Season 1, Episode 13 - Cabaret

Original Airdate - February 17th, 2002

Ashley and Terri have fun new interests. Terri is into intuitive divination or, as she calls it, consulting the divine oracle. Ashley is into writing sappy ballads to impress people at the lunchtime cabaret. The song is good, but it’s a little morose. Terri is worried that their girl group - Two Girls and a Keyboard - is going to bomb, but Ashley is not listening to her mealy-mouthed feedback.

Emma and Manny have their own performance planned. They’re doing an interpretive dance about the plight of the panthers and ask Sean to play the hunter. Sean refuses, but Toby, still crushing on Emma, says he’ll do it.

Paige wants in on Two Girls and a Keyboard, but she wants to make it more fun. She urges Terri to be honest about her opinions, but Terri can’t do it. In Media Immersion class, she gives her presentation on the divine oracle, and impresses everyone when her Ouija board knows Spinner’s dead cat’s name. It’s relevant to Media Immersion because there’s a PowerPoint. Paige has an idea. Ashley is open to psychic power, and Terri should use the oracle to convince Ashley to do cabaret their way.

Terri gives readings at lunch. She tells Manny to watch out for an unexpected twist. Then, she and Paige rig their reading to say that Paige should be in the group. At first, Ashley doesn’t buy it, but when Manny trips and twists her ankle, Ashley accepts that Terri has the gift.

Manny can’t dance, and Emma is bummed. With no second panther, she’ll have to pull out of the Cabaret. Toby says he’ll step up and do the dance. At practice, he’s so distracted with staring at Emma that he messes up. This is not going to go well.

Paige has big ideas for the cabaret performance. First, sexy outfits. Second, new name — Paige Michalchuk and the Sex Kittens. Third, a more upbeat song. Terri likes most of these ideas. The name needs some work. But Ashley hates them. Paige and Ashley constantly turn to Terri to break the vote, but Terri won’t speak her mind.

Paige brings Terri to the Media Immersion Center to get Mr. Simpson’s help remixing the song. Ashley overhears them and feels betrayed. They decide to consult the oracle to determine which version they should perform. Though the card Terri pulls, The High Priestess, clearly says to stick with the old, she lies and says they should do the new version.

It’s Cabaret day! The Grade 7s do their dance to laughs and teasing from the crowd, but Sean stands up and tells everyone to shut up. Toby is ready for Emma to shower him with thanks, but Sean is the one who gets a kiss on the cheek. Poor Toby.

Ashley shows up to the performance without her costume. She researched the High Priestess and exposes Terri’s lie. Terri snaps and says Ashley never listens to her. She wants to do Paige’s version, and Ashley says fine, do it without me. Paige and Terri go on and all of the middle schoolers love it. Ashley is forced to admit they were right. She apologizes for being a control freak, and they invite her back into the girl group. Paige suggests abbreviating her suggested name to PMS and Terri boldly says she agrees. A new band is formed!

Terri throws her tarot cards in the trash which feels disrespectful.

I love me some tarot cards. Big shocker for those of you who were here for my astrology run down. It’s extremely helpful to me to pull my thoughts out of my head and focus them on images. The archetypal meanings of the cards are helpful as prompts to process what my intuition wants me to know about an issue or struggle in my life.

Terri does a couple misguided things when it comes to reading cards. It’s not usually a good idea to ask the cards binary questions. That isn’t really where their strength lies. Exploring a reading when you’re at a fork in the road can be helpful, but the reading isn’t going to say “do exactly this” unless you’re very lucky, certainly not with one card.

But Terri’s other mistake is one I’ve made many, many times. I love doing readings for friends, but it’s really hard when I’m not neutral about the issue at hand. It’s difficult to consult the cards for someone else without putting my thumb on the scale.

The magic of tarot is that it’s not magic at all. Though the hand of divine providence may be putting the right card in front of your face, the wisdom you receive from a reading is coming from your own mind. A card stirs something inside of you that points towards a deeper truth. The answer is coming from you, the cards are simply a vehicle.

So when I already know what I want the cards to tell me, it’s very easy to convince myself that whatever card I pull says exactly that. The four of wands could be telling me to look for a man who will give me a more solid foundation, but I can read it to say my current situationship is headed for commitment!

This is okay. Like I said, the cards exist to help us drill down to the truths we already know. Sometimes, realizing that I’m trying to bend the cards to the answer I want is the information I need from the reading. It let’s me go deeper on why I feel so sure, and let’s me challenge myself. If I’m so sure, why do I want cosmic backup?

This type of conversation is equally possible when reading someone else, but only when the person with the bias is the person being read. I can easily challenge my friend who clearly is looking for a certain answer. It’s much harder for a friend to challenge me when I’m the one who knows what I want to see.

A reading should be a conversation between my intuition, the intuition of the person I’m reading, and the cards. It’s useful when the tarot reader has some preexisting insight into the life of the person being read before flipping cards. When I do readings for strangers, I often ask them questions about the issue at hand. This isn’t cheating. This is me grounding us in a shared reality before we bring new images into the conversation. In a lot of ways, knowing the background makes readings for friends really successful. I have a lot of context already, but I’m more neutral than the person in the crisis.

But what if I’m also coming with a perspective on the right way forward. I’m the one with the knowledge of the cards. It’s no longer a balanced conversation. It’s too easy to say that the Tower says that this is a disaster and you should bail instead of it saying that the tragedy is over and you can move forward now. It’s too easy to pull one more card for “clarity” that I’m hoping takes my side. It’s even easy to see the High Priestess as a command to find our inner truth as opposed to one to stick with tradition.

I try not to tell my friends what I think they should do in a situation unless I’m directly asked. I don’t believe I can solve their problems better than they can. I’d much rather offer perspective than prescription. When we’re consulting the cards, I want to be a vehicle through which my friends can seek perspective on what to do without inadvertently asking me as the card reader that same question.

The answer, as with many things in the realm of spirit and intuition, is probably radical honesty. It’s starting a reading by acknowledging that my perspective is skewed and inviting push back if my read on a card isn’t resonating for someone. Instead of pretending I can check my perspective at the door, I should invite it to the table to be challenged, to provide insight, to join the conversation.

The cards only work if you’re honest. Sometimes you have to accept that as much as you want to resonate with the badass Queen of Wands, that’s not what you’re feeling today. You want to look at Death without fear, but change is really scary right now. You want to believe that you’re the giver in the VI of Pentacles when you know you’re the person in need. If you’re not willing to acknowledge your own weaknesses, biases and fears, you won’t get much out of it. And sometimes it’s just as scary to acknowledge your hopes and strengths.

If a relative stranger comes to me to share what I know of the cards, it’s easy to stay neutral and trust my gut. When I’m alone in my room, I’ve learned how to be vulnerable with myself. But there’s little I’ve found harder than being honest with a friend when tarot is on the table.