Tarot beyond fortune telling and finding answers in the cards at Zingara
· Citizen
There was a time when the woo-woo arts were considered exactly that. But, thankfully, in a more enlightened age, esoteric practices like consulting the ancient symbology of the Tarot have become an accepted, alternative form of self-care.
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Because, in a way, that is exactly what it is. It’s not about fortune telling and roadside caravans promising all sorts of answers, because those we already carry within ourselves.
Tarot card reader Adrian van der Velden consults for a living and is presently in residence at The Royal Countess Zingara at the Pavillion, Melrose Arch, where he offers short readings prior to the show.
He’s also been taking longer appointments outside of the venue and counts, amongst his regular clientele, everything from high-profile individuals through to everyday you and Me’s.
At Zingara, it’s part of the vibe, and part of the event’s overall message about love; not only for others but learning to accept who you are and coming to terms with your own state of being.
Self-care … but different
About half the people who sit down opposite Van der Velden at Zingara have never experienced a tarot reading before, he said. And instead of asking them what they want to know about their future, he starts with a more immediate theme.
“What’s going on in your life that we’re asking the cards about tonight? It can be anything. Readings can be about love, it can be about career or a decision you need to make, a crossroad to navigate. Any question is valid,” he said.
The cards then become a gateway into the conversation rather than an answer sheet or fortune-telling oracle.
A card like the Hermit, for example, could suggest isolation or looking inward, but it is the person being read who gives that symbolism relevance.
“Very often, it’s not about how the cards speak to me; it’s about how the literal meaning gives the person a springboard through which to explore themselves. I’m just a vehicle,” Van der Velden said.
The conversations can become intensely personal, ranging from troubled relationships to people who have lost children or simply feel lost themselves.
“Some say, ‘I don’t know where I am. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know how to move forward,’ and that pain is real.”
A card reading can be like holding up a mirror. Picture: Michel Bega/The Citizen
It makes his presence at Zingara an interesting counterpoint to the spectacle around him.
Guests arrive for dinner and a show but can unexpectedly find themselves talking about something they may not have planned on confronting that evening.
“To be vulnerable, to ask the question, and to have that conversation with me, a stranger, who has no skin in your game, is in itself an act of love to yourself,” he said.
‘An act of love to yourself’
Van der Velden came to tarot almost accidentally. He was given his first deck by a friend in 2018, but his academic background already lent itself to interpreting the language of the cards.
He holds an Honours degree in Literature with a strong grounding in symbology, and, before becoming a full-time tarot reader, had worked in radio, digital marketing, banking, and education.
Readings for friends eventually led him to pursue training under a well-known Cape Town tarot reader and a residency at the Magickal Gem in Observatory.
“The formal training that I’ve done was very much about the literal. What do the cards represent classically?” he said.
“Ironically, my degree helps me to weave a story through understanding symbolism.”
This also informs the boundaries he places around what he does.
“I’m not a psychic. I’m not trained in that,” he said, adding that ethics and responsibility formed an important part of what he does because readers deal with real people and sometimes very real pain.
But for all the academic understanding, classical meanings, and interpretations, Van der Velden does not try to explain everything as magical away. The person sitting opposite him shuffles the cards, while he simply deals with what appears.
“There is something in that, just that act of shuffling, where the threads of fate are then woven, and the cards must then fall in that particular order to speak to you in that particular way,” he said.
“I can’t control it. I don’t have any influence over the order of the cards that you put them in, but they matter to you.”
And whether that is symbolism, chance, or something else entirely remains an open question.
“If that is supernatural, I have no explanation for it. But the fact is, it’s there,” he said.