Month: April 2011

The Major Arcana and The Hero’s Journey: Wheel of Fortune, Part II

Posted C. LaVielle2 CommentsPosted in Major arcana, Tarot, The Hero's Journey

Ixion was king of the Lapiths, a tribe in ancient Thessaly, and to my mind, one of the most notorious men in Greek mythology. He lived back in the day when gods and mortals still socialized and when possibly mortals were a bit immortal, since gods and mortals interbred with gusto. Depending on who you are reading, Ixion’s lineage goes back to Gaia herself, or he may have been a son of Ares, or he may have been a mere mortal. At any rate, he murdered his father-in-law, who was a guest in his house, thus becoming both the first kin-slayer and a violator of xenia, the Greek concept of guest-friendship. Because no one had ever slain a family member before, his neighbors had no idea how to perform the rituals that would cleanse him of his guilt. Ixion went mad and roamed the land as an outlaw. Zeus took pity on him, released him from his guilt, and brought him up to Mount Olympus.… Read More »

The Major Arcana and The Hero’s Journey: The Wheel of Fortune, Part I

Posted C. LaVielle5 CommentsPosted in Major arcana, Tarot, The Hero's Journey, Uncategorized

Whether it’s Vanna White that spins the wheel, The Greek Moirae, The Norse Norns, or Shakespeare’s Weird Sisters, this card is about Fate, i.e., Luck. And as you can see, Luck is always a Lady, and she’s usually not real pretty. Like the Three Fates, there is a remorseless inevitability about this card, and I have never understood why most readers regard it as benefic. Fortune is not the same thing as fortunate. Seven days after a child is born, The Three Moirae, come to the infant’s hearth and determine the babe’s fate. Clotho spins the life thread, Lachesis measures it, and Atropos cuts it off. They are remorseless and powerful. Even Zeus bows to their authority. Once a destiny has been spun, measured, and cut there is no changing it. But who wants to surrender their free will to three cantankerous old ladies? We live in a time when marvelous advances in medicine and technology have given us the illusion that we are actually… Read More »

The Major Arcana and The Hero’s Journey: The Fool and The Hermit

Posted C. LaVielle1 CommentPosted in Major arcana, Tarot, The Hero's Journey

And androgyne looks up at the morning sky and dances on the edge of a cliff. He/she could be either going up the mountain or coming down. The point is, He/she is going. The Fool is a card of beginnings, of endless possibilities, the card of the seeker. And old man stands at the very top of a mountain holding a lantern up against the night and looks down. He has arrived. There is nowhere higher for him to go. The seeker has found what he is looking for. And to make sure the reader doesn’t miss that these two cards are related, Coleman-Smith and Waite made them the only cards in the tarot deck that place their subjects high up in the mountains at the edge of a drop-off. (The Emperor has rugged cliffs behind him, but he’s not so high up, there’s no drop-off, and he’s seated.) The Fool (0) and The Hermit (9) are the beginning and the end of the ten-digit… Read More »

Two of the Worst Things That Could Happen Just Happened (Continued)

Posted C. LaVielle12 CommentsPosted in Getting Published, Major arcana, Synchronicity, Tarot, Young Adult Fantasy

Thing 2: A few days after I got The Letter I went to the library to find a book to read. I was too lazy to check my list of books that I need to read, I just wanted something to relax and entertain. It would be nice to be able to to say that a sense of foreboding settled over me as I approached the New Books rack, but it didn’t. I just picked a likely looking book, The Last Days of Madame Rey, skimmed the blurb, and checked it out. It was several days before I got a chance to sit down and begin reading it. The prologue was titled “The Fool”. Oh good, I thought, a book with a tarot theme. When I got to the first chapter and it was titled “The Magician: I began to panic. I looked ahead. Sure enough, the second chapter was “The High Priestess” and the third was “The Empress”. To my horror, A.W. Hill, the… Read More »

Two of the Worst Things That Could Happen Just Happened

Posted C. LaVielle6 CommentsPosted in Getting Published

Thing 1: I received a very kind, but deadly letter from an agent. He had read the first two chapters and told me that he couldn’t connect with the concept and wasn’t interested in representing me. Standard. I’m used to this by now. But he continued with “A little friendly advice. My girlfriend, who is a novelist (she has a different agent—that would be weird), had a novel like this. After battling with it for a couple years, she moved on to a new idea, even thought it hurt to leave the old book behind. That new idea became her first published novel. I suggest you do the same.” Was the story that I had worked over five years to create substandard and doomed to failure? When in doubt run screaming to your editor. I took Jessica out to lunch and had her read the letter. She skimmed it, set it aside and got down to business. The story is fine, she said, but the… Read More »

Posted C. LaVielle9 CommentsPosted in The Hero's Journey

I lost a friend last weekend. He slipped away before I had a chance to say good bye. His dying left painful holes in social communities all around the city And an empty place in my heart that will always search for His bear-like presence His warm hugs. His off color puns And his impish “Oh! Did I say something wrong?” grin I will miss you, my friend.

The Major Arcana and The Hero’s Journey: The Hermit, Part II

Posted C. LaVielleLeave a commentPosted in Major arcana, Tarot, The Hero's Journey

When he appears in a tarot spread The Hermit, true to his Virgo associations, can give the reader a wealth of information. If the querent draws this card as a significator or its position in the spread suggests that The Hermit is the querent, the most obvious interpretation is solitude. When this will happen depends on its placement. Whether it will be a voluntary, pleasant, and productive solitude, or an aching loneliness that withers the soul and warps the spirit, or something in between depends on whether the card is upright or reversed, and what the cards around it say. It could also mean that this person is, was, or will be a seeker, the possessor of arcane knowledge, a teacher and guide for others, and/or ecstatically reunited with the Life Force. It may indicate the appearance of a teacher or someone with advice or a piece of information. If the card falls in the past, check the cards around it to see if the… Read More »