SUPER MOON TAROT BLESSING

from the Golden Wheel Tarot
by Mila Losenko

Tonight’s full moon is notable for being both a “super moon” (meaning it appears larger due to being closer to earth), and a “blue moon” (which is a popular term for when a full moon occurs twice in a month, due to there being 13 lunar months within our 12 month solar year).  Of course, full moons are always magical, but these coinciding factors help build up some extra magical energy.

All manner of magic workings can be done under the full moon.  Among other things, this is a good time to affirm the things you desire as already manifested, because as an African—I think Yoruba—expression goes, “When the moon is full, things are fully happening.”

In the tarot deck, we do have a card that is simply labeled, “The Moon,” and whose illustrations usually feature a full moon over a wilderness landscape.  While we don’t normally think to carry our Moon card out under the moon, (any more than it might occur to us to bring our Sun card out under the sun), going outside to hold the Moon card up to the moon, (or the Sun card up to the Sun), is a way to create a circuit of energy that makes a connection with our card deck and the greater world of nature.

from the Everyday Witch Tarot
by Deborah Blake and Elisabeth Alba

Very simply, if you have a tarot deck, you might want to go through your cards to locate The Moon, then go out tonight and hold it up to the Blue Super Moon while saying something like, “Blue Moon, True Moon, I wish you may, I wish you might, infuse your shining magic into my deck of cards tonight.”

By the way, the sun is currently in Virgo, and tonight’s full moon will be in Pisces, which is the sign opposite Virgo in the Zodiac.  (Note that full moons always occur in whatever sign is opposite the current sun sign.)  Because Pisces is a water sign, this would be an especially good time to visit an east-facing beach, because watching the moon rise out of the water is a magical event in itself.  (Tonight’s moon rise is around 8:30 p.m. Eastern time.)

HALLOWEEN IN OUR HEARTS

My mother used to keep a Christmas tree up all year, and would tell people, “It’s always Christmas in my heart.”  Meanwhile, I used to joke that, “It’s always Halloween in my heart.”  Looking ahead to Halloween night 2022, I was thinking about creating some spell to capture the Spirit of Halloween, when I remembered the Halloween ritual featured in my book, “By Candlelight: Rites for Celebration, Blessing & Prayer.”  Unfortunately, the book is now out of print, but I’d like to share the ritual, along with illustrations of some cards from Stacey Demarco’s “The Halloween Oracle.”  If you have this card deck, laying out these cards while also performing the candle rite can serve as a spell to welcome Halloween magic into your life.

Here are some excerpts from the book:

"To experience the mystical energies of this season, you can light a candle on All Hallows Eve (and, if you wish, on the nights surrounding it).  … [A]s the focus of a family celebration or kick off a night of party-going, you could perform the following rite, to recover some of childhood’s sense of wonder."  

           

Light your Halloween candle while saying,  

             

 "I light this candle

      in honor of All Hallows nights,

  a time when the human world

      can touch the world of magic

   

                   So at this time,

                       may we also find wonder 

                           in the mysteries of the universe,

                   even as we rediscover

                            the enchantments of childhood.

                 So may our lives be filled with magic:

                       magic in our homes,

                                  and magic in our hearts."

Note that we can think of the days around Halloween as “Allhallowntide,” based on ancient customs where the days leading up to and following a special holiday were also sacred; this includes the old practice of the “octave,” where you have eight days of celebration around an important feast.  By the way, the cross-quarter day associated with Halloween, that is, the halfway point between the autumn equinox and winter solstice, is fifteen degrees Scorpio, around November 7^th.

Back-To-School Time and Teaching as Blessing

 Back when I was a kid in school, I held the beginning of September in awe and dread, because my golden summer of freedom was over, and it was time to go back to school.  Despite that, I had good relations with my teachers, and I regularly experience resurgent memories of teaching moments, where I can hear the voices of my teachers explaining different principles and relaying different knowledge.

                Some of those teachers have also influenced my personal values and greater life path, so September is also a month that brings to mind the Hierophant card, which represents values and traditions that are passed down—often from teacher to student through generations.

                As I have recently cut my hours at work so I can get back to my writing, I have just been working on a half-finished book about bringing out the magic in individual tarot cards, so below are some of my thoughts on evoking the Hierophant, along with an image of The Hierophant as portrayed in “The Steampunk Tarot” by Barbara Moore and artist Aly Fell.

