The Pandemic Tarot Card: The Unveiling

Click for more information

The Pandemic is the thirtieth card in the major arcana. It has been a long year like a long decade, one of atrophying time. We miss the way it feels to walk in a city, in the current of everyone going somewhere. We don’t remember why certain things felt important in the beforetimes, do remember seeing a classmate in a casket on YouTube livestream. The Pandemic unmasks the lie of the word essential: who provides care, who deserves care, death visited disproportionately on the poor, the black and brown, the lower caste. Returning to normal is an impossibility brimming with longing and terror. In the center of the card is a discarded mask, an iPad by a hospital bed: say our goodbyes however we can. Toilet paper has become a totem of survival, sweatpants an emblem of refusal, sourdough a gift of renewal. All things will pass, like a kidney stone. When will we hold our brother’s hand again? Will our kids remember this as the worst time of their lives or as something strange and tender? Will our dogs forgive us when we return to work? Drawing The Pandemic card in a reading means a portal is opening. Where it leads is unclear, but remember people have always slept in doorways, huddled under them during bombings. Who knows if The Pandemic will ever end. *a collective card*