Tag: tarot

I. The Magician

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Keywords for the Magician

CONSCIOUSNESS POWER
ATTENTION INTENTION
FOCUSED ENERGY MASTERY
ACTION CONTROL
CREATION MANIFESTATION

It’s late afternoon, and we see an intense, mysterious looking man standing alone in a secret garden. Dressed in long, flowing robes of red and white, his ritual attire mirrors the flowers blooming here on this sacred ground. 

The red rose we see represents our heart’s desires, the power of our subconsciousness, as well as the body.  It is our primal will, our emotions, feelings, instincts and drives.

The white lily, on the other hand, symbolizes our capacity to discern the truth, the power of our consciousness, as well as our mind. Where they bloom, so do reason, logic, truth, honesty and integrity.

Turning back towards the Magician, we see that he stands before a wooden table, upon which are inscribed various symbols and astrological glyphs. Upon this altar are set the tools of his craft:

A wooden wand, for the spiritual element of fire: that which is active, inspired, fast-moving, adventurous and expansive.

A golden cup, for the emotional element of water: that which is receptive, imaginative, peaceful, gentle and quiet.

A sword of steel, for the intellectual element of air: that which is logical, rational, discerning, and concerned with truth.

A brass pentacle, for the physical element of earth: that which is mundane, grounded, patient, stable and secure.

The magician now casts his circle, calling in the powers of the four directions, asking they be here with him now. 

He thanks the elemental forces for their power and their presence. Then with deliberate intention, the Magician holds a white wand up toward the heavens in his right hand, as he points down to the ground with his left. 

Fully grounded in his power, he connects the Above with the Below. With single-pointed attention, he repeats two words alone to himself as he works his magic. 

Solve: It is the death, decay, and destruction of the current form of being. Every death, every disintegration releases a powerful surge of energy. As the old form collapses, power is made available to be used for creation of something new. 

Coagula: The energy freed in death is transformed. Freed from its imprisonment in matter, it is now available to take on a new shape, to be reborn into new ways of being. 

The task of the Magician is to channel this powerful energy into what he desires to create. In this moment, he is between worlds. He is both passive and active at once. 

He passively receives inspiration and creative power from above. He actively directs what is received through his attention into the desired object or outcome. 

Like Thoth, the God of words, language, and magic, he exists at the crossroads. Similar to Hermes, the Magician acts as a mediator and messenger, communicating the will of spirit in the world of matter. 

The Magician Interpretation

When this card comes up, it often speaks to our capacity to make decisions and manifest change in our material world. It often indicates mastery, a certain level of skill and command of both our inner and outer resources.

This card is a symbol of mastery and controlled action, utilizing the force of one’s focused intent to cause a change in conformity with will.

The Magician also means acting as a channel for divine inspiration to flow through us into material reality. 

This card asks us to turn our attention to channeling our potential (in the form of ideas and inspirations) into something tangible, concrete and manifested in the physical world. 

It is a reminder that, with proper focus and intent, we can truly create magic in the world. 

Nine of Swords

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9 of Swords

Keywords for the Nine of Swords

SHAME OPPRESSION
REGRET SORROW
GUILT SUFFERING
ANXIETY AGONY
FEAR PAINFUL MEMORIES

In the image on this card, we see someone sitting up in bed, holding their head in their hands. They appear as if they had just woken up from a nightmare, or recalled some horrible, traumatic memory.

Now, they cry bitterly, sad tears of despair in the middle of this long, dark night.

The pain and suffering evident in this card is palpable.However, it is an experience of inner suffering, of a mental or emotional pain which may sometimes come upon us unbidden in the darkness of the night.

The nine swords we see here make reference to the mental nature of this kind of pain, and their position fastened up high on the wall indicates that they are not something which can be of active use to us. 

Instead, they are heavy reminders of past limitations that only serve to keep us trapped in difficult conditions.

Also of importance here are the figures we see depicted on the bed and blanket which belong to this unfortunate soul. 

The blanket is covered in an alternating pattern of red roses and astrological symbols. The red roses symbolize, once again, the power of our emotions and our desires to create the reality of our lived experience. 

The astrological glyphs, on the other hand, are a reference to a more large-scale view of causality and creation, one which is deeply related to the concepts of karma and reincarnation. It demonstrates the idea that we are born into life conditions which are a direct result of our previous actions and behaviors.

It is this combination of personal desire and impersonal karmic forces that creates our destiny. Together, these cover the person in bed, keeping him contained within his own personal sphere of “fated” experience.

Carved into the wooden bed is a scene of a man whipping or beating another. This person lies defenseless on the ground, unable to resist or protect himself. 

This speaks of the fact that the suffering shown here is rooted in a serious issue. It is not a matter of a simple misunderstanding or having had a hard day. The shame and regret and loss re-experienced here is instead rooted in deep injustice, in true oppression and subjugation of others.

