tarot of the week-the chariot

Know the self to be sitting in the chariot, the body to be the chariot, the intellect the charioteer, and the mind the reins. -- Veda Upanishads

In the last few weeks, I have read Tarot at some events where I have reading after reading. During these readings, I notice some universal themes and cards arise. The intuitive message that Spirit is giving me about these cards is that this is a cycle we are in, rather than applicable just to that person. My message is usually to tap into this energy and ride the wave. One cycle trend I have noticed is the Chariot. Number VII of the Major Arcana, the Chariot is about victory, accomplishment, action, and movement and further, driving one's own fate. 

I love the quote from the Upanishads, (and I noticed after I picked it that Marcia Masino uses a similar quote in her book Best Tarot Practices). So much of this card is about understanding the Self and using every aspect of yourself to achieve. The underlying themes of this card is self-will, control, action, motivation, progress...The Chariot often comes after a period of hard work and action. It is the card that nods to your hard work, willpower, determination, and diligence. Spirit acknowledges you in that way. And acknowledges that you could have taken this path by dishonest means, or even easier means, but you kept your integrity. The hard work remains an important aspect of your path. This is an important part of this card--Integrity. I often talk about turning one's will over to the Divine, and so often, the cards ask us to trust in our path, or in Spirit to hold us and care for us. Our needs will be met. And certainly, Spirit still reminds us of that when we talk about the Chariot, but this is a card of ACTION. Da-Da-DUH! You must be the Charioteer, controlling your responses to things, seeing the road in front of you, and navigating the inevitable potholes.

Seven, in numerology, is a very mystical number. The number of faith, it is most psychic, or rather intuitive, number, and often the role of Seven is one of spiritual completion and wholeness--seven chakras, seven days to create the work, seven pillars of wisdom. It can indicate a completion and period of solitary reflection. Indeed, the King (yes, he is a King) on this card is alone, but you get the sense that he has an army behind him.

We might say that this card represents that cliche, "God will move mountains, but you need to bring a shovel." Or maybe even you direct a team of people with shovels.  The King, adorned with breast plate and scepter, stands proud. His crown holds a star above his head, which is hovering around the crown chakra. This is such an important aspect to me as a crystal and energy healer. I look for clues into chakra work. And so, this card, which seems so action-oriented, is grounded in the crown. Huh? It is because his work is grounded in integrity and alignment with his soul path. Look at his kilt (skirt, I almost said). It has all the signs of the Zodiac, and driving his Chariot are two Sphinx.

Let's talk about the Sphinx, because it is a terribly important part of this card. These Sphinc represent the logic and mind at work as well as his travels out of his land. (Some say they also mirror the Pillars on the front of the High Priestess.) The symbolism of the Tarot resides heavily in the Ancient Greek myths that has become part of our cultural language. And the myth of Sphinx tells us something about this card. The Sphinx, the head of a Woman and body of a Lion, tests the brave to answer her riddle. She torturously killed anyone who fails, but rewards those who truly understand life and death.

Which creature has one voice and yet becomes four-footed and two-footed and three-footed?

It is Man in all the phases of his life. And so the wisdom here, the man who tames the Sphinx, forcing the phases of man to work on his behalf, drives his own chariot. The Sphinx is this pull between our animal strength and our intellect. In this way, the Chariot asks us to recognize the power in self-restraint and the taming of our own internal beasts. This card often has a strong underlying sexual tone, as the Chariot is the card of sexual prowess. So, when I pull this card in the challenge position, I sometimes ask how power comes into sexual relationships for the questioner.

The curtains above this King, as the crown, harken to the Star, the card of great hope and optimism. Where this King's thoughts go, energy flows, and he keeps his thoughts aligned with the Divine and his ultimate goal. Though his body is shielded in metal, his heart is a strong clear block in the center of him. His heart is aligned with the Highest Intentions. The Chariot is a beautifully positive, victorious and multi-dimensional card to receive. But remember the words--action, integrity, hard work, self-will aligned with Divine will, power, self-knowledge.

