Archetypal Tarot

The Tarot Talks Archetypes.

What is Yours?

Astrology and Tarot are separate artistic disciplines with distinct histories and traditions, but there are powerful connections between them, with many astrological archetypes embedded in the Tarot.

Zodiac Public Domain Book of Hours The Sky Order and Chaos Jean Pierre Verdet

Image: Public Domain from The Book of Hours, Jean Pierre Verdet

The 78 cards of a classic Tarot deck include 22 Major Arcana cards (Greater Secrets) and 56 Minor Arcana Cards (Lesser Secrets.)

The Major Arcana cards shine a light on life-changing situations and events, or draw attention to some crucial aspect of your own personality or behaviour, demanding attention at the time of the reading.

Each sign of the Zodiac is linked with a Tarot card from The Major Arcana. Your sun sign and your Major Arcana card represent key archetypes. But what exactly is an archetype?

Archetypes

The word derives from Ancient Greek and means a very typical example of something, like a model from which other copies are made; a prototype.

Arkhetupon ‘something moulded first as a model’, from arkhe-‘primitive’ + tupos ‘a model’.

The Oxford English Dictionary offers these definitions

A very typical example of a certain person or thing.
Later, in Psychoanalysis (in Jungian theory) a primitive mental image inherited from the earliest human ancestors, and supposed to be present in the collective unconscious.
A recurrent symbol or motif in literature, art, or mythology.

jung-quote-archetypes-complex-fate-jungcurrents

Archetypes are complexes of experience that come upon us like fate, and their effects are felt in our most personal life.
The ‘anima’ no longer crosses our path as a goddess, but, it may be, as an intimately personal misadventure, or perhaps as our best venture.
When, for instance, a highly esteemed professor in his seventies abandons his family and runs off with a young red-headed actress, we know that the gods have claimed another victim.

From Jung: Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, Image: John Strudwick 1849-1937

The archetype represented by your Major Arcana card does not define you, of course, any more than your Sun sign does. You and I are unique. Every living thing is unique and yet- it is also classifiable

The archetypes are classifications of behaviours and attributes, and in the Tarot, the Major Arcana chime with the signs of the zodiac.

There are two key archetypes in play in personal astrology; the archetype of your Sun sign, and then there is your ‘outward face’; a key aspect of the public persona, represented by your Rising Sign or Ascendant; the planet rising on the Eastern horizon at the time of your birth. It’s a good idea to read both when reading your horoscope.

If you know your time of birth, you can identify your rising sign via this link

Discover the Tarot’s Major Arcana card for your zodiac sign below.

Aries (Mar 21-Apr 19)

Astrological archetype: The Ram. The Warrior.

Major Arcana card The Emperor – (energy, organisation, leadership)

Spring bursts forth after winter and so does the ram with the year’s first lambs, and so does The Emperor in you and me. The Emperor decrees we can’t just creep through Life. We need to push sometimes, and push hard or we would never get anywhere. The Emperor is fiery, energetic, driven and determined, good at delegating but controlling – some might even say bossy; A battering ‘ram’. The Emperor may be accident- prone due to general speed and haste. Male or female ‘he’ needs to learn how to take it easy, and slow down, to be more careful and patient, to stay curious and listen to the ideas of others. He’s not the only Emperor round here.

Taurus (Apr 20-May 20)

Astrological archetype: The Bull. The Artist. The Farmer.

Major Arcana card The Hierophant – (faith, study, tradition)

This card is about the power and wisdom of the written words and of tradition. Books, publishers, librarians, churches of all faiths, and universities are indicated by this same card. The High Priest (Hierophant) does things by the book, and has faith and trust in the old ways. He is all about standards. He is a protector, a gardener, a teacher, a mentor, a scholar, but the other message of this card is that change can be good, even necessary, wisdom is knowing when to bend with the wind, and that does not necessarily mean the same as throwing out any baby with the bathwater.

Gemini (May 21-June 20)

Astrological archetype: The Twins. The Jester. Mercury.

Your Major Arcana card is The Lovers – (choices, love, duality)

This card has another name: ‘The Decision.’ Gemini is quick-witted, but sometimes decisions need more care and time than mercurial Gemini gives them. There is an innate restlessness, Gemini can be quick to walk away, even when sometimes they might do better to stick at things, even if they are bored, or the going gets rough. Gemini is the archetype of the Jester, the one who can take any turn of fate with a laugh and makes sure we remember to enjoy ourselves. This is the wisdom of Gemini. We need to be able to laugh at ourselves in order to keep a healthy sense of perspective. Laughter is powerful medicine. What we can’t joke about, we can’t deal with..

Cancer (Jun 21-Jul 22)

Astrological archetype: The Crab. The Mother.

Major Arcana card The Chariot – (progress, effort, co-operation).