9 of Swords Interpretation

When the 9 of Swords comes up in a tarot reading, it typically speaks to an experience of great suffering and loss that has occured in our past. 

It can indicate a longer, more enduring experience of suffering and shame over a longer period of time. It tells of the things which have left their marks on our souls, which linger within us as fears and anxieties, and in some cases can even manifest as consuming pangs of guilt or  soul-crushing shame.

The 9 of Swords can at times refer to events so painful, they are not always even fully available to us in conscious awareness. These are the feelings and experiences we may have been forced to repress and deny in service of our own self-protection and well-being.

For example, we may bury our rage at an abusive parent who significantly harmed us during our childhood, and now have difficulty acknowledging or expressing our own anger in the present. 

This pattern rooted in unconscious defense mechanisms often leads to further situations where we are put in a position of powerlessness. There we may re-experience the original rage of our youth, and in so doing perpetuate the cycle of oppression and suffering.

This is a card which at times may even represent the deepest inner turmoil known to us as human beings. It shows the powerfully debilitating sense of shame known by survivors of trauma and abuse.

As a result, this card can represent the pain and rage which, when not allowed expression in the outer world, is often turned inward against oneself. 

XV. The Devil

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Keywords for The Devil 

IGNORANCE HOPELESSNESS
OBSESSION DESPAIR
DARKNESS DOUBT
LIMITATION DEBAUCHERY
BONDAGE ADDICTION

In the image on this card, we see the Devil represented not as Lucifer, bringer of light, but instead as Baphomet, part man, part goat, with the wings of a bat and feet of a bird. In this form, he is representative of the forces of darkness. 

This is further reinforced by the dark mark, perhaps a stigmata, we see etched into the palm of his right hand. It is the glyph for Saturn, planet of limitation, restriction, and boundaries. Saturn also represents incorporation into physical form, along with all the physical limitations inherent in materiality. 

This symbol, like many other elements here, is as if to say, “This is it—the physical, material world you see before your eyes is all there is—nothing more is possible.” It asks us to forget the spiritual, to tie our hopes and desires to the physical only. It encourages blind consumption, sex without soul, obsession with form and ignorance of spirit.

This is further echoed by the appearance of the man and woman standing with chains around their necks by the feet of the Devil. They are parallel figures to the pair we saw earlier, blessed by Archangel Raphael, in the Lovers card. 

Here, they appear with a set of horns on their heads, indicating their animal-like nature. There are no trees as we saw earlier in the Garden of Eden. Instead, the woman herself bears the fruit, her tail extending behind her as a ripe bunch of grapes. 

The man’s tail is made entirely of fire, likely an allusion to the libido, or sexual life force energy. He holds his right hand with palm facing up, touching the clawed feet of the Devil. 

It is interesting to note that the Devil himself lights his torch from the flames produced by the fiery energy of the man in this image. It is as if to say that the ideas represented by the Devil (bondage, ignorance, focus on the physical instead of the spiritual) springs from the sexual impulses of man when uncontrolled or unskillfully expressed.

The Devil Interpretation

When the Devil comes up in a tarot reading, it can refer to the feeling of being trapped, despondent, or hopeless. We may despair of ever finding a way out of our difficult and limiting circumstances. 

This card can also speak to themes around captivity, bondage or enslavement. We may feel like we are in chains, bound to a destructive force that is much greater than ourselves. This often takes the form of overindulgence in or addiction to various substances such as drugs and alcohol, as well as process addictions like shopping or gambling.

It also speaks to obsessions, especially those of a romantic or sexual nature, where we may feel compelled by physical drives to engage in relationships or other forms of social interaction which we know on some level are ultimately unhealthy for us.

A central theme of this card revolves around what value we attribute to the physical & material elements of our world. The upside down pentagram which we see suspended at the crown of the Devil’s head provides a key to understanding these themes more deeply. 

The pentagram, right side up, is a five pointed star meant to represent the human body and our relationship to the five elements. The top point of the star represents the head, the two sides the arms, and the lower points the legs and feet. 

Right side up, the pentagram has the head over the heart and body, in a relationship of “mind over matter,” where our desires are informed and directed by our reason and higher mind.

Inverted, the Devil’s pentagram signifies desire over reason, and matter over spirit. In this case, we let our lower animal passions drive our conscious mind. Instead of utilizing our consciousness constructively, reason is instead used solely for the purpose of rationalization, to justify wrongs done in the name of passion. 

When we allow our “lower” (or our unexamined or unmediated) desires to rule our lives, we find that our entire system can be thrown off balance. 

It often expresses itself in what we might call the “sins” of materialism. Materialism is not simply an obsession with money and the physical objects it can buy, but also a more philosophical orientation towards the world that holds that nothing exists beyond the world of the senses. This is especially common in the modern scientific outlook which holds that if it cannot be measured, then it must not exist.

Remember that the word “sin” originated as a latin term from archery meaning “to miss the mark.” With this in mind, we see how this obsession with form is not necessarily “evil” per se, but simply misses the mark. It is incomplete, and as such, fails to draw a complete picture of our reality. 

