Category: Tarot

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

Posted C. LaVielle4 CommentsPosted in Major arcana, Tarot, The Hero's Journey

She dances freely in mid-air, unconstrained by the laws of gravity and perhaps any of the other laws of this world. She looks totally feminine to me, but all my sources say she’s an androgynous being, which is probably why Pamela Coleman Smith and many of the other tarot artists discretely drape her private parts. Each of her hands holds a wand, suggesting positive and negative poles of energy. The symbolism here is thick and obvious. When we are able to integrate our masculine and feminine natures, our positive and negative sides, our conscious and not conscious minds, we enter into a state of being in which we can accomplish wonders (see my previous posts on The Sun and Judgement). “What can we say of an understanding, a freedom and rapture beyond words? The unconscious known consciously, the outer self unified with the forces of life, knowledge that is not knowledge at all but a constant ecstatic dance of being….”* A quick troll through the… Read More »

Judgement, Part III: The Major Arcana and The Hero’s Journey

Posted C. LaVielle6 CommentsPosted in Major arcana, Tarot, The Hero's Journey

  Continued from previous posts… The letter Shin corresponds to the Judgement key.  It means tooth and the sharpness that tears apart the limitations of the physical world and our sense of separateness. It represents Divine power as it is the initial letter of two of the Names of God. Qabalists call Shin the “Holy Letter.” Shin, along with Aleph (The Fool, air) and Mem (The Hanged Man, water) is one of the three mother letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Its element is fire, a perfect metaphor for the passion of spiritual awakening. In my experience, Judgement seldom appears in readings, and when it does I sit up and reassess the querent. Its appearance means that he is, was, or will be at a significant crossroads in his life—note the cross on the banner. He has arrived at that point as a result of some great catastrophe, or because all his options have gone and he is faced with only these paths, or because of… Read More »

My Stroke of Insight—Synchronicity Strikes Again

Posted C. LaVielle5 CommentsPosted in Book Review, Major arcana, Tarot

Several days ago I found Ellis Nelson’s latest post in my in-box. She doesn’t post very often, but when she does, it’s definitely worth reading. This one is no exception. It’s a review of My Stroke of Insight, a book by neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor. When she was thirty-seven she suffered a stroke to her left brain which crippled her ability to think in logical sequences, move, and perceive what we call reality. It left her suspended in nirvana, state of being one with everything (her words, not mine). I watched in awe as this amazing woman told her story in a recent TED lecture. The right and left hemispheres of the brain look at the world differently. The left hemisphere uses linear logic. It reasons, explains, and acts. It’s what gets us from point A to point B by 3pm. The right hemisphere uses intuition, and it “thinks” in images and music. It doesn’t do words. It looks at the total picture while the… Read More »

Judgement, Part II

Posted C. LaVielle6 CommentsPosted in Major arcana, Tarot, The Hero's Journey

The Judgement key is an obvious depiction of Judgement Day. The Hierophant and perhaps The Devil are the other blatantly Catholic major arcana, although most of the keys have a Catholic feel to them. If you lived in Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries when tarot decks were becoming popular you were either Catholic or you were in trouble. The Church had zero tolerance for heretics, and Jews and Muslims were treated like dirt. This was also the time of the infamous European Witch Hunts. So it is not surprising that, even though their message is universal, the designers of the early tarot decks used a Christian theme to make their work more widely accessible. (See previous post on tarot origins) The death, redemption, and rebirth into a blessed afterlife concept lies at the heart of nearly every religion. It reminds the faithful that there is more to this world than what meets the untrained eye and challenges us to let go of our… Read More »

Judgement, Part I: Name that Angel

Posted C. LaVielle16 CommentsPosted in Major arcana, Tarot

The concept of Judgement is not confined to Christianity. For example, when an ancient Egyptian died he expected to journey through Duat, the kingdom of Osiris. He would undergo many tests and trials and hopefully arrive at the place of judgement where Anubis would weigh his heart against the feather of Maat, the goddess of truth and justice. If his heart was heavier or lighter than the feather his soul was thrown to Ammit, the Devourer of Souls, but if it was in balance with the feather his soul continued to paradise and eternal life. But the Judgement key is a depiction of the Christian Judgement Day. In his first letter to the Thessalonians, 5:16, the Apostle Paul describes Judgement Day: “For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first; then we who are alive, who are left, shall be… Read More »

