Tarot – Page 20 – True Tarot Tales

Fire, I’ll Teach You To Burn!

This could have been the theme for tarot blogs in recent unsettled weeks, in the fiery light of the London riots. In fact, I found my cards foreshadowed these events, and the tragedies that followed with the Tower card and the Ace of Swords Reversed. No, this is the story of a personal reading, in which I was struck by a definite theme.

There were Wands cards everywhere:-

Wands in Tarot is the equivalent of Clubs in playing cards and its corresponding element is fire.

The associations of this Tarot suit are: fire, energy. passion, drive, ambition, travel, communications, business, moving house, heading south, summer, speed, and speaking literally, such things as combustion engines, flames, hot foods…

You get the idea…Now, in this reading, we had:-

The 5 of Wands, the Page of Wands (Rev) the Knight of Wands (Rev) the Queen of Wands (Rev) and finally, the King of Wands, Dignified.

It emerged that:

The Five of Wands was flagging up the client’s worries about disruption, gossip in her workplace and was indicating a certain amount of stress, even anger centering on failed communication.

The Page of Wands referred to a move at work that she was not happy about. It also referred to her reservations about a proposed house move. She had not fully realised just how uneasy the idea made her, she said, until she saw it reflected in the cards.

The Knight of Wands Rev. The man in her life had children and he didn’t want any more. She herself had no children. He had initially said he would consider having more, as she was helping look after his children, although they were not married. However, he had lately reconsidered and was saying no. This card spoke therefore of ardour dampened, ignition of new life denied.

The Queen of Wands Reversed referred to the client’s feelings about this situation. Astrologically speaking, she was a Queen of Pentacles, a Taurus queen. She was being shown as a Queen of Wands REv because her impulses were ruling her actions. Her common sense and her need for security, were being overruled by her passionate feelings, both happy and unhappy.

The King of Wands represented the man…an archetypal Wands figure, fun, dynamic, exciting, charismatic, but also, capable of carelessness, ruthlessness and selfishness. He could be chaotic and volatile and she had good reasons to feel cross.

Drawing another card of flames, The Devil I wondered what was her her job?

She couldn’t possibly be attached to the Fire Service, could she?

Yes, she could.

She was a firefighter.

The Devil !

The Devil: The Gilded Tarot

With kind permission from Ciro Marchetti

How was she to manage the flames of this relationship without getting burned? The Tarot’s answer came from the client’s own astrological suit…Pentacles.

The Tarot called for her to build and maintain a firewall of Taurean earth. to be able to enjoy the warmth of the flame in safe bounds.

What might this mean in practical terms?

The Four of Pentacles, the 10 of Pentacles and the Ace all asked her to reconsider begore agreeing to sell her house.

It was her own house, in her sole name, willed to her by a grandparent.

The Tarot could not have issued a louder warning against selling at urging of this man, her partner, without security of marriage.

Would she act on this?

True Tarot was secretly doubtful. Fire scorches earth, earth smothers fire, and what was the glue at work here?

The seductive power that’s also represented by that fiery Devil card. Uh oh. Can it be reasoned with, before it’s burned itself out? Does this golden oldie below remind you of the tarot card illustrated above?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2g-6QGsC8g&feature=related

The Flotsam

Andromeda: Public Domain

I had a dream the other night

A planet, blue and cobweb white

A small pale moon encircled it

A ghostly child that clung half lit

I wanted to return to earth

I’d thought I’d try again for birth

I came in for a closer look

On a mountain top, an open book

I hovered but I couldn’t read

The faded words, all scattered seed

The stories left for me were lost

I crossed horizons and recrossed

Them, nothing moved below on ground

And sifting dust the only sound

I turned to face Andromeda

What tide could carry me so far?

What kindly harbour would draw me in?

Forgotten endings, re-begin?

Katie-Ellen Hazeldine, July 2010.

Practical Tarot:The Chariot

I find a 4 card spread is a neat but comprehensive way of quickly opening a reading, I think of it as ‘taking someone’s temperature’ Tarot-style…

North card. Material Affairs, home, work, health etc

West Card: Relationships, spiritual matters, mood.

South Card: Career, ambitions, passions, energy levels

East Card: Thoughts, intellectual preoccupations, planning.

A central card or simply an extra card placed alongside may be used to identify the question or concern that is the motivation for coming to the reading.

This may or may not be logged in the forefront of the client’s conscious thinking at the reading’s outset and may emerge later. Don’t be put off too much if you’re new to reading, share the meaning of a card and a client refutes it. Don’t argue, accept the rebuttal and wait…very often it will emerge during the reading that the Tarot was right, and the client just needed a little more thinking time or to settle into the conversation first.

In the North I drew The Chariot Reversed. A card of Travel, Transport, Ambition, Partnership, Cohesion, Teamwork, Success achieved through focus and determination. Being drawn Reversed…was he currently experiencing trouble with transport or a sense of dissatisfaction with his job?

