Transience:  The quality or state of being transient

Transient:     Passing especially quickly into and out of existence

                      Passing through or by a place with only a quick stay or sojourn

(Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

Transience has not been a word that I used or thought about in day-to-day life until very recently. In our conversation on tarot with Ari Wisner, it came up a few times and it hasn’t left my mind since. It is both beautiful and scary and has such relevance in the here and now. 

Nothing lasts and everything is in constant change. What’s wonderful about the tarot is that it invites you and challenges you to recognize this transience of every moment. Each time you pull and lay down cards, they will be different. As an exercise you could ask a question, lay down some cards, read them, and then do it all over again with the same question. The cards will be different, your reading will certainly be different and maybe an inkling within your question, be it ever so small, might be different as well. 

I recently put down some cards in search of an answer about a relationship in my life. I was very unsure about where it might be headed so I used three cards, one for the past, one for the present, and one for the future. In that moment they made perfect sense and helped ease my mind. However, only a few days later, everything had changed and the original reading became insignificant. Had I left the cards out and had the question still been important to me I could have done a new interpretation for this new and beautiful transient moment. 

This leads me to something Ari said: “The nature of reading cards is like playful storytelling. The storytelling approach is gently and constantly pushing you forward and onward. Embracing the transience of this current moment and pushing you forward to growth.”

Reading cards enables us to grow and to see things differently than before. It opens and unlocks parts of our minds that we might otherwise keep shut. And so we move from one moment to the next. Embracing our ever-changing selves. 

So next time you see a deck of cards or you hear someone speaking of tarot, let it remind you that everything is fleeting. Anything that hits you in life, the good, the bad, moments, experiences, thoughts, it all has a transience to it. Nothing lasts. 

If you want to learn more, check out our guest lesson with Ari inside the Book of Magic or read about the full Book of Tarot HERE.