Friday 23 September marks the the first day of astronomical autumn/fall in the Northern Hemisphere. and spring in the southern hemisphere, when day and night are nearly equal. In the United Kingdom the equinox will be 02:03 AM
This is the day when we enter the zodiac air sign of Libra, and the Tarot cards specifically associated with 23 September are Justice and the Two of Swords, belonging to the first decan of Libra.
You will notice a striking similarity between this card and the Tarot’s Justice card, its major arcana counterpart.
The Gilded Tarot Royale, Ciro Marchetti
The Two of Swords is blind like Justice. Wilfully blind, and for a purpose, either for tactical reasons, or because this decision simply cannot be rushed. Here, the wings serving as a blindfold denote the element of air, and impartiality, the use of cool, calm intellect brought to bear on a tricky situation.
If the card comes out upside down, then someone is being a refusenik. A decision must be taken but they are procrastinating.
The Two of Swords can describe a see-saw, and is reflecting what we all know, that internationally and domestically October looks like another tense month of watching, waiting, diplomatic stand-offs and tensions.
Mercury goes direct again 2 October, possibly smoothing certain communications, but October 2022 is going to be anything but a mild news month, and we don’t need the Tarot to see that.
I’ll be watching the first ten days or so of October when we are in Three of Swords territory. Meaning? Severance. Putin is a second decan Libra, which has all manner of wonderful qualities. But his personal chart features a difficult fixed star; born with his natal sun conjunct the ‘rapacious and fiendish’ Algorab, the right wing of the Crow in the constellation of Corvus the Crow.
The Two of Swords is difficult at times. It may suggest indecision, a delay, or a truce, a stand-off, a stalemate. Libra will see-saw in seeking to achieve an equilibrium. It may see-saw rather a lot.
On a personal level, more than once the Two of Swords has alerted me to the fact that a client has been experiencing headaches, possibly migraines. These have often been attributed to stress. Or they have been to see the optician, or have just scheduled a visit to see the optician. The Two of Swords may mean eyes-or teeth. This card may be talking, entirely literally, about needing to see the dentist.
Tarot can be literal like that. Rightly so. The reader is working in the real world. No, it isn’t always fun.
But the world keeps turning, and with it, the wonders of the wheel of the seasons.
Orion The Hunter returns, and in the northern hemisphere can once again be seen bestriding the east at sunrise. So when we say return, where has he been, then? The answer is, he has been invisible, hidden in the glare of the sun since May.
But now he is back and will rise earlier each day until he is visible all evening during the winter months. As a girl I used to like to go out on cold frosty evenings to fill the coal scuttle from the coal bunker in the back garden. Looking up at him. I knew his name. I knew he was The Hunter but wondered about him, and what he was hunting up there.
Those winter evenings still have that same kind of magic.
Orion is only the 26th largest constellation, sitting on the celestial equator, facing the constellation next door, the oncoming, charging, Taurus the Bull. So it’s far from being the biggest, and it’s smaller than another Greek hero, Perseus but Orion’s got more brilliant stars, commanding the impression of its vastness.
(The biggest constellation of all is Hydra, and the biggest constellation of the twelve included in the Zodiac is Virgo.)
Orion’s two brightest stars are the blue-white star Rigel, representing the Hunter’s left foot, and the red supergiant Betelgeuse, Orion’s right shoulder. They’re both thought to be to be about ten million years old, which makes Betelgeuse quite young to be a red supergiant, but it’s evolved faster due to its enormous mass. It is expected to go supernova in the next million years and when it does will be brighter than the Moon and the brightest supernova ever to have been visible from Earth.
Orion’s third brightest star is Bellatrix, his left shoulder, and Orions’s Belt is one of the most easily recognized asterisms with its three stars.
You can read them east to west or left to right; Alnitak (girdle), Alnilam (string of pearls) and Mintaka (area) They have many other names across the world; The Magi, the Three Mary’s, and the Mayans called them The Fire Drill, invoking them in an annual fire ceremony to delay the onset of the end of the world.
‘No other constellation more accurately represents the figure of a man,’ said Germanicus Caesar
Orion is identified as a human figure in every culture at every latitude, with countless variations of different names and legends.
Orion, also called Nimrod, was the son of Poseidon and was the most handsome man ever to walk the earth. He was a great hunting buddy and friend of Artemis. Her twin brother, Apollo glowered, seeing that Artemis fancied Orion something rotten, although she had taken a vow of perpetual chastity.
Orion could be a bit of a sex pest, chasing the Pleiades, so that Zeus confiscated them to the sky for their own peace and quiet. And a fat lot of good it did them, because when Orion was killed by a scorpion (THE scorpion) Artemis in her grief, asked Zeus to post Orion upstairs to the heavens, which he did, right next door to the Pleiades, who also represent the celestial bull pen of Taurus. Thanks Zeus. You didn’t think that one through, did you?
Should Taurus ever break free of his pen, said an ancient Arabic legend, it will be the end of all things. Let’s hope he’s happy up there, and that Orion doesn’t chase the Pleiades away.
Orion bravely strides towards the Bull but although he killed the scorpion that also killed him, he still fears it, and dreads its appearance fleeing west as the autumn wears on and Scorpius rises (Scorpio)
Orion in his eternal battle with Scorpius
The stand off between Orion and Taurus the Bull, its red eye, Aldebaran glaring at him, daring him to come nearer, does not fit the Greek legend of Orion, and a question has been raised in some quarters over the identity of Orion, and whether he has become confused with Herakles/Hercules at any time in his identification with this constellation.
