Scary Tarot Treats for the Halloween Season

Normally, after my first-Sunday-of-the-month workshops, I like to discuss some of the ideas and tarot symbols we engaged.  Unfortunately, I had to turn my attention to completing another project, and now we’re more than half way through the month, so I don’t remember much.  However, I am looking forward to the November 6^th session.  Even though we’ll be 6 days away from the 31^st of October, the high energies of Halloween will still be crackling in the atmosphere.  We can stretch those energies, because astrological Halloween isn’t until November 8^th, (15 degrees Scorpio).

A big part of the American Halloween is its emphasis on the spooky stuff, related to our childhood—and atavistic human—delight in experiencing the shivers, (even if some of the decorations and other props can get a bit hokey).  Although Neopagans celebrate Samhain as the Celtic New Year, and therefore also a time for celebrating the cycles of life and meditating upon the past, the future, and our connection to the Ancestor World, the Faery World, and the World of Nature, we can’t ignore the tricks and treats and fun and games that make up the greater festivities of our American Halloween.  So, in honor of this aspect of the Halloween season, I’m thinking about having “Things that Scare You,” as one of our themes.  When we can “tame” our fears, (the way Mexicans do by celebrating the Dia de los Muertos with sugar skulls and other amusements that treat death playfully), we assert power over them.

I’ve been wanting to do something special with the colorful, whimsical “The Halloween Tarot” by Kipling West and Karin Lee, so here is an exercise that we may try on the 6^th, in the vein of “Things that Scare You.”  Shuffle the Halloween deck (or any deck) while posing a request like, “Please show me five things that scare me.”  Then, place your deck face up, (so you are looking at the pictures), and go through it until you find one of each: a Pumpkins card (Pentacles), Imps (Wands), Bats (Swords), Ghosts (Cups), and a Major Arcana card.  It doesn’t matter what order you find them in, just pull out the first of each type that you find.

To interpret these cards then, we are looking at them in terms of how the things these cards represent—both in terms of their traditional tarot associations and in terms of the unique imagery of the Halloween deck—may in some way denote some issue that is “scary” for you.  This could be some area of avoidance or resistance, if nothing else.  In this context, even cards that people normally regard and respond to as highly positive are to be scrutinized for what kind of anxieties they may arouse.  For example, “The Sun” card could denote a fear of “shining,” of showing off your talents or stepping into some public position, while the Ten of Cups/Ghosts, the happy family card, could denote some discomfort with family commitment, and the claims that “family ghosts” may have on you.  If you happen to draw a card that would normally be your significator, it could indicate a fear of “being yourself.” 

To apply the extra layer of the Halloween Tarot symbolism, you could view the Ghosts as representing things that haunt you emotionally, the Imps as things that get in your face or try to trip you up, and the Bats as the anxieties and obsessing over problems that are flitting around in your brain.  The pumpkins are a little harder to interpret in terms of a scare factor, because, they’re so colorful and cheerful.  Perhaps in the Pumpkins’/Pentacles’ material world associations, we can see them as symbols of the futility of clinging and craving in this ephemeral mortal life.  Jack-o-lanterns give off light for a few festive evenings at a time of year when the nights are getting longer and darker, but then they’re thrown on the trash heap to rot.  (This echoes the “gardens of Adonis” of ancient times, and gets into the Buddhist idea of “dukkha” = suffering / unsatisfactoriness, that all existence is change and separation.)  However, I don’t want to close this exercise on a downer note, because it is also in creating those little festive touches that we get to exercise some creativity, and also to exercise some caring, because we thereby offer a little cheer to our fellow beings.

By the way, the little manual that comes in the box with the Halloween Tarot cards is well written up by Karin Lee.  Though the lwb’s (little white booklets) that accompany tarot cards are necessarily brief, this one is pithy in its card interpretations and philosophical content.

Although the above exercise was created with the Halloween Tarot in mind, it will probably work well enough with other types of decks.  There are also some gothic and vampire decks out there, but I haven’t gotten around to obtaining any of these.  I imagine that the tone of the readings would certainly be darker, requiring a more emotionally mature group of querents.

Once you have had some time to contemplate what sort of fears your cards may point to, think about how to take action to mitigate them, and even ways that you can confront those fears as you align yourself with the powerful energy currents of Halloween.  (Refer to some of my past years’ blogposts on the “feng shui of Halloween.”)

