“Tarot for Romeo and Juliet: Reflections on Relationships” by Camelia Elias

"Tarot for Romeo and Juliet: Reflections on Relationships" by Camelia Elias

"This book is about the tension between how singular the manifestation of love is and what we assume, often wrongly, about the idea of togetherness. To know the difference means to know the heart of the other. To know the heart of man is, in fact, the highest, sages and artists tell us. But who has this gift? Lovers do. Lovers share a passion that exceeds common understanding, and yet their acting on it can be fraught.

While knowing the heart of the other is the premise for the experience of grand passion, this very knowledge is also the price we pay for the image of an infinite love. But what if lovers fail at relationships? This book is an investigation into what happens to the knowledge of the heart when basic communication breaks down, or when we realize that all the assumptions we make about the other are wrong.

Borrowing Shakespeare's passionate lovers, Romeo and Juliet, Camelia Elias weaves a personal story of love and loss through encounters with the Tarot. At the cartomancy table we also encounter Werner Herzog's films, Klaus Kinski's acting, Formula One driver Ayrton Senna, and professors of Psychology, Renaissance, and Religious Studies.

In this book Juliet drives a sports car without crashing, and Romeo commits harakiri, Japanese style, while reading tomes such as Thinking with Demons. This book is an homage to the love whose image exceeds even that of the imagination."