The Crab is famously gentle, home-loving, intuitive, private; even secretive, but just look again at this guy/girl. This is Cancer’s Tarot face. The Chariot carries the victorious on parade. The Chariot takes us places. This is a card of triumph through discipline and sustained effort; the harnessing of resources, the charioteer and the horses working as one. Choose your teams well, put in a sustained effort, you and they can do great things together. The Crab may be the archetypal sign of motherhood where the Ram is fatherhood, but these are qualities, not identities, while a carer is not a servant, and the gentleness of Cancer does not make it a doormat. No way. Push too far they will withdraw.

Leo (Jul 23-Aug 22)

Dominant element: Fire.

Astrological archetype: The Lion. The King.

Major Arcana card Strength – (courage, willpower, fortitude)

Life demands courage to meet it head on. To learn new things you have to take chances and risk failure. But the fire of Leo demands control. The lady patiently restrains the lion. It shall not devour her. She shall not try to harm it. The lion represents the spirit of the Leo subject. There is natural courage and charisma, but the Lady represents strength with gentleness and restraint – moral courage. The lion does not want to be ruled, but nor does she wish to be devoured, power must be used wisely and tyranny is always to be resisted.

Virgo (Aug 23-Sep 22)

Dominant element: Earth

Astrological archetype: The Virgin. The Craftsman.

Major Arcana card The Hermit – (Self-sufficiency, connection to nature, analysis)

The Hermit often likes to walk alone, and this is usually by choice. Time alone, especially in quiet, wild, green places, is especially good for the Hermit, male or female, married, or single. People turn to the Hermit for wise advice. The Hermit knows how to listen and sees far more than he or she says. The Hermit shines a quiet light along his path and others may safely follow in times of need. Animals can trust to the hermit’s compassion. The Hermit is often a talented artist or crafts-person, slow, methodical and a perfectionist, so much so, that she never feelsthe work is good enough to sell, even when it is. Virgo’s challenge is to expedite..

Libra (Sep 23-Oct 22)

Dominant element: Air.

Astrological archetype: The Scales. The Judge.

Major Arcana card Justice – (order, reason, restitution).

Libra combines analytical ability with intuition, and a natural grace and charm, with a talent for diplomacy. Justice is capable of severity, however, and can just now and again be overly keen to apply the letter of the law, forgetting the spirit. See the Sword in the hand of Justice. But the scales don’t stay still. They are rarely in perfect balance. They see-saw, like Libra’s moods and occasional indecision. Libra is changeable. It may be the only sign of the Zodiac represented by an inanimate object, and a Libra subject may be a born judge, but still, they are only human. But without Justice there would be chaos and misery, mature loose and running red in tooth and claw. There could be no society and no civilisation.

Scorpio (Oct 23-Nov 21)

Dominant element: Water.

Astrological archetype: The Scorpion. The Actor.

Major Arcana card Death – (endings, liberation, transformation)

There is no life without death. There can be nothing new without something else changing or ending. But just like the song, the seasons don’t fear the reaper. Death is not the enemy of Life. Scorpio understands this great mystery. Intuitive, subtle, often somewhat secretive, charismatic, intense, Scorpio is devoted to their loved ones, while with others they may be a true friend and powerful ally – or a vengeful enemy. Death has a long memory. He has seen it all before. Get in the way, and he may mow you down with that scythe. Sometimes it is better to walk away. Sometimes it is wiser to call it quits and call time on something that no longer serves you well.

Sagittarius (Nov 22-Dec 21)

Dominant element: Fire.

Astrological archetype: The Archer. The Explorer.

Your Tarot archetype is Temperance – (moderation; timing, healing).

Temperance was regarded as an angel- a force for virtue at the time the Tarot was first in use. Temperance is about moderation, and self- control, and the avoidance of extremes. But Temperance has other meanings…alchemy, the fusing together of two elements, materials or qualities to make a new thing stronger than either individual element; Intellect and feeling, ability and ambition, one person and another, one people and another. This is a force for diplomacy, reconciliation of differences and also for physical healing after illness.

Capricorn (Dec 22-Jan 19)

Dominant element: Earth.

Astrological archetype: The Goat. The Builder.

Major Arcana card The Devil – (also Pan. Wildness, entrapment, liberation)

Powerful opposites meet in the Goat. Capricorn, thought to be named originally for the ibex which mated at this same time of year, is the builder and the banker of the zodiac; hard working and solid yet agile, with an often understated glamour and a keen, if dry sense of humour. The Devil comes in many guises; often powerfully attractive. Or think of animal magnetism. That’s Pan for you. The Devil warns us to beware compulsion reminding us that we can get trapped by our own behaviour as much as by circumstance but we can choose to liberate ourselves by exercising the willpower sufficient to change the behaviour or the circumstance, bringing order out of chaos.

Aquarius (Jan 20-Feb 18)

Dominant element: Air. (Special note: Aquarius is sometimes mistakenly identified as a water sign because its symbol is the water carrier)

Astrological archetype: The Water Carrier. The Teacher.

