happens. And it just felt very it felt like it was a shockwave. Like I it felt like a shockwave. My eyes turned in their socket and came back. Like it's just like it was very strange. Wow. So like the I I do believe in that egregore, that the thing that the the cards and the the per the person, both of our energy, but it's not something that um it's also something that we can. I mean, I I mostly read online, you know, like it doesn't need to be, you know, the energy can be the energy of our only travels. Uh it doesn't need to be in um a physical space, it's something that just yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:49

So you've described the tarot as an orphic art, yeah, not revealing the truth, but the truth that needs to be seen in the moment. Yeah. How do you know which truth is asking to be spoken?

SPEAKER_00 36:05

Uh so this is a good this is a good question. This is a conversation I have with fellow tarot readers often enough. I I it's like a it's a sensing more than a knowing, you know. Like you the you know what needs to be uh told. Sometimes I see things I can't say them.

unknown 36:22

I can't.

SPEAKER_02 36:23

Really?

SPEAKER_00 36:24

Yeah, I can't. Because I I don't think it will be in the person's interest. Or I mean also I'll just uh preface that by saying I'm French, so I'm very blunt. And I and I usually I don't shy away. Um that's the thing, is like you can see so many different layers of things, and and I don't know how to explain it. Um it's just you know, and I and it's very interesting to see how it evolved for me. There was a moment where I was very shy about this, and so like uh I I would not ask people a question. And uh and then you know, like they will come up, you know, like after maybe like a a year and a half, they would come back and then I will get to know them better, and um, and um and they will tell me more about the story, and I will just um realize that yeah, like I was that my intuition was the right one, like there was something. Very much like art, tarot is um a place of it's such a specifically intimate experience that you want to you want to shelter people and shelter yourself sometime. And uh and you know, like it's not about how the what's the the expression? Uh and I think you say that in English too, épete le bourgeois, you know, you know, to I guess like you know, like astonish the the bourgeois. Like the idea that like I'm not trying to impress people with skills or or give give them the the impression that I have like a hegemonic understanding of their private their privacy because I know I'm not a mentalist, I'm not trying to cold read people.

SPEAKER_02 37:54

It's also about kind of letting letting the person guide their own session in a way.

SPEAKER_00 38:00

I'm a tourist, I'm practical. I want to be uh of service. If I know the person is not ready to hear something, uh and it will do more damage uh than uh help them.

SPEAKER_02 38:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:13

It's very funny, but like I I used to read a lot for parties, um, you know, like when you start reading, just like you get hired for gigs. Right. Uh reading at a party is very strange because people are not really interested in in tarot. It's not there, you know, like the tarot reading also starts when the person has an intent of wanting a card reading. But at a party, no one really wants a tarot reading. You just do uh a card reading because it's there. And very often um people are like a little cocky about it. It's like, oh yeah, I don't know. It's just like you tell me whatever. Like I don't have any question. And and usually those readings are the the hardest one because like they go straight to the skeleton filled with closet, and the clo the closet's filled with skeleton, not the other way around. It goes straight to the the the closet will fill it with skeleton. And uh, and so those were like I remember like that's one of the reasons I stopped. She's like, I don't think uh I want to read uh for for entertainment anymore.

SPEAKER_02 39:11

That makes sense, yeah. So nowadays, what does a day in your life look like? Okay.

SPEAKER_00 39:19

Um all the details of sleep I wake up, absolutely I sleep in a Chinese wedding bed, that's like sleep in the sort of elevated coffin. Uh I hope you do. It's it's nice, like it's uh it's my little like tantrum furniture obsession. I love it. Uh I wake up very early. I wake up at five. I wake up at five because I enjoy reading, but I'm a slow reader. So I usually read from five to seven every morning. Uh I do all sorts of things. Uh I do some spiritual work if I need to. I pray. I read cards uh in very early in the morning as well. I journal. Dear Diary. Like, this is my life in New York. I take the morning to do administrative work because I'm a I read card, but reading card is part of my job. I I still write about art. I still write about tarot. I organize still, you know, cultural events, travels. I uh uh write books. I uh I have like you know, all sorts of like other writing projects and things. Like the tarot is the thing that I'm I'm known for, but I still do all sorts of interesting things. And so I do that. I read cards two or three hours every day, usually around uh lunchtime. Usually I try to go and work in the afternoon in a different place than my house, you know, like if I have to do another computer a day. Uh and then at night uh I go see my friends or I watch movies, and then I do that uh seven days a week, except when I um travel. And usually uh I try I travel like uh at least four months uh out of the year now. And um and so I have like all sorts of cultural adventures. I like to I I'm still interested in like folk magic and uh how other people use divination and create objects um that are have magical intent. And uh and it's just something um I felt like it's so interesting. You know, we were talking about crime and the uh aloofness of being a card reader. Um the the Western world is the only uh place where like there is no form of this really, except in, you know, I go to Mexico, I go to Thailand, I go to also Japan, I go to all those places and like uh like through throughout civilization and uh and and country, like cultures, like you realize that there is only one place where uh those practices, uh those folk magic practices are not taken seriously, and it's here uh in the Western world. So so I'm um to be able to just do my work, it's uh important for me to try to kind of like document that, write about it, a counterculture where uh they have like very different traditions.