A great affirmation for this card might be: 

I align my will with Divine will. 

tarot of the week-the hanged man

The best people possess a feeling for beauty, the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the capacity for sacrifice. Ironically, their virtues make them vulnerable; they are often wounded, sometimes destroyed. — Ernest Hemingway

So many of the cards of the Tarot possess dual meaning, ambiguity, and intrigue, but perhaps none embody paradox more than the Hanged Man. Just hearing about a hanging evokes fear, condemnation, punishment, but the Hanged Man is a card of mystery, sacrifice, and grace. The Hanged Man is number XII of the Major Arcana, and on the Fool's Journey, the card that resides between Justice and Death. But the judgment and punishment of the Hanged Man is truly a self-imposed experience, which is precisely what makes this card so rich in symbolism.

The Hanged Man shows a man, presumably the Fool (for he wears the same clothes as the 0 card of the Tarot,) hanging by one foot. Leaves grow around the edges of the gallows. His face is downright serene, still, calm. There is no suffering here. His arms are behind his back, and his head is radiating with light. A symbol of enlightenment. This position, most Tarot readers assume, is a loose hanging, one from which he could easily escape. But the Hanged Man has no such design, he is there for a reason.

The themes of the Hanged Man are sacrifice, perspective, and transition. The Hanged Man relinquishes his control to gain new insight. If he has put himself in this position, he can remove himself, but he doesn't. This is his path to enlightenment, to see things from not only from a different perspective, but also from one that is based on his absolute acceptance of himself. It's terribly important to remember that you surrender to win here. And in this way, you are asked to sacrifice the quick fix, the impermanent feeling for the long term spiritual growth. In this way, what the Hanged Man reminds us is that we must move into suffering, rather than out of it.

We allow ourselves to be seen as vulnerable, to accept our imperfection, to embrace vulnerability as the starting point of spiritual growth, and further to enlightenment. This reminds me of the teachings of Pema Chodron about learning to sit in emotions that make us uncomfortable, and get curious about them. This is the punishment, if we can even call it that. As humans, we are constantly trying to shift out of emotions we have deemed negative, or wrong. We are constantly trying to shift out of suffering. Suffering is the first noble truth of our human existence. It is, dare I say, why we are here. We are spiritual beings having a human experience, and the core of that human experience is weathering suffering. We will suffer.

In the same way, we are asked to look at things from a new perspective and get immensely curious about ourselves. Another paradox here, I suppose, is that this curiosity about ourselves actually creates connection with other people. We first gain compassion for ourselves, then for others, which ultimately helps alleviate our suffering. We surrender to win again, or rather we suffer to alleviate suffering. I think in this way, we must shoot our hostage, as they say. We must take the piece we have been using as our excuse OUT of the equation. We must expose our vulnerability and embrace who we authentically are. This is where the gallows come in. We put ourselves up to scrutiny. We do it in front of others by embracing our own imperfections as PART of what makes us human. 

As they say, suffering is mandatory, but misery is optional. The Hanged Man asks you to sacrifice temporary comfort for long term contentment and enlightenment. The word "sacrifice" means "to make sacred." And so, the Hanged Man asks you to make ALL your experiences sacred, even the ones that evoke the most shame. All are lessons, opportunities for growth, and in that way, we begin to live in the present, and we live in gratitude for each experience, even the one where you are hanging upside down by one foot.

What stands at the center of this card is the Hanged Man's spiritual enlightenment. This is the core of this card. How are you doing to get there? If you pull the Hanged Man, you are asked to be vulnerable, to look at yourself differently than you ever have. Let Go and Let God. Stop controlling and predicting, as Brene Brown says, because vulnerability is the birthplace of joy, creativity, belonging and love. And further, I say, of enlightenment. I love what she says, because it perfectly encapsulates the Hanged man--we cannot numb just the hard feelings in our life. We end up numbing them all. So, the Hanged Man asks you to feel the hard feelings. To sit in them. To get curious about them. And remember that though it is not comfortable, it is also less suffering than not feeling them.

A great affirmation for the Hanged Man might be:

I embrace my vulnerability as my greatest strength. I trust in my Divine path. 

Let me know what you think of this Tarot of the Week, or of the Hanged Man, or anything else on your mind. 

tarot of the week--the devil

“We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.” ― Oscar Wilde

Spirit does it again. On the heels of last week's discussion about the Lovers, we are moved into the Devil card, XVth of the Major Arcana. You can tell the mood of a card by its background color, and truly the Devil is a dark card. Its imagery is haunting and overwhelmingly bleak. The Devil lifting his hand to silence or welcome you to Hell, holding a torch in the other, the Devil is replete with bat's wings, eagle's claws and a goat-man's head, perching above two enslaved figures. The figures, if you remember, on the Lovers. The upside pentacle on his forehead tells a story as well. It is the perversion of the material.