Blessing Your Teachers:  Because the Hierophant card can denote persons who have been influential in helping you find your life’s purpose, the appearance of this card can remind you to bless the teacher figures in your life. You could say,  

                As all my teachers have blessed me

                                 by sharing their wisdom

                     and their traditions,

                so do I now return those blessings.

                My best wishes go out to all the teachers

                                who have helped me,

                and all the teachers who have inspired me.

                And where I can use further teaching,

                                so may the teachers come.

                And where I can be a teacher to others,

                                so may the students come.

                In teaching and learning, learning and teaching,

                                we share a circle of blessing.

Note that honoring teachers is an ancient practice.  For example, some ancient Romans (like Marcus Aurelius) honored their mentors as their family gods by having images of them in their household shrines, and some Zen practitioners keep an image of their teacher in a place of honor, and direct gratitude toward their teacher in their daily lovingkindness meditations.

Finding Your Teacher:   We are never too old to learn, and life is full of teachers—including hidden teachers.  Here is a tarot image search technique for identifying the next teacher to enter your life:  Shuffle and cut your deck in your preferred manner while mentally reciting, the mantra, “When the student is ready, the teacher comes.”* 

When you feel you have shuffled enough, set the deck of cards with the picture sides face up before you, then go through your deck until you come to the Hierophant card, and then also pull the cards that come just before and just after the Hierophant.

Consider how these flanking cards may provide clues as to the nature of your teacher and the areas of life where new learning can be experienced.  A court card or other “people card” would especially indicate that your teacher is likely to be a certain type of person.  A Major Arcana card would indicate a learning experience that is significant to your life path, and if it is one of the more spiritually oriented cards, it could indicate initiation into a spiritual fellowship.  A pip (Minor Arcana) card would provide clues about the general circumstances in your learning situation, as well as material world values that influence your spiritual world concerns.

 Mentoring Others:  The blessing ritual above makes mention of how you can be a teacher to others.  If you have skills and knowledge that you’d like to pass along, but don’t currently have anyone who is receptive to what you have to offer, put yourself into a meditative state as you think about the information that you have to share, while mentally reciting the mantra, “When the teacher is ready, the student comes.”

 *Endnote:  Bodhipaksa. “When the Student is Ready, the Teacher will Appear.”  Fake Buddha Quotes, March 16, 2013.  https://fakebuddhaquotes.com/when-the-student-is-ready-the-teacher-will-appear/.  Bodhipaksa explains how this quote was popularized by students in the Theosophical fellowship of Madame Blavatsky, including Mabel Collins, who mentioned it in her book “Light on the Path” in 1886.  Apparently, no one has traced it back farther, though it has a Taoist vibe to it, and I had assumed it came from Taoism.  However, Stefan Stenudd also discusses how this did not come from the Tao Te Ching.  Stenudd, Stefan.  “Taoism Explained,” Fake Laotzu Quote “When the Student  …”  Sept. 22, 2020.  https://www.taoistic.com/fake-laotzu-quotes/fake-laotzu-quote-When_the_student_is_ready_the_teacher_will_appear.htm.

TAROT AND THE WORK LIFE

 Hi everybody – I apologize that some of the information on the left needs updating, as I haven’t been holding workshops at The Triple Goddess since the beginning of the COVID outbreak.  I haven’t been able to update certain segments of this blog, because the system recognizes me as a user/employee of this blogpost, but not an “administrator.”  This is probably because I started the blog while using a now defunct e-mail account/provider, and then Blogger also underwent some changeups when it got acquired by Google.  I hope to retire in a few months, and so will have more time then to see if I can fix this problem.

Meanwhile, I’m looking ahead to next Monday, August 5th, 2022, which is Labor Day, and I’ve been reflecting on Hannah Arendt’s observation that labor is a uniquely human expression of the life force.  For this reason, I included a candle rite for Labor Day in my book, “By Candlelight: Rites for Celebration, Blessing, and Prayer.”  The little candle lighting ritual is accompanied by a recitation to “honor my own labor, … honor the labor of those who have gone before me, and … honor the labor of workers everywhere.”

