Tag: Tarot

The Number Four in 2020

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On this gray, cold, drizzly day, I’ve been thinking obsessing about the symbolic meaning of the number 4. What is a poet without obsessions, right?

The year we’ve just entered, 2020, reduces to four.

In Tarot for Your Self, Mary Greer, writing about fours, lists several key words that relate to this number, including “stability, foundations, law and order, conventions of society.”

She goes on to say that the basic conflict of the number 4 is the tension between the desire for security and stability and the desire for change, expansion, and growth.

Four cardinal directions.

Four seasons of the year.

Four weeks in a month.

Four lines in a quatrain.

Four beats to a line, iambic tetrameter.

The Emperor, fourth card of the tarot deck, archetype that includes father, the patriarch.

Carl Jung weaves the number four into his thinking about archetypes and the human psyche.

He identifies four basic archetypes: the Self, the Shadow, the Persona, and the Anima/Animus.

He identifies four functions of the personality: thinking, feeling, intuition, and sensation.

For in-depth discussions about these four archetypes, I recommend This Jungian Life, a podcast devoted to exploring the psychology of Carl Jung and its application to contemporary life.

Listening to this podcast led me to Jung’s concept of the quaternity, or groupings of four.

Daryl Sharp’s Jung Lexicon defines a quaternity as “an image with a four-fold structure, usually square or circular and symmetrical; psychologically, it points to the idea of wholeness.”

We’re in an Emperor year, but it feels like the Emperor is reversed.

According to Mary Greer, when the Emperor card shows up reversed in a reading, it indicates: “Autocrat. Self-righteous tyranny. Or, weak-willed, unmanly cowardice… Trust betrayed. Failed leader.”

All of these words can be applied to the current occupant of the White House as well as most members of the Republican legislature.

Where can we as a society find the stability, security, and order we seek? How can we heal the planet and also ourselves? By integrating our shadow and becoming whole. By reconfiguring old patriarchal values, a square pillar, into a circle divided by a cross, a mandala for wholeness, stability through inter connectivity.

By Tibetan, Central Tibet, Tsang (Ngor Monastery), Sakya orderDetails of artist on Google Art Project – qQErBDO0BtuQsQ at Google Cultural Institute maximum zoom level, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=76936937

Creative Explorations With Tarot

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October 13 was the full moon in Aries, which might account for my energetic impulse to sign up for an online class with Kiala Givehand called Pull, Pen, Paint.

While browsing the web for a full moon tarot spread, I came across Kiala’s course, and I was immediately hooked. She, along with several other artists, writers, astrologers, and intuitive Tarot readers, guides participants in using Tarot and oracle cards to chart a visual journey of self-knowledge.

In one of the first lessons, she shares some online places to find card spreads-today I went to Kim Krans’ page, The Wild Unknown and tried her “Awareness Spread.”

I recommend going directly to The Wild Unknown for a more detailed explanation of how this spread works, but here I’ll give you the basic order: The bottom card is the creative center, the second card is the heart center, the third card is the lower mind, and the fourth card represents the higher self.

I’ve taken a few IRL introductory workshops in card reading from Alice, Tarot Queen here in Atlanta, so I’m familiar with the basics. Alice does readings in person and through Skype in case you’re looking for someone to read your cards. She’s highly intuitive and has been studying the Tarot for a decade; she’s quite knowledgeable and kind, a perfect teacher for a newbie like me.

In addition to Alice’s teaching, I’ve also read 78 Degrees of Wisdom by Rachel Pollack, and I’m currently working my way through Mary Greer’s Tarot for Your Self, a workbook that guides the reader through ways to use Tarot for self-discovery and creativity.

All of this is to say that I only read the cards for my own purposes, although from time to time I’ll get out my deck with friends and let them tell me what they think their cards mean to them. It’s like helping someone interpret a dream. Only the dreamer knows for sure if your interpretation rings true.

Without going into all the free writing I did for this Awareness Spread, I will share a few of my conclusions. For the third card, representing worries or mental habits that might be interfering with my creative endeavors, I pulled the Devil.

Honestly, I didn’t need to ponder this one too much. I’ve gotten into a habit of scouring the news every day to find some sign that maybe the Orange Menace will be deposed. It’s an unhealthy preoccupation. I’ve let that devil take up too much mental real estate.

The Queen of Swords represents my higher self. This card is part of my birth card constellation in the sun sign of Libra, so I immediately identified with her. Swords are ruled by the element of air. It’s Libra season and the air is cooler finally. In Ayurvedic health teachings, fall is the season of vata, the air element, and this dosha happens to be the strongest for me. In fact, I tend to be highly anxious if I don’t tend to grounding myself.

I love this time of year, before the holidays when it’s good to be outdoors again in Georgia. I feel the confidence this queen of swords displays. Clear minded, able to express myself, and excited about the possibilities that await with my writing and with a bit of dabbling with paint.

The Three Souls Tarot Prompt from POPcraft

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Tarot Card Spread from a prompt at Pretty Owl Poetry

Pretty Owl Poetry is calling for submissions of poetry prompts based on the Tarot. I decided to write a poem based on their prompt, but going forward, I might try my hand at an original prompt.

[The Camino Spills Across the Highlands]

The Camino spills across the highland
after crossing Basque Country mountains.
Poppies constellate gilded barley fields,
blood-red blossoms fibrillating like hearts
against the sky. So close to the sun here.
The astonishment of flower-comets
wilts with the heat, the weight of all the miles,
if I can remember the way home, no map
but the riddles spelled in the stars.