The reasons are likely historical. The constellation as recognized by the Greeks originated with the Sumerians, who saw in it their great hero Gilgamesh fighting the Bull of Heaven. The Sumerian name for Orion was URU AN-NA, meaning light of heaven and Taurus was GUD AN-NA, bull of heaven.
Gilgamesh was the Sumerian equivalent of Heracles, the greatest hero of Greek mythology, and one of the labours of Heracles was to catch the Cretan bull, but Orion was never in a fight with a bull. Heracles, it has been suggested, deserves a magnificent constellation such as this one, but has been consigned to a much more obscure area of sky. So has there been a mix-up, or perhaps we could see it as a mash-up, Orion and Heracles in mutual diguise?
Orion and The Tarot
The Golden Tarot by Kat Black
The Tarot card most commonly associated with Orion is The Fool. The most numinous card in the deck, its element is Air and it is ruled by the planet of revolution, Uranus.
It is the portal of the number Zero.
The Fool or as some called him, The Jester, is both beginnings and ending.
In a real life reading it may detect or forecast a birth of a child, or a new offer or a launch or opportunity of some kind. And change happens all the time but this is always major or significant in scope. But although is not associated with Death, unlike the famous Death card, it can mean a death too, representing infinity, the ouroboros.
An ouroboros
The Fool lives in the moment. He may be fun, he may be joy, or he may be frightening. There’s every reason a lot of people are scared of clowns as the living embodiment of The Fool. He represents the wisdom of innocence, or mistakes made through impulsiveness or ignorance rather than stupidity. But he may represent a threat, whether direct or existential, clearly sensed but not as yet clearly identifiable. The fear is visceral, not lightly to be dismissed.
He may be a shamanic, gnostic figure; the stranger, the outcast, the wise Fool or the Fool on the Hill. He dances to his own tune. He takes chances, risks, and sometimes these pay off, but sometimes he steps over the edge of the cliff, heedless of his dog’s most urgent warning.
The dog in the card is not biting the Fool, but desperately trying to get his attention. If someone asks the Tarot’s advice and then I draw this card reversed….someone needs to draw back from the precipice and look again before they leap.
I may bark like the Fool’s dog but will they act on this advice? CAN they? Will they even really hear it, let alone find a way to use it? We are who we are, and we do what we do, based on who we are. It is a rare person who can step back and see things anew once they are committed to Opinion A or B or they are emotionally invested in outcome A or B.
Advice, to be heard, must be sufficiently timely, before the paint dries.
Everywhere the Fool goes, his dog follows, just as Orion is followed in the skies by his two hunting dogs, Canis major and Canis minor. Sirius, the Dog Star is in the constellation of Canis Major and is THE brightest star in Earth’s night sky.
The only objects that outshine Sirius in our skies are the sun, moon, Venus, Jupiter, Mars and Mercury – and Sirius will usually outshine Mercury too.
All Mankind is Orion.
We were hunters at the dawn of man (The Fool) And gatherers too, but we were never gorillas, and never herbivores on our ancestral line.
“We were risen not of fallen angels but risen apes, and they were killer apes besides” – Robert Ardrey, in African Genesis.
Hunting was what brought us together in teams, then communities. Co operation meant compassion.
Fatboy Slim tells a version of that story here (except that we were apes but not on the gorilla branch). See Orion in the final frame of the video.
Leo is such a glamour-puss. So what’s this about the perm?
The sun has entered the second decan of fiery Leo, August 2-August 12 and tonight’s full moon, 3 August, is in Leo’s opposite zodiac sign; Aquarius, the water-bearer, the cloud bearer.
This is a strange, dreamy, quirky, quixotic and steamy combination. Maybe in a good way but not necessarily.
It might mean a few nights of oppressive humidity over the next two weeks.
It might mean getting frazzled.
It might mean steam coming out of your ears. Like this little lioness with a rather enviable perm.
The Major Arcana card associated with Leo is Strength: physical, mental, moral, emotional. Fortitude which demands patience. Nothing much can be achieved without the ability or willingness to stand and endure.
Centuries apart:
“Here I stand. I can do no other,” Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms.
“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”-Martin Luther King.
He was a Capricorn native. But we are more than just our keynote sun sign. We encompass the whole zodiac
Strength from The Gilded Tarot Royale: Ciro Marchetti
The second decan of Leo is associated with the Tarot’s Six of Wands, the 6 Wands; a card of action, vision, passion ,courage and superb self-discipline. This is what it takes to enter the arena – any arena. Riding high on the accomplishment of a great effort. But there are no short-cuts. No escaping the Herculean labour to be done. This is dedication to excellence; the attribute of the zenith of the sign of Leo.
The Six of Wands From The Legacy of the Divine Tarot, Ciro Marchetti
Tonight this energy is tempered by the quirky, remote, cerebral Moon in Aquarius. The corresponding Major Arcana card here is The Star: inspiration, a vision, recovery, the application of reason, but this can also be the card of social revolution.
The Gilded Tarot, Ciro Marchetti
The Star
Bridging water, land and sky
Cloudy, cool Aquarian eye
Reasons, gauges Rain assuages
Pours, refills an empty jar
Learning, thirsty, takes us far
But Hope outshines all other stars
Katie-Ellen
A very different mood. May steam be expected, and will it be steam coming out of someone’s ears? It may be best to keep your head down and just get on with your own thing, always assuming it’s not against the law, of course.
The Minor Arcana card corresponding with the degree of tonight’s Full Moon in Aquarius is the solemn yet benevolent Six of Swords; a road to recovery, new learning and discovery, charting new waters, leaving behind the past and with it any vain regrets.