Major Arcana card The Star – (hope, inspiration , humanitarianism).

The Star of hope has much in common with the imagery of the Aquarian Water Carrier. It shines its brightest, far-off light when everything else looks dark. The figure in the card has one foot in the water, symbolising her powers of intuition, and the other foot still on land, denotes her stability. Her knee is a bridge between elements. The stars symbolise the card’s over-arching message of guidance, hope and inspiration. Aquarius loves people as a general concept, but she is not one to blend in with the crowd, indicated by the biggest star above her head, which is bigger and set apart from the others.

Pisces (Feb 19-Mar 20)

Dominant element: Water.

Astrological archetype: The Fishes. The Seeker/Seer

Major Arcana card The Moon– (imagination, instinct, intuition)

Like Pisces, The Moon card is associated with the subconscious, and suggests that things are not always as they first appear. The Moon card also represents our secretive side or “shadow self”. The barking dog and the wolf in this card represent Pisces’ wild side sitting alongside its more domestic self. Pisces may seem gentle but the pull of the wild is strong, and so is the pull of the ocean’s tides. These people are deep. The crayfish crawling from the water represents “coming into consciousness” and the possession of psychic abilities, true of all the zodiac signs in their different ways, but especially archetypal of Pisces.

The archetypes are represented real things, real people. Who do we have here? The Magician? The Hermit? Herne? Cernunnos?

Watch for the more everyday archetypes manifesting in real time all around you.

Until next time 🙂

Brexit Jingle Bells

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Season’s Greetings.

Brexit. I don’t know any more, or better than or anyone else, how it is all going to work out, but I’m bound to look in my cards, aren’t I?

And whether I get it right or wrong, I will learn something, by having the opportunity to look back, and see where and how I got it wrong in interpretation. There is no other school. That’s how readers develop.

I drew these cards on Friday 30 November, sat on them, and posted them on Twitter on Saturday 8, December during a frenzy of media and of course, public speculation ahead of Monday 10 December when Theresa May was due to put the proposed EU Deal to the vote in Parliament.

Cards Drawn 30 November

The most basic way of reading a yes or no from playing cards is to decide on your system and stick to it.

My system says red cards = yes, black suit cards = no, irrespective of the positive or negative meanings of the individual cards. Then I count. Then I may look at the individual cards for further ideas.

I laid out three rows of 5 cards. Using an odd number is helpful in yes/no counting spreads. Readers typically use 1, 3, 5 or 7 cards. This is simply a matter of personal preference.

Row 1: Will Parliament pass the Deal?

Row 2: Will there be another General Election called soon?

Row 3: Will there be a so-called ‘hard Brexit’?

card reading re brexit

Row 1: Will Parliament pass the Deal?

Still possible but highly unlikely. This picture had not shifted over the course of the week.

Row 2: Will there be another General Election called soon?

Still possible but highly Unlikely. That 7 of Spades in the final position is a real sinkhole of a card.

Row 3: Will there be a so-called ‘hard Brexit’? Far from certain. It’s almost ‘even Stevens.’ We have 2 red suit cards = yes, 2 black suit cards =No and the Joker which could go either way.

However. The Joker says, expect sudden changes, surprises and risk- taking behaviour – it is not necessarily irresponsible, while the 10 Diamonds as the final card raises the chances of a yes answer, because a red suit = yes as a kind of last word and a 10 is the number symbolic of completion.

A hard Brexit therefore, while looking far from certain, is at this date looking more likely than the other two scenarios.

I was interested to compare this with a reading shared here on True Tarot Tales in August re Deal or No Deal? The indications were that it would probably be No Deal, but the picture now in my cards is more fraught and complicated, which is perhaps entirely to be expected, given that we’re in the midst of the very fraught latter stage boilings of the process.

This is such a major and volatile situation, I drew another spread the following week, on Saturday 8 December, to see if, a week later, the cards were still telling the same story in respect of what Parliament was going to do on Monday 10 December in passing the proposed Deal or Not.

Is Parliament going to pass this Deal day after tomorrow, 10 December 2018?

I shared these cards and the interpretation on Twitter, tweeting it on 8 December at 4.32 PM

Parliament 10 Dec 2018

Future’s not a lump of concrete. Forecasting, by whatever means is @ sensing probabilities. This line of 5 cards confirms MPs will PROB not approve deal. QD =PM. AC =Pment The 2D MIGHT still just poss make a diff. Reps amendment re backstop? 2S and 4S =any exile of NI =a tomb.

The Queen of Diamonds is Theresa May.

The Ace Clubs is Parliament

The 2 Diamonds is a business partnership

The 2 of Spades is severance of a partnership. UK -EU-N Ireland border

The 4 Spades is sickness, entombment, retreat or even a rout.

Looking back, we see that the drawing of the final cards, the Four of Spades – ‘a tomb’- manifested in practise (UK spelling) as the cancellation or deferment. Or as it may yet emerge, shelving.