Unfortunately, this failure of perception results in grave errors that undermine our experience and even our capacity for continued existence on this living planet Earth. We can see this today, for example, in overconsumption, the drive for endless economic growth, and its relationship to climate change and environmental destruction.

This is the bad news. The good news is that we are not condemned to continue the errors of the past. Look at the chains which hold the woman and man on this card. They hang loose around their necks. It would be so easy to remove them and become free. 

First, they would need to become aware of their bondage, and recognize the falsehood of the lies which have held them chained. Liberation would then become inevitable. For those who have developed the eyes to see, it would then be a simple task to lift the chains from off one’s neck, drop the lies, and step into the future free from the limitations of ignorance.

History & Origins of the Tarot

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There have been countless tales told about the origins of the tarot, but undoubtedly the most popular of these was that it originated as a simple card game in late medieval Europe. Known as Les Tarots in Frances, or Tarocchi in Italy, this accounting of the roots from which the cards sprang states that it was nothing more than a parlor game that later acquired a much more unusual divinatory use.

Although nonetheless still shrouded in mystery, historians generally agree that the first Tarot deck as we know it today was in fact painted during the late 15th by an artist named Bonifacio Bembo in Milan. It is said that the deck he created had been commissioned to celebrate the wedding of two noble Italian families, and this deck, known as the Visconti-Sforza, still carries the names of his wealthy patrons.

The Sun, the Hermit & Judgement from the Visconti tarot

Like those that would come after, this deck draws on some of the most common archetypal figures of the late medieval period, such as the Emperor, the Wheel of Fortune, and the Devil. These characters were represented often in allegorical morality plays which were commonly staged during that time. These dramas often featured human protagonists intermingling on stage with personifications of more abstract concepts like Temperance or Death. The objective was to impart a moral lesson to viewers, with the hope that they would be inspired to live a more virtuous life.

It wasn’t until the late 18th century that Antoine Court de Gébelin proposed a radically new theory for the time in his book, Le Monde Primitif regarding the true origin and purpose of these cards. He asserted that rather than being a simple card game, the Tarot was in fact a pictorial representation of the ancient philosophies of the Egyptian god Thoth (known later to the Greeks and Romans as Hermes or Mercury). According to him, the Tarot contained within them an ancient, hidden wisdom which could be discerned by those who knew how to interpret the various symbols depicted in the cards.

By the time Le Monde Primitif was published, the most common Tarot deck available or in use at the time was what is known as the Marseilles deck. This was in many ways simpler and more stylized than its predecessor, the Visconti-Sforza. The hand drawn images contained more of the abstract, symbolic imagery that became the precursor for what we see in tarot decks today.

For example, in this deck we see The Magician standing at a table with his ritual implements, wearing a hat bearing the figure 8, or infinity symbol, an innovation which would reappear later in the great majority of tarot decks in use today.

3 Magicians: the Visconti, Marseilles, and Rider-Waite

The most well-known and popular of these decks, the Rider-Waite, was created in 1909 by members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. In particular, occultist & scholar Arthur Edward Waite and artist Pamela Colman Smith were responsible for the creation of this Tarot deck, and it remains one of the most popular decks in use even today.
It has remained so popular due to its easily accessible symbolic imagery containing within them many of the principles and ideas held by the Golden Dawn. It was radically innovative for its time, as it was the first deck to ever feature pictorial, representational images printed on each of the 78 cards. In the past, what are known as the “pip” cards (or 1-10 of each suit) consisted only of an arrangement of a corresponding number of wands, cups, swords or pentacles (much like today’s common playing cards).

Eight of Cups: left, Rider-Waite; right, Marseilles

This addition of representative scenes from daily life made using the deck much easier, both for study and for divination. Waite and Smith had designed each card in such a way that each object, gesture, and even quantity carried some symbolic meaning that could lead to deeper insight and understanding.

However, some have argued that the real value of this deck lies in Smith’s evocative artwork, which itself requires little interpretation, and speaks directly to the unconscious mind itself. Each card of this new Tarot deck had the power to evoke a strong, clear impression or feeling in the observer that could give meaning on its own. This development was crucial in sparking a new era of popularity of the tarot and introducing many to this art of divination.

The Rider-Waite-Smith is still the most common deck in use today, not only by individuals and professional readers, but also among teachers, and in books and other reference resources. Among the many new decks which have emerged afterwards, more than a few are what is known as Rider-Waite derivative, meaning that they are simply artistic re-imaginings of the same basic set of images contained in the original.

The RWS deck is what I will primarily be using here as a reference for my posts on each of the cards and their meanings. It is the deck I first learned with, and it is also the deck I most often use in readings (both personally, for myself, and professionally with clients), although I have since acquired many others.

