AUTHOR'S NOTE: Mystical and spiritual types like to assert that they use tarot solely to tap into their self-awareness and self-improvement potential in the service of personal enlightenment. Fair enough, but going at it completely cold with nothing but the cards to compare ourselves to - no model or set of criteria defining excellence and … Continue reading One Against Nature: A Tarot Self-Critique
Tarot Card Meanings
The Lover Departs (or “Squeezing the Grape”)
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I recently came across an unusual interpretation of the Tarot de Marseille "Lover" card that I find quite engaging. It inspired me to present a pair of amusing anecdotes that convey a serious message. (I've already covered this subject from the Chariot's perspective in much the same language; see my previous essay, linked … Continue reading The Lover Departs (or “Squeezing the Grape”)
Reversed Aces As “Scattered Focus”
AUTHOR'S NOTE: As I learned them, the Aces exhibit an undivided "singularity of purpose" that embodies the purest and most spiritual expression of the elemental energy associated with their suit. There is no whiff of mundane degradation about them; elementally, they are "as good as it gets" and in a reading they suggest tremendous untapped … Continue reading Reversed Aces As “Scattered Focus”
Inspirational and Cautionary “Catch-Phrases” for the Major Arcana
AUTHOR'S NOTE: There are several ways to split the 22 Major Arcana into rows; one of the most popular is the 7x3 layout of 21 cards with the Fool standing apart, an array I first encountered in Rachel Pollock's 78 Degrees of Wisdom (although it is much older). Here I'm organizing the rows into "duets" … Continue reading Inspirational and Cautionary “Catch-Phrases” for the Major Arcana
Tarot Occupations
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This essay is not about careers in divination (although that is another interesting topic), but rather the typical occupations that are symbolized by the tarot cards. It's a subject I've been intending to address more thoroughly for quite some time, even though I don't consider myself uniquely qualified as a historian or sociologist … Continue reading Tarot Occupations
Reversed or Not: An Endless Debate
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is a topic that is apparently never going away, so here is yet another of my attempts to be "definitive" about it. Even those diviners who avoid pulling reversed cards by always orienting their tarot decks in the upright direction sometimes find themselves embroiled in the online debate about whether there is … Continue reading Reversed or Not: An Endless Debate
“Highest in Red, Lowest in Black” (or Not)
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Occasionally, playing cards and tarot cards converge in unlikely ways, as they do here. When my brother and I were kids learning to play "trick-taking" cards games from our grandmother (who was an old-school cartomancer, although she would never read for us or even talk about it), her oft-repeated mantra was "Highest in … Continue reading “Highest in Red, Lowest in Black” (or Not)
The Page, The Ace and the Fool: Three of a Kind
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I've long believed that there is a conceptual link between the Fool, the Aces and the Pages of the tarot as the inspiration but not necessarily the "prime mover" for a departure from the status quo. They might put the idea in our head but, if anything useful is to be made of … Continue reading The Page, The Ace and the Fool: Three of a Kind
Reversal as Imbalance
AUTHOR'S NOTE: There are numerous ways to decipher the significance of reversed cards in a tarot reading. Here is one that will perhaps have more universal applicability than some of the others I've explored. Tarot expert Paul Fenton-Smith has a unique take on reversed cards. His premise is that when a card appears upside-down in … Continue reading Reversal as Imbalance
Reversed Court Cards: Perverse or Preoccupied?
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I recently came across an opinion in the tarot literature that a reversed court card in a spread will typically highlight the negative character traits of an individual when that card stands for another person who is involved in the situation and not a psychological or universal/spiritual concept. Given my nuanced approach to … Continue reading Reversed Court Cards: Perverse or Preoccupied?
Parsifal's Wheel Tarot & Astrology 