To pick up where I left off, at Sunday’s session, we had been doing card search readings focused on the Judgment card, and the cards flanking it as showing an area of your life or personality that could undergo renewal and an area of life or activity where you can express your new sense of selfhood.
In the case of the person whose first card was the Queen of Wands, the key to rejuvenation could be to reignite some very fiery, feminine inner self. (The deck used was Ciro Marchetti’s Legacy Tarot, whose Wands Queen has a smoldering gaze.) Queens are particularly concerned with nurturing the qualities of their suit, so how might that suggest some form of self nurturing? The flanking card in this reading was the King of Cups, which could denote a different facet of self expression (with regard to taking charge in some emotional matters), but which in this particular case also seemed to have bearing on a personal relationship. In this Marchetti deck, the Judgment angel’s outspread arms and glowing hands reach out to beyond the picture space, which has the graphic effect of spiritually joining whatever is featured in the flanking cards--in this case uniting the Queen of Wands and King of Cups.
The Empress, which two persons drew, also involves re-awakening that inner feminine creativity, but as part of a grander vision of how life could be improved and made more beautiful. In some of my January and February posts, I talked about this (2010) as being an Empress year with the potential to nurture dreams, so this could be an especially significant year for these individuals, pointing to major opportunities for remaking themselves. One of these persons drew the Sun as the other card, which indicates that the Empress qualities can be allowed to shine, bringing health, happiness, and recognition. The combination of Judgment and the Sun may predict recognition that brings promotion. I don’t remember what the other person’s flanking card was, or which decks were used. (Anyone and everyone: feel free to post here to refresh my memory if I have forgotten your reading or gotten parts of it wrong.)
To be continued.
Showing posts with label Empress Year. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Empress Year. Show all posts
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Sunday, February 7, 2010
A Year that Nurtures Dreams
A special Empress quality that I alluded to previously is the ability to nurture creative dreams, so I’m hopeful that this year as an entity will help nurture all of our dreams.
The Empress is a tarot card that brings up a number of archetypal goddess associations, and the Empress ability to nurture dreams can be related to Jean Shinoda Bolen’s discussion of “Vision Carriers” in relation to Aphrodite as Alchemical Goddess in her book, “Goddesses in EveryWoman,” pp. 229-32. (Tarot illustrators have traditionally incorporated Venus/Aphrodite iconography into the Empress card.) In stressing the necessity of believing in your dreams and working to actualize them, Bolen points out that, “Often it is essential that another significant person believe that dream is possible: that person is a vision carrier, whose faith is often crucial.”
Bolen goes on to discuss how special women have often acted as vision carriers in offering encouragement to notable men, but regrets that it has been less common for men to nurture the Dream for women in their lives. Be that as it may, when we become aware of how important it is to offer encouragement, we can all become Vision Carriers for more people, and the Empress year prompts us to think about how we can offer encouragement on a larger scale. To help understand how this has played out in your life, think about all of the people you’ve encountered who have encouraged you in one way or another.
One can also think of ways that Society has helped nurture some individual dreams. For example, as a youngster in the city of Detroit, my school system sent me to Saturday classes for talented kiddies at the Detroit Art Institute. Each weekend, we carried our boards and easels into a different wing of that museum, to study and translate our inspiration from the art of different cultures and masters; this was very enriching and enabled me to feel special. I believe that when both individual persons as well as social institutions help young people to feel special, they are less likely to become alienated and anti-social.
By the way, a current film that conveys the Empress quality of Vision carrying is the recent Disney animation, “The Princess and the Frog.” If you haven’t seen it yet, I don’t think it’s too much of a spoiler if I mention that the prince in the story undergoes major transformations after being turned into a frog. Prince Naveen had always been lazy and selfish, but as a result of his adventures in the swamp with Tiana, he resolves to work hard to make her dreams come true. I have heard that this movie has not done well at the box office, but for magical people, it’s a “must see.” Also, I love the priestess, Mama Odie, and her bottle tree—and the Shadow Man is right up there with the other great Disney villains.
The Empress is a tarot card that brings up a number of archetypal goddess associations, and the Empress ability to nurture dreams can be related to Jean Shinoda Bolen’s discussion of “Vision Carriers” in relation to Aphrodite as Alchemical Goddess in her book, “Goddesses in EveryWoman,” pp. 229-32. (Tarot illustrators have traditionally incorporated Venus/Aphrodite iconography into the Empress card.) In stressing the necessity of believing in your dreams and working to actualize them, Bolen points out that, “Often it is essential that another significant person believe that dream is possible: that person is a vision carrier, whose faith is often crucial.”