We all want for home, safety, security. There is no shame in that desire to provide and keep ourselves safe. But the Devil warns of more ominous attachments to the material--obsessive thinking, alcoholism, overeating, drug abuse, sex addiction, obsessive love, extramarital affairs, these are the attachments to the material that the Devil concerns itself with and warns against. The Devil is associated with the astrological sign Capricorn, and when I pull it, I use it to correspond with Root and Sacral Chakra issues. 

This creature is not the fallen angel, Lucifer, nor is he the Devil we are taught about in traditional Western religion. He is an amalgamation of the aberrant, the feared, the stalking symbol of materialism and attachment. And in this way, as Marcia Masino points out, the Devil is purposely not a being we identify. He is all your fears together. The word Devil means the "Adversary" And often this adversary is ourselves, our own attachments to the material. 

So often when I read for people, cards like the Devil are pulled and people groan or feel fearful at their imagery. But Tarot is not punishing, or changing your course. This is the energy around YOU right now. If you get honest, this is something you know about yourself already. The Devil is a reminder, a warning, that your attachment to things, to the material, to people, and even to fear itself is the problem. This is a reminder that you have shifted from your spiritual center, who you believe yourself to be or maybe who  you want to be. What are your priorities? What are your beliefs, your boundaries, and your moral compass? Because the Devil reminds you that what you are doing is far from those things. You have drifted, the card reminds you, from your Higher Power, or your guides, or Love, if that is your belief, the Universe's plan--most importantly, it reminds you that you have drifted from yourself.

Often, I find this card has come to represent addiction--to something or someone. Sometimes it has come to represent someone else's addiction, and our addiction to their addiction. With the Devil, this often represents addiction to a relationship or another person. But it can be anything--shopping, eating, drinking, drugs, sex, watching television. These soul sedatives, as Athena called them, numb us and block our pathway to our Highest Good. And you know, those things worked for us. Alcohol worked for the alcoholic at some point, possible from extreme self-consciousness or from physical or sexual abuse, from trauma the child is not able to face. It numbs us. But then it stops working, and starts causing the problems--losing jobs, friends, getting arrested, or just feeling depressed or ashamed day after day. We have to remember that the Tarot is not judging us, we are judging honest. Can you get honest? Do you want to get honest about what is holding you back from your true purpose in life?

The work we do along the way to our soul's path is rocky. We often have to face hard truths about ourselves during the course of our lifetime. This Devil card asks you to look at the hard truth of HOW you are using the material. See, eating cupcakes isn't a problem. You enjoy a cupcake. Who doesn't? But what if you are eating a cupcake every time you have a conversation with your mother? Are we facing the truth about those conversations? Are we dealing with them? How are we using the cupcake? So, when you pull the Devil in one of those hard positions, take out the judgment. Remember that the cupcake or the clandestine relationship, or the alcohol worked for you. Thank it, and then tell it that is has ceased being useful for you. That you are ready to feel all the emotions that you are meant to feel. See, we are spiritual beings having a human experience. We feel deeply, passionately. We are here to learn lessons. If we numb those feelings, our lessons are never quite learned, never realized, never actualized.

So, this is what the Devil asks of you. He challenges you to see yourself as your own worst energy.  What are you afraid of? What are you attached to that isn't serving your highest good? What binds you? What keeps you in bondage and makes you feel prisoner? Is it fear itself? And most importantly, what are you willing to let go of to experience true happiness and freedom? Serenity is right there, if only you can take off your chains and grab hold of it.

Marcia Masino has a great affirmation for the Devil card:

I am a Divine Being of Light, a child of God. I am loved, protected, and enveloped in white light. 

What do you think of the Devil? What are you wrestling with? How does the Devil card feel to you?

tarot of the week-the lovers

The true beloveds of this world are in their lover's eyes lilacs opening, ship lights, school bells, a landscape, remembered conversations, friends, a child's Sunday, lost voices, one's favorite suit, autumn and all seasons, memory, yes, it being the earth and water of existence, memory. - Truman Capote

Spirit has a sense of humor to move from the Nine of Swords' worry and insomnia into the Lovers. Sleepless nights and difficult attachments often stem from love or the perversion of love. We worry. We toil. We obsess, but the root of the Lovers is nothing like worry and toil. It is absolute trust in the Divine and further in the divinity of love and the possibility of connection with another human being. This week, we revisit the Major Arcana with a card most people want to draw--the Lovers.

