Tarot Card Reading: Tangled Webs

By Gina Rabbin

Repetition does not transform a lie into truth. –Franklin D. Roosevelt

Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practise to deceive! –Sir Walter Scott

I was raised to believe that lying was wrong. In my family, a high premium was placed on the truth. And, as my parents usually ended up catching me in my lies, I ultimately realized that telling the truth was the best route. As an adult, I have seen lies ruin marriages, end friendships, destroy trust and respect, and create irreparable rifts between people. In the 1990s, this country nearly came to a standstill because then-President Clinton lied about an extra-marital affair. I can only assume that his relationship with his wife and daughter suffered terribly because of it. However, some people felt that wasn’t punishment enough, so years and millions of dollars were spent trying to impeach him for lying.

We expect the truth from our family and friends, and are hurt when we find we’ve been lied to. Deception destroys trust, which is the basis of all positive relationships. Certain of our elected officials held the “leader of the free world” to a higher standard, and tried to impeach him for not telling the truth about a private incident. I can’t help but wonder why those same officials don’t demand the truth right now, given that information appearing to implicate President Bush and key figures within his administration in a massive deception has surfaced.

I speak, of course, about the Downing Street Memo, which has received limited attention in this country. The Downing Street Memo is a British memo containing minutes of a secret July 2002 meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top national security officials. Basically, the memo says that the Bush administration had made the decision to overthrow Saddam Hussein almost a year before the actual invasion date, manipulating intelligence to support that goal. The authenticity of this memo has not been disputed by the British government. The Bush administration refuses to address the subject.

This is not a Republican issue or a Democratic issue. It’s not about Red State versus Blue State, or you against me. This is simply about the possibility that the most powerful man in the world told a lie, and refuses to honestly speak to those allegations. If the Downing Street Memo is accurate, this is a lie that has caused the death of more than one hundred thousand people and the maiming of untold thousands more. This is a lie that has diverted desperately needed funds away from our country in order to continue the occupation, and has cost the United States the respect and admiration of other countries. This is a lie that has created a new generation of terrorists who hate our country. Regardless of your political party affiliation or whether you support this war or not, you may very well have been lied to. If you expect your spouse to tell the truth, if you expect your children and your friends and family to tell the truth, if you expected a former president to tell the truth, why is it no one seems to care that the current president might not have told the truth? Why is it that we, as a country, are hesitant to demand that this allegation be thoroughly investigated, and that President Bush stand before the entire world to honestly and satisfactorily respond to these charges?

As an intuitive tarot consultant, I know that when confronted by questions as overwhelming as these, the cards can offer clarity and understanding. I feel compelled to pull only one card to begin with, and The Tower practically jumps out of the deck. This card represents the destruction of everything we believe in, everything we have held to be true and real. Everything we hold dear, our hopes and dreams, our view of the world around us, is shaken to its very foundation. The tower we’ve built around us to keep us safe and secure begins to crumble, and our trust is shattered. Where does that leave us? How can we continue if the world we’ve built for ourselves no longer exists? If we can’t trust the most powerful man in the free world, if we cannot believe that what he tells us is the truth, how are we to live? And so, rather than face the obliteration of our world, we choose to ignore the truth.

How can we learn to accept the truth, and from this new awareness, rebuild our world? With this question in mind, I hold the tarot in my hands, waiting for the right card to make itself known to me. There are two cards that slip from the deck, the Two of Swords and the Ace of Wands.

The Two of Swords recognizes that we are undeniably at a crossroads. We can decide to tear down the safe, secure walls of our tower and begin to face the truth, or we can choose to remain in denial. This is not a decision we can make unless we remove the blindfold from our eyes and look squarely at the situation. It is important to understand the consequences of any choice we make, to understand that what we decide will result in defining not only our own lives but the world we live in and how we live in it, how we see ourselves and how others will see us. On what do you want to base this important decision?

The Ace of Wands encourages us to reach deep into our inner awareness, to connect to that place inside where our soul is in tune with nature and the universe. In this place, only the truth can survive, and it is from this place that we can, like the mythical phoenix, rise from the ashes of our carefully constructed lives and find hope and rebirth.

Perhaps it is time to untangle the web of lies and deceit, to hold accountable those who would lie to us, whether they be our family, our friends, our lovers, or our president. Perhaps it is time for one of the words with which we define our world to be Truth.

I welcome reader questions! If there is an issue you would like to see addressed in a future column, please email me at (Please note that real names of clients are never used in this column.)

Gina Rabbin is a life-long intuitive and catalyst for clarity. She helps people clarify and resolve their personal and professional issues in order to create more fulfilling and meaningful lives. Currently residing in San Francisco, CA, Gina is available for tarot card readings in person or by telephone. For more information, please visit http://www.ginarabbin.com.