April 2024: Tarot Cards for Writing Inspiration

Break out the bingo cards and the cribbage sets! We’re getting wild and crazy with a bunch of senior citizens who really know how to party…and get up to lots of mayhem, mischief, and perhaps even commit the occasional murder along the way. But you know the saying…what happens in the retirement home, stays in the retirement home. Right?

Hope you enjoy April’s 2024 tarot card reading for inspiration!

Deck: The Tarot of the Old Path by Howard Rodway

 

Character and Setting: II The High Priestess. It’s a big day at a local retirement facility! One of the residents’ birthday is coming up. This resident is one of the most popular and well-liked residents at the facility—the “Queen Bee” as it were. She’s led an exciting life as an international journalist, world traveler, and best-selling author. In her retirement, she’s become a successful artist, and teaches art classes to the other residents. She seems to be successful in anything she sets her mind to, yet she’s also kind and philanthropic and volunteers once a week at the local animal shelter.

 

Theme/Development: Queen of Cauldrons. The resident is intending to go all out for a birthday bash for her and the other residents at the facility. Rumors are running wild among the staff and the residents alike, and everything from a trip to the local strip club to a party bus to even a rented plane whisking everyone off to a posh winery in France is being whispered about. Still, the birthday “gal” is keeping the plans a secret until the big day, and the only ones who seem to be in on the secret are a few of her closest friends. Invitations have been sent out, however, but they are vague enough to only add to the mystery.

 

Conflict: Page of Swords. Word of the festivities has reached her family, and her grandson arrives at the facility bearing gifts from the entire family. The birthday visit itself is not unusual, but the motives are. The grandson has actually been sent to investigate the planned birthday events, or, rather, how much of the family’s future inheritance the resident is frittering away. As he is the resident’s favourite relative, he hopes to dissuade the resident from any extravagant plans, but the resident is as secretive with him as she is with the other residents and staff. He accepts her invitation to the party in hopes of still being able to intervene in the case of any excessive spending.

 

Climax: Three of Cauldrons. The day of the big party arrives, and it’s just as her family has feared. The day begins with a fully catered brunch by one of the most expensive restaurants in the area, followed up by cake and the opening of presents. There’s at least not the rumoured jaunt by private jet to an international location, but as evening comes, there is a party bus taking his grandmother and the residents to undisclosed locations, and the grandson is not invited. He can only wait, and worry, for his grandmother and her friends to return. And, when they do return, it seems that the party is only just getting started.

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What elements could be added to make this scenario sinister? Could this senior citizen (and her friends at the facility) be hiding a secret more serious—and more deadly—than just heading out for a wild night on the town? What could happen if, and when, the grandmother realizes that her grandson and the rest of her family have less-than-altruistic motives regarding her and her money? What other sort of twists could you imagine out of this reading? A group of senior citizen serial killers? A secret society of bloodthirsty supernatural beings, with the grandmother as the leader? Is the grandson the one who might find himself at risk? Perhaps this elder woman is less vulnerable to the manipulations of her greedy family than she seems!