As we begin to take in the images of the Lovers, we are greeted by two naked people, Man and Woman, standing under Archangel Raphael. Is it Adam and Eve? The first couple? The tree of knowledge stands behind the woman with a snake coiling around its trunk. It reminds us of the No. 15 card of the Major Arcana, the Devil. So, the Devil lingers in the idyllic scene of the Lovers. It is so intertwined with the Devil card, you almost cannot mention one without the other. In fact, just because one wants the Lovers doesn't mean one should get the Lovers. We often draw the Devil when we are trying to will the Lovers to come.

Notice the similar composition and images between the Lovers and the Devil. 

The two cards have very similar layouts. If you look at the Devil card, you notice that the figures on the front are the same as the Lovers. Archangel Raphael presides over the healing of the two Lovers on the No. Six card, while the fallen angel Lucifer presides over the couple on the Devil. Archangel Raphael's hair are leaves, while the pentacle sits on the head of the Devil--both are earthly symbols that mean two entirely different things. The Devil is about attachment to the material, while the leaves represent a kind of harmony with nature and Mother Earth. In this way, the two cards represent two sides of the same coin--love. The Lovers is the ideal love, the blessed love, the harmonious soul mate relationship, while the Devil represents the perversion of love, obsessive love, the attachment to the material, or the superficial, the fear of love, the lack of personal power (this powerlessness comes to represent addiction in the Tarot, also you can see that the female figure has a tail of grapes, meaning she is attached to wine), and of course, addiction. Juxtaposed with the Lovers, the Devil teaches us what love isn't. Or maybe even it is a warning about what love, selfish and self-serving without Spiritual connection, can become.

The Lovers depicts what Marcia Masino calls the mystical rite of Kything, which means to "appear without disguise." Their nakedness represents the absolute vulnerability that becomes the couple's greatest strength. Ms. Masino says "kything is a method of spiritual presence whose purpose is to bring about a loving spiritual connection, union or communion between two or more persons without the spoken word."

The sun shines over the whole scene. There are no secrets, no mysteries, no shadow issues going on. This person who you pull in the Lovers is your soul mate, your twin flame, your partner, your other half. And I think it is important to mention that Archangel Raphael is present in this card. He is the Archangel of Healing and Health. He blesses the two, helps them heal their wounds, nurture their past aches to move into a new spiritual awareness. By our openness with another person, we begin to bear our soul to the Divine. We allow trust to be our guiding force. It is easy in the throes of love, after all, to believe in God and the Divine. Fate, God, Divine pathways and connections, it all makes sense.

We are spiritual beings having a human experience, and this card is about the beauty of that human experience. The mystery of love enlivens us, invigorates our souls, makes us feel the absolute amazing sensations of being human 100 times more intensely. We are human, and it is beautiful. This is what our experience in a body teaches us. To be present. Remember the heart chakra, after all, is the gateway to Spiritual connection--the bridge between the material concerns of the lower chakras to the spiritual issues of the upper chakras. It is here that we learn to unite them, because in romantic love, we bring together all the lower chakra issues--Security  from the Root Chakra, Sexual satisfaction from the Sacral, and Courage and Strength from the Solar Plexus with the Upper Chakra issues--Listening and Speaking the Truth of your Soul in the Throat, Seeing and opening to your Soul Path in the Third Eye, and finally, opening the connection to the Divine in the Crown. We play all this out through our Heart Chakra in the Lovers.

The presence of the angel is not a mistake. There are six archangels in the Tarot, and they appear in the Major Arcana. This is the ideal, then, the oneness of this trinity--the Lovers--Two Humans and the Angel, symbolizing the Divine. We invite God into our partnership and we are granted a lifelong relationship. It is the power behind healing, as Archangel Raphael reminds us.

A great affirmation for this card might be: 

I open my heart to loving, being loved and trusting in love. 

tarot of the week-the emperor

Last week's introduction to the Mother of the Tarot, the Empress, reminded us for the maternal energy of Mama Earth and the maternal intensity within ourselves to nurture our dreams, our creativity, and our inner child. The Emperor, number IV of the major arcana, follows the Empress.

