Author: C. LaVielle

The High Priestess and the Magician

Posted C. LaVielleLeave a commentPosted in Major arcana, Tarot

I found this marvelous watercolor on Mary K. Greer’s blog and had to share it because it says so much about both the tarot keys and the two magicians who created the Rider-Waite–Smith taro deck. Pamela Colman Smith and Arthur Edward Waite were both members of the Golden Dawn and were more mystics than hard core ceremonial magicians. They both lived at that pivotal time after Queen Victoria’s death when a breath of fresh air was blowing through England bringing with it new ideas and possibilities and magic. But here all similarity ended. AEW was a scholar and a prolific writer. Some critics feel he was too prolific, but I digress. He was married twice and had one daughter by his first wife. He was The Magician of the pair because the idea, or inspiration of a tarot deck was his, and he is the one who found the artist, outlined the general ideas of the designs, and found a publisher. The basic meaning of… Read More »

Yup, It Really Is All Connected

Posted C. LaVielle3 CommentsPosted in Major arcana, Synchronicity, Tarot

While I was researching and writing my posts on The Tower two catastrophic events happened in our household:  My husband developed water on his lungs from a previous fall–he’d landed on his left side. The symptoms mimicked a heart attack and we went through a harrowing emergency room ordeal. They drained 1.3 liters of fluid from between the plural linings around his lung that looked exactly like Killians Red ale. It even had a nice head of froth. I don’t think either one of us will be able to drink that beer again.  Leo, our cat, fell out of a tree trying to escape the 4th of July neighborhood fireworks. Who’d a thunk the heavy artillery would start at three in the afternoon? He suffered some severe internal damage and emotional shock. A friend of ours is a shaman that is very good with animals. She did some work with him and said his soul had shattered into many pieces and eight entities… Read More »

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

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

Continued from previous post…. Peh or pey, the Hebrew letter attributed to The Tower, means mouth and by extension speech or communication. Our ability (or inability) to communicate is what precipitates many of the Tower moments of our lives. We are experts at talking our way into all kinds of trouble. Tower moments are also the way the Universe communicates with us, telling us that what we are doing no longer feeds our souls and it’s time to do something different. The Tower’s planet is Mars, god of assertiveness and force. There is nothing subtle about this card. This card is what happens when we listen to The Devil (previous key). When we become obsessed with the physical world, or as the Taoists say, The 10,000 Things, we lose sight of what truly matters in our lives. Since we are creatures of solid, stable earth, we avoid change like the plague and will fight desperately to keep things as they are, even when they no… Read More »

The Tower, Part I: The Hero’s Journey and the Major Arcana

Posted C. LaVielleLeave a commentPosted in Major arcana, Tarot

This is the card that none of us wants to see in our reading. Death and The Devil are disturbing, but this card is terrifying. Its meaning is obvious, since the symbolism is so blatant and in your face. Towers are symbols of ascent, of rising above the common level. We build them out of pride, ambition, or idealism. We also build them for protection. Because it stands tall and often has eye-like windows at its top and a crown-like roof, the tower is analogous to a human. So when we look at the card our heart sees all our cherished hopes, dreams, ideas, ideals, and safety nets getting blasted to smithereens. The tarot Tower is all the illusions of the material realm: * The more money and stuff you have the happier and safer you are * The more power you have the happier and safer you are * This reality is the only reality * When you’re dead you cease to exist It… Read More »

St. John’s Wort: the Gift of Summer Solstice

Posted C. LaVielleLeave a commentPosted in Wheel of the Year

It’s Summer Solstice, the longest day. According to The Old Farmer’s 2012 Almanac, today the sun will rule the sky for 15 hours and 18 minutes. It’s time for our Summer Solstice trip to Marine Drive, where we will hunt the wild St. John’s wort, Hypericum perferatum. It’s flowers, glorious tiny sunbursts, are just coming into bloom. This is the traditional herb of Midsummer and, like the midsummer sun, it is full of good medicine. It grows best in freshly disturbed soil beside rivers, paths, and roads. Both my husband and I can spot it from the car at speeds often exceeding fifty miles per hour. This is no small feat, since there are many other yellow flowered plants in bloom at this time of year. St. John’s wort is considered an invasive weed in Oregon and it’s illegal to grow it, but no matter how hard they try to eradicate it, we are always able to find it. Once we’ve spotted a likely patch,… Read More »

Synchronicity Strikes Again

Posted C. LaVielle2 CommentsPosted in Synchronicity

The same day I published my blog about rites of passage, I went to visit a 93-year-old friend of mine who is dying of colon cancer. I asked her how she was doing. “Not well,” she replied. “I’m waiting for my sons to get here so I can say good by, and then I plan to do away with myself.” “Is it the pain?” “No, I have medicine for that. I’m just so tired. I do nothing but eat and sleep. It’s time for me to go.” The next day I went to visit another elderly friend in an assisted living center who had fallen and broken her hip. I worry that she won’t walk again and that this is the beginning of a downward spiral. When I got home, my husband and I went to visit my niece and her family. Zeus, the family dog who had welcomed both of their girls into the world, was feeble and in pain and had quit eating.… Read More »

Mythology’s 12 Step Program

Posted C. LaVielle6 CommentsPosted in The Hero's Journey

Many cultures believe that each of us is the incarnation of a unique and beautiful dream. Our life task is to live that dream to the fullest possible extent. When we do this, our lives are filled love, joy, and creativity. These same cultures also believe that those who are not able to find their dream or for some reason choose not to live it suffer a fate worse than death. In fact, we all suffer when someone’s dream is not lived and brought into fulfillment. And so each of us is the star of our own hero’s journey, which is about finding and living our dream. In his book, The Writer’s Journey, Mythic Structure for Writers, Christopher Vogler divides the hero’s journey into twelve steps. Finding and living a dream demands that we we go through these steps in our own lives. 1. THE ORDINARY WORLD: If we are incarnations of a dream, then we come from the mind of the dreamer. Our ordinary… Read More »

He Who Sups with the Devil Should Have a Long Spoon

Posted C. LaVielleLeave a commentPosted in Major arcana

We all sup with the Devil daily. He is Lord of the Material Realm and we are partially material beings. We require food, water, air and shelter from his kingdom to remain alive. And he is constantly tempting us to take more. We buy the most expensive homes and cars we possibly can and shop for the best furniture, food and clothing. “Go ahead,” he says, “Enjoy your life. The more you have the happier you will be.” And yes, ladies and gentlemen, the Father of Lies is telling you the truth. A 2008 Princeton University study by Angus Deaton says so. And here’s the graph: It looks confusing, but once you get the hang of reading it, it’s quite fascinating. The vertical axis is a life satisfaction scale—the higher the number, the more satisfaction with life. The horizontal axis is the average household income (GDP, gross domestic product) of each country adjusted for buying power. Each country is represented by a circle, the bigger… Read More »

Have We Finally Gone to the Devil?

Posted C. LaVielle2 CommentsPosted in Major arcana, Tarot

The Devil key is all about materialism. Humans are, first and foremost, materialistic beings. We can’t help it. The material world surrounds and permeates us. It overwhelms us with its beauty, sensuality, terrors, and brutality. But we used to try much harder to reach beyond the material realms and toward the divine. From ancient times up until about the end of the 1900s we lavished most of our money, time, and skills on our sacred spaces. We built them huge. We built them to last. We built them high, so that when we raised our eyes we would be reminded of the divine. Our finest architects, artists, and craftspeople spent their lives making them truly awe-inspiring. But nowadays when we lift our eyes from the pavement searching for inspiration we see: Banks… That sometimes look suspiciously like… Temples and Cathedrals.