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

Posted C. LaVielle4 CommentsPosted in Major arcana, Tarot, The Hero's Journey

Resh is the Hebrew letter that corresponds to The Sun. It means head, chief, total, and first. These are all things that we associate with The Sun. But resh also means grieved, poor, poverty, afraid, and last. These are not bright, strong sun words, What are they doing here? The quick and easy answer is that the Hebrew letters have many other uses besides tarot correspondence and we shouldn’t expect perfect matches all the time. However, resh is the only Hebrew letter that has such strong dual meanings, and I think this is a clue. The Sun is all about unifying dualities into a functional, integrated whole (see The Sun I). Like, what is between the first thing and the last thing? Everything, that’s what. Even the symbol of the Sun suggests wholeness and unity. When I was growing up, whenever my expectations were too high my mother would accuse me of “wanting the world with a fence around it.” That image always comes to… Read More »

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

Posted C. LaVielle4 CommentsPosted in Major arcana, Tarot, The Hero's Journey, Uncategorized

After the destruction of The Tower the hero, if he perseveres, will always find The Star, the bright spot in the nighttime that gives him hope, inspiration and the courage to travel the realms of The Moon and learn her secrets. Then and only then can he understand the true nature of reality. It becomes plain as day. The Sun reveals all. Unlike The Moon key, he shows not just a profile, but his full face. He still casts shadows, but unlike moon shadows that conceal, frighten, and mystify, sun shadows add dimension and interest. Sunlight shows everything in its true form. All mysteries are revealed in its warm, nourishing light. The Sun is everything to us. We are truly solar powered beings. His dazzling rays power the earth, bringing us food, warmth, weather, and life itself. His overwhelming presence attracts us and keeps us on our cyclic path. Sunlight also nourishes our spirits. As the days grow longer and warmer our souls blossom with… Read More »

Moonshine and the Major Arcana

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

The Moon is all about the way we interface with the unknown, or the unconscious , or the astral plane, or the spirit world, or the realms of gods, daemons, and demons, or parallel universes. These are the strange and frightening worlds every hero must travel to complete his or her quest. Since the keys of the major arcana trace the story arc of this journey, The Moon is a pivotal card, casting its eerie shadows over many of the other keys. The card most obviously connected to The Moon is The High Priestess because the planet attributed to this card is the Moon. To make absolutely sure you get the connection most depictions of this card are loaded with lunar images. The High Priestess is the guardian of the threshold between the known and the unknown, the conscious and the unconscious mind, the hero’s ordinary world and the world he must enter to complete his quest. She can either help or hinder him as… Read More »

The Good Fairies of the Publishing World

Posted C. LaVielle12 CommentsPosted in Book Review, Getting Published, Tarot, Writing, Young Adult Fantasy

I was just reminded in no uncertain terms that to become successful in almost any endeavor, it’s not just what you know, but who you know. Back in December I wrote a post about possible reasons why over 44 agents have rejected my manuscript and ended with the thought that I might have to self publish it. A friend of mine, Kier Salmon, immediately e-mailed me. “Talk to me before you do anything,” she said. “I work in the business and it’s easy to get burned.” The next day I got another e-mail from her telling me that Linn Prentis, the agent she works for, loves tarot decks and wants to see the manuscript. I was thrilled to the tips of my keyboard tapping fingers. I waited until after the holidays and then e-mailed it to them as an attachment. And waited… And waited. Last week I finally found the reply in my in-box. It was a rejection letter, but of a very different sort.… Read More »

A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Realm of the Moon

Posted C. LaVielle7 CommentsPosted in Book Review, Major arcana, Tarot

I was writing the last installment about The Moon tarot card when the library notified me that I had materials on hold. Really? I couldn’t remember putting anything on hold. I opened the e-mail. The book was Proof of Heaven, a Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife. Ah, yes. I’d placed that hold over 4 months ago. There had been 32 people ahead of me. This is the longest I’ve ever had to wait for a book; stunning testimony to the fact that there are a ton of people out there looking for, well, Proof of Heaven. Heaven is, by all accounts, a higher dimension. Which is, as you will recall from the previous posts, the realm of The Moon, the territory so carefully guarded by The High Priestess. There are literally thousands of accounts of near death experiences out there, and almost everyone knows someone who has had one. So what makes this one so special?   Dr. Eben Alexander contracted spinal meningitis caused by… Read More »