Process:

I didn’t look up the traditional meaning behind the cards, but tried to intuit the actions in each one and told a little story that the cards reflected to me.

I’m in the middle of writing a collection of poems about a pilgrimage I took to Santiago de Compostela in Spain, so when I saw the Page of Pentacles, my mind went to the moors in Spain and the delight of seeing the poppies in the fields.

The following three-step, three-card prompt, “The Three Souls,” is by Kimberly Grabowski Strayer. Please go to https://prettyowlpoetry.com/2019/05/14/popcraft-the-three-souls/ for a complete description.

The words in boldface come from Kimberly’s prompt. The words in italics are my impressions of the cards.

1.Mind of the poem, Page of Pentacles: awe and childlike or youthful curiosity at the beginning of a journey. Finding a treasure in a field.

2.Structure (body)– The Ten of Wands: The burden of gathering all ten wands, leaning into the labor, struggling against the work. The poem is bunched together in ten lines of ten syllables each to reflect the number ten and also the bunched up wands the man is carrying.

3.Spirit— The Chariot: The future is an enigma (Sphinx) that draws the chariot. The stars above are his only guide. He is a messenger of the gods (caduceus, symbol of Hermes). He’s leaving the comforts of home behind, unafraid.

Beltane Tarot Reading

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Monday I attended a fabulous Introduction to Tarot workshop with Alice Tarot Queen at Full Circle Studio in Atlanta.

Last night, the midpoint between spring equinox and summer solstice, I tried my hand at reading the cards, and lo and behold, I drew three Major Arcana cards!

It kind of freaked me out a little, like how important is this moment?

My question was, “What insights do I need to decide about my future travels?”

This is a question I’ve been considering, and I’ve come to the conclusion after a focused free write that I want to return to Spain for another pilgrimage, but it’s not going to be this summer (unless I win the lottery!).

I’ve taken this semester off from teaching to heal from a second fracture in my right foot, and I’ve finally found a pair of hiking boots that feel comfortable. Looks like I’ll be hiking in the US this summer, though.

Here is my reading of the three-card pattern I used, representing past, present, and future.

The Sun, past

The Sun card represents joy, freedom, optimism, vitality. When I think about the most liberating and joyful days of my past travels, my first pilgrimage to Spain naturally comes to mind.

The freedom I experienced on the way to Santiago in 2015 was as big as the sky, even when my feet and legs ached and my clothes were drenched in sweat.

Temperance, present

Temperance speaks to me of healing. I’ve taken this semester off from teaching to rest my mind and heal my foot, which I fractured in 2017 on a second pilgrimage and later fractured again in the fall of 2018.

I couldn’t return to Spain last summer because I was still healing from my injuries, and when I increased my mileage, I had a second stress fracture.

Also, 2018 was a time of intense anxiety about the midterm elections. This current political climate has elevated the anxiety levels for so many of us elders. We want to leave this life with the peace of mind that the younger generations will inherit a just society that is working toward a healthy planet Earth.

We are connected to the earth. The Earth is alive, and we are part of it. The Earth’s health is connected to our health.

During this last year, especially last summer and fall, my mind was on helping with the midterm elections. I didn’t do nearly enough, but I made phone calls, wrote letters, and nagged my friends and family about voting.

Thankfully, Lucy McBath won in our district by running on a gun reform platform. Her election is a sign that enough people near me want to live in a safer, healthier world.

Wheel of Fortune, future

What a card to draw for the future! The Wheel of Fortune indicates karma, changes in circumstances, and fate.

I’m not sure what to think about my future travels when it comes to karma. What will be the consequences of my past actions when it comes to the places I go?

Some of my yoga buddies are planning a two-week trip to India for a yoga retreat with a well-respected yoga teacher in our area. But the trip is in November, and I might return to teaching by then. I do wish I could accompany them! If money were no object, I would.

I don’t have a strong desire to teach English Composition anymore. Adjunct professors are paid abysmally low salaries for the classes they teach. Read “Death of an Adjunct” for more insight. I’d like to find a different way to earn money, but I still haven’t found it.

So my future travels depend on many circumstances–finances, health, and time. After all of this thinking and writing, I am determined to return to Spain for another pilgrimage, but it won’t be this summer.

I’ll be traveling closer to home, hiking with my new boots on the beautiful trails of North Georgia.

Tarot Poems

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The editors of Medulla Review just released their latest issue of poetry, stories and art inspired by the Major Arcana. The artwork is by the editor, Jennifer Hollie Bowles, who gives a statement about the process of creating this ambitious journal in an open letter, found here.

She explains in her letter that although she is not a trained artist, she did not receive enough art to have an image for each of the cards, and therefore she decided to produce images herself that would reach into the psychic places the tarot is known to trigger.

Here’s a direct link to my poem, “High Priestess.” I wrote this poem for the prompt during a week when a few of my poetry buddies and I were completing an 8-day poetry writing challenge.

Once our writing spree came to an end, I revised “High Priestess” and sent it off. If not for the 8-day challenge, I doubt I would have had the discipline to write to the Tarot prompt in time for the submissions deadline, so I’m grateful my friends inspired me to write.

Mosaic at The Crossings in Austin, Texas. I took this photo while at a writing retreat there with Amherst Writers and Artists.