Plans for this Sunday, October 2nd

Hi all!  Because I’ve been trying to get out some other projects, I haven’t come up with anything new and special to demonstrate at this Sunday’s workshop.  So, we will start with the Round Robin Tarot—as there really is more to explore with this technique.  Then, I will demonstrate the Spinning Basket Fortune Teller.  Also, for those who are planning to come: if you have any questions on your mind that you would like to put to the tarot and other oracle decks, and you don’t mind bringing them up in this public format, we can do different types of readings to address your questions.

Finding Your Teacher, continued

So, we have been considering how to approach major tarot figures as teachers, based on a reading exercise utilizing the Wizards Tarot, and in the previous post, I cited a reading that got The Hierophant as master teacher.  (The other flanking cards in this reading were the Four of Pentacles and The Magician, and the Hidden Teacher card was The Wheel of Fortune—I will get around to these in a bit.)

To continue with the example, in the Wizards Tarot, the Hierophant is represented as the centaur Chiron as master teacher, and he functions as professor of mythology in the “Mandrake Academy,” the magical school around which this deck is structured.  Because Corinne Kenner designed this deck with Golden Dawn correspondences in mind, the Hierophant is conceptually paired with Taurus.  I believe the person who got this as her teacher card is a Taurus, but I wasn’t focused in on the astrological aspects when this card was drawn, and so failed to mention that.  Otherwise, this would have been one of those “Aché!” moments.  (As mentioned in my posts of last September, Puerto Rican practitioners of Espiritismo, Santeria, and brujeria bang on tables, ring bells, and shout “Aché!” whenever an interesting synchronicity manifests, as a way of thanking the Spirit World for the confirmaciones.  (I think that the Aché may come from the Yoruba Ashé, which is an expression of spiritual force.)

If you happen to get a teacher card which corresponds to one of your special signs or planets, (such as your sun sign, moon sign, ascendant, and their planetary rulers), that says something about a teacher who can also help you learn to be yourself, by exemplifying traits that you may have suppressed in the process of trying to accommodate the rest of the world.  If you can identify people who exemplify the qualities of your planet or sign, notice what sort of knowledge they have to share, as well as their teaching styles.

Also, if you are into astrology, you could take a look at what’s going on with the planet or sign in question.  In the case of The Hierophant as portrayed in the Wizards Tarot, in addition to seeing if anything interesting is transiting through or aspecting your Taurus house, you could also look at the activities of the planetoid Chiron.  Since the discovery of Chiron, some astrologers have come to see Chiron as ruler or co-ruler of Virgo because of his detail-oriented approach to healing and problem solving, though some argue in favor of Sagittarius, as it is the sign of the Centaur.  Because expansive tarot archetypes like The Hierophant cannot be confined to one planet or sign as delimited by any single imposed system such as the G.D., you might think of what other astrological qualities this card suggests.  For example, we can see that the Hierophant has Jupiter/Sagittarius/9^th House qualities in his concern with the cultivation of the Higher Mind, as well as his dedication to transmitting a Grand Vision of cosmic harmony, achieved through religious and philosophical systems and institutions that uphold an idealized social structure.

Getting back to the other cards in the example reading, the Magician was the flanking card to the right, which suggests this person’s learning experience is likely to involve finding practical ways to apply the lessons of the Hierophant, because the Magician is concerned with manifesting change in the material world—especially in ways that actively and consciously engage the elemental qualities of Fire, Earth, Air, and Water.  The left flanking card was the Four of Pentacles, which is the most materially oriented of all the cards in the deck, what with the Pentacles representing the Earth element and the Fours representing solid structures and foundations.  Taken together, all of these cards point to a year of learning experiences in which she gets to work with a variety of materials and see practical results, which also jives with a Taurean concern for the material quality of daily life.

Because these cards add up to Ten, (4 + 5 + 1 = 10), her Hidden Teacher card is The Wheel of Fortune, which, in the Wizards Deck, is personified as the school counselor.  This would suggest that the lessons she gets out of this semester in The School of Life will put her in a position to counsel others, which also suggests that people who have need of the sort of knowledge that she has to share will be attracted into her life, and may especially need help in taking their lives in new directions.  When the student is ready, the teacher comes; when the teacher is ready, the student comes.