The Legacy of The Divine Tarot, Ciro Marchetti
The next two weeks look unsettled and a lot of us are likely to be feeling more jumpy than usual, even given all the anxiety of recent months . This is a time for staying extra cool, calm and flexible and avoiding risk and conflict. This is a time for focusing hard on work and personal projects, but not for making sudden moves or big changes.
There’s plenty to push our buttons right now. Leo says we can put our energies to plenty of good uses, doing our own thing, and Aquarius says we can keep our cool, even if others are losing theirs.
Yes, you read that correctly. This blog is called True Tarot Tales for a reason. The Tarot is a tool for use in the real world and does not disdain to talk about anything at all: money, plumbing, toilets -and kettles. Hubble, bubble, toil and trouble. Pass me the biccies. The kettle is on the boil.
The Devil card might be the Tarot’s way of trying to tell me about someone’s diarrhea or constipation.
Indeed, it has been known, and the client confirmed it.
Love n Light. Give me a break. I don’t mean to be mean, but certain mantras can become debased by a kind of lazy reductionism. Life doesn’t come off the peg. Yes, there is love and light. We need to give it and receive it, the more of it the merrier, and a little goodwill goes a long way. But reading for others isn’t a party piece demanding applause, is not about the reader and their self-image as an aspiring Merlin, Witch Goddess, Earth Mother or Buddha- in- waiting.
Life can be a struggle at times, sad or lonely, even frightening, demanding not only patience and fortitude but concerted thought, effort and direct action. And how much money, time, energy and actual worry is invested in the basics of everyday living?
The Tarot would be self-indulgent, snooty, and in fact, pointless; bugger all use to anyone else (oh, I say, Jeeves, steady on) Not fit for serious purpose if its readers decided such conversations were not deserving of its very best attention, the same as anything else of a purportedly more ‘spiritual’ nature.
If the Devil is in the details, so is God and and all the angels. If God created everything, that includes germs, worms, and parasitic wasps.
The Tarot will do deadly serious.
Oh yes. It will go ‘there’.
But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a sense of humour.
Junior Sprog was annoyed this morning (we were talking via Skype…she lives nearby with the ‘boyf.’) She had purchased a box of three sachets of limescale remover for her kettle, but when she opened the box, it contained only one sachet.
She deployed said measly single sachet, which I understood was a formula based on baking soda.
‘Why not just use baking soda?’ I suggested in that annoying way parents have, but she explained she had lent hers to Amy next door but one, who was making banana bread.
Maybe new craft habits and other good things will come out of these very sad events and this lock-down, even though we’d all like to tell the hideous coronavirus (and I would like to tell certain relentlessly self -aggrandizing figures in the media this)….
Junior Sprog had done the job, and rinsed the kettle out, but wondered was it safe to use again now, and drink from when boiled?
Bicarbonate of soda, aka baking soda, isn’t going to hurt anyone, unless they ingest it in inappropriate quantities when it certainly could hurt them. I didn’t know what else was in this cleaning product.
Struck with a sudden horrific image of my baby afflicted with alkaloid poisoning, I whipped out a Tarot card:-
Card Number One: The premise of the situation in hand
The Three of Swords Reversed. Uh oh! Death, mourning, separation, severance, divorce, heartburn/heart attack.
The Three of Swords from The Gilded tarot, Ciro Marchetti
‘Are you OK?’ I asked. Tarot often picks up other stuff, regardless of the actual issue being presented for discussion. I like to rule out the worst case scenarios- and either clear the decks or flag up the other priorities being detected, and give the other person the opportunity to discuss that first if they so wish, and then come back to the other thing.
Junior Sprog rolled her eyes.
‘I’ll take that as a yes,’ I said, and had another think.
Of course. No worries. The Three of Swords Reversed was saying two things at once, confirming that ‘it,’ – the Tarot, my spokeswoman/spokestool of The Psychic Mind Delta aka Twilight Zone had heard me perfectly well, and understood the real question; ‘is my daughter at risk from poisoning if she uses the kettle as it is, or does it need another rinse?’
The Tarot was specifically commenting that:-
Indigestion…baking soda is a remedy for heartburn, referring to the other well known use of sodium bicarbonate…a more benign aspect of that classical ‘heart ache/pain/attack’ possibility of interpretation.
She had bought a product advertised as containing 3 sachets, but the box contained only one. 3 sachets not present = 3 Swords Reversed
Card Number Two was asking for advice….where are we at now?
The Eight of Swords. Stress. Abandonment. A flooded bathroom. No hang on, I said to myself. Let’s keep this narrative kettle-based. Just stick with the kettle!
The Eight of Swords has long since proved its worth to me as MY card for spotting problems, letting me know if my client is dealing with drains, plumbing or damp issues or making home improvements along these lines.
The Eight of Swords, The Gilded tarot, Ciro Marchetti
‘How many rinses have you given it?’ I asked Junior Sprog.
‘Seven or Eight,’ she said.
‘That’s OK then. That should do it.’
Final card. Is the kettle completely safe to use?
The Knight of Cups. Flow of water. Healing. Yes it is. This is the ultimate card of clean water…excepting only the Ace of Cups, which symbolizes the Healing Chalice/ Grail Cup. There is a touch of salt here, and the waters may be shark infested but the sharks are not hungry today. This water will not ‘bite.’