 Regal, staid, authoritative, he acts as the Father of the Tarot.  Paternal energy abounds when Emperor shows up in your reading. The Emperor arrives when you feel empowered, established, knowledgeable, strong, and independent. He is also the archetype of the Leader. Father and leader. Marcia Masino called him the "Christ-figure" of the Major Arcana, the one bringing light. As she explains, "He is the indwelling spiritual ego, the Master causing right instruction and goodwill to be done within the temple." This light within the Emperor resides within all of us. It is the drive to follow our Divine Will. The Emperor is the card which validates our choices. "You know what to do," he says. You are the authority on your Divine path. God lays it  out in front of you. You walk it with authority.

He is also practical, mature, reasoned. A general and an engineer. So, this sense of understanding the Divine path is something that comes from the hard work of shedding ego, releasing the things no longer serving us, and moving forward with knowledge that we have brought the shovel to move mountains. When the Emperor comes, this is the work you have done. Your solid foundation is built of knowledge, truth, fearless self-appraisal, logic, reason, and a bit of compromise that looks nothing like compromise. It looks like honest assessment, as all compromise should be. The truth will bubble to the surface when all the options are boiled in a pot together, and the Emperor is the one to skim it off the top.

In the Fool's journey, we are nurtured by the Empress then brought to the Emperor, the father-figure, the seat of rules, authority, stability, and leadership. He is the card you draw when you need structure and organization, or finally have it. He is the foundation, the stability, the hard organization work of building your leadership qualities, or your business/career, or your household. When you need the rules, or are rebelling against them, or when you are finally coming into a place of power within yourself, the Emperor appears to validate that work.

The crux of the brilliance of Tarot is the many-layered interpretation which we apply to our emotional, physical, and spiritual life through Tarot's deep, rich symbolism. When we pull the Emperor, we decide who this card represents. Is it our leadership, or someone else's? How are we like the Emperor? How are we not? It has often been associated with the astrological sign of Aries, and can sometimes come to represent an Aries man or woman in your life. Or your own father, or someone who has come to take a paternal role in your life. 

A good affirmation for the Emperor is:

I walk my Divine path with full authority and knowledge. 

I'd love to hear your interpretation of the Emperor, or your feelings about this card, the Tarot or any topic you'd like me to cover in this blog. I also urge you to sign up for my newsletter, which links to my blog posts of the week and more information about Moon cycles, tarot, crystal healing and other groovy topics. You can sign up here.

tarot of the week--the empress

The Triple Goddess symbol shows three cycles of to moon to represent the embodiment of the Maiden, Mother and Crone, the three phases of life, and the path of wisdom.

This week's Tarot card comes at an auspicious time, when the August full moon, the Corn Moon, reaches her full glory this evening. When we track moon cycles with intention-setting or rather align our spiritual work with moon cycles, the full moon is time when our intentions are being birthed, the moon representing the full pregnant belly of the our intention. In the trinity of goddess-based spirituality, represented by the three moon cycles of waxing, full, waning moon, the full center moon represents the mother, while the other two represent the maiden and the crone respectively.  

The Empress is also the embodiment of the mother archetype. She is the only pregnant  figure in the Tarot, and so she has come to represent pregnancy, birth, fertility, and abundance, as well as nurturing, maternal instincts and the goddess. The heart symbol at her feet carved the symbol of woman. It symbolizes that she holds sacred feminine mystery as well as the compassion and nurturing of Mother Earth, but the pregnant belly contains the fruition of masculine and feminine energies coming together. So, she calls the receiver of her messages to blend those parts of themselves too.

