Tag: Tarot of Metamorphosis

Monday’s Week Ahead Tarot Reading

On By Arrow In FlightIn Metaphysics, Occultism, Tarot, Uncategorized2 Comments

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If you’re reading about this reading, then this reading is for you… Since it’s another Monday, this one is about the week that lies ahead…

Have you ever weathered a serious bout with insomnia? Or had a throwdown with anxiety-slash-panic? Then you know that when the mind acts up without being tethered to grounded reality and practical concerns, it can get hyperactive, and so hungry as to be downright voracious. That is, the mind can run wild, and at its worst, it can even start to eat itself.

On the other hand, it’s also possible to become too grounded. Without a certain nimble flavor to your thoughts, and without the ability to at least occasionally soar on the wings of your imagination, then you sink too deeply into the Earth Element. You go beyond healthy groundedness, and you can become mired in the muck like a dinosaur in a tar-pit, stuck fast, and going down.

This week, you need to balance these two opposing urges. The active, kinetic mind isn’t “bad” in and of itself, and neither is a focus on the unvarnished necessities in life. Too much of either can be deadly, though. This week, it will pay huge dividends to work at keeping up an intake of both. Free your mind…but stay cabled in to the material plane, as well. Or, in the words of that noted 20th Century sage and philosopher, Casey Kasem, “Keep your feet on the ground…and keep reaching for the stars.”

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TAROT TIP: Explore Multiple Decks

On By Arrow In FlightIn Metaphysics, Occultism, Tarot, UncategorizedLeave a comment

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I have a bit of a deck-collecting habit.

I also have this one friend who feels the need to question this habit of mine.

Now, to be clear, my overall deck-buying impulse flares up much less often and much less intensely than it did when I was first bitten by the Tarot bug. To large extent, the itch has been scratched. Then again, if an especially attractive or innovative deck catches my attention, I may feel called to get it. And should my friend hear of this, she will give me a disapproving earful: “Why do you need so many decks? What can one tell you that the others can’t? They’re all basically the same! Children are starving in the world, and you’re spending all this money on decks!”

Not that it’s anyone’s business but mine, but I thought I’d offer up a few compelling reasons why I do like to shuttle around among multiple decks:

1) New deck concepts and new imagery deepen my understandings of the cards immensely. Studying different versions of a given card offers fresh insights, and further solidifies my own grasp on which elements of a card feel essential to me, versus which ones don’t.

2) I read professionally, and different clients have different preferences and comfort levels, so having multiple decks to choose from can bring maximum satisfaction all around.

3) Here’s a big one – each deck has its own unique “voice.” Why do some guitarists have multiple guitars? I mean, the chords for “Purple Haze” are the same no matter which axe you pick up, right…? And the answer is that yes, the chords, the notes, they’re all the same…but each instrument has its own sound, its own feel. An acoustic is not quite the same as an electric. A 6-string is not quite interchangeable with a 12-string.

And so it is with Tarot decks: each one is a distinct instrument, and we can elicit different moods from them. Play to their strengths, and they’ll play to yours.

Learn Tarot with me! I offer PRIVATE LESSONS, or you can study along with the 10-session TAROT TOOLKIT ONLINE COURSE:

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The Fool: Tarot Trailblazer

On By Arrow In FlightIn Metaphysics, Occultism, Tarot, UncategorizedLeave a comment

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Sometimes the human experience involves a leap into completely unknown territory. This can happen on the personal level (“I’m in love… I’ve never been in love before!”) or on the species level (“–say that they’ve named the sheep ‘Dolly’…”). Sometimes it can happen on both levels at the same time (“That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.”).

And I’d guess that when looking for this kind of phenomenon in the Tarot deck, most people probably associate these leaps with The Fool. Maybe the Aces have some rightful claim here, too, and maybe in a way either the Pages or the Knights…but probably The Fool comes first and most often to the minds of Tarot people in this context.

It suddenly occurs to me that The Fool would therefore have some tremendous stories to share over drinks or dinner. Think of the things that The Fool has witnessed first-hand! Like, here’s a puzzler that The Fool could probably answer… You and I are communicating right now via cyberspace, right? And The Fool would have been there when humans first made long-distance contact across this medium. So here’s my question: did we invent cyberspace when we hit upon the notion of using URLs and such to connect by way of our computers? Or did cyberspace always exist in the Universe, even during those earlier millennia while it was still inaccessible to us? Was it just sitting there, waiting patiently for us to ramp up our technology to the point when we could finally reach it?

And if it was always there…what other such “spaces” might there be, also biding their times until we can access them? For example, is there a “telespace” awaiting our species, where we’ll all meet and interact telepathically as soon as humans can get that psychic ability really up and running? The Fool probably knows — I’d like to have a sit-down and ask…

Are you interested in learning Tarot?  The Tarot Toolkit Online Course may be just what you need:

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Tarot: My Most Recent “Stalker Cards”…

On By Arrow In FlightIn Metaphysics, Occultism, Shamanism, Tarot, UncategorizedLeave a comment

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I’ve posted before about “stalker cards” – the ones that seem to pop up out of almost every reading that you do for a while, because apparently, they have a lot to say to you during a given phase of your life, and you’re not getting the message.