Finding Your Teacher, continued

I continue to think about the work we were doing with the Wizards Tarot and what the Major Arcana cards in their personas as teachers at a magical academy can teach us about the school of life, so I have been reviewing the cards drawn at the workshop last Sunday. (The special techniques we were applying to these cards are outlined in the previous post). Although I have occasionally touched on how the cards can be viewed as personal teachers with teaching personalities, I have not had a chance to give this concept a great deal of thought, so the group practice sessions are learning experiences for me, too. Seeing how different cards come up for people with different situations provides opportunities to make new discoveries about the cards. Then, when I sit down to work on this blog, the writing process also becomes a process of “writing for discovery.”

One participant got the Hierophant as her master teacher, who, in this deck, is personified as Chiron, and serves as the professor of mythology. In classical lore, Chiron was the centaur who was teacher to Aesculapius, (who, under Chiron’s tutelage, became a physician, and then the god of healing), as well as to Heracles, Achilles, Perseus, Theseus, and a number of other heroes. Indeed, Chiron as the Hierophant is a teacher’s teacher. In the “Mandrake Academy,” Chiron serves as professor of mythology, and we can relate this to the Hierophant’s concern with the transmission of lore and tradition.

If you happen to draw this card, you might want to delve into how the subject of mythology can be relevant to modern life by consulting Jean Shinoda Bolen’s books, “Gods in Everyman” and “Goddesses in Everywoman,” because she explains how the archetypal qualities of different Greek gods and goddesses are active in different areas of our lives. Also, Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ book, “Women Who Run with the Wolves” draws on archetypal themes in folk and fairy tales to find meaning in different experiences. These are genuine healing stories, which Estes relates and explains in her wonderfully incantatory style.

The centaur Chiron is sometimes also discussed in line with the archetype of “the wounded healer,” because he was accidentally wounded by Heracles, and, despite all his healing arts, he was not able to cure himself. When I think of a great teaching personality who fits this archetype, I think of Milton H. Erickson, sometimes known as the father of medical hypnosis. Erickson often used story-telling as one of his healing techniques, as do many traditional healers. (In fact, one of my ongoing sideline research projects involves cross referencing the works and techniques of Erickson with those of shamanic and other folk-magic healers from societies throughout the world.) Erickson himself was crippled and in terrible pain from polio and post-polio syndrome, so he had to use all kinds of hypnotic techniques on himself, just to be able to function. Some of the books I have read on this subject include “Uncommon Therapy: The Psychiatric Techniques of Milton H. Erickson, M.D.” by Jay Haley, “My Voice Will Go with You: The Teaching Tales of Milton H. Erickson,” as edited by Sidney Rosen, and “Milton H. Erickson, M.D.: An American Healer,” by Bradford Keeney and Betty Alice Erickson. Many people—not just Erickson’s patients, but his friends, students, and even chance acquaintances—have stories of how Erickson would casually tell them some little anecdote or adage, or make some other passing comment, and it was just what their Unconscious minds needed to hear, because their attitudes would be forever altered (reframed), or in some cases, they were able to shed bad habits on the spot. Unfortunately, Erickson did not believe in psychism or supernatural anything, despite the fact it seems no one has been able to reproduce his successes.

In one of Erickson’s notable cases, he created a character known as “The February Man” to help recast an individual’s memories and reactions to negative experiences; this was as part of a more comprehensive program of therapy to help a patient whose anxieties about parenthood were stemming from a cold and loveless childhood. Erickson hypnotically regressed this woman to different ages of childhood, and introduced himself into her memories as a (fictitious) family friend, who showed up at different times over the years and came to be known as the February Man. In this persona, Erickson sort of walked her through different memories and life events, while helping her to reframe them in a new and more positive light, and derive insights that would enable her to respond more positively to new situations.

I have often thought about how, through creative visualization, one could introduce different tarot figures with the ability to offer different types of guidance into one’s fantasies, and as a way of reframing one’s memories. (In line with this, the King of Cups would make a particularly good February Man.) You could do this using any tarot deck for images to concentrate upon, though the Wizards Tarot lends itself exceptionally well, because of the engaging portrayal of some of these different “professors.” Tarot artists do differ a lot in this respect, as there are some decks where the characters look out of the picture space to meet your gaze, and/or also project distinct personalities. In other decks, the human figures may seem preoccupied and distant. Of course, the portrayals can also differ within any given deck.