The Knight of Cups from the Legacy of the Divine Tarot by permission of Ciro Marchetti
Common sense may well suggest we hardly needed the Tarot for this exercise, and that’s fair enough in general terms, but it’s beside the point here. When I started learning the Tarot, there were so many sources dealing in generic, quasi mystical language, counselling that this card was exhorting us to ‘let go of what does not serve,’ or to ‘rediscover our true purpose,’ that when I first began to write this blog in 2010, it was with a determination to learn, apply and illustrate the Tarot as a useful, modern psychic tool capable of talking in terms of concrete realities, and dealing in specifics.
Whatever the question, whatever the concern, the reader must never lose sight of the ‘so what?’
Cup of tea? Biccie?
I wonder how Amy got on with her banana bread. The Six of Pentacles suggests it went down pretty well. Maybe just a touch on the heavy side…not quite enough baking soda.
But the sprog didn’t rate her single sachet of kettle cleaner. I have told her baking soda plus adding vinegar does a pretty impressive cleaning trick…kaboom… but four hours later she’s confirmed she’s OK, and that was the priority today.
First let’s take a minute to consider what is meant by this word, ‘psychic.’ It comes from the Greek word psychikos (‘of the mind’ or ‘mental’) and the Greek word ‘psyche’ means ‘soul’ or ‘breath.’
That’s pretty vague, but we’ll broadly understand what we’re talking about here. It is the (sometimes spooky) experience of feeling you know something, without knowing how you know it or why you feel it, and then getting the proof, and finding out you were right, though you still don’t know how.
The Moon from the Gilded Royale Tarot, Ciro Marchetti
Everyone is psychic to a degree. It’s fascinating, but it’s natural. It might be uncanny, and often it is. It really, really is, but that doesn’t mean it’s supernatural. It is you. It is nothing to do with the occult. It is nothing directly to do with religion or witchcraft, though these activities are connected to or derive from that aspect of the human mind/psyche.
It’s about your innate animal intelligence, your instinct and intuition, and is simply a more acute manifestation of these natural functions of the human mind -your sensory capabilities. Intuition is acutely heightened instinct. It’s built in to your software, maybe even your hardware and is a key element in your survival tool-kit.
Jung was interested in the archetypes of Tarot.
So you took an instant dislike to someone but you don’t know why? Don’t simply dismiss that feeling; the reasons may become apparent later. Meanwhile, give it the benefit of the doubt but tread with care.
So you feel an overpowering reluctance to do something, but you don’t quite know why? Trust yourself. You have your reasons.
Feelings can be wrong, of course, in which case we can always reassess the situation or our reactions, and change our minds. But far more often they are right, and they work faster than conscious reasoning. Far, far faster, and it is this very speed that can save our life. That if something feels bad, it probably is.
Avoid.
But if we’re all psychic, why do people pay to go and consult someone else, or go to a professional psychic practitioner for readings?
They are looking for a service, and that depends on skill and a specific kind of experience. Professional psychics can not rely solely on their intuitive ability in order to deliver a service on demand. Psychic experiences happen when they happen, but the psychic reader needs to respond on demand, and to do this they have trained their abilities, developing specific skills, possibly involving many years of individual study, time and practice so that they can deliver insights that are relevant and that mean something to a total stranger, right here, right now.
But everyone had to start somewhere, and that doesn’t mean we can’t try it for ourselves.
Sometimes we might find ourselves undecided whether to go route A or route B. Using the playing cards might well give us a response that simply reflects what we already knew, or guessed, or suspected, but that is largely the point of doing such readings, and validation can itself be helpful in letting us know we read that situation correctly, whether or not it’s what we were hoping for.
Points to consider
Professional psychic readers are not permitted by law to take payment, reading for people aged under-18.
Or at least, it is not allowed in the UK without the authorization of a parent or guardian. There are good reasons for this, to do with maturity and vulnerability, and a word of caution applies here too, in reading for yourself if you are under 18.
There is a risk is you will not get it rightand misunderstand the message. Beware wishful thinking or fearful thinking. Calm your mind. Try and place yourself in a neutral frame of mind.
You may for instance draw the Death card and get frightened, interpreting this as a prediction of imminent death. What is far more likely is that the Death card is reflecting back at you something that has been on your mind lately. Perhaps there has been a death in your circle or perhaps you have been thinking of leaving a job or ending a relationship or other connection, or leaving one area to move away. Professional readers do not always get it right either. Until, and unless you are getting correct answers more than 55% of the time, your results are statistically no better than lucky guesses. Getting it wrong doesn’t mean you don’t have psychic ability, but this ability builds with practise and confidence.
Stay humble or you will be riding for a fall. This is not about power. No-one knows it all, and no one likes a know all. No-one has a 100% accuracy rate.
Is is unwise to make decisions based solely on the turn of a card.
The cards are to be regarded as an opportunity to pause, reflect and maybe think again. Start with easy but specific questions that you can quickly and easily validate, e.g. ‘will it be sunny here outside my window at 10.00 tomorrow morning?’
You might not understand or like the answer.
This is the very real risk in consulting with oracles, even your own – or especially your own. It needs discipline. Words matter. Be clear in your mind what it is you are really asking. Avoid repeating the same questions over and over in hope of getting the answer you want. You may get that answer in the end, but this is not conducive to accuracy, and if it becomes a compulsion, and you find you are doing it A LOT, or if you are experiencing, or have lately experienced depression or anxiety, you will be well advised to leave such activities alone for the time being. It could make matters worse.
Now let’s look at how to get an advisory yes or no answer using just one playing card. That’s all it is, an advisory answer; no court of law could treat this as admissible evidence.
Ordinary playing cards have been used in this way since at least the 1600’s and probably longer. A deck of playing cards is readily affordable and easy to obtain in many shops and online if you do not already have a deck.