Because our daily work consumes so much of our time, determines how we channel our energies, and is an expression of our identities, this is something that aspiring tarot artists might think about when creating new illustration designs.  Images of work life do seem to be lacking in most tarot decks.  For example, in the Rider Waite Smith deck, which I usually find to be the best deck for the range of imagery, the only real scenes of labor are in the Three of Pentacles, which features a stonemason, and the Eight of Pentacles, where an artisan sits at a workbench forging pentacles.  However, labor is implied in the Seven of Pentacles, where a farmer gazes at his planting, and the Ten of Wands, where a man is carrying a load of wands toward a destination.

Taking a quick glance at some of my other decks, I find the 8 of Pentacles is the card that most consistently portrays a person at work.  Pentacles relate to material world concerns and the contingencies of daily living, while the Eights have to do with how we organize our energies.  Applying this to modern work life, I’m reminded of the African-American expression, “making your Eight,” which conveys the idea that if you want to get along in this world, you have to put in your eight hours of work each day.

The Pentacles are the suit most associated with labor, (especially agricultural labor), though because Wands have to do with enterprises, one could illustrate them with some entrepreneurial scenes.  Cups suggest social work, nursing, childcare, and hospitality, while Swords suggest military and law enforcement activities.

Also, scenes of labor in the tarot are almost always limited to the Minor Arcana.  However, an exception is Joanna Powell Colbert’s “Gaian Tarot,” where The Emperor is shown at work on a wood-carving project, the Seeker of Earth is spinning at an old-fashioned spinning wheel, and the Guardian of Earth is inspecting his corn crop, as seen below:      

    

Maybe because I am a Midwesterner, I like this idea of portraying Tarot royalty and authority figures as also engaged in meaningful work.  This is especially a different way of representing the Emperor, (and this portrayal of skilled craftsmanship also expresses a certain Midwestern type of masculinity).  These images also affirm the dignity of labor.

While I realize that tarot imagery can’t get too specific and needs to be fairly general so that more people can relate, images of work life give us something additional to think about in relation to the cards’ multi-layered associations.

ALIGNING WITH FAIRY-WORLD ENERGIES ON THE EVE OF MAY

Tomorrow is May Day, which is rich in folk custom and lore, with roots in the old Celtic fire festival of Beltane and the Roman Floralia in celebration of the goddess of flowers.  This is a time when the energies of the Fairy World blossom forth at full strength, just as, in our northern climes, many flowers are blooming, and the trees are starting to leaf out.

In a previous Beltane post, (May 2013), I wrote about how this is a good occasion to consult fairy themed tarot and oracle decks to affirm and learn more about your relationship with the Fairy World.  Because I need to reaffirm my own connection to the Fairy World—something that’s easy to neglect when you work full time and also have family caretaker duties, though having age-related health issues yourself—I have brought out my “Fairy Ring” oracle, (which is designed by Anna Franklin and Paul Mason), and which features “Fairy Festival Cards” illustrating the eight ancient festivals of the Celtic year wheel.  Using a card search technique, (as opposed to shuffling and drawing cards at random), I will pose the question:

Please show me how I can connect with the Fairy World at this special time of the Year.

First, however, to connect with the seasonal entries, it’s best to step outside to take in what’s going on in Nature where one lives.  Having stepped outside on this morning in lower Michigan, I notice that daffodils and forsythia bushes with their yellow flowers are the prominent blooms, though periwinkles and violets are also to be seen.  The trees have not yet leafed out, though in previous years I have noticed that right after May Day they all seem suddenly to be in full foliage.  The buzzing of redwing blackbirds and the clacking of grackles define the sound environment, though robins, song sparrows, and Canada geese are also heard.  A baby rabbit darts into the copse behind my house.  It’s chilly this morning, but a warmup is expected.

Now, back to the card table:

I shuffle and cut my cards in the usual manner, while posing the question about connecting with the Fairy World.  When I feel that I have shuffled enough, I turn the deck over so that I am viewing the picture side of the cards.  I then thumb my way through the deck until I come to the Beltane card, and then I pull that card, as well as the ones just before and after it.  The three-card spread that I get out of this does not offhand look auspicious for me, so it’s going to take some thought as to how to interpret this.  The cards are 1) the Phooka, 2) the Beltane card reversed, and 3) the Fairy Horse/Kelpie.