OK, now that I’ve written this, I find it necessary to take another look at my Wizards deck--that’s part of that “writing for discovery,” I discover things that come out of the writing as I go along. So, I find that most of the teachers don’t meet the viewer’s gaze, as they are focused on their different subjects of study. (Perhaps it’s an indication of my level of engagement that I imagined it to be otherwise.) All the same, with the idea of a tarot figure as a personal teacher, you can use your imagination as to how that teacher could take you in hand as his or her student. In the case of the Hierophant, in his historical role as the instructor of initiates in the Eleusinian mysteries, he explained and revealed what they needed to know through “things said, things done, and things shown.” So, when imaginatively engaging with tarot figures, whether the Hierophant or any other, think about what teachings they might convey to you through “things said, things done, and things shown.”

To be continued … I will pick up on more of this reading in the next post.

Finding Your Teacher

Part of the fun of working with tarot theme decks that use unconventional imagery is the possibility of engaging those decks in ways that might not work so well with any other tarot deck. So, at this past Sunday’s informal, drop-in workshop, we were working with the Wizards Tarot, which is patterned after a magical academy, to see how we can relate different teaching personalities and learning situations to the magic of living.

To try out one of the exercises we experimented with:

Shuffle the cards while posing the question, “Please show me how to get the most out of this semester’s learning experience in the school of life,” or, more simply, you can recite the old Taoist adage, “When the student is ready, the teacher comes.” When you feel you have shuffled enough, set the deck of cards face up before you and go through it until you come to the first Major Arcana card, which will represent a member of the Mandrake Academy’s teaching staff. This represents a major teaching influence that you can call upon and gain from, and may denote a person or experiential situation. If a person, he or she may be someone you already know, or who is soon to enter your life to bring a valuable lesson. Of course, you can take a proactive approach and seek out persons with strong teaching personalities and knowledge to share.

Also, take note of whichever cards come before and after your teacher card, and treat them as flanking cards in a three-card spread. If your teacher happens to be the first card, treat the card on the bottom of the deck as the one which goes before it. The flanking cards are likely to be Minor Arcana cards featuring scenes of Academy students, and will provide clues as to areas of life significant to your learning experience, or ideas on how to actualize that experience. Sometimes the card on the right may also be a Major Arcana/teacher card, which suggests team teaching, or one teaching influence affecting another.

Because each of the Major Arcana card teachers serve as a professor of some magical subject of study, consider how delving into that subject (or approaching that subject in some new way if it is already something you have been studying), might help you find new meaning in your experiences, (including in relation to the archetypal experiences this card represents in more conventional tarot symbolism). Also, look at material images in the flanking cares to consider whether they represent certain “school supplies” or “learning materials” to utilize. The flanking cards’ elemental associations also say something about the nature of your learning experience: Swords emphasize intellectual energies, Wands creative ideas, Pentacles are for practical hands-on learning, and Cups show the affect on your inner life.

After looking over your three-card spread, you can now turn your attention to your “Hidden Teacher” card. There is a hidden teacher in every learning experience, and that is the teacher that you become by virtue of being able to pass on what you gained out of that experience. In fact, in learning and, in turn, teaching, you become part of a “lineage.” To discover the teaching personality that you are likely to express as a result of this semester in the Magical Academy, add the numbers of the three cards in your reading, and then (if necessary) use magical numerology to reduce that number to a number between one and twenty-one, which will correspond to another Major Arcana card and professor in the Mandrake Academy.

Note that you could also apply these techniques to other tarot decks, and then consider how you would perceive the Major Arcana cards as teachers, and the Minors as learning situations.

With the next post, I will elaborate on some of the tarot teaching personalities.

BACK-TO-SCHOOL WITH THE TAROT FOR SEPTEMBER 4TH

I’m looking forward to this Sunday, September 4th, when I will be back at the Triple Goddess. I will show up even though it’s the Labor Day weekend, because some people find that a convenient time to stop by. Having recently introduced the Round Robin Tarot technique, I’d like to start out with that again, because it would be good to get some more practice with this—especially with looking for connecting themes and images among the different cards that are drawn for each individual. (See the previous post for a description of the round robin technique.) Even if you are a regular visitor, there’s always something new to get out of it, as there is always a different mix of participants and card decks being used. I’m planning to use the Osho Zen Tarot deck, which uses some strikingly different imagery. (This deck, which is published by the Osho Zen Institute in Switzerland, is illustrated by Deva Padma, and edited by Sarito Carol Neiman.)