What does that venerable purveyor of prognostication, Old Moore’s Almanack have to say about it all?

Old Moore, published in Britain since 1697, famously uses Astrology as its go-to system of divination, and as many will be quick to point out, doesn’t always get it right, but historically predicted the Wall Street Crash and the start of WW2.

old moore

Old Moore has done an extensive report into Brexit as one would expect, but basically suggests that the UK is coming out as per Article 50, probably without EU deal, and says it sees no sign of a second referendum.

Economics post Brexit, it characterises as bumpy but not calamitous, some sectors grow/stabilise even early 2019 including Tourism, Education, the NHS and the service industries.

The national mood is very ‘Saturnian’, it says, whatever the power of the movement in favour of a second referendum, but that there is a strong current afoot in the national psyche of a Saturnian will to work, and an equally Saturnian drive for self- reliance (which is not necessarily to be confused or conflated with isolationism).

Time will tell of course, as with all forecasting, whether by polls, pundits, politicians or indeed, economists and top banking people. No need for sceptics of all findings of a supposedly non- rational provenance to point this out.

The workings of Divination are not supernatural, but based on the wonders of our natural human biology. Science knows full well that the gut speaks directly to the head, and often, if not always, it’s the gut that speaks first.

Perhaps Brexit could also be understood in the context of a grass-roots, if apparently delayed after-shock in response to the seismic shock of the financial crash of 2007.

Old Moore suggests Britain will keep calm and carry on…while suggesting possible major changes at No 10 later in 2019, maybe in June.

dont panic

I had a weird dream about Theresa May last night. I’ve forgotten most of it, but she said she dreaded going to see the Queen.

Until next time.

Saturn says Season’s Greetings 🙂

And also, being Saturn, says ‘Bah Humbug’.

When the Six of Wands said ‘Siena.’

Timing comes up a lot in Tarot readings. ‘When?’ asked a recent client, asking about the prospects of a trip…but this was not just a holiday trip being envisioned, but an activity-focused trip with a purpose. The client was also wondering about the possibilities of encountering a significant other on such a trip.

I drew the Six Wands…

6 wands legacy divine tarot

Image Legacy of the Divine Tarot, Ciro Marchetti

‘I’m sensing late next July,’ I said, ‘maybe August. No surprises there then. Summer holidays. Bit of a no-brainer isn’t it?’

Why did I say these dates? The Six of Wands connects to the zodiac sign of Leo.

‘Well, yes, but I’m a teacher,’ the client said, ‘you’ve picked that up correctly…that I can only go away during school holidays. I went to Italy last year and I’ve been thinking about whether to go again back to the same place next year, same time.’

‘Would this to Siena by any chance?’ I said.

‘Wow,’ said the client, ‘not exactly, but it’s a little place not far off. Sort of in the middle of nowhere. But that’s amazing. How do you know?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said, ‘I only feel it. Look at the card. It just made me think of Siena. That rider here in the amphitheatre? It made me think of the square where they hold the Palio. But it never made me think of that before.’

palio

Commons Wikimedia

The traditional keywords associated with the Six of Wands: A Yes answer, Success, Victory, Achievement, Awards, Supporters, Fans, Crowd, Rally, Goodwill, Compliments, Cheers, Applause, Sharing Success, Fairness, Self-Confidence, Self-Esteem, Pride, Good News, Politician, PR, Campaigns, Sales

I’ve drawn this card many times before of course. Sometimes it’s been talking about a car. Sometimes it has told me about a motorbike. Once it flagged up a sports trip coming up for a disabled athlete selected to go to with his team to the Para- Olympics. The Six of Wands has more than once before helped me decide which team I think will win a football match though I tend not to ‘go there’ much in public. I do now and then, but who needs trolls – or people ringing me up for betting tips?

Besides which, prescience is not remotely the same thing as omniscience.

But it has never said ‘Siena’ or ‘Palio’ before. The picture on the card was therefore functioning as a psychic trigger.

And first I had to draw that card. I had to shuffle and draw it blindly and at random in answer to the stated question. That card and no other.

77 other cards had to stay in the pack.

And it is that peculiar, acute and totally unconscious synchronicity that is so typical of Tarot.

Carl Jung

Would I have picked up on this in the same way via, say, an email reading? There’s no knowing, but quite possibly not. This was a nuance plucked organically from the ether, the invisible electric space between me and the client.

Once upon a time I would probably not have even said it, judging it too silly, not wishing to risk it. Now I am older, less interested in what anyone else makes of it. Caveat emptor. The client doesn’t need to tell the reader much, only ask questions, but they need to be straight with the reader, play fair, no funny business trying to misdirect the reader, wasting time and energy.

It is as it is. For me now, to just do this reading thing is all. Sometimes it comes easy, other times less so.