The One- Card Spread is the simplest spread of all, but can do the job perfectly well, delivering an accurate yes or no answer.
First, for simplification and for the avoidance of confusion, remove the Joker. The Joker is a complex card. It correlates to the Fool in the Tarot and may mean a yes, no or maybe depending on a number of factors, so is not ideal for our purposes today.
You need somewhere quiet, no distractions. Some people like to use rituals, smudging, candles etc. I don’t use those myself in doing card readings, but this is purely a matter of personal preference.
Doing the reading
First you need to decide the code or system you will use for your one card spread. How are you going to interpret the answer?
Classical cartomancy uses this system:
Any red suit card, Hearts or Diamonds, will mean yes, irrespective of its meaning
Any black suit card, Clubs or Spades will mean no, irrespective of its meaning
There are no rules except that you decide your system and then stick with it.
Consistency and repetition is crucially important. This is what professional card readers do. They ‘self-programme’ by telling themselves that this card means X and this other card means Y until with repetition and practise – it actually does.
They do it till they make it so.
Consider the question. It needs to be clear and unambiguous, asking for an answer that will serve your highest good, harming none.
You remain in charge, using the cards for advice only. You could, for example, ask questions along the lines of, ‘Is it a good idea/plan/will it work out well at this time (meaning is it in my best interests) to go here, go there, speak to, do this, do that…?” etc.
Now shuffle the deck, keeping the cards blind, asking your question aloud or just silently to yourself.
Draw a card whenever you feel ready. There are no rights and wrongs here, but it is this act of stopping and choosing a card completely at random that is actually the psychic activity involved in the reading.
You have here a deck of 52 cards but you are drawing just one, and expecting it to be meaningful and relevant, more so than all the other cards that you didn’t draw, that have remained in the deck. The cards that are missing may be just as significant in answering your question, as the ones that appear.
What have we got here?
A red card or a black card?
No further action is required or even desirable at this point. Simply log the card. Make a note and allow time to discover if the answer is correct.
If you would like to go beyond the probable yes or no answer, and look at the reasons why you got that answer, you could look up the actual card meaning for additional feedback, to treat that as an extra comment or piece of advice, referring to this very basic key below.
In general, the higher the number of your ‘yes’ or ‘no card, the stronger the answer, except for Aces, which are the lowest number, 1, but are the strongest cards. So the strongest yes answers would be the Ace of Diamonds or Hearts, or the 10 of Diamonds or hearts. The strongest no answers would be the Ace of Spades or Clubs, or the 10 of Spades or Clubs.
Ace – new beginnings; the pure energy of their suit.
Two – partnerships, attraction, balance.
Three – co-operation, connection, growth.
Four – security, stability, foundations, inaction.
Five – imbalance, challenges, change, adjustment.
Six – sweet victory, harmony, attainment and peace.
Seven – spiritual discernment, magic, wisdom, turning point, options.
Eight – movement (or lack of it), organization, prioritizing.
Nine – Growth, understanding, integration, realization.
Ten – Culmination, completion, transition, endings, beginnings.
The Court cards (portrait cards)
Knaves/Jacks represent news or new situations, or young people below the ages of around 25.
Knave of Hearts – romantic, emotional, sweet-natured.
Knave of Diamonds – curious, grounded, sensible.
Knaveof Spades – witty, clever, focused.
Knave of Clubs – active, adventurous, risk-taker.
Queens are adults, actual people; usually female but not necessarily.
Queen of Hearts – kind, empathic, nurturing.
Queen of Diamonds – practical, down-to-earth, good in a crisis.
Queen of Spades – truth-seeker, honest, straight-speaking.
Queen of Clubs – ambitious, strong communicator, passionate.
Kings are adults, actual people; usually male but not necessarily.
King of Hearts – approachable but reserved, wise, calm.
King of Diamonds – wealthy, hard working, shrewd, lover of luxury.
King of Spades – analytical, calculating, dispassionate.
King of Clubs – leader, inspirational, temperamental, sees the big picture.
30 April is known as May Eve, marking May Day and the beginning of the ancient Celt festival of Beltane.
Beltane begins at dusk on 30 April and is matched by its European counterpart, Walpurgis Nacht, or St Walpurga’s Night in Germanic tradition.
St Walpurga or Walburge was born in Crediton in Devon, but travelled widely as a missionary in the service of her uncle St Boniface, and eventually became abbess of a monastery in Heidenheim in modern Bavaria where she died 25 February 777 or 779. She was canonized 1 May 870.
Walpurga is reputed to protect sailors in storms at sea, reputedly thanks to a miracle when she was sailing to Germany and a terrible storm broke out, and she knelt on deck and prayed and the storm cleared as if by magic…
And yet, interestingly, Walpurga is also a protector against witchcraft. Curious, isn’t it. That someone’s holy prayer is someone else’s satanic spell or witch’s invocation.
Origins
Two great festivals in northern Europe long pre-dating Christianity were Samhain (Halloween) marking the start of winter, and Beltane (April 30/May 1) marking the start of summer.
Beltane ‘the fires of Bel’ began as an ancient fire festival celebrated since at least the Dark Ages if not long before. The celebrations began at dusk on April 30th when great bonfires were lit to welcome the height of spring now associated with the zodiac sign of Taurus the Bull, representing the fertility of spring in full bloom.”
Traditionally,” writes Glennie Kindred (in Sacred Celebrations), “all fires in the community were put out and a special fire was kindled for Beltane. This was the ‘balefire’ or the Teineigen, the ‘need fire.’