So, the first notable thing here is that the Beltane card is reversed, indicating that I’m not fully able to express and appreciate the celebrational energies of this season.  (OK, I can accept that, because recent surgeries have prevented me from getting out on long walks, as well as doing much-needed yard work; I genuinely enjoy yard work as a way of being in Nature.)  To amplify the Beltane magic, I could do something proactive, like go out and gather some blossoms.  Maybe I can find a watery ditch where the Marsh Marigold, (known as “the Flower of Beltane”) grows, and scramble down to collect a few petals for prosperity magic.

As the flanking cards are both edged with autumnal foliage, we see that those fairies are among those that the Fairy Ring assigns to “The Autumn Court.”  This could indicate being under the influence of issues and events dating from autumn, or issues relating to the autumn of life.

The Phooka card depicts a trickster fairy, best known for its shape-shifting abilities, so it could denote unexpected setbacks.  To turn this around into something positive, I’ll need to think about how I can utilize shape-shifting energies for personal regeneration, perhaps by observing the springtime Earth’s powers of metamorphosis.

The Fairy Horse, also known as the Kelpie, is also a shapeshifting trickster, (and sometimes the Phooka takes the shape of a horse), so this doubles the shapeshifting trickster implications of this reading.  Note that the reversed side of this card features the darker, more dangerous aspect of the horse, but as my card was upright, it would indicate that I won’t be seeing the worst side of him.  Also, Anna Franklin’s own divinatory meaning for this card is positive, suggesting that “He is the harbinger of good health, vitality, energy, and innovation.”  So that is energizing—even if a wild ride that brings its own set of challenges.  

Well, that’s my own Beltane reading, but I present it here to illustrate how you can utilize the card-search technique when you have an oracle deck that features different festivals or seasons.  Obviously, this same technique applies to the seven other Fairy Festival cards.  In this way, the Fairy Ring Oracle is useful in helping you align yourself with the Fairy World as it manifests in the cycle of the seasons.

CONTINUED TOUR OF THE HOUSE OF 2022

Having walked through the downstairs chambers of the dollhouse symbolizing the magical, metaphorical House of 2022, we now head upstairs.

But before going farther, I want to emphasize that because the Tarot works holographically, in a New Year’s reading to look into my house or your house, issues that affect you or me will be reflected in our larger society—and vice versa.  That’s why I say the divination done here is a way of looking at what is in store for myself, but also in relation to what’s we might expect for the world at large in 2022.  (By the way, if your birthday is January 1^st, any New Year’s forecast will be especially relevant to your year ahead.)

For the upstairs hallway, which pertains to how well one moves through the different compartments of one’s life, (and therefore how well the different areas of one’s life are integrated), I pulled the reversed Herald of Autumn (i.e. Page of Pentacles).  Because this tarot personality is focused on the needs of everyday life, the reversed card may indicate some setbacks in getting around to attend to different needs.  At this point, it should be obvious that a number of the cards that have been drawn can predictably relate to the inconveniences of the ongoing COVID situation, as it surges, subsides, and surges again.

Stepping into the master bedroom, the card drawn is the Two of Autumn, (Two of Pentacles), reversed.  For people in intimate relationships, the card symbolism associated with the bedroom can apply to the quality of the relationship, while for solitary persons, it may have more to do with their ability to rest and regenerate.  In either case, this is not an auspicious card for the bedroom, because it depicts the challenges of balancing one’s own material needs with the needs of others.  The balance is even more difficult as portrayed in the Victorian Fairy Tarot, where an elderly fairy rides a unicycle as he attempts to clutch a bunch of hazel nuts.  Here, the reversed card additionally suggests the graphic image of falling off the unicycle.

The next room is the bathroom, which relates to health and body issues, as well as purification.  The card that came up for this room is the Ten of Summer, (Ten of Cups), which denotes the well-being we enjoy through family and community relationships.  This particular card portrays fairies enjoying themselves as they swim and play in a pool by a waterfall.  (Note the parallelism between the Ten of Summer and the Ten of Autumn, which both portray happy community scenes.)  As this card is very auspicious for health and happiness,  I wonder if this could foretell the end of the pandemic, or maybe we’re all just more health conscious as a result of it.  If aligned with a timeline, this card position relates to Lammas, (the cross-quarter day which falls in August), and this is significant for me personally, because that’s when I plan to retire, so that I can start rebuilding my health (as well as my writing career).