UPDATE: 3 weeks after this reading I received a message from the client, generously wishing me to see an email just received from a contact in Italy, inviting the client to travel out to Siena for an olive harvesting event….and with a group visit to see….the Palio!

Holy Moly.

Until next time 🙂

Leaving The Customs Union, 2

In the previous blog, I used cartomancy divination to look at the question of whether the UK would leave the Customs Union in 2020, and the overall reply was yes, using my playing cards, based on this spread shown below. The yes arises from the appearance of the Ace of Spades in the central column, which contains the final answer of the reading.

Custom Union

BUT talk about hot potato. What will it look like in practice? Let us look at it through the lens of the Tarot today.

Which of these options look more likely?

streamlined customs arrangement – which involves minimal customs checks and the use of new technology to enable as frictionless trade as possible. This option would allow the movement of goods between the UK and the EU to be monitored and recorded, with traders paying duties on a monthly or quarterly basis, rather than paying duties on every shipment or service traded. This is the option currently favoured by ‘Brexiteers’.
A customs partnership with the EU – which involves the UK acting as a tax collector for the EU whenever goods enter the UK. If the goods are bound for the UK, and if the UK tariff is lower than the EU tariff, traders could claim any difference. This was the option reportedly favoured by Mrs May, although it remains unclear whether she still supports it following the Cabinet meeting this week. See Here For Source

Today I have used my Tarot cards. The deck is the Divine Legacy Tarot deck used here for educational purposes by kind permission of the artist, Ciro Marchetti.

Customs Union 2

Cards for Option 1

streamlined customs arrangement – which involves minimal customs checks and the use of new technology to enable as friction-less trade as possible. This option would allow the movement of goods between the UK and the EU to be monitored and recorded, with traders paying duties on a monthly or quarterly basis, rather than paying duties on every shipment or service traded.

The card top left, drawn upside down, is the 3 of Coins, suggesting that a streamlined customs arrangement will be harder to implement to start with. This is a money card of craftsmanship and attention to detail, but blocked or delayed, and technology is not of itself the panacea.

The burden and onus on smaller businesses and sole traders, like the craftsman shown in the card, will be especially troublesome to start with, but thereafter, in the longer term, 4-9 years, The Hermit (Major Arcana 9, meaning maturity and independence, going it alone) the Four of Wands (one’s house is in order) and Strength (Major Arcana 8, meaning Courage, health and Power) as the destination card, suggests this option is front- end problematic but becomes a position of increasing Strength over the following 4-9 years.

Cards for Option 2

A customs partnership with the EU – which involves the UK acting as a tax collector for the EU whenever goods enter the UK. If the goods are bound for the UK, and if the UK tariff is lower than the EU tariff, traders could claim any difference. This was the option reportedly favoured by Mrs May,

Let’s look at the cards again without having to scroll up:

Customs Union 2

The first card out is Justice, due process and a need for fair play. We hit the ground running with an idea that is better received by the other side of the table, and with existing infrastructure and legal harmonisation. We wish to play fair, if we are played fair with. Justice is the cards of Libra, the Law and harmony. Key dates September 23-October 23.

This appears to trump the starting position for Option 1 hands down, and there is strong support for it.

The Queen of Cups here represents a key female figure, probably Theresa May herself, although she was represented in the previous playing card reading as a Queen of Diamonds (money queen, fast thinking and this equates more readily with the Tarot’s suit of Coins or Pentacles.) However, we are all multifaceted and this is a card of pouring oil on troubled waters. This is a card of a leader wishing to harmonize differences but is this actually possible if she is not met half way? The Queen of Cups is a peacemaker, and here, looking as she seems to be, out towards us, but also towards Justice, she has an eye here is the pictorial suggestion, to the House of Lords.

The Knight of Coins is a card of slow, steady growth and is by no means therefore a negative card in terms of what it seems to suggest about the financial well-being of the UK going this route.

The destination/outcome card for a mooted Customs Partnership is The 9 of Wands Reversed.

Uh- oh.

The upright 9 is a card of courage and determination, same as the Strength card but there is a blinkered rigidity, a narrowness about it, inferior to the expansiveness of the Strength card.

One may read this as the resistance of a hard Brexit lobby, but there seems no avoiding the conclusion that if the UK chooses a Customs Partnership based on the model under discussion, there will still need to be – this will be crucial to the national interest – the will, the power and the remit to do a lot of saying no.

Traditional Meanings of the 9 of Wands Reversed:

Rut, Off- Loading/Taking on More, Delegation, Taking Matters in Hand, Overhauling, Radical Change, Learning To Say No, Compromising, Weeding, Cutting Out The Dead Wood, Dumping, Reflecting, Learning/Not Learning from Mistakes, Giving Up on a Dream or Ambition, Letting Go, Giving Up/Holding On, Delays, Set Backs, No Reward after Immense Effort, Insurmountable Problems, Being Saddled, Taken Advantage Of, Resigned To Your Fate, ‘Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing’, Clearing Out.