With that said, I did want to also mention another important and highly influential deck in use today. This deck, the Thoth tarot, is one which also has its roots in the Order of the Golden Dawn. It was developed quite a bit later than the Rider-Waite, in conjunction with the artist Frieda Harris during World War II, only to be published sometime in the late 1960s.

Key 14: Art — Thoth tarot (known as Temperance in other decks)

There are some, indeed, who take the Thoth deck to be the only “true” tarot, believing it more faithfully represents the secret teachings of the Order of the Golden Dawn. The artwork by Harris is stunning, and I have found the inclusion of the Hebrew letters and astrological associations very useful. From my personal experience, I have found it less useful in my professional readings, as these typically deal with common, everyday issues in my client’s daily lives. While I find the Thoth deck fascinating and intriguing, the more abstract nature of it makes it less easily applicable to the more common mundane situations encountered in a typical tarot reading.

Inner Visions | February 4, 2021

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Journal Date: February 4th, 2021

I had another reiki session with Angelic yesterday.

As usual, it was a good experience. I feel like it was very healing.

This time I also had very interesting and intense visions while she was doing the energy healing.

It began as it usually does.

At first, I didn’t see very much at all. 

Then, shifting colors began appearing in my field of inner vision.

After a few more minutes, a more definite image began to emerge.

It took me by surprise.

The first image that appeared was a crocodile. 

It was not what I expected.

But I decided to just stay with it, allow it, follow it and see where it took me.

I followed it down the banks of the Nile River and ended up in Ancient Egypt. I saw the great civilization, and all of the magic that went on there. I could see the great cities, and the temples lit up at night.

And I tried to look for myself, to see if I was there, how I fit into all this.

And with that, I found myself somewhere else.

This time, it was morning, and I was in a garden, somewhere in or near Mexico City.

I was wearing a flowing white knee length dress and gold sandals, and my dog Beso was there with me, with a white and gold collar and leash set.

We walked together along a garden path until we reached an elegant temple in the middle of the tropical garden we were in.

Together, we walked up the stairs and stepped inside.

The inside of this temple was dazzlingly beautiful, and with its high vaulted ceilings and long expanses of glass windows stretching up towards the sky, had the look and feel of a renaissance cathedral.

I walked, with Beso beside me on his leash, down the long aisle towards the beautifully decorated altar.

Once we arrived at the front of the cathedral, I noticed another section of this temple which had caught my attention. I turned to my left and began walking in this direction.

This section of the temple appeared to be a museum, and it was much darker here than the rest of the space, the only light coming from the glass box display cases.

Stepping inside, I realized that this museum was dedicated to me.

Looking closer, I could see, yes, each display case held items or photographs of events from my past. It was arranged chronologically, starting at birth.

My first thought on seeing this was, “Oh no… I can’t go through this again.”

I heard a voice (which would later speak to me at similar critical times) answer, “Yes, you can. You can do this. It’s safe to see what there is to be seen here.”

So I took a step forward, and I continued.

It was difficult to go back through this reliquary containing my past. 

So much suffering was contained within these displays.

But there was beauty, and there were tender moments, some measure of sweetness, and little bit of joy, as well.

As I walked, there were moments that overwhelmed me, and I felt that I could not go on.

But as before, a voice from beyond encouraged me. “Keep going. You can. There is nothing for you to fear within these walls.”

So I did.

I walked and I looked and I took the time to feel for everything that came up.

I cried, very often. So many tears had to be shed.

But this time, they were tears of compassion, sympathy and love, filled with sadness for the girl and the woman I’d once been (rather than of shame and bitterness, as they had often come before).

I won’t spend much time now on the specifics of what I saw there–it’s nothing new, nothing I haven’t known about or written extensively on before by now.

What is important here is the journey I made through this memorial of my self, and how I felt and reacted to what was there.

After maybe 20 minutes in this process, I finally made it to the last display case, to the present moment and the end of the museum.

When I had arrived at the end of the final exhibit, all of a sudden the dark wing of the temple containing this museum lit up, and was now brightly lit with hundreds of candles and torches illuminating the beautifully decorated walls.

And now I could see up to the ceiling of this cathedral, where uncovered windows showed the brilliant, burning stars shining down into my corner of the cosmos.

It was very late, maybe 4 or 5am – an entire night had passed during my descent into my own personal underworld.

It felt like a signal that my descent was over. And I felt I was being honored with this beautiful display for having made it through.

I knew that soon, the sun would be rising outside, and that my time in this temple of the past was near its end. I felt I was being asked, “Do you have anything you would like to say before you leave here?”

And before I could think twice, I heard myself answer, “Thank you.”

And then immediately, another part of me responded with something like, “Really?? Thank you? Are you kidding me?”

“Well, yeah…” I shyly responded. Then, a little more surely, “I guess I am grateful – it got me here, didn’t it? It made me who I am. And I’m proud of that.”

Though I was still tearful as I lay there on the table in Angelic’s office (the “real,” physical me) had to smile a little: it was true. I was grateful. And yes, I was proud. I had made it. I had made it through to the other side of all that.

