Ritual as Punctuation

by Craig Conley

In her blog posting entitled Using Ritual to Centre and Empower Your Tarot Readings, Catherine alludes to such concepts as sequencing, directing the flow, calling together, and allowing time.

Interestingly, all of these concepts are inextricably tied to punctuation. For example, commas and bullets delineate sequences, long dashes and colons direct the flow, semicolons and ampersands call ideas together, and ellipses and periods allow time. As Kevin Schilbrack notes in Thinking Through Rituals (2004), the elements of ritual are glorified punctuation marks that invest the arbitrary flow of our life stories with structure and thereby meaning. “Without punctuation,” Schilbrack explains, “there is no meaning. Rituals allow us to overcome thus. They allow us to mark time, to punctuate our lives, affording them a temporal shape and thus meaning. The moment or event is constituted by the ritual.” Catherine notes that the ritual of Tarot must be approached and conducted respectfully but at the same time in a relaxed manner, and Schilbrack concurs, saying that rituals work “to the extent that we can believe in them, that is to say, that we can abandon ourselves to them” (p. 45).

As we’ve noted on the Punctuated Tarot website, just as traditional Tarot imagery distills the archetypes of our quest for wholeness, the standard marks and signs of punctuation clarify meaning as our story unfolds. The Latin root of “punctuation” means to “point out” and to “bring to a point.” Punctuation marks help us to pinpoint the precise organization of the themes that constitute our personal sagas. Punctuation assists us to comprehend the relationships that exist between nouns (the people, places, and things in our lives) and verbs (actions and occurrences). Punctuation can connect, isolate, confirm, limit, regulate, contrast, motivate and animate the flow of information—our intelligence. In other words, punctuation offers cues on how to understand the course of our experiences. Ultimately, punctuation is emphatic about pauses, whether brief or prolonged. Pauses invite us to linger on meaning, to reflect, to re-evaluate. A pause gifts us with time to take a deep breath and to think twice. As Catherine says, “Taking the time to form your own ritual can have quite an impact on your tarot readings.”

Here’s a three-card reading from the Punctuated Tarot website. The intention was to receive a message for readers of Tarot Elements in general and Catherine in particular.

The cards are:

1. Death (an ellipsis, signifying a trailing off)
2. The Moon (a degree sign, signifying an extent)
3. The World (the copyright symbol, also a proofreading sign for self-correction)

If we read these cards as a sort of rebus puzzle of punctuation marks, we can construct a hidden
message:

The waning of the moon by degrees is a form of self-correction.

Catherine: Is it more than a coincidence that a reading I did for myself this morning had so much lunar energy and attributions in comparison to Craig’s reading here? Is it also more than a coincidence that Craig did this reading (spontaneously) on Saturday, after the Full Moon and eclipse, when it was also waning? These two readings combined have a very special and potent message for me that I shan’t be ignoring. Lunar energy can be tricky, but to have two readings tell me the same thing when they were done so independently of each other and through very different cards and methods of interpretation is remarkable.

Even more remarkable is the genius of Craig Conley – and I can’t say that enough. He is a true visionary in many areas of life, from his books, to Tarot decks and even the Tamagotchi. I urge each and everyone one of you to check out his work, his websites and various blogs. Find out more about him here – and prepare to be literally amazed.

The Punctuated Tarot is the creation of Craig Conley and has been featured in a post that Craig wrote for Bonnie Cehovet on her blog. To give you a better understanding of how the idea for the Punctuated Tarot came about, read Craig’s very revealing interview that he did with Bonnie, which can also be found on her blog. Also visit the Punctuated Tarot at Craig’s website where you can learn more about his method, his new deck and even get to try it out with an online three card reading.

Copyright (C) 2011 Tarot Elements