Bel or Belenus (Celtic: possibly, Bright One) was a deity associated with pastures, meadows and animal husbandry and other agriculture. He was a fire god rather than a sun god as such, though the sun was used as a common motif in religious imagery.
The cattle were walked between two bonfires in a symbolical purification ritual, to be protected by the smoke from Bel’s fire before being put out to the open pastures for the summer. Bonfires were lit on sacred hills too, and the smoke was considered a magical blessing on the fields, animals, and community, and was also supposed to maintain a fragile balance, keeping up a smokescreen, literally, between the human and faery realms.
The month of May got its name from Maia, also called Flora, the Greek goddess of spring and new abundance. Maia was the oldest of the seven sisters known as the Pleiades, and she was the mother of Hermes (Mercury.) The last zodiac sign of Spring, Gemini, is ruled by airy Mercury, as the air fills with butterflies and pollen.
Flora, or Maia by Botticelli
The name ‘May’ has been used in English since about 1430. Before this time the name of this month was spelled Maius or Mai. The Anglo- Saxons called it Tri-Milchus because all that lush new grass meant cows could now be milked three times a day.
The celebration of May Day has its roots in astronomy, celebrating the halfway point between the spring equinox and the summer solstice. It has been celebrated in the British Isles and through much of Europe as a fertility festival since the Dark Ages, and probably before that, with many stories and superstitions attached.
Superstitions
Like Halloween, May Eve and May Day is a magical time of year, liminal, when the veil between different worlds and realities is thinner than at other times of year.
Beltane or Walpurgisnacht is the mirror image, the spring season’s equivalent of Halloween when witches are said to dance at the Devil’s Sabbath.
This is a time for ghosts, but this is also the time of year when folklore suggests you are most likely to meet a supernatural being from the realm of ‘faery.’
The Fae are an ancient race, and they do not like humans whom they view as destructive, and who is to say they do not have a fair point there. The Fae are afraid of iron. To keep them at bay-
Touch wood no good
Touch iron, this you can rely on…
In this sense the Fae could be said to represent the spirit of humanity before the Iron Age.
They are not the cute creatures of fairy tale. Encounters are dangerous and are best avoided – or you may never be seen again. Do not, whatever you do, go to sleep on a fairy hill at any time, but especially not on May Eve or May Day and especially beware of going to sleep under flowering hawthorn bushes ….
Sex and Scandal
The Christian church made attempts to ban May Day festivities outright because of their overtly pagan nature and “lewd” context as an open celebration of male and female sexuality and fertility – ‘a heathenish vanity generally abused to superstition and wickedness.’
May Day meant drinking and fighting, another reason for the church’s disapproval, but this in itself harks back to the ancient traditions of the sacrifice of ‘The Green Man’ – a mythical figure representing the eternal battle waged between summer and winter, feast and famine. Many pubs in England are still named The Green Man.
In Padstow, Minehead and some other places in the UK, mischievous hobby-horses (‘osses) roamed the streets in search of unsuspecting young ladies to ‘carry away’ for undisclosed purposes.
Morris dancers up to no good riding with hobbyhorses, Richmond embankment,1620
Men who had been disappointed in love would make straw men representing their rivals and stick them on bushes. These depictions were needless to say, often deeply unflattering, and fighting might well follow once they were discovered and identified and the maker was known.
May Day harks back to the ancient traditions of the sacrifice of ‘The Green Man’ – a mythical figure representing the eternal battle waged between summer and winter, feast and famine. Many pubs in England are still named The Green Man.
This splendid depiction is on a boss in Rochester Cathedral, thanks to Wikimedia Commons.
The Puritans banned May Day under Oliver Cromwell but Charles 11 brought it back into custom after the Restoration.
Maypole Dancing goes back at least to the 14th century, but it seems the custom was very old even then, though the dance as we know it today, so pretty and decorative(and tame) -children dancing in village squares, is probably a Victorian invention . The maypole is generally assumed to be a phallic symbol, but the Norse peoples connected it with tree worship, and this connects British and Germanic tradition going back to a shared proto-germanic culture which is part of the common root culture in British life even today.
The Maypole dancing which so upset the Church and the Puritans comes down to us from the rites of spring dedicated to Freya.
The maypole originally represented a living tree, in particular the giant ash tree Yggdrasil, the great “world tree” of Norse myth, linking the nine worlds of the Norse cosmology including Asgard, land of the gods, Midgard, or Earth and Hel, the underworld.
“Ygg” means terrible. It was on this tree that Odin chose to hang nine days and nights, thirsty and fasting in exchange for the knowledge of the runes. The Norns sit beneath it and when every new person is born, carves their names into its bark…and with it, their destiny, although this can change. The Norns will allow us to rewrite it, unlike the destinies woven by the three Fates of Greek mythology.
Walpurgis Night
Also In the Germanic tradition, Walpurgis Night, on April 30th is a moon festival sacred to the goddess Freya.
“Walpurga” is another one of Freya’s names. The re-dedication of the holiday to “St. Walpurga” was a later Christian addition.
Freya (Old Norse, Freyja meaning “Lady”) is one of the pre-eminent goddesses in Norse mythology. She was the goddess of love and beauty in Norse mythology, the goddess of marriage and family and a great prophetess – a seeress. She taught her husband Odin how to read the runes, and like Odin, she had a fiercer aspect as a patron deity of war and death in battle.
Freya wears a cloak of falcon feathers and has a magical gold necklace called Brísingamen. She rides in a chariot pulled by two cats and a sacred boar called Hildisvíni runs alongside, though he is not shown in this picture.