The destination cards represent the likely future of the situation, or the advice upon which future developments will hinge, and The Strength card of option 1 trumps the 10 of Wands Reversed of option 2.

Option 2 may seem the easier route but in time it would become increasingly onerous.

But there may be yet another approach, or a twist on one of these options, that is not yet on the table.

What is not shown here either way in direct connection with the outcome either way? War, civil war or bankruptcy.

Summary. Option 1 – a streamlined customs agreement- drew as its outcome the Strength card- a card of physical and moral courage. Leo hunts because it must, but only to feed itself and support the pride, not with malice to waste, despoil or deny another.

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Until next time 🙂

Tarot says ‘shark!’

Learning to read Tarot cards fluently requires in-depth study. Lateral thinking is another way of reading the cards; using associations and insights triggered by the imagery deployed in a particular deck, rather than restricting yourself to the traditional card meanings.

It is not about ignoring those traditions, far from it. These insights still chime with the traditional story remit of the card. But they can add new details, specifics that can arise psychically, when you fly by the seat of your pants, with the art work as your intuitive springboard.

I had been asked to investigate a relationship question and drew The Knight of Cups, shown below.

The Legacy of the Divine Tarot by Ciro Marchetti.

knight cups legacy

Classic interpretations of this card: Water, Pisces, Messages, approaches, invitations, proposals and propositions. Health, healing, Hospitality. Drinking and eating. An admirer. Knight in shining armour. An artist, poet, singer, musician, carer, diplomat, visionary, psychic, peacemaker, dreamer, inability to focus, inability to commit.

The appearance of this card enabled me to offer a theory as to the problem, and a description of the other person which the client recognised as a portrait true to the life.

The point of this story is that I had drawn this card many times before, and never before said what I was about to say. BUT this particular time, triggered by that cruising shark, I suddenly heard the word ‘cartilage’ in my imagination and said, ‘why am I feeling cartilage problems? Has this man hurt his leg?’

The client said, yes, she believed so, and that it had happened after a sports injury.

He might have had cartilage problems. He might not. I had no way to verify it, but the client believed that he had. So if he had not, then I had elicited this understanding from her. This is the nature of psychic reading when it diverges away from learning based divination.

This was a telepathic exchange. That uniquely on this occasion, the picture of the shark on this card, an image not used in other decks, had at least enabled me to pick up on her thoughts in respect of this gentleman.

This additionally gave me a baseline that said I was on the same ‘wavelength’ with this lady. I do not tend to ‘see’ things-‘ clairvoyance’ as ‘hear’ them- ‘clairaudience.’

I do not usually, drawing this card from this deck, focus my attention on the shark. I had never offered the same interpretation of this card before, and have never yet done it since. But on this occasion, it somehow pulled me in, and by now I’ve learned to just say it, when this happens, however stupid I think it sounds.

Life is short. The world is vast and multi-dimensional. You’ve got to be willing to get things wrong if you want to learn anything new, not least learning to read with the Tarot. If you’rereading for other people-a whole other situation- then you’ve got to risk falling flat on your face. Or you’ll stay safer, but you’ll also stay scared and smaller.

Until next time 🙂

Timing with Tarot. The cards say when …?

People often ask about timing, when will this or that happen. Naturally they do. If and When are the perennial questions, and the Tarot reader has various means and methods for having a pretty reasonable stab at it.

Zodiac knowledge is a huge help here.

Zodiac chart

Tarot is not astrology, but it contains many astrological archetypes, correlations and references, and they walk and breathe alive in us.

Image by Ciro Marchetti.

The 22 Major Arcana cards include 12 ‘planetary cards’. Drawing one of these helps the reader have a pretty decent stab at predicting in which month a future event may occur…assuming that is, that the event seems likely to occur.

The Emperor card= Aries = March 21-April 19

The Hierophant = Taurus = April 20-May 20

The Lovers=Gemini= May 21-June 20

The Chariot=Cancer =June 21-July 22

Strength=Leo =July 23-August 22

The Hermit=Virgo= August 23-September 22

Justice= Libra= September 23-October 22

Death=Scorpio= October 23-November 21

Temperance=Sagittarius = November 22-December 21

The Devil=Capricorn= December 22 -January 19

The Star =Aquarius=January 20-February 18

The Moon=Pisces = February 19-March 20

More here

It is usually pretty reliable.

Poor Il Matrimonio was waiting for a call from the hospital. His mother passed away, 18 October, peacefully in hospital, a stroke aged 92, and he was waiting for the hospital down in Ashford to issue the medical certificate of death, when he would be making the drive down again from Lancashire to collect it, and go to see the registrar.

He went down, and the hospital indicated the medical certificate of death would not be issued, available for collection before sometime the following week, Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. The death could not be registered before then, and he ran other necessary errands and came back.

