Author: C. LaVielle

The Groundhog and His Hierophants

Posted C. LaVielle2 CommentsPosted in Major arcana, Tarot, Wheel of the Year

I came upon this picture and an article streamed by National Geographic and couldn’t resist. The men in the top hats are Punxsutawney Phil’s Inner Circle. Every February 2nd, as soon as the sun is up far enough to cast a shadow, they proceed to Gobblers Knob in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania and yank Phil out of his hollow stump. If he sees his shadow, there will be six more weeks of winter. I knew all this, but I didn’t know that, according to this article, these men speak with Phil and get his official prognostication, which they then deliver to the waiting multitude. In case you missed it, this year they said that he said there would be an early spring.

Six more Steps Along the Road to Finding an Agent

Posted C. LaVielle5 CommentsPosted in Getting Published, Young Adult Fantasy

1: Go over the OryCon critiques and rewrite the first three chapters of The Remaking of Molly Adair and Molly Adair, Beware. Ron Root, a writer friend, gave me a valuable piece of advice about rewriting the first chapter of The Remaking. We were sitting in a bar at OryCon and I was whining to him about how I was having trouble figuring out how to fix the damn thing. “The reason the chapter is weak is because Tracy’s character is flat and no one understands who he’s supposed to be,” Ron said. “I’d go back and do an in-depth character profile on him before I even thought about rewriting.” So I got out the trusty Character Template he’d sent me and filled it in for Tracy Bliss. It covers everything from physical description, to mannerisms, to fears, to desires, to religious philosophy, to strengths and weaknesses. By the time I was done, I knew just what I needed to change in the first chapter.… Read More »

The Major Arcana and The Hero’s Journey, The Chariot, Part III

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

Paul Huson, in The Devil’s Picture Book , mentions in passing that the “mysterious Merkabah….of the medieval Cabalists” fits in perfectly with the symbolism of The Chariot. The Merkabah, the throne/chariot of God, is mentioned 44 times in the Old Testament. It is a four-wheeled vehicle driven by “the likeness of a man” who is surrounded by four living creatures, each of which has four wings and the four faces of a man, lion, ox, and eagle. It is further surrounded by several other layers or angels. This was the vehicle Jewish scholars assume Ezekiel saw in his famous wheels within wheels vision, although the word merkabah isn’t mentioned in that particular text. Rabbis typically forbid the study and discussion of Ezekiel 1 and the merkabah to all but the most advanced Jewish scholars because it can be so easily misinterpreted. (Wikipedia, Merkabah entry). Hasidic philosophy is more relaxed about the issue and explains that the Merkaba is “a multi-layered analogy that offers insight into… Read More »

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

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

Whenever I look at key VII, I can hear Rod Stewart’s voice rasping, “Every picture tells a story, don’t it?” This picture definitely tells a story, if you pay attention to what’s actually there and read all the symbols. First, look at the chariot on the tarot card, and then compare it to the chariots pictured in the previous blog. The tarot card chariot would seem to be useless. It has wheels, but they won’t work because the body of the chariot is resting on the ground and is made of what looks like a block of stone. The two sphinxes that are supposed to be pulling it look as unlikely to be up to the job as Freya’s cats. They are lolling serenely in front of the chariot, playing with their tails. One is black and the other is white, which suggest that one has a yin temperament and the other is yang—not an ideal pairing for two steeds that are supposed to pull… Read More »

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

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

This is the card of victory and success. The chariot was the transportation of choice for kings and emperors. In the Roman Empire, victorious generals rode them through Rome in huge parades to celebrate their victories abroad. All the top gods rode in chariots. Thor had a chariot pulled by two goats, Jupiter (Greek:Zeus) rode in a chariot pulled by eagles, and Indra, the head of the Hindu pantheon, had a chariot. But most impressive of all, Freya, the Norse Great Mother, but also goddess of love, beauty, fertility and war, traveled in a chariot pulled by two black cats. Getting two cats to go in the same direction, let alone pull a chariot is a feat worthy of a goddess. Phaeton talked his father, Helios, the Titan solar diety, into letting him drive the chariot of the sun across the heavens. He wasn’t up to the job. The horses ran out of control and Phaeton crashed and burned. And then there was Boudicca, the… Read More »