The cats, it has been speculated, were two male kittens found by Thor. They had been abandoned by their mother and he took them to Freya. What kind of cats? I’d have thought Norwegian Forest cats, but legend suggests the kittens were grey-blue and on that basis it’s speculated they were Russian Blues.
Bringing in the May
I washed my face in water
That had neither rained nor run
And then I dried it on a towel
That was never woven or spun
The rhyme suggests we go out barefoot very early on May morning and wash our faces in all that magical dew (or late snow) Your complexion will instantly improve. Let the wind and sunshine dry our faces and we’ll have good luck all year.
Bringing in ‘the may’ means gathering cuttings of flowering trees for magical protection of the home. Bring in branches of forsythia, magnolia, lilac, or other flowering branches. Decorate the doorway to keep away unfriendly fae and other spirits
Make garlands or decorate a basket or a ‘May bush’ with flowers and coloured ribbons. This would often be a hawthorn bush but it doesn’t have to be.
If you need to move a bee hive, May 1 is a traditional day for doing it, hopefully clement for the bees.
Turnips are traditionally planted on May 1. Plant now for lovely mashed turnip later. What are you waiting for?
Fishermen expect to get lucky with catch on May Day.
It’s a powerful day for spell-casting…any spells to do with bringing in health, wealth, and abundance. Light a red or pink candle for love or passion…but be careful what you wish for, and it is unlucky to try and take what is not rightfully available to you.
Traditionally it is unlucky to get married in May. ‘Marry in May, regret it for aye.’ But not to panic if you’ve got the date already booked. The writer of this article was born on May Eve and got married in May – 30 years ago this year- and like all of us, has had mixed luck in life. But so far at least is still married.
This Beltane, Venus has moved into her astrological home turf of Taurus. Good for money, the Stock Exchange. Good for all things green and growing. Good for glamour…an old term for magic. Venus will stay here for almost a month. And Mars moves into its home sign of Aries on 30 April. Pow. Action time. Vim and vigour.
This Walpurgis baby turns 61 on 30 April. Vim and vigour, not feeling it so much, but we shall see…..I may report back.
Have you ever had a Tarot reading with someone else, or pulled cards for yourself, and been surprised, mystified or even spooked because the cards were so relevant it was downright uncanny? How does that happen? After all, there are 78 cards in a Tarot deck. For those few cards you chose entirely at random, the others all had to stay in the deck.
The Basics
Tarot is only one of many systems of divination. Others are far older in origin, including astrology, palmistry, the I-Ching, runes and reading bones/entrails etc as in Rome, where Spurinna, the haruspex predicted the assassination of Julius Caesar. The popularity of card games took off after Mamluk game cards were brought to Western Europe from Turkey, and the earliest known set of tarot cards was created in the 14th century. The Tarot, also known as the Tarocchi or Tarock, began as a game of chance in the courts of northern Italy but did not become seriously associated with fortune telling or other psychic divination until much later, by the mid 18th century.
Physically speaking, a Tarot deck is little more than 78 pieces of illustrated, numbered card-stock.
The meanings in the cards need a reader to make them come alive. Study is required. No faith is required, however. No religion, no need to commune with any ‘spirits’ than the spirit of Mankind. I have read for Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Chinese and Jewish clients, as well as for atheists, agnostics and downright skeptics. No problem at all. The imagery in the Tarot crosses cultural boundaries.
But in communing with some ancient, but ‘higher’ part of ourselves, superego, not id, perhaps we are communing with the Divine, depending on however one wishes to define it. Or else tapping into our ancient animal knowing. That we muted or traded in exchange for the great advancement to language.
I see it as a transcendence or suspension of the everyday self. When I am doing a reading for another person, I need to free myself, try and take myself out of the equation, me and my worry about getting it ‘right’ or ‘wrong’; me and my ego.
I sometimes joke as I shuffle the cards, ‘OK, now my ancient inner animal is going to have a little talk with your ancient inner animal.’
We are going to converse on at (at least) two levels, consciously, and via telepathy, enabled by the imagery of the cards.
Marcus the psychic pig, accurately predicted the result of the EU Referendum, and The US Elections
Suspension of self and ego notwithstanding, delivery of a professional level of service means I, or any other reader need to do as well or better than the pig.
The reader draws cards blindly and at random, and lays them out in a pattern or spread, using the placement of the cards, the imagery and associated meanings of that card. Why choose this card and not that one? Well, there is the mystery. The central nervous system has a mind of its own, and dictates my movement, in determining the instant at which I stop shuffling. I can think of no better explanation. The choice to stop shuffling is not remotely deliberate.
The reader then interprets the cards, sharing what they sense about a given person, situation or question, past, present and possible future.
This stuff is not omniscience. I don’t KNOW anything. I just say what I see and feel. The thing that amazes, and can even startle the person being read for, and the readers too at times, is the total, immediate and undeniable relevance of cards drawn blindly and at random, and then organised into a pattern or spread for interpretation.
The cards were drawn at random, but the results do not seem random at all.
They fit.
OK, but shaddap! How exactly does this stuff WORK?
Well, OK, OK. But there is no one single, neat and tidy answer.
The reader has ‘uploaded’ a ‘programme’ by learning the meanings and associations of the cards. With much repetition and practice, just as with learning to play an instrument or indeed any kind of rote learning, this programming becomes almost second nature, and the cards may act now, not only as technical support but as a springboard for insights prompted by lateral or associative thinking, backed up by instinct.
This provides them with their starting point, and then their own ideas, empathy or intuition supplies further comment. The cards provide a spring board for the reader’s intuition, but the associations of the cards supply the details enabling greater precision of interpretation. Associative thinking, or lateral thinking helps me a lot in arriving at ‘psychic’ insights or ‘hits.’