Then, because it’s back-to-school for a lot of young people and others, this is a good time to try out “The Wizards Tarot” (by Corrine Kenner and John J. Blumen), which is set up using the theme of a school for aspiring magicians—The Mandrake Academy—where the teachers of the different magical arts are portrayed in the Major Arcana cards, while the Minor Arcana represent four different groups of students, much like the different student households in Harry Potter. Normally, I tend to avoid anything which seems like an obvious imitation of anything else, so I had misgivings about a card deck that appears to be modeled after Harry Potter. However, because the artwork is so splendid, and the whole idea of belonging to a magical academy is such an intriguing concept to get into and work inside of, I believe there is great potential for exploring and trying new things with this deck. By the way, a group of my old friends had a shared sense of having belonged to a special academy in a past lifetime, though the memories were different depending on the person’s orientation—for some it was more of a military institution, for some the emphasis was on the arts, for others magic, etc. It all taps into certain archetypes of a grand educational institution and experience, which I believe also contributes to the popularity of Harry Potter.

I have long maintained that we can experience the different tarot cards as teaching personalities, each with its own teaching style, so this is an opportunity to better get to know the cards as mentors. One little quibble I have with the minor cards in the Wizard’s deck, is, although they do represent the students, shown in their school uniforms and everything, they otherwise reproduce the standard Rider-Waite-Smith imagery, but I would like to see how different Minor Arcana situations could be rendered as learning challenges or “teachable moments.” (Nevertheless, I do appreciate the massive effort it took to bring out this deck, and realize that reworking the Minors would have taken a lot longer.) As a group, perhaps we can contribute some new ideas on interpreting these cards in the context of lessons in the magic of living. Also, the group setting provides an opportunity to enter a collective fantasy.

School time is also a time to “get back to basics,” so if we have some extra time left over, I will trot out some of the more basic tarot techniques that I haven’t demonstrated in a good while.

ROUND-ROBIN-TAROT

The “Round Robin Tarot” technique that we demonstrated at the Triple Goddess earlier this month seems to have worked well, because it kept everyone engaged for a good while. Because it enables everybody to participate and provides a lot to discuss, this would be an ideal technique for any tarot study group.

How this technique works, is, each person brings or chooses a pack of tarot cards or oracle cards, then all sit in a circle, with the intention to focus on one person at a time, each in turn. So, the first person introduces him-or-herself, and then we invoke the interconnectedness of all people and all things to help bring forth information that would be good for that person to know. Next, the participants shuffle their cards, with each person pulling one card. Going around the circle, each person shows his/her card, (and also mentions which deck is being used), while we discuss potential meanings. After that, we shift focus to the next person and go through the same process.

I provide a place in the hand-outs to write down the cards and decks used, so people can afterward reconstruct (or at least try to approximate) the cards that were drawn for them when they get home. Even if you don’t have the same tarot decks, if you can set out some of the corresponding cards from your home deck, you can get the big picture and pull out new meanings by contemplating the cards as a group.

By the way, I did not invent this particular technique. The credit goes to a classmate in a weekend Photoshop seminar, but I unfortunately do not recall her name. (On that occasion, a group of us went out to lunch, and we had just one tarot deck among us, so we passed it around with each person taking a card from the deck as we read for different persons in turn.)

Back to the idea of interconnectedness: because a lot of us have an interest in the spirit world, group participation tarot exercises allow us to appreciate how spirit connections are part of the interconnectedness of all people and all things that we are invoking. I have touched on this in some previous posts, such as how spirit helpers converge in a high-vibration place like the Triple Goddess. So, as a number of psychics say that were are always surrounded by various spirit presences who are interested in our well-being, when you and I or anyone else get together, my spirit helpers are hobnobbing with your spirit helpers and those of everyone else present. (I don’t see it as being like we drag our spirits mentors around with us wherever we go, but rather, they are “present for us” in an extra-dimensional sort of way, and when two or more people come together, more extra-dimensional channels of exchange are open.) Now, it is possible that my spirit friends are aware of some things that it would be useful for you to know, and your spirit friends might have some special knowledge of concern to me. On such occasions, our spirit friends can exchange information with each other, and the Round Robin Tarot also provides them another means of connection.