Winter Solstice

Posted C. LaVielleLeave a commentPosted in Wheel of the Year

This year, Winter Solstice, December 21st, comes with a bonus—a full moon and an exceptional lunar eclipse, visible on the night of the 20th on the west coast, because full moon occurs at 12:13AM on the 21st. Since a full moon rises at sunset and sets at sunrise, a full moon on Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year, shines over us for a very long time. Almost 16 hours in Portland, Oregon. </Most of our Winter Solstice or Yule traditions come from Scandinavia and Germany. Even the name, Yule, is ancient Scandinavian for “the festival at Winter Solstice”. This year I attended a Scandinavian Yule ritual at a friend’s house that was totally new to me—the sacrifice of the Yule Goat. It seems that Thor, the mightiest of the Norse gods, rides through the worlds in a chariot pulled by two goats, tanngrisnir (teeth barer) and tanngnjostr (teeth grinder). He periodically kills them and serves their delicious, nourishing meat to his guests. The… Read More »

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

Posted C. LaVielle3 CommentsPosted in Uncategorized

The Lovers card’s astrology and Hebrew letter provide an understanding of its basic meanings of love, communication, and choices, but the pictures tell us more. The Rider, Waite, Smith version is the most symbolically complete of the three we’ll be examining, so I’ll start with that. The card shows a man looking at a woman who is looking at an angel. The man is Adam, The Magician, and The Emperor. He is the self-conscious, the left brain, the part of us that is logical, practical, and “sane”. It gets us from here to there on time and presents a consistent personality to the world. To make this really clear, Pamela Coleman Smith drew a tree with twelve flaming fruits right behind him. These are the twelve signs of the zodiac (not the twelve apostles). Each flame has three parts, one for each decan of the sign. So the tree behind the man is the twelve basic personalities and the thirty-six sub-personalities of humanity. The woman… Read More »

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

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

Welcome to The Lovers! Like romance itself, this card is portrayed in a bewildering parade of images. The traditional Rider-Waite-Smith card is pictured above. But it can also look like this: Or this: I think that all of the above are valid, insightful ways of portraying this card, but IMHO, some others aren’t as successful. They get part of it right, but they don’t convey the whole message. Like its associated sign, Gemini, the card contains multitudes and is very hard to pin down to one simple meaning. It has layers, like an onion or an ogre. To get a grip on this tricksy card, let’s begin with its astrological and Hebrew letter attributions. The astrological sign, Gemini, the twins, is attributed to The Lovers. Its element is air, so it’s a mental, logical, verbal sign whose key words are “I think.” Since Gemini is the sign of the twins, it means duality; and since it’s ruled by Mercury, the trickster, it can mean duplicity.… Read More »

The Major Arcana and The Hero’s Journey: The Hierophant

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

This is the key that pushes all my buttons. It’s the “I’m right because God told me so” card. It’s definitely a picture of a pope. There’s the three tiered papal crown and the triple cross, which symbolizes his influence in all three worlds—formative, creative, and material. He sits between the pillars of duality and gives God’s blessing or benediction to the two priests kneeling before him. But the history of key five, The Hierophant or The Pope, goes way back, centuries before Jesus was even a gleam in Jehovah’s eye. Way back in the day, Zeus/Jupiter, the great father god of the Mediterranean world, was the only god who could release someone who had committed a great sacrilege from the torment of Furies that pursued him. But that person couldn’t just do the rites and ask Zeus for mercy himself, he had to find someone to do the rites for him, hopefully someone knowledgeable. Because the Furies were old gods, and the new Hellenistic… Read More »