Category: The Hero’s Journey

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 »

Rethinking My Strategy

Posted C. LaVielle6 CommentsPosted in Getting Published, The Hero's Journey, Writing, Young Adult Fantasy

I just received the final rejection letter from my last batch of queries. It was my forty fourth. So why don’t agents and publishers want it? There are several possibilities:  The writing isn’t good enough. Since I’ve never published anything before or won any writing contests, this was a big concern for me. However, my editor, Jessica Morrell, says I’m as good as or better than most of the writers she works with (she works with several best selling authors) and that Forging the Blade (old title: The Remaking of Molly Adair) is a publishable book.  The pitch isn’t good enough. The pitch is a quick description of your book. It says, in a few short paragraphs, what the story is about, why someone would want to read it, and why you are the best person to tell the story. It is even more difficult to write than the book itself. I’ve taken several pitch classes and written and rewritten it at least… 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 »

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 »

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

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

Ayin, or eye, is the Hebrew letter attributed to The Devil. Our eyes flood our mind with images and color and we rely on them more than any of our other senses. For this reason the eye serves as a symbolic shorthand for all of our senses. The implication is that this key is about being limited to the physical realm, the world that we can see, hear, taste, smell, and touch. The Talmud (Shabbat 104a) describes the letter Ayin as having two eyes. The good eye looks toward the preceding letter, Samech (support, Temperance) and manifests benevolence and charity. Remember that Hebrew is written right to left. The bad eye looks toward the next letter, Pey (mouth) and manifests greed and envy, which will eventually lead to destruction (The Tower). The Devil does everything he can to convince us to look toward The Tower, because this way limits us to physical reality and blinds us to the comfort and power of the divine that… Read More »

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

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

The Devil squats in darkness on a half cube. Two chains lead from a ring in the half cube to loop around the necks of a man and a woman. This is the nightmare version of The Lovers. To make sure we don’t miss the connection, nearly all modern decks make The Lovers key 6 and The Devil key 15 (1+5=6). A quick review of The Lovers card reminds us that it is about how to make wise choices. The man, or conscious mind, opens himself to, or is in communion with, the woman, or subconscious mind, who is looking up and communicating with the Angel Raphael. In other words, we can make much better decisions if we are in touch with the universal consciousness, or higher beings, or the divine, or whatever we choose to call it. This is why, when faced with a problem, a wise person will not only look at it logically, but also “pray on it”, or “sleep on it”,… Read More »

The Major Arcana and The Hero’s Journey: The Devil, Part II, Sympathy for the Devil*

Posted C. LaVielle3 CommentsPosted in Major arcana, Tarot, The Hero's Journey

In the Middle Ages Satan falls yet again—from fallen angel to monster. He is usually red or black with fangs, bulging eyes, pointy tail, and claws, although he is occasionally pictured as a goat. The Catholic Church wanted to paint the most terrible portrait of the archfiend that they possibly could. But, according to Ronald Hutton,** the Devil wasn’t depicted as a man with goat horns and legs and cloven hooves until the late 1800s and early 1900s. This was a Christian reaction to the neoclassical movement, which occurred at this time and celebrated all things Greek. Wild and lusty Pan, spreader of unreasoning terror and more than a few thighs makes frequent appearances in the literature of that time. He, of course, fascinated the Victorians and Edwardians, and horrified most God-fearing Christians (or at least they said they were horrified). The goat imagery is very appropriate because the Devil is a scapegoat. He is a construct that monotheists use to explain the presence of… Read More »