And though it seemed enough to simply have survived, what’s more, I knew that one day, I would say that I had triumphed.

At that point, I looked down at my wrist, and I saw some markings appear there.

They were the two tattoos that I have wanted to get, the infinity symbol on my left wrist, and a small black skull on my right, both drawn in the style of the Smith-Waite tarot.

And I remembered what I had recently heard Clarissa Pinkola Estés say about the scars that people like me carried:

“It’s never going to look like you never suffered. Although I say, be proud of your scars. It has everything to do with your strength and what you’ve endured. It’s a map, so to speak, a treasure map to the self, the deepest self.”

And then I heard a voice say, “You have nothing to be ashamed of anymore. You can leave all of that behind. It was never truly yours to carry in the first place.”

I acknowledged this was true. This is a major part of what the inner work of the last year has shown me: most of the shame I carried came from things which had been done to me, not by me. 

I carried the shame of my abusers, of my attackers, and those who had committed crimes against me.

I carried the burden of guilt that properly belong to those who had hurt me, the mother who hated me, the father who had refused to protect me from harm. 

I had created this structure of lies about myself and my life, all resting upon this false foundation: “It’s because you deserved it. If you had simply been better, they wouldn’t have ‘had’ to…”

Well, now I know better. Now I knew that the failings were not mine. I did not bear the responsibility, and I could not account for these sins of theirs.

The voice spoke again.

“There is nothing to fear here. You don’t have to be afraid any longer. You may return whenever you want to, and you will find only peace here.”

And with that, I was ready.

With little Beso next to me, I stepped outside the temple door into the early morning light.

The sun had not come fully over the horizon yet, but the sky was becoming lighter with each passing second.

Beso and I walked down the rear temple stairs, both of us now dressed in new clothes: he was in an adorable little white doggie tuxedo with a gold leash, while I now stood in a flowing floor length chiffon gown with a light white cape, all with gold details, as well as a golden necklace decorated with pearls, and similarly made matching earrings.

After walking down the stars, we stepped onto a garden path that first led to a fountain filled with flowing water.

I walked to it, and dipped my hands into the running water and brought it to my face, and with a white towel, cleansed myself before continuing down the garden trail.

It was here that I stepped onto what was now a grass-covered path with my bare feet. The sun was shining down on the earth, and the grass felt both warmed by the sun while retaining a certain earthy coolness belonging to the morning.

From there on, I walked barefoot on the grass with little Beso by my side until I reached a throne, also gold and ivory and decorated with pearls to match the clothes I was already wearing.

I sat down, and it was here that my gold and white crown appeared on my head.

I had made it.

I was now sovereign, ruler of my own kingdom.

I had learned how to belong to myself, discovered my own agency, and the right and ability to make decisions that would serve me and all that I oversaw.

Once I had been crowned and was comfortably seated on my throne, people began to arrive.

They were all dressed mostly in white, along with the addition of one bright primary color as an accessory (like a royal blue belt or a red scarf).

When all of the guests had arrived for the celebration we were to have, it made for a very vibrantly colorful and energetic garden party.

As they arrived, the guests spoke to me.

They welcome me to my kingdom.

They told me, “You made it.”

“We’ve been waiting for you.”

“We’re so glad you’re finally here.”

They were all so happy to see me.

And it turns out they had expected me, had wanted to spend time with me, had been waiting just for me.

So when everyone arrived, we had our celebration.

It was a very peaceful, calm and relaxed garden lunch. We sat at a table set in the grass, covered in white linen with gold place settings, and ate healthy fruit and salads, drinking only water, juice and green tea.

The conversation lasted long into the afternoon, and nothing very much in particular happened. We just laughed and smiled and talked and enjoyed each other’s company.

Around this point, I left the perspective of being in my own body within the vision, and the scene seemed to zoom out until I could see the entire globe, spinning slowly in the void of space. 

As it spun, day shifted into night and then again to day and back again, and the people continued on, with no interruption to the rhythm of their peaceful daily happenings. All was calm, all continued with grace, and a gentle and reassuring order prevailed.

I saw myself again (this time, in a new change of clothes–a white button down shirt and pants) go on to interact with new people, and take on the role of a healer and helper.

And this, too, like day and night, alternated in a graceful rhythm, becoming part of the pattern of a new life of purpose and contentment.

Six of Pentacles

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6 of Pentacles

Keywords for the Six of Pentacles 

GENEROSITY INEQUALITY
MERCYIMBALANCE OF POWER
GIVING/RECEIVINGUNEQUAL RELATIONSHIP 
TO HAVE/HAVE NOTDOMINANCE/SUBMISSION
SHARING RESOURCESHIERARCHY

In the image on the card, we see a well-dressed man standing over two men who hold their hands outstretched to receive a few coins in their hands. This appears to be an act of charity, motivated by benevolence and good-will.  However, it is possible that all is not what it seems here.