Her dress is covered in pomegranate, a symbol of Persephone's journey into the underworld. The pomegranate's etymology literally translates as apple with many seeds, and so the pomegranate symbol is inviting you to plant your seeds. Incidentally, the root of the word seed, granata, is also the root of the garnet, so use garnet to plant those seeds. The pomegranate came to represent abundance, fertility, prosperity and generosity. The wheat at her feet, another symbol of abundance here as well as the goddess Demeter, mother of Persephone. This story of Demeter and Persephone also harkens to the triple goddess as Persephone is seen as the maiden, and Demeter, the mother (the grieving mother) who literally transforms herself into the crone as she grieves her daughter. The Empress' scepter holds the full moon. The moon in Tarot represents this esoteric, mysterious knowledge, the feminine, the shadow. As she wields it with power and magic, so too do we wield power when we hold the knowledge of our own shadows. Her crown is made up of twelve stars, which is sometimes seen as the twelve chakra system. Behind her runs the waterfall, a clear blue pool of emotional stability (water always represents the emotions in Tarot symbology). All this culminates in a kind of mother wisdom, she holds that knowledge and shares it with her children. As Empress, she is mother to all the world. She is the Mother Earth, providing all that we need.

That nurturing aspect of the Empress that runs through her symbology. She calls you to nurture those creative parts of you too. To give birth to your ideas, to allow creative projects and energies to incubate and be born into the world, abundance will follow, she says. Prosperity is yours for the taking, just ask the Empress.  When we pull the Empress, we ask what we need to nurture in ourselves. What creative projects are we raising up? What parts of ourself are ripening? Of course, this card can be literally about mothering--who are we mothering right now? Are we being more mother than wife? Or losing ourselves in mothering? Or are we wanting to be a mother? 

In the deepest roots of this card, we must pull up the nutrients of self-love, self-acceptance and self-worth. Are we mired in self-pity? Or are we nurturing ourselves with self-compassion? This is the heart of this card. Nurture yourself so the true fruits of your dreams can be manifest. 

An beautiful affirmation for this card might be: 

I accept and love myself, just as I am, in alignment with the Divine. 

tarot of the week-the world

Last week's card of the week, the Magician, the great manifestor, kicks off the Fool's journey, as the Fool begins his vision quest through the Archetypes of the Major Arcana. (Funnily, I also randomly chose Citrine as the crystal of the week last week. Guess it was a week of ABUNDANCE!) And this week, my random tarot pull of the week is card XXI, the last card of the Major Arcana, the World. 

The World is about completion, fulfillment, and freedom--freedom from fear, freedom from self-limiting thoughts, freedom from the confines of our past.  As you can see the androgynous figure on the front of this card is holding the same wand as the Magician. Only there are two, and nothing is being wielded for power. Anima Mundi, as the figure is called, is power. She is the spiritual energy that animates all of life.

But it's not as simple, or profane as power in the sense as we know it here in politics or our jobs, or relationship struggles. This is the power that is tapped into when we align our will with the Divine will. It is the paradox of surrendering to win, and this is the card of that win. Part of what that means is that we become Divine through aligning our will with God's will. And through that Divinity and awakening, we can now deal with the Minor arcana concerns with more clarity and focus. 

The journey of the Major Arcana is not a journey of simply aligning your will to Divine will without the steps involved. All of them, really. The beautiful Empress to the dark shadow work of the Devil to the unforeseen suffering of the Tower--all of these challenges and victories lead to self-realization, self-actualization and self-knowledge. It is only when everything about ourselves is fully illuminated that we can, with full knowledge and free-will, turn our will over to Divine will.  

The World is a card you want to see anywhere in your layout. The World is yours, literally. You may feel that way, or it may seem that way. You have journeyed to this point and it is a beautiful place to be. The challenge of this card resides in self-deception, false humility and denial. When this card is in the blockage position, the cards ask you to look at whether or not you feel enlightened, but still have work to do. Are you resting on some laurels that don't exist? Are you wielding your spiritual growth as a weapon to others? When the World is reversed, it means your success is there. It is a lessened feeling of completion, but still completion. Maybe you won the battle, but are still in war. 

The affirmation of the World is this: 

I align my will with the Divine will to fully embody my true nature and my soul's path for the Highest Good of All. 

tarot of the week-the magician

The Tarot is split into two sections--the Major Arcana and the Minor Arcana. Arcana means "secrets" and so we called the Major Arcana the greater secrets, and the Minor Arcana, lesser secrets. Not that a reading with all Minor Arcana cards is less important, but it deals with your daily life and struggles, whereas Major Arcana tends to deal with issues on a larger scale--spirituality, addiction, attachment(s), soul paths...you get my drift.  I always think of the Major Arcana as archetypes that exist in the collective unconscious, something that Carl Jung discusses. Sometimes we tap into them and embody them, or they embody us, or they just surround the question of my clients. The Minor arcana are split into four suits, each representing an element and aspect of human existence. The structure of Tarot could be a blog post in and of itself, but I wanted to give some background about the Magician.