For me lately, it’s these two, from this deck: Judgement and the 6 of Swords, from the Tarot of Metamorphosis.

Here’s how I’m boiling down the messages being stressed for me:

JUDGEMENT: “Dredge up all that buried shit that you know is there, the processing of which you’ve been totally postponing, and deal with it already!”

6 OF SWORDS: “Get yourself to some new vantage point, probably both figuratively and literally, take a few deep breaths, and then start fresh from there, dammit!”

COMBINED: “Cut the cords to the past that have been binding you and holding you back, and then you’ll make some real progress!!!”

Bonus factoid: I don’t post much in the way of selfies, and you can’t see the 6 of Swords all that well in the little window on your phone anyway, but in my own opinion, me and that Underworld pilgrim in the back of the boat look a hell of a lot alike…

The Magician!

On By Arrow In FlightIn Metaphysics, Occultism, Tarot, Uncategorized3 Comments

IMG_4678Last night, I watched episodes of two different prime-time TV shows. One was a comedy, and one was a drama…yet in each one, the main plot hinged on an incident in which one of the characters tricked others with a bit of sleight-of-hand in a very critical moment, swapping out one item for another, without anyone else noticing until it was too late.

Only when I got up this morning did it suddenly strike me that these two very different shows were both treating us viewers to Magician moments! The Magician in Tarot is very capable of pulling off even high-level deceptions, and will probably be charming and likable all the while… And then I realized that I’ve actually been seeing similar riffs on illusion and bait-and-switch gambits playing out in other shows I’ve been watching lately (“Orphan Black” – finally watching this! – and, maybe not surprisingly…”The Magicians!”) and in some of the mythology I’ve been looking at (like Rhea tricking Cronus into swallowing a stone instead of baby Zeus…). Just based on these stories alone, it’s very obvious how Magician-energy can have sweeping effects.

And yet, I also have to admit – to you, to myself – that I tend to like The Magician. In the privacy of my own mind, I lean toward viewing it as a “good” or “positive” card most of the time, even though when I read for other people, I’m careful to always remember that all cards cover a range of meanings, and that I need to factor in the context and the surrounding cards and all before I leap to any conclusions, etc. But in my heart…I’m always already halfway to buying whatever it is that The Magician is selling.

How about you? Would you buy snake oil from The Magician at the drop of a hat…or does this character arouse your immediate suspicion…or do you have no set baseline response at all…?

Planetary Cards

On By Arrow In FlightIn Astrology, Metaphysics, Occultism, Tarot, Uncategorized4 Comments

IMG_4160This is a more Astro-advanced follow-up to the Zodiac Cards exercise. It requires that you know a bit about your birthchart. The idea is to explore the cards that correspond to the Planets that have the greatest influence in your chart.

For me, those Planets would be Neptune, Pluto, and Mercury…and the cards that correspond to those planets are The Hanged Man, Judgment, and The Magician, respectively. And I do actually feel that these cards are fairly accurate representations of big parts of my psyche!

How about you – do you know what your Planetary Cards are, and if so, do you feel that they paint an accurate picture of you?

Zodiac Cards

On By Arrow In FlightIn Astrology, Metaphysics, Occultism, Tarot, Uncategorized2 Comments

IMG_4154Another Tarot Toolkit homework exercise. We handed out the Golden Dawn correspondences, and encouraged the students to look up the card that’s linked to their Zodiac Sun Sign, and to look for the possible presence of that card’s energies within themselves.

I like to consider the other Signs that also play host to a lot of Planetary placements in my chart, too. Most populated for me are Scorpio, Virgo, and Pisces, so according to the GD, I must have in me a lot of the energies of the Death, Hermit, and Moon cards. And I mostly can’t disagree… How about you – what are your Zodiac cards?

Tarot Card

Number

Astrological Associations
The Fool

0

 Air Element; Uranus
The Magician

1

 Mercury
The High Priestess

2

 Moon
The Empress

3

 Venus
The Emperor

4

 Aries
The Hierophant

5

 Taurus
The Lovers

6

 Gemini
The Chariot

7

 Cancer
Strength

8

 Leo
The Hermit

9

 Virgo
The Wheel of Fortune

10

 Jupiter
Justice

11

 Libra
The Hanged Man

12

 Water Element; Neptune
Death

13

 Scorpio
Temperance

14

 Sagittarius
The Devil

15

 Capricorn
The Tower

16

 Mars
The Star

17

 Aquarius
The Moon

18

 Pisces
The Sun

19

 Sun
Judgment

20

 Fire Element; Pluto
The World

21

 Saturn and Earth Element