It is a 5 hour drive if conditions are good, Il Matrimonio would be staying away overnight, and he expected to be going down again on Monday evening, collecting the medical certificate on Tuesday.

But I drew the Tower card and said, no, I thought he would go on Tuesday evening, collecting the medical certificate on Wednesday.

Image from The Golden Tarot by Kat Black, permission of US Games Systems.

tower_golden (1)

Why did I think Tuesday, and not Monday?

Monday=High Priestess

Tuesday=Tower (The Norse God of War, Tew or Tyr, also Mars)

Wednesday-Magician

Thursday = Wheel of Fortune

Friday=The Empress

Saturday =The World

Sunday=The Sun.

When reading the cards for this purpose, you focus only on the time meanings. You discount the usual meanings, although as it happens, The Tower can indeed, amongst many other things, many not pleasant, indicate a stroke, although this one, happily, could not have been more merciful.

Il Matrimonio spoke with the hospital on Tuesday morning, was told the medical certificate had just that moment come in to the office, and he went down that evening, and collected the certificate on Wednesday morning.

Poor Il Matrimonio, he was glad to set off south again at last. Jobs to do. He was glad of that. Waiting and wondering is tiring and dispiriting at the best of times.

Here he is with his mother, in 1962, aged 9 and in hospital in Singapore. He had broken his arm falling out of a tree.

‘Oh, what have you done now?’ she said.

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Indeed 🙂 And the physio was agony, he has told me, but look at them smiling, though he still has the scars. Mother and child.

Until next time 🙂

Cards go -a -counting

Practical Tarot at work…

It’s been a while since I last blogged here at True Tarot Tales. Sombre times one way and another, don’t we all feel it, and my older daughter has been unwell. There has been a lot of card reading going on meantime, but I haven’t got round to gluing my behind to the blogging seat * Slaps own wrist*

bad gold star

Daughter is well on the mend now, though not yet back to work. Micro-angiopathic Haemolytic Anaemia, a viral trigger is suspected but has not been identified. She needed a series of plasma infusions and also haemodialysis.

The illness came on suddenly and I had been puzzled, a little uneasy at the repeated appearance of the 9 Spades in the days before Il Matrimonio went away to Colditz

They let him out again, drat it, and he didn’t even need the famous glider glued with porridge in making his daring escape to Leipzig in search of a schnitzel.

The forthcoming trip was flagged up in my playing cards by the 10 of Clubs but the 9 of Spades kept popping up too, next in the sequence. This is generally regarded as a dire card, signifying illness and worry, and I decided the trip would go fine, the cards were not showing me an illness for Il Matrimonio, but I didn’t know why it was popping up, or for whom, and could almost certainly not have done anything about it anyway.

This is part and parcel of divination of course, and that potential for possibly totally unwarranted stress is just something to be handled. Three times now, I have drawn the Devil card and noted the fact of its ugly-mug appearance hours or days before a major terrorist attack, and this is of no use to me or to anyone, but still, it is rather odd. I drew the Devil and The Chariot four hours ahead of the attack in Nice, and fretted about a car journey we were due to do next day, being unable to identify the context in real terms.

Returning to the 9 of Spades and my daughter’s sudden illness, a 999 jobbie, we all had a bit of a fright but, that first emergency over, the Knight of Cups indicated she would would be all right, and might go home within the next twelve days of admission, (the Knight suggested twelve)

And she did improve well within that time frame but she was in hospital longer, so my cards were slightly over optimistic on that score, or else I started counting forward from the wrong day, and should have read it as 12 days from the day of reading. In any case I’d have been closer to the mark had I drawn the King of Cups, equating to a stay of 14 days.

We have the pip cards, and these are self-explanatory, Ones/Aces through to Tens. Then we have:

Pages = 11 (these might be hours, days, weeks, months, years etc depending on the suit)

Knights= 12

Queens = 13

Kings = 14

During a recent Tarot reading for a young client, I opened the reading with my usual opening spread; a five card cross which I think of as my tin-opener.

There was some distress surrounding The Sun and 3 of Swords, a breakup. This was quickly apparent and confirmed by the client who was clearly looking for a handle as to what had gone ‘wrong,’ which the Tarot was able to present to him as a story. This story made sense, so he said, in accordance with his own understanding of events, and certainly, there was no blame attached; my young client had done nothing ‘wrong’ whatsoever.

But he had been deeply upset, spinning his wheels, not having any story to tell himself, that seemed sufficiently clear to him. The reading changed nothing, simply offered him a handle, without which our minds may keep grinding on, and he had been experiencing headaches in the aftermath of those recent events – unusually for him he said.

The central card of this cross, denoting the heart of the current situation, was The Eight of Coins.

8 coins legacy tarot

From the Legacy of the Divine Tarot, image by kind permission of Ciro Marchetti.

I knew that he had recently done his A Levels.