 The final room is the nursery.  If you have children, cards in this position can relate to their concerns.  (Due to the fact that many of us live with other people, we do have to expect that their issues are going to be encountered in certain rooms of the house.)  Otherwise, this can relate to issues concerning your Inner Child, as well as your capacity for creativity and generativity.  The card that came up for this room is the Empress reversed, which is quite striking, because this VFT deck portrays the Empress as a fairy queen surrounded by four children of different ages, who are pulling on her skirts.  I don’t offhand recall any other tarot decks that show the Empress with children, though she is often portrayed as pregnant to emphasize her own qualities of creativity and generativity.  However, because the card is reversed, it could warn of challenges in parents’ relationship with children, (possibly due to the social isolation of the pandemic).  Otherwise, it could pertain to challenges in creative work.  To turn this around to stimulate creative vision and inspiration for the year 2022, we might try reconnecting with the things that gave us joy when we were very young, as these have the power to generate new vitality in older age.

Although that completes the house tour, there was one more card.  While I was shuffling, the Temperance card almost fell out of the deck, and then when I had pulled the eight cards for the rooms, Temperance was the next card in line in the deck order.  The illustration for this card shows a fairy in green, who drips droplets from a green leaf into a green elixir in a golden goblet.  As Temperance is about living in balance and often pertains to health issues, I think this sums up much of the advice offered in this overall reading.

MOVING ENERGY IN THE HOUSE OF 2022

Yesterday’s post described using the Dollhouse Oracle to get a tour of the House of 2022, by seeing who’s coming in the front door.  Today I continue moving through the rest of the rooms downstairs.

So, after greeting the King of Summer in the entry way, (King of Cups in a conventional deck), we move to the parlor.  The card pulled for this room was the Five of Spring.  This would be the Five of Wands in a conventional deck, which usually portrays a group of five men in a melée with quarterstaffs, and in this room of the dollhouse denotes the moving energy that forces changes in lifestyle.  In the Victorian Fairy Tarot, the image is more festive, portraying five old male fairies dressed as Morris dancers, with circlets of bells tied to their knees; they are wielding sticks as they perform a “Sticks and Bells” form of this traditional folk dance, where the dancers tap their staves against each other in rhythm as they perform a circular dance.

When performing the Dollhouse Oracle, one should think about how the card imagery interacts with the room imagery.  In this case, the card’s energy is chaotic, because stomping around in this Victorian parlor, (with all of its cluttered furniture and fragile ornaments, including a tea set on a little table), could result in broken china.  Thus, this card could also warn of incautious celebration, in the same way that the King of Cups can denote excess.

We proceed into the dining room, where we have the Five of Summer, (i.e. Five of Cups), whose card image depicts a girl’s sandcastle being assaulted by the waves of an incoming tide.  As sand and wave activity are incongruous images for a dining room, we see how the disruptive energy of the Fives also flows through this area of life.  However, the card is reversed, so changes may not be experienced as intensely by myself and by the general population—though they can still be a cause for anxiety.  Because the dining room can denote our linking to tradition, (as dining rooms are often reserved for formal occasions), our anxieties might relate to changes in our customary way of doing things).  Because of the recent COVID resurgence, I should say continued changes in our way of doing things.

By contrast, the next card, for the kitchen, is very auspicious for stability, prosperity, and tradition, because it is the Ten of Autumn, (Ten of Pentacles), which can pertain to values passed down through families and traditions.  The card depicts a multigenerational fairy family feast, so the graphic imagery of the card is very congruous with the graphic imagery of the kitchen.  In fact, the room in the foreground is either a kitchen or dining room with a fireplace where some of the group are eating at a table, and we also see into the room behind it, where more are at another table, while a door in that wall is open to show additional family or friends arriving.  In addition to foretelling the plenitude we like to see in kitchen imagery, it may denote our ability to reconnect with a greater number of family and friends.

By the way, if we also want to associate the rooms of the house to the festival year, the living room would relate to Candlemas (February 2^nd), the dining room to Spring Equinox (about March 20^th in 2022), and the kitchen to Beltane/May Day (May 1^st).

Well, I will close here, but will continue with a tour of the upstairs of the house in my next post.