Notice the position of the merchant’s right hand, from which he dispenses the few coins he is offering to the poor. It is in the same position as the hand not only of the Hierophant in Key 5, but also the Devil in Key 15. 

In both cases, this is a gesture which says: I give to you, but I retain yet another part to myself.

In the man’s left hand, he tightly grips a set of scales which are likely meant to be a symbolic allusion to his trade as a merchant, but also to an idea of which he would like for us to be convinced. With scales clenched in his hand, he seems intent on persuading us that this is, indeed, justice.

Contrast this with the way the goddess Justitia holds the scales in Key 11, Justice, of the Major Arcana. She holds her scales lightly,  balancing them gently on the tips of her fingers in an effortless, easy manner.

We may ask ourselves, “What does this say about the difference between the Justice of Man and the Justice of God?” 

The Justice of God (or cosmic justice, universal law, etc.) is effortless, in many ways simply a chain of action and reaction. It is like a karmic cycle that at its core is simply the interrelation of causes and their effects over time. 

It is enforced naturally, in much the same way the earth turns and the sun rises and we are born and must die in a natural sequence of beginnings and endings.

Human justice, however, is grasped tightly, and much effort is expended to exact retribution and maintain an order that at its best, is artificial, and in the worst cases, is highly unjust and contrary to the values of life.  

It is often maintained through the use of excessive force, with violence and suffering in order to ensure compliance to a system created by the dominant group in power. 

It is also maintained through a hegemonic system of values which idealizes the generosity of the wealthy in the form of alms and small acts of charity, which honors and preserves their right to hoard wealth, refuse to pay a living wage, and set up economic and political systems which keep the majority of the population in a state of perpetual poverty and material lack. 

However, it is not merely on a large scale, societal level in which giving to the other can be a powerful tool for control and influence. 

Often, in interpersonal relationships, we find a dynamic in which one person controls the resources (financial, emotional, physical) and dispenses them to others in order to establish a relationship of dependence. 

This manufactured state of dependence is then often used as a tool of manipulation in which the one who is seemingly the beneficiary is obligated to provide other kinds of resources (for example, emotional or domestic labor) to the more seemingly “generous” party.

6 of Pentacles Interpretation

When the 6 of Pentacles comes up in a reading, we are often being asked to look more attentively at the power dynamics in which we are engaged.

This card may point to a situation in which we are relating to others through a dynamic that is based on inequality. This is a dynamic in which one person gives and the other takes, leaving little in the way of reciprocity.

The 6 of Pentacles often asks us to question our assumptions regarding the nature of the exchange, as well as our perceptions regarding the moral value we attribute to each of the players in this game. 

Again, we usually will find that all is not as it seems. Often, the person in the role of “giver” may offer a helping hand less out of mercy than out of a desire to control and build or retain his own power in the situation. 

In the scene picture on the Six of Pentacles, the wealthy merchant controls the resources available based on an economic and political system which has been established to protect the interests of his class. 

Those lower than him on the social scale are disempowered, and often denied the opportunity to earn a living in a way that will support the fulfillment of their basic needs. 

The tokens of “mercy” are little more than an excuse, a way to ease the tension and buy the good will of those who have been marginalized by a system he has helped to create.

The bottom line here is that the Six of Pentacles often asks us to question our assumptions regarding the nature of exchange within any given relationship we may find ourselves in.

We would do well to take a step back and take a look at the relational power dynamics we are engaged in from a new vantage point. You may be surprised to find that in some ways, it may better to give than to receive.

Personality : Projector :: Environment : Screen

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Journal Date: November 28, 2020

I’m still thinking about everything I learned last night.

It’s nothing new (I first read these lessons in 2014), but it feels like I’m seeing them with new eyes. 

I feel more capable of comprehending it

I guess it’s supposed to be that way.

The last lesson I read (Lesson 2 of “Tarot Interpretation”) said about as much. 

It said that as we “ripen”, we’ll come to even deeper and deeper levels of understanding. We’re never truly “finished”. The earlier understandings, while perhaps incomplete, were still important: they were exactly what we needed at that stage of our development.

I’m glad that I’ve finally taken up my BOTA studies again after so long (it’s been years).

This is the perfect time to come back to them.

I’d kind of wondered why I resisted for so long, but maybe it was just that the time wasn’t right. 

I wasn’t yet ready, but now I am.

I’m amazed by how many synchronicities I’ve experienced since coming back to it.

It’s been very magical. 

I think this means I’m on the right track.

The reading, and especially the passages I quoted yesterday, raised so many important questions.

Last time, I tried to answer what it was inside that I was projecting out, the effects on me and my environment, and finally, how all those ideas about who I was in relation to my world even got there in the first place.

Now, I’d like to address the following questions: if it is true that our personality is like a projector, and our environment is the screen… then what do I want to do with this knowledge?

What kind of life do I want?