Bolen goes on to discuss how special women have often acted as vision carriers in offering encouragement to notable men, but regrets that it has been less common for men to nurture the Dream for women in their lives. Be that as it may, when we become aware of how important it is to offer encouragement, we can all become Vision Carriers for more people, and the Empress year prompts us to think about how we can offer encouragement on a larger scale. To help understand how this has played out in your life, think about all of the people you’ve encountered who have encouraged you in one way or another.
One can also think of ways that Society has helped nurture some individual dreams. For example, as a youngster in the city of Detroit, my school system sent me to Saturday classes for talented kiddies at the Detroit Art Institute. Each weekend, we carried our boards and easels into a different wing of that museum, to study and translate our inspiration from the art of different cultures and masters; this was very enriching and enabled me to feel special. I believe that when both individual persons as well as social institutions help young people to feel special, they are less likely to become alienated and anti-social.
By the way, a current film that conveys the Empress quality of Vision carrying is the recent Disney animation, “The Princess and the Frog.” If you haven’t seen it yet, I don’t think it’s too much of a spoiler if I mention that the prince in the story undergoes major transformations after being turned into a frog. Prince Naveen had always been lazy and selfish, but as a result of his adventures in the swamp with Tiana, he resolves to work hard to make her dreams come true. I have heard that this movie has not done well at the box office, but for magical people, it’s a “must see.” Also, I love the priestess, Mama Odie, and her bottle tree—and the Shadow Man is right up there with the other great Disney villains.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Our Years in Memory
To pick up on the previous discussion of 2010 as an Empress Year because 2010 adds up, numerologically, to the Empress’s number “3,” this gives us a way to think of the year in terms of a personality. So, as different events occur in our lives and in the larger world, we can reflect on how these events either relate to or do not relate to Empress qualities. Of course, the same principle applies to our personal Year Cards, so we can also reflect on how well these cards are able to characterize our more personal experience of the year. (See the previous post explaining personal Year Cards.) However, in looking back, it may be easier to associate the card for the year as a whole, (as opposed to the personal Year Card), because there’s a little less math involved.
Thinking of different years as different personalities is a good mnemonic, (i.e., it helps us form memory clusters). When, in later years, we look back on our personal timelines, we might reminisce, “Oh yes, that event happened during an Empress year, and it was followed by that other event in the Emperor year, leading to such-and-such a development in the Hierophant year.” (This example could pertain to a situation where you started acting on a creative dream one year, had established some foundations for it by the next year, and had achieved some social authority in your relative field the following year.)
Also, mindful that 2010 is an Empress year, whenever the Empress comes up in a Tarot reading, you can think about how the matters it pertains to relate to your experience of 2010 as a whole. (Again, this also applies to your personal Year Card.)
Year Cards offer an additional level of interpretation to apply when you are doing tarot readings that involve a time line reaching into the past or future. So, if you are working toward some long-term goal and wondering when you’ll reap the rewards, if the Chariot (#7) comes up in a critical position such as the outcome position, that could—in addition to whatever else that card normally represents--denote the year 2014, (or whichever year is your personal Chariot Year). Similarly, when you are working with card spreads that include a position pertaining to the past, (such as the “below you” position in the Celtic Cross spread, which can sometimes point to past influences that exert an Unconscious motivating force), you might add up the numbers to see if the card in question may also point to a particular year whose significant events left a lasting impression or have some other bearing on the present matter.
Thinking of different years as different personalities is a good mnemonic, (i.e., it helps us form memory clusters). When, in later years, we look back on our personal timelines, we might reminisce, “Oh yes, that event happened during an Empress year, and it was followed by that other event in the Emperor year, leading to such-and-such a development in the Hierophant year.” (This example could pertain to a situation where you started acting on a creative dream one year, had established some foundations for it by the next year, and had achieved some social authority in your relative field the following year.)
Also, mindful that 2010 is an Empress year, whenever the Empress comes up in a Tarot reading, you can think about how the matters it pertains to relate to your experience of 2010 as a whole. (Again, this also applies to your personal Year Card.)
Year Cards offer an additional level of interpretation to apply when you are doing tarot readings that involve a time line reaching into the past or future. So, if you are working toward some long-term goal and wondering when you’ll reap the rewards, if the Chariot (#7) comes up in a critical position such as the outcome position, that could—in addition to whatever else that card normally represents--denote the year 2014, (or whichever year is your personal Chariot Year). Similarly, when you are working with card spreads that include a position pertaining to the past, (such as the “below you” position in the Celtic Cross spread, which can sometimes point to past influences that exert an Unconscious motivating force), you might add up the numbers to see if the card in question may also point to a particular year whose significant events left a lasting impression or have some other bearing on the present matter.
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