SPEAKER_02 42:14

So you recently collaborated with the prestigious French card maker Grimaud on two different decks, right? Can you tell me more about that?

SPEAKER_00 42:23

Yeah, well, um do you remember that that that thing I said about the the tarot Marseille in the tobacconist store? It was a Grimaud deck. Grimo? Yeah, it was a Grimo deck. And so my first tarot deck was uh Grimaud. And then one day they contacted me and told me, like, oh, uh, we we're relaunching, you know, like the Grimo, but uh and we're gonna do like very, very beautiful uh deck games. Would you be interested in writing about uh the tarot Marseille and the Baleine Oracle? And I was just so stunned. Like it's like uh I don't know, like David Bowie asked me for my phone number or something. It felt it felt like a kind of like oh would you like it felt like a really like falling off my share moment.

SPEAKER_02 43:06

Full circle moment for sure.

SPEAKER_00 43:08

Yeah, for me it was so important because I I have such a a great respect for for for the work they've done and they still continue to do, which is you know, like incredibly beautiful craftsmanship and uh incredible design. Um and uh and so yeah, it was like a it's my my it was my dream.

SPEAKER_02 43:27

Tarot has seen a powerful resurgence uh in recent years. Yeah uh even as our culture faces cynicism, polarization, and kind of an overwhelming pace with so many people turning to tarot today. What do you think they are seeking?

SPEAKER_00 43:45

Well, I don't know for sure, but I will uh preface this um this answer by saying that uh I too was um two or three years ago at the Guggenheim uh museum when uh the Had the Ilma Hofklint show. And I went there with my friend Allison on the Thursday morning at 10 a.m. And it was like the most uh packed I've ever seen that place. And so, you know, for like the the cynicism that you you're talking about, I don't think I think it's a posture, but I think a lot of people have a lot of questions about all sorts of things.

SPEAKER_01 44:21

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 44:22

And they they also just don't want their question to necessarily be trivialized, I think. And I think that for me, the experience I had with that show is that here's a woman who had a practice, uh a painting practice that was just incredibly uh deep, uh done for herself, but also within a collective, uh, that reconcile the idea of community, spirituality, and art in a perfect way. And uh, and and here we are, you know, like a century later, just like being stunned by the power of those images. And so I think the tarot has the same um the same uh gravitational aspect. I think that the taro is even easier because it's accessible and you can find it everywhere. Depending on your uh taste or aesthetics, you can find a tarot deck that fits you. Taro is a culture that uh embraced people from all uh walks of life, uh, trans people, black people, people from completely different uh social-cultural backgrounds. And so now, if you want to, you know, there is a tarot deck for absolutely everyone. Uh, I think that there is a longing for spiritual depth. I think people are wanting to re-dialogue with themselves in a way that uh feels sensitive and honest. I think that uh all of us uh through COVID uh re-experienced this. The the the lost uh how we lost touch with uh with part of our own, you know, like I don't know, like a core self, uh because we are especially in New York, we're lost in uh performance all the time. So I think for me it's a it's just a quest for authenticity. Uh I think that uh I do believe that I do believe that tarot has a resurgence also because it uh teaches people to interact with images in a different way. And so if you can allow yourself to be porous to the mystery of the tarot, you can look at art and make images in a different fashion as well. And uh one thing that I also believe is that tarot is a it's a game, so it has this component of being a collective practice, and a lot of people use tarot as a way to connect with their friends. Uh and I think that that that's you know, like there is some, you know, like that that that terminals I was talking about earlier, that place of intimacy that it puts us, you know, I meet strangers uh mostly, but like when you have with friends and you read cards to one another, like it just really allows you to connect in a very different way. It's not like having a glass of wine in a bar in Soho. You know, you just go like exactly where you need to go, with uh, you know, conversation-wise. And um, and so it just uh it cements a lot of social bond, you know. And that's the thing that I also love uh about it. It's like uh it's playful, it's fairly subjective. Uh it's just a very interesting way to connect uh to the world.