I look at the card and there is a kind of a ‘ping’
For instance: I drew the Six of Wands, and this card generally means progress, promotion, a trip but on this occasion, something about the artwork made me say something I had never said on previous occasions, drawing the self same card, and I asked the client, ‘are you thinking of going to Siena?’
And she was, or rather, a place just outside Siena, but how did I arrive at that guess? Firstly, I had already established that we were looking at a travel destination. Secondly, something about it suddenly made me think of the Palio.
The Six Wands from The Legacy of The Divine Tarot, Ciro Marchetti
At other times the six of Wands has told me about motorbikes. Once it ‘showed’ me an upcoming sporting event, a big one and I asked the client, was this correct, and learned he was going to the Paralympics as a reserve member of the wheelchair rugby team. Most recently I drew this card, and said to the lady that it looked as though she may be meeting a man who was into speeding vehicles, but his job involved teamwork. She recognized this description and said he was a firefighter. In this instance then, the six of Wands denoted a fire engine.
Same card, three entirely concrete, different yet related interpretations, talking about the real, modern world.
Synchronicity
The psychologist Carl Jung never learned to read the Tarot himself but was fascinated by its ability to reflect what was going on. Jung theorized that Tarot works by means of a phenomenon he called “synchronicity”, or meaningful coincidence.
Jung was also fascinated by what Tarot could tell us about real people we know as pictured through classic story archetypes, e.g.; The King, The High Priestess, the Wise Man (Magician) the Hermit, and for its insights into the conscious mind working in tandem with the unconscious mind.
The ‘coincidences’ of the Tarot’s commentary, relating the enquirer/clients own story back to them are so frequent and particular that the enquirer/client strongly feels that they have been heard by some mysterious invisible presence. The reader feels it too.
The reader has ‘uploaded’ a ‘programme’ by learning the meanings and associations of the cards. With much repetition and practice, just as with learning a language or to to play an instrument or indeed any kind of rote learning, this programming becomes second nature, and the cards may act now, not only as technical support, but as a springboard for insights prompted by lateral or associative thinking, and we may go up into the realms of the psychic stratosphere.
The clues in the cards
Each card has many keywords attached. These are the basic building bricks of the reading.
The Chariot card, for instance, has these meanings attached; a vehicle, a driving test, a garage, a road trip, travel, ambition, project, a partnership, teamwork, discipline, and also the zodiac sign of Cancer and the dates associated with this sign (June 21-July 22)
So, let’s imagine I draw this card. Which meaning is the right one here and now?
Circe by Waterhouse
John William Waterhouse – Sketch of Circe, 1911-1914 (public domain)
How does the reader
1: choose cards which so appropriately describe things you have not yet told the reader?
2: choose which of the many possible card interpretations to go with?
Well, the context of the card is a clue. What are the surrounding cards? The reader studies these with care. Beyond this, the short answer is, the reader doesn’t know. They make a judgement call and go with their first impressions, trusting the unconscious process, then making it conscious again, putting it back into words.
This is presumably working on empathy.
Intuition is one’s inner tuition – one’s instinctive understanding. It’s necessary for survival, and we all possess it to some degree.
Using a learned system such as Tarot helps us give it words.
Sometimes these words are so specific, many call it ‘psychic’ and psychic ability and intuition are often seen as “supernatural.”
But anyone can learn to read Tarot cards, while the degree of proficiency attained depends on a certain natural talent, but also depends to a very great extent on study and practise. Lots of people start learning, but give it up again without ever finding out all they might be able to do with it.
In Summary
Tarot is an art not a science. It is a form of language. You clearly see there’s a process at work. The mechanisms are both apparent and inscrutable. One sees the physical actions of shuffling, drawing and arranging the cards, and then upon card knowledge, feeling and sensing and finally, the right, apposite and meaningful word choice.
Becoming proficient at reading the Tarot, such that one can read to a service level feels like a big responsibility. Well, it is, and it demands a heck of a lot of practice, and the more you work with the Tarot or whatever system of divination you might want to work with, the more confidently you will be able to tap into your intuition, but you do not need to think of yourself as psychic in order to learn to read the Tarot, or to become fluent and proficient.
There is a native understanding beyond your conscious awareness and control. Whether you think that proceeds from your subconscious, the collective unconscious, God, your guides, or your higher self doesn’t matter.
The results are the proof. Sometimes these can be put to the test, observed and validated immediately, as when a reader says something that they could not possibly have known, but the client knows to be correct. But when a reader comments in respect of events many months ahead, it might be turn out to be pie in the sky, or it might prove accurate, but only time will tell.
Is the information potentially usable, actionable or workable here and now?
That is a pragmatic reading. It is my experience that most people welcome an element of pragmatism when they are at a crossroads. The Tarot is no less ‘spiritual’ when it psychically detects a problem with the drains.
Fortune Teller, Albert Anker, 1880
We can, and do know more than we know. All of us, and without necessarily knowing HOW we know it. Perhaps there are biological algorithms at work here, and why should this be surprising?
We don’t even know how old we are as a species. Not really. Until 2015 we were told, based on the available evidence, that humanity had been practicing organised agriculture for 12000 years, but subsequent discoveries by the sea of Galilee suggest humanity has been experimenting with crop eugenics for at least 23000 years.
We don’t know everything there is to know about Time.
Six million years of Mankind. 200 000 years of ‘modern’ us. We’ve got nothing on the scorpions, with their 350 million years. Still, we are more ancient and mysterious, it seems, with every new archaeological discovery.
