I was in San Francisco the past weekend, visiting the eye-opening Etruscan Exhibit, and it made me think of, and pine for . . . my friend Rachel Pollack.
She is missed.
I imagined saying, if she was here today, “Rachel, are you going to do a tarot deck of Etruscan Deities? Their goddesses throw their weight around . . . Everything we thought was “Roman” and “Italian” turns out to be Etruscan to the core!”
And she would say, I’m sure of it: “I’m already in the middle of it!”
Rachel was a pioneer Sci-Fi author and comix habituée. A Tarot Card Renaissance legend. —Very much a 70s old-school dyke and trans underground scout member.
I recorded Rachel’s novels, Temporary Agency and Godmother Night, when I was a young producer at Audible. Later, we took on her neo-jungian Tarot interpretation bible, Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom. I know many of you have a copy.
To celebrate the “78” debut, we decided, let’s do an interview1 . I’m so glad we did. Cancer overtook her daily life not too long after, and in hindsight, it was a miracle we were able to finish the production.
What a conversationalist Rachel was. You could spend hours, laughing and letting the lightbulbs go off.
Among other things we talked about:
How old were you when you discovered Tarot? What was going on in your life at the time?
What is the difference between Tarot for divination, versus those seeking wisdom, or meditation, or a prompt for therapeutical inquiry . . .
Decks Gone Wild . . . Does it need to stop?
Will I meet my soulmate in six months? (Go ahead, I dare you to ask her)
How Rachel “took over” Doom Patrol
The notion of innocence, in the instance of the Card of the Fool and the Number Zero
The nature of Free Will? — and “rarely using it”
I’m one of the people who loved Tarot as a kid, pretending to read my friend’s fortunes. When I grew up, it occurred to me the deck was the best set of writers’ prompts ever assembled. They make you peek around another corner. —Which we could all use more of.
In Case You Missed It
Rachel’s side of the audio is muddy, but she is so articulate and vivid, I think you’ll focus in, as I did.