What kind of thoughts and visualizations do I need to hold in my inner world?

How can I use speech, or my own mental definitions of myself and my relationship to my circumstances, to create the life I want to live?

Obviously, that’s a question that can’t be answered all at once–I’m just setting out the terms of what I’ll be inquiring into.

These are good questions though, and I think they’ll help me get better answers.

Here are some more questions I wrote to help in my exploration. I encourage you to take a moment to pull out a pen and paper and jot down some notes on whatever comes up for you. 

  • Write a list of some of you beliefs about yourself and about the world (both positive and negative). 
    • How did you come to develop these beliefs?
    • What outcomes did having these beliefs have on your experiences after?
  • Examine how your inner world creates your experience. Match thoughts to things. 
    • Can you find evidence to the contrary which might disprove some of your beliefs about yourself?
    • What do you usually do with such evidence when confronted with it?
  • Consider the following: “If our definitions be wrong, because we are deluded by appearances, the appearances grow worse and worse.” 
    • How has this played out in your own life? Give specific examples.

Feel free to share in the comments what resonated most, I’d love to hear what is on your mind.

Eternal Return

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Journal Date: November 27, 2020

I’m reading Lesson 2 of the “Tarot Interpretation” series, which discusses Keys 2, 9 and 16 that I have just been studying.

In this lesson, reincarnation and our ability to remember our past lives through the use of the subconscious and transliminal states of consciousness is also discussed.

This adds relevance and weight to what I had already been considering about past lives, and how they have created my current experience of reality.

I’ve been wondering:

What if my mom and dad didn’t make me who I am today?

What if instead, in some sense, I caused them?

What if it were true that I chose them, as the perfect people to be my parents?

What if my past thoughts and desires cast my parents in their roles, who then cast me into mine?

It seems hard to imagine.

I mean, why would I ever have willingly chosen this, right?

But my visions of my past life (especially when combined with what I know of my natal chart) make me more inclined to think that this is the case.

“The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!”

Friedrich Nietzsche

So let me just imagine that for a moment…

In my past lives, I suffered greatly from other people’s perceptions of and reactions to me.

I’m told I was punished severely for crimes I never committed.

According to Angelic, and from what I saw on my own, I was trapped in this underground dungeon, held in chains in the dark beneath earth, accused and attacked, humiliated and blamed, tortured and mutilated in the most violent ways.

Here, I was forced to pay not for what I had done, but for how I had been seen.

And maybe it was then that I first betrayed myself, and left my soul behind.

In the face of so much pain, maybe the truth no longer mattered to me so much.

It seems possible that, in terror and desperation, I gave in, and accepted their words as truth. 

Maybe I started to believe that I did deserve all that I suffered. 

That it was my fault. 

That it must be true, that if I had not been so selfish, stubborn and wrong, I never would have ended up there.

Maybe there, beneath the earth, banished from the world, I had started to wish that I had never dared to be me, that I had just hidden myself away, and never been so foolish or proud to attract attention to myself at all.

Maybe I’d wished to go back, to have done things differently, to have promised myself if I had the chance to do it all over I would have hid, I would have been more modest, I wouldn’t ever have provoked anyone to hurt me.

And when the grace of death finally touched me in that hell, maybe all of these fears and traumas and regrets carried on with me into the next life.

This one.

“What has been will be again,

what has been done will be done again;

there is nothing new under the sun.”

–Ecclesiastes 1:9

Maybe this created exactly the upbringing my soul wanted. It desperately wanted to feel safe. And it thought the best way to do that was to stay as small as possible.

Never let anyone see my goodness. Never allow myself to be “too much.”

Hiding.

Living in fear.

Living to please and pacify all others, lest I be captured again, lest I once again bring about my demise due to what was called the sin of my vanity.

Well, it didn’t exactly work.

I wouldn’t really call what happened to me “keeping me safe,” anyway.

But either way, I see what may have been the intention, and I see the results.

I tried my best to beat myself down first. To keep myself humble and small before others, so no one would have any reason to believe I thought myself superior, “too good” or better than anyone.

But the problem was, I could never be small enough.

I could never hide myself so well that no one ever took offense.

In betraying myself, I just recreated the same pattern of betrayal from others.

Maybe this is the lesson I need to learn instead:

You can’t ever control other people, no matter what you do.

You can try all day to please, but some people will find only bad in all of the good you have to offer.

Sometimes, people are committed to their perceptions in such a way that you are almost irrelevant.

Your attempts to prove your “goodness” may only drive some to even further hatred or revenge.

Maybe I need to stop trying to convince people who refuse to be convinced.

Stop making other people’s perceptions the priority.

Maybe I need to let go of my fear and my desire to manage others.

This would probably do more to cause change for me than anything else.

Sign of necessity!
Supreme star of being! —
That no desire attains,
That no No desecrates,
Eternal Yes of being,
Eternally I am your Yes:
For I love you, O eternity!”