Not with transport he said, looking baffled. Yes, to the dissatisfaction at work question. He was a building labourer, a skilled one, and that was OK, he liked the work, but he had a hunger for learning, and a taste in reading and curiosity in metaphysical matters that he found was not readily understood by his work mates.

This formed the greater part of the discussion that followed.

But for now that did not seem to be all of ‘it’…what about his car or van, I asked? This was probably not a serious problem, positive surrounding cards indicated it as a passing concern, but it was lodged in the material and financial department of this small spread.

The MOT was due on it the following week, he said, and he was not looking forward to the bill one bit.

Aha. The Tarot was picking up on basics. And so it should.

1jjChariot-761232 — The Chariot from the Swiss IJJ Tarot.

A Tarot Tantrum!

A Tarot Tantrum!.

A Devil Of A Tarot Tantrum!

Jung coined a phrase to describe how he thought tarot worked: ‘synchronicity.’ Something in the reader connects with something in the cards. The cards are shuffled blind and drawn at random. However, synchronicity proposes that actually the selection isn’t random;

”[In synchronistic experiences] the perception of wholeness derives not from our ego, our conscious sense of self, but instead from the way in which the meaning unites all of who we are, parts of experience we were unaware of, potentials we have that have lain dormant or underdeveloped, elements of our personality that we didn’t know existed”

One evening a client left after an intense reading, and that day I had been very, very tired. I went upstairs with a cup of tea to lounge with a book. My teenage daughter came in asking me to take a look in the cards for her.

I said, ‘not right now, sweetie, I’m too tired. Give me half an hour’.

She persisted, and as I knew the question, and knew it wasn’t serious, and could wait I became annoyed.

‘If you keep on asking when I’ve said I’m too tired,’ I said. ‘I’ll show you the Devil card! Now then.’

She asked again. Oh, dear.

‘Right!’ I said and whipped the cards out from their cloth and shuffled them furiously.

‘Now see THIS!’ I hissed, pulled a card and brandished it at her, and knock me down with a very small chick feather, it was, it really was THE DEVIL CARD. Look atta ugly mug.

Ooh-er. A Devilish Tarot Tantrum to match my own.

She was I might say, suitably impressed. In fact she ran from the room howling for her dad, who was watching the footie and wasn’t remotely interested in this psychodrama, while I sniggered, feeling better now, peacefully drinking my tea.

Hey, you old Devil… you said it for me, heh heh! Now go away again, thank you.

Devil's Backbone — Devil’s Backbone (Photo credit: pietroizzo)

How about that for synchronicity?

Tarot Marshmallow

Tarot Marshmallow.

The High Priestess Reversed was a little fish villain….

The High Priestess Reversed was a little fish villain…..

Hi Ho, Hi Ho and off to work we go…

Not long ago I did a reading for a father, worried about job and training prospects for his sixteen year old son who had just left school. The teen years had been turbulent. It seemed important that the young man should be helped to find his feet with a new role, routine and responsibilities sooner rather than later.

The Tarot indicated that the hiccups were not yet over, but the cards offered encouragement by way of these three cards. The reading timeline indicated that the developments illustrated by the cards were likely to materialise within 3-4 weeks at the soonest, six months at the latest,

Most promising was the appearance of the 2 of Wands, the 8 of Coins/Pentacles and the King of Wands.

The 2 of Wands indicated an agreement or contract to come, career related. A job therefore, or work placement or traineeship. Travel, relocation, even migration are sometimes associated with this card.

2 wands — Rider-Waite's Two Of Wands: U.S Games Systems

The 8 of Coins or Pentacles indicated again, an apprenticeship with pay, in which hard work, consistency and attention to detail would be expected.

The King of Wands indicated a man of business, bluff, outgoing, direct in all his dealings. A no-nonsense employer. I asked the father if he was already aware of such a placement provider yet. He wasn’t sure…he had been casting about and had one or two possibilities in mind. Wands is a suit I have come to associate with sales, estate agencies, travel and transport. I sensed heat and thought of engines. This King of Wands might possibly be a garage owner? Or something else connected with cars, maybe motorbikes?

king wands — The Rider-Waite's King of Wands: U.S. Games Systems.

The client had actually already considered this idea, which was interesting.

A month later, and I learned yesterday that the young man had relocated to take up a work placement traineeship. It wasn’t with a garage. There wasn’t such a placement available at present through the Jobcentre. But it was a placement that would be reviewable in 13 weeks, when a change might be possible. Meanwhile, it represented an arrival into the world of work.

Good luck to him, there may still be a garage placement when the 13 weeks are up and he could be re-allocated. I hope he’ll stick with the start he’s made meantime, as shown by the example of the apprentice in the 8 of Pentacles. It can be a hard and fearful leap, from the safety of home out into the wide world, but for the well supported child, as this young man has been, at least it can be made in guided stages and with a safety net. Many might think that a luxury.