Category: Tarot

The Moon, Part IV: The Major Arcana and The Hero’s Journey

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

  Continued from previous post….. The Moon in a Tarot Spread: When The Moon comes up in a reading, things become less certain, less concrete and less dependable. This is also a good time for the reader to remember that the moment she begins shuffling the cards she crosses over into the mystical, shadowy realm of The Moon, where magic shimmers in plain sight, the impossible is possible, and things are not always as they seem. Be very careful reading a spread where The Moon is present. It means that both the reader and the querent are seeing the world through moonstruck eyes. The Moon is the card of the psychic, the artist, and the visionary. When these folks work, The Moon is their mistress.  If The Lady is kind, their intuition is sound, their visions are inspiring, and they bring back amazing beauty and profound understanding from her realms. But often, like those who shop at the Goblin Market, the fruits they find there… Read More »

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

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

Continued from previous post… The Hebrew letter Qoph, meaning “back of the head”, corresponds to The Moon. The letter even looks like a head atop a spine. If you think back to your high school biology, you will remember that the back of the head contains the parts of the brain that control the body’s basic, automatic functions, the emotions, and reflex responses—all those things we call “the unconscious”. Resh, the letter which means head, countenance, or face—the front of the head–comes right after Qoph. The cerebrum, which is responsible for conscious thought, is located at the front of the head. Resh corresponds to The Sun, the key of spiritual unfolding through conscious effort or will. The order of these two letters is saying in no uncertain terms that the realms of the subconscious (The Moon) must be opened and explored before true spiritual unfoldment and the mastery of any magical system, or even a successful spiritual life, (The Sun) can be attained. These two… Read More »

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

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

Continued from a previous post… The focal point of this card is, of course, the moon. But this isn’t just any moon. It is a full moon, crescent moon, half moon, and invisible dark moon all rolled into one. A woman’s profile on the half moon is the visual equivalent of saying “the Moon is a Goddess”. This way of drawing the Moon isn’t just Pamela Coleman Smith’s idea. Many of the earlier decks picture her this way. The artist is doing everything she can to make the viewer understand that this is the quintessential, archetypal Moon. It carries not only the brilliant power of the full moon, but also the vital, initiating force of the crescent moon, the crescendo of the waxing moon, the ebb of the waning moon, and the quiet, regenerative power of the dark moon. It reminds us that lunar energy is ever-changing, rising and falling, ebbing and flooding in a rhythm as regular and nurturing as a mother’s heart beat.… Read More »

The Moon: The Major Arcana and the Hero’s Journey

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

  “In order to display the splendours of the sky, the Night plunges the earth into darkness, for the things above are not revealed to our sight except to the detriment of those below.”* Oswald Wirth The Stars above give us hope in our darkest nights and inspire us to achieve goals that during the bright light of day seem impossible and perhaps even nonexistent. But, unfortunately, starlight is dim and very seldom serves to illuminate the below, or physical world. If we want to see both the above and below, we need the Moon. But, as Wirth points out, we pay a price. The Moon hides all but the brightest stars and is very tricksy about the way she illuminates the Earth. Her palate is limited to silvery gray and white and deepest, darkest black. Her light is dim and confusing, often concealing or disguising dangers that would be obvious in daylight. We are handicapped in both the above and the below. The Moon… Read More »

A New Site for My Blog and a New Year For Me

Posted C. LaVielleLeave a commentPosted in Tarot

Welcome to my new domain! It will be the same blog, just in a different place.  If you’re following this through a wordpress email subscription, you’re automatically subscribed to my new blog.  If you follow my blog through an RSS feed, please resubscribe by clicking the appropriate button below.  If you are new to this blog, and would like to subscribe by email, please enter your address under email subscriptions in the right hand column and hit Sign Me Up. Subscribe in a reader But not only do I have a new website, I’ve started a new year. I just turned 60! Several months ago my girlfriend said: “You’re going to turn 60. What would you like us to do for your birthday?” “Oh, nothing much,” I said, “Don’t worry about it.” “We are going to do something, so you’d better start thinking about what you want.” I decided that I needed to figure something out and let her know or this… Read More »

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 »

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.