SPEAKER_02 47:25

To others into yourself as well, right? To others into yourself, yes. So, based on the little bit of reading that I've done, I started to think about five cards that as a way of illustrating the creative process. So I will tell you which ones they are, yeah, and then you can tell me if there are others that you would add. Yeah. It starts with the full, card zero, yeah. Uh, where everything begins. It's a state of raw potential before a direction is chosen, really. Um, and it's that moment when you feel the pull towards something you can't fully name yet. Yeah. Um, and you say yes anyway. Yeah. So that's number one. Yeah. Number two is a high priestess, yeah. Kind of the quiet interior face. Um, and this is when something is forming beneath the surface before language, and you um are not ready to speak it yet. You're just listening.

SPEAKER_01 48:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:22

From there, the magician.

SPEAKER_01 48:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:25

I feel like I have big magician energy in my life right now. Yes, except so it's the moment for making, it's where the idea takes shape and through the tools that are already at hand. So basically, it's the phase of using what you have and trusting that what you have is enough.

SPEAKER_01 48:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:45

Right. Then number four, the tower. So inevitably, there's always like a breaking point. And it's the moment when the structure you've built can't really hold.

SPEAKER_01 48:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:56

But it's not failure, it's um release, kind of clearing the way for something new. So maybe that's coming next year for me. Um, and finally, the star, which I love. Yeah. Which is quiet clarity that comes after everything unnecessary has fallen away. And just kind of a moment of simplicity and honesty when you can hear your own voice. Those are my five. Are there any others that you would add?

SPEAKER_00 49:23

I will say that the the hangman might be an interesting way, uh, an interesting like uh creative card. I think that um look the hangman and the death card together. I think that for me, the the hangman really represents this kind of like umbilical uh inspiration that you might have uh taken from others. And how at some point you have to um, I don't know, kill the fathers or you know, cut the cord and then and be yourself. But and once you're yourself, something, you know, like basically dies. You have like this, well, just this completely transformative. You're not working in the mimicking someone else's work or in sp you know, in homage or anything, you know, like so. Cutting that cord is like a I think a very important, uh, very important one. The just on just on a pure uh graphic uh level, I think the devil is the card that speaks the most about imagination in the the tarot because on a very just a very uh aesthetic point, um, that's the card that really uh when you see a tarot deck, the the artist really had fun doing. You know, it's like the Euronymous Bosch a little bit where you know like they unleash all monsters and strangeness, all the grotesque comes in that card. And um, and so there is something about the card that speaks about uh the imagination of the creator of the deck. Um, I loved uh that you had the um the the fool and the tower in the in your choice because I think the the fool really has like uh what makes the fool so interesting is that he can go any direction. Yeah, you know, like there is roads here and there, but like he can just walk in between them. He's by foot, he has his um, you know, like his stuff. Like he's not preoccupied by like way lines. Um, and so I think as a you know creator, it's important to know that you can go sideway at any point. Uh and the tower, uh, I think it's just like so important, you know. I think the for me, for most artists I know, uh you know, you can't create unless you fail. Uh you can't create unless you fail. And it's something that New York uh taught me too, you know, like New York is the greatest creative city because uh everyone has like a huge solidarity creatively, and I feel I feel like that solidarity comes from the fact that everyone had a tower moment, everyone just had that project that completely fell flat. And so people are always keen to support you because they know if like the if the project means something to you, they will just try to kind of give you their time or their skills too. And so tower is an important part of the process, and of course the star. She's so beautiful. We all aspire to be her.

SPEAKER_02 52:10

She's the star. We are the stars. Um, is there anything I didn't ask you that you'd like to tell me?

SPEAKER_00 52:17

I don't know. I think you know, like it was a pretty thorough. Yeah, but a lot of questions I didn't expect to. It's really I really enjoyed it. It was really funny.

SPEAKER_02 52:24

Oh well, we are done. Thanks for watching.

SPEAKER_00 52:26

Thank you for this uh warm uh invitation.

SPEAKER_02 52:29

It was wonderful. Thank you so much. Well, thank you. If this conversation resonated with you, follow the show wherever you listen and find me on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and Substack at RucyHive. If someone came to mind for the hive, send guest suggestions to guests at ruseyhav.com. And if you just want to say hi, it's hello at ruseyhav.com. Original music and sonic identity for the Rucy Hive by Ant Food. Until next time, let your life be a creative act.