Category: The Hero’s Journey

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

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I once met a man named Lion Serpent Sun. He lived in Victoria, BC and was a good friend’s Wiccan High Priest. Len Olsen, a Pentecostal Preacher, appeared on a 1984 Victoria talk show called “100 Huntley Street” and claimed that Lion had attempted to sacrifice him and his wife in a Satanic ritual. Big Mistake. Lion sued Olsen and the talk show host all the way to the Supreme Court of British Columbia and won. “100 Huntley Street” wisely settled out of court. Don’t ever mess with a man named Lion Serpent Sun. The Lion, The Serpent, and The Sun are the three symbols of the Strength card. Leo is the astrological sign attributed to Strength. Everyone knows that The Lion is charismatic, powerful, egotistical, and loves to be in control. Leo is ruled by the Sun, the center of our solar system and the source of all its energy. The planets move around it like dancers around a campfire on a chilly night.… Read More »

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

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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

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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

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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 »

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

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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

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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 »

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

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This is Big Daddy, Big Business, Big Government, The Pentagon, and Science and Industry. All the things we love to hate, but still count on to keep us safe from foreign invasion and common criminals, bring food to our tables, solve problems, distribute Social Security and Medicare, and fix the potholes in the streets. The Emporer is the quintessential macho man; the fertile, tough, authority/father figure; The Magician on a double dose of testosterone. He stands for law and order, assertiveness, fairness, strong leadership, use of practical intelligence to guide and support creativity, protection of the weak, and all round studliness. A super hero, you might say. But think again. Super heroes swoop in and right wrongs, uphold law and order, out wit the bad guys, and slap them around. But then they leave. The Emporer stays and deals with the consequences of his actions and takes the flack if he bungles it. That, of course, is the only way to create an empire, rule… Read More »

The Tarot Major Arcana and the Hero’s Journey: The Empress

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The year is just a smidgen of the way past Fall Equinox, The Harvest Festival. The farmer’s markets are bursting with fresh, local apples, pears, Italian plums, winter squashes of all shapes and colors, piles of bright orange pumpkins, tomatoes (finally), corn, wild crafted mushrooms, and golden, raw honey. For such a chilly summer, the northwest harvest has been bountiful—except for tomatoes. If the weather holds, even the grape harvest should be excellent, but late. What better time to talk about The Empress? She is The Great Mother, Mother Earth, Mother Nature, the nurturer; the one who showers us with beauty and bounty and reminds us that, yes indeed, there is plenty to go around if we’d all just behave ourselves and share. She lounges in the midst of a beautiful garden of ripe wheat, the universal symbol of nourishment. The waterfall behind her reminds us of her counterpart, The High Priestess, the ever virgin, mysterious guardian of the secrets behind the veil. But there… Read More »

The Tarot Major Arcana and the Hero’s Journey: The High Priestess

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What’s behind the curtain? That’s the whole point of this card. The front of the curtain, the part we can see, is alive with green palm trees and crimson pomegranates. It represents our world and all the things we know about it. Everything Else lies behind it, on the Other Side. This is the realm of the subconscious, the hidden memories of things past, present, and future; dark secrets; dangerous knowledge; those umpteen other dimensions mathematicians keep talking about, and all the things that inhabit them and “go bump in the night.” The High Priestess guards the veil between this world and our everyday world. She has the power to give or withhold access to it and all the hidden wisdom it contains. The scroll in her hands suggests that this wisdom is at her fingertips. Gimel is the Hebrew letter associated with The High Priestess card, and the camel is one of its meanings. To cultures in arid parts of Asia, the Middle East… Read More »

The Hero’s Journey and the Tarot Major Arcana: The Magician

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Aleister Crowley was a wickedly brilliant early twentieth century magician. One of his less mentioned books, Magick in Theory and Practice, was first published, as far as I can tell, in 1929. As with all of Crowley’s work, it aims to shock and is a bit heavy handed for my taste. But the introduction should be required reading for every magician. It defines magick as “the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will…..Every intentional act is a Magical Act.” By this definition, every time we cause change to occur we are doing magic. But notice that capital “W” in will. The Will that Crowley is talking about is not merely the act of wanting and acting on those desires, it is our True Will, the will of our higher self which is in touch with the power of the universe. He continues: “A Man whose conscious will is at odds with his True Will is wasting his strength. He cannot… Read More »