The Major Arcana have twenty-two cards, starting at 0 (the Fool.) Each card of the Tarot, both Major and Minor Arcana, have a number associated with it, as well as associations both astrologically and earth-based (elemental). But there are certain tests, questions, and meditations of the Major Arcana that help us further our life's journey, if we open to the messages of Tarot. Many who read Tarot refer to the story of the Major Arcana as the Fool's Journey. It is in this journey that you can understand your own journey. The Fool is kicking off his escapades on card 0 and traveling to the last card in the Major Arcana--The World, which is a card of completion, fulfillment, and freedom (the Fool is also free, but that is another discussion.)  I am not taking you on the Fool's Journey today, though maybe at some point I will. Let's talk about our card for the week, the Magician.

Many Tarot reflections call the Magician the archetypal Achiever. And certainly, I can see that aspect of the Magician clearly. Magician is often used as another term for Alchemist. He is a hard worker, dedicating his life to making this complicated appear easy. That is part of his gift and his mastery. Think of a Magician. He makes everything look so easy. Suddenly a coin appears out of thin air, as though Spirit is handing him money, or flowers out of a stick. I often tell my clients that the Magician is like that Picasso story. He is in a restaurant and a man approaches and asks him for a sketch on a napkin. He draws something quickly, and says, "$5,000, por favor." The man is aghast. "That only took you thirty seconds." And Picasso replies, "No, that sketch took me 50 years." And so the Magician can reply, "It took me a lifetime to learn all I have learned, bringing it together beautifully, easily, for this one occasion." Is that not worth more than I have given myself credit for? The Magician demands that you see yourself as deserving, worthy, important, and creative.

When you pull the Magician, there is something far more beautiful that simply doing some magic, the Magician transforms our desires from the mundane to the profound. He acts as a bridge between in heaven and earth. His arm is raised, bringing energy from heaven, and his feet are firmly planted in the earth. In that way, he often heralds energy work and Reiki to the person who pulls him.  

On the table in front of the Magician is the representation of all the elements--earth, water, air and fire. He has learned the tricks and pulls of the elements, and he draws them into his power. With the hand raised, and feet planted in Mother Earth, the elements laid out in front of him, the Magician harkens to the prayer and closing of many earth magick rituals, "As above, so below."

In many ways, the Magician IS your Higher Self, able to bring your natural, human, sometimes base desires into a larger soul path. The Magician is card number One of the Major Arcana, and here is where the magic starts--when you can tap into your innate wisdom, seeing yourself as capable of magic and manifestation. When clients pull this card, I often tell them that what they do on this earth, no one else can do. Only they alone have pulled all these extraordinary skills together to be able to do exactly what they need to do. This card asks you to be disciplined, precise, dedicated. You have been gifted with the qualities of the Magician--the ability to make the difficult appear easy. Do people tell you that? How do you do that? THAT! That thing that comes second-nature to you. Maybe it is not taking things personally in a business meeting, or maybe it is the ability to bring people together in the exact perfect way. Or maybe it is clearly visualizing what you want. 

The warning with the Magician resides in the motivations behind using such magic. What are  your motivations? Are you wanting riches? Selfish desires? Are you harnessing this power for yourself, or for the good of all involved? We do magic a great disservice when we infringe of the free will of others. When we conjure love spells for someone in another relationship, for example, or wish to have our position in a company, no matter what happens to the other people in that firm. So, this card asks you to align your will with the Divine will, and to align your dreams and desires with your Soul Path. There is also so much energy in this card, that I often ask my clients, if this comes up reversed, for example, how they are managing their own energy? Are you shielding your energy? Are you protecting your etheric field? Are you surrounding yourself with like-minded people, or are you walking into mine-filled rooms? 

Part of the underlying theme of this card is manifestation. The innate ability of our humanness to manifest all our dreams and desires through learning, doing, and creating what we can, then turning our will over to the Creator to seal the deal. So, my meditation and affirmation of the Magician is this:

Through alignment with the universe and Mother Earth, I bring all my experiences and strengths together to manifest my dreams for the Highest Good of all. 

I'd love to hear what you think of the Magician. Leave a comment, or ask a question. Much love to you all.