Usually I keep at least a corner of my eye on presidential political races but not this time. I had become so cynical, so tired of the same old, same old, that when Senator Clinton lost the primary, I had no further reason to care. Just a couple days before this election, I started paying attention. The night before Election Day my boyfriend, who, though he does not read tarot, is quite intuitive in his own right, said Senator Obama was going to win. Of course, given the polls, that wasn't such a grand psychic revelation. Still, I had my cynical doubts and thought it was just wishful thinking. I'm not impressed with either party anyway, but between the two evils, I'd have to say I'm definitely more Democratically inclined than Republican.

Election night we drove my daughter back home after she'd spent a few days here and I wasn't following the votes at all. As we drove into Virginia I made the statement that although Obama might win, he won't take Virginia as it has always historically gone Republican in presidential elections. When we got back home and I called my daughter's father to let him know she got home safe and sound, I casually asked, "So what are you doing?" He said, "Watching Obama win Virginia."

"WHAT?" I said, shocked.

"Yeah," he said, "he's taking Virginia." Any Democrat that can take Virginia is worth my attention.

I'm still cynical, but I am quite frankly amazed at the election of a president of the United States that is not white. I am relieved and have felt something for this country that I haven't felt in a very long time: Hope. I harbor no illusions that this or any president can significantly better things. Still, this election speaks volumes in many different ways. It's not only about electing a Black president, which is historic and encouraging, but also displays the extreme dissatisfaction so many of us have had with the current administration. Hope for the state of affairs in this country and in this world is something I haven't felt in a long time. While it still irks me that we have yet to elect a female president, and this election lends a whole lot of credence to something feminists have said for a long time -- that men, all men no matter their race, are more privileged in our society than women -- I acknowlege that this is a profound change in the right direction anyhow.

My hope is not tied to this president-elect, nor to our government, but to the people that voted for progress and change. And since I came very late to this election process this year, I missed the speech Senator Obama gave in New Hampshire. I listened to it the day after he was elected and was inspired most by this:

"We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics who will only grow louder and more dissonant in the weeks to come. We've been asked to pause for a reality check. We've been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope.
But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope."

How true is THAT? Now, I don't know who wrote his speech, but that hit me right where it matters. It reminded me of something attributed to the Apostle Paul in the book of Romans in the Bible: "For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience." (Romans 8:24-25) Hope differs from faith as this quote from the book of Hebrews explains,"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." (Hebrews 11:1) One can hope without faith, without being sure what they hope for will come to pass, but honestly, what good is that? And if you know anything about the Law of Attraction and manifesting your own life, hoping without the faith that your hopes will come true is practically useless. But I think we do that sort of thing all the time. We possess this random, floating, aimless hope that things will get better...someday.

In respect to tarot, I think tarot readings, whether you do them yourself or have someone read for you, place your hopes in context and can empower you to focus that hope and have faith in that hope as well. We often look to tarot readings for advice and insight into a situation. When a good tarot reading confirms that which you already know in your own gut, it allows you to focus your energies towards the outcome you desire. If the reading shows the current of events flowing in a direction you really do not want, you can shift your hope and focus your faith in a different direction. Tarot can be a really helpful tool in shaping your own destiny by clarifying your hope and reshaping it from a formless, airy wish to something with active energy and power to actually change your life. Because once we have that focused hope we then tend to make choices and act accordingly. We literally then step into our hope because we now have faith in it.

See, it's not that a tarot reading is telling you what will happen. It's more like a weather prediction that, based on the past and present conditions, it more than likely will rain tomorrow. Certainly we have all experienced weather predictions that have not come true, but given the prediction, we can at least prepare ourselves by taking an umbrella. We cannot control the weather and we cannot control all the various acts and decisions and so forth that come into creating the circumstances of our lives. But we can hope. I may disagree with President-Elect Obama on many things but I fully agree with him that there is never anything false about hope, particularly when it is accompanied with faith and action.