–Friedrich Nietzsche

The Tower of Babel

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“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.” –John 1:1

For most of my life, my greatest passion has been the search for knowledge.

A lonely child, I found refuge in books: in fiction, tales about foreign lands and fantastic creatures; in practical books about science, the earth, and life processes; in languages, philosophy, religion; in the paranormal, occult, and mysterious. You name it, I had to know about it.

I often felt like everyone else had gotten the instruction manual on this thing called Life, and I was the only one left empty-handed.

And so I took this business very seriously. I read anything and everything I could get my hands on. Somewhere out there was the answer, one day I would find the truth behind it all, and everything would make sense.

In college, I studied literature and languages, and later went to graduate school for a master’s degree in Rhetoric & Composition. I developed an obsession with epistemology, the study of truth, language, and what we can know.

Eventually I started to think that maybe Socrates had it right all along, and the answer was that we truly can know nothing;  but my obsession now had a life of its own, and the demon inside me demanding answers ate every piece of text and trivia in its path, never satisfied, always hungry for more.

I was building my very own Tower of Babel, and it was destroying me. Every Word was another brick in this tower, growing higher and higher into the sky, and I thought that in this way I would one day touch God.

This tower was not built of truth, but of ego. It was a fortress meant to protect me from this reality: that I was terrified, confused, lost and alone.

As all I had built crumbled in a flash, I saw that each little piece of knowledge, each little fact, each bit of data was a line of defense against the world, against chaos, and against life.

It was awareness that I was seeking, and consciousness that I needed.

Words can be a useful tool in directing thought, in guiding the mind to greater consciousness. The word is creative, it is generative, it directs the manifestation of life, but it is not life itself.

VIII. Strength

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Strength

Keywords for Strength 

SELF-CONTROLFORTITUDE
INNER RESOURCESSOFT POWER
DISCIPLINECOURAGE
RESILIENCEVITALITY
EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCEKUNDALINI

It is late afternoon, and a warm and vibrantly energizing yellow sunlight permeates the air, illuminating the landscape we see all around us. On our left, we can see the high peak of a distant gray mountaintop in shadow, the very same mountain which we first saw earlier in the Lovers card.

There is a certain peace and serenity which permeates the atmosphere. There is still much energy left of the day, but we are now at a point when the power of the Sun is under control. We are no longer burned by its heat, but gently warmed by the life energy calmly exuded by this center of solar energy.

Directly in front of us stands a woman in white, wearing a crown of flowers on her head. She also wears a garland of roses, one which ties her, in an elegant figure 8, to the lion at her feet.

Gently, tenderly, with an attitude of the utmost care, she holds the open jaws of this king of the animal kingdom, the lion. In return, he looks up at her with an attitude of loving submission. For the woman has learned how to tame the wildest and most powerful of beasts: with attention and respect, with care and with love. 

A lesser person would have responded to the ferocious strength and power of the lion with fear, with fury, with a violence meant to destroy. But the woman, who bears much in common with the Empress, knows better—she knows that strength and power is nothing to be feared. Treated with respect and love, the raw, primal energies of this red lion are instead a force to be tamed, to be controlled with disciplined attention and careful responsiveness. 

To try to suppress or kill this energy would be a tragedy; to misunderstand the lion as a threat is a grave error, for he represents a force which is ours to be harnessed. It is one which, with the right attitude, can ultimately show us greater power than we could have ever imagined possible. 

The key lies in the garland of roses which tie the woman and the lion together. Roses represent our desire nature, the forces of love and attraction which propel us forward into the future, which draw our destiny towards us. The lion represents the raw power of our uncultivated emotions, our primal, animal level of the subconscious. When we can direct the raw energy of these emotions and direct our own difficult feelings with compassion and care, we often find that we have access to a kind of power previously impossible to imagine. 

Strength Interpretation

When Strength comes up in a tarot reading, we are often being asked to act in a way that demonstrates true inner strength and courage. 

The quality of strength as demonstrated in this card has little to do with the common cultural conceptions many of us hold around this idea. Strength here is in fact the opposite of the show of force that our cultures so values. True strength is the antithesis of the violent expression of personal will that we mistakenly often take to be true power. 

Instead of dominance and coercion, we see a strength whose expression is truly much more powerful. This kind of strength relies on inner resources, and is dependent upon our cultivation of discipline and genuine self-control. 

On a more esoteric level, the lion is a representation of our primal (some would say “lower”) animal nature. It symbolizes the raw energy of kundalini that comes from our deepest inner sources. 

It is the “libido” that Carl Jung speaks of, which, in contrast to Freud, is not simply a shameful sexual impulse, but rather the vital life force energy that animates all which moves and breathes and has its being in the world. 

Our desires, our feelings, our emotions are nothing to be feared. They must not be repressed or denied through oppressive tactics.

They are instead a force to be respected, a force to be honored, a force to be gently and lovingly guided in the direction of our highest vision and most elevated ideals.