‘This card seems to be talking about your next step,’ I said, ‘this is a card of apprenticeships in general, and also, as you can see for yourself here, look, it’s also a money suit card. He looks like he is looking at a bill, doesn’t he? ‘

The client smiled and said he was starting an apprenticeship in Accountancy in September.

Tarot said, ‘good move, young sir. It will suit you down to the ground as your next best step. Please don’t let anything derail you.

Anything. Capisce?’

If you want a reader’s best answer, don’t think to test them by misdirecting them. Nothing useful will be learned that way. If you mistrust them, or this kind of stuff in general, just leave it be. Don’t go there. Don’t play games with your chosen reader. It is a waste of their time and energy, and your time and money, and you might well ask, why would anyone do that, but occasionally they do.

You don’t say to a doctor, you tell me what’s the matter with me but don’t ask me any questions because if you need my help in reaching a diagnosis, you , sir or madam, are nothing but a quack.

Until next time 🙂

The Well of Wyrd

My readings include forecasts not predictions. What’s the difference? Mainly presentation. Otherwise, very little. Forecasts are associated with technically based weather and economic predicting, nowadays largely based upon the interpretation of masses of computerised data, plus educated guesswork. A prediction is based on knowledge, experience, intuition or guesswork, and may be made in any context but is generally understood as being presented as almost a done deal, whereas a forecast deals in estimations of probabilities. I deal in probabilities.

Polls and other forecasts not infrequently get it wrong of course, as do fortune-tellers, no doubt.

When I talk to you about your present and past, as sensed and expressed through my Tarot or playing cards, you are in a position to evaluate what I am saying, and to validate it. When I address your question to do with likely future developments, no validation is possible; only time will tell; the future both exists and does not exist. You will die and so will I, the only things in life that are certain, so the saying goes, are death and taxes, and the taxes were only included as a joke.

But in-between, there are things within your direct personal control and things that are not, and a prediction may interfere, distract, block or stymie you, and become a self-fulfilling prophecy, while a forecast allows for the possibility of alternative outcomes depending on whether you do this next, or that next. This job or that job? This house or that house? This person or that person?

This freedom of choice may also be an illusion of course, just as ‘true’ objectivity is an impossibility, because we are always likely to do, and default to what is in our nature to do, regardless of advice, even when that advice is directly solicited. It is a wise and also essentially confident person who can, without instantly dismissing it, no knee-jerks, coolly pay out enough rope to listen to advice that is contrary to what they want or expect, or that challenges their own preferred version of events and vision of themselves and their past choices.

“What is bred in the bone will not come out of the flesh”, first recorded in England (in Latin) circa 1290, widespread in various versions since the 15th cent.

The version I am used to says that what is bred in the bone will come out in the flesh…meaning, it will unavoidably manifest itself.

Norse mythology took a subtle view on prediction and the nature of destiny. Their Norns were not as absolutist as the Fates of Ancient Greece.

‘Wyrd’ is the Old English variant of the Norse word, ‘Urd’, referring to the destiny of each living thing, cast for them at birth by the three Norns. The Saxon variant is ‘wurd.’ The Well represents the Norse concept of the past – what we might now term birth memory, ancestral memory or the collective unconscious. The Norse view of destiny was that yes, it is written, but unlike the Fates of ancient Greek mythology, the destinies carved by the Norns can be overwritten…though does this pre-suppose that the hero on his or her life quest is aware of the existence and nature of that destiny and decides to challenge it?

The Well of Wyrd

She scrys alone; she is casting stones,

Disposing glyphs on graven runes,

No even numbers speak the Norns,

Wyrd runs water; she must deal,

In whisperings and Fates unsealed,

Winds of fortune shape and shatter,

Time, disposing of all matters,

Is Serpentine, the ouroboros,

Endless, rolling, still coils sinuous.

Katie-Ellen Hazeldine

Circe by Waterhouse: Public Domain

“The Well of Urd corresponds to the past tense. It is the reservoir of completed or ongoing actions that nourish the tree and influence its growth. Yggdrasil, in turn, corresponds to the present tense, that which is being actualised here and now.

What of intention and necessity, then? This is the water that permeates the image, flowing up from the well into the tree, dripping from the leaves of the tree as dew, and returning to the well, where it then seeps back up into the tree.^[5]

Here, time is cyclical rather than linear. The present returns to the past, where it retroactively changes the past. The new past, in turn, is reabsorbed into a new present, whose originality is an outgrowth of the give-and-take between the waters of the well and the the waters of the tree.” Source and Further Reading:

One can see the flexibility of the Norns arising in the sphere of genetics.

It is not clear why blue eyes spread among ancient Europeans. One theory is that the gene could have helped to prevent eye disorders due to low light levels found in European winters, or that the trait spread because it was deemed sexually attractive.

Source The Independent

Further Reading:

Reading re: Retrogenes

Was Darwin Wrong? Letter from the author of Lamarck’s Signature

Till next time 🙂