It’s been a while, but we are back at it and ready to share our 7th Musickal Meditation, designed in the essence of The Chariot!

As with all meditations, you may opt to simply enjoy the music on its own, or work with some of the suggestions provided to perform a fuller ritual. We do hope you enjoy the sounds! We will be updating the YouTube page regularly as we add more tracks as well as storing all links on a separate page of this site, so they are easy to find! Keep reading to learn more about connecting with The Chariot.

We know the Major Arcana cards often represent the bigger concepts in life; the energy that transcends the day-to-day. These greater topics often touch on spirituality, self-development, growth of consciousness, the nature of reality, and so on. Because of this, tarot can be an excellent tool not just for divination but also for exploration. Although, by that same token, sometimes in readings, we can be thrown when we draw a Major as it isn’t always easy to see how it fits into our daily lives.

While reading 36 Secrets by T Susan Chang back in the Spring, I was struck by the chapter dealing with the 7 of Swords. In it she uses the term “the divided mind”, and that is a concept I’ve been mulling over ever since; both as it relates to the card as well as how it shows up in my own life.

First of all, what exactly is a divided mind? Essentially, it is a common occurrence where one holds two opposing values/ideals/thoughts simultaneously. For example, and this came up for me very recently, we may love social media and the way in which it allows us to share and connect, but on the other hand, we despise the underbelly; the manipulation, impossible algorithm, questionable content, etc.

As we know, tarot goes deep in terms of meaning, origin, and the myriad of attributions we can apply to each card. Some of the commonly observed associations of course are astrology, numerology, and the 22 Hebrew letters that correspond to each of the Major Arcana.

In Tarot, there are inevitably cards that challenge us more than others. These cards often do so because they are misunderstood, triggering on some level, are visually off-putting, or have some negative attribution(s) applied to them.

Last month, after taking a poll online, we wrote a post Challenging The Hierophant. In that piece, we explored some of the conceptions surrounding the card, what is known of its origin, and then offered ways to integrate and make peace with its energy. Following that, we asked what other cards were difficult to make sense of, and Judgement came out on top.

What do The Star, Death, The Hierophant, and Strength have in common?

Hint 1: The Wheel of Fortune
Hint 2: The World
Hint 3: Astrology!

We know there is emphasis placed in both The Wheel and The World on the 4 fixed signs of the zodiac. They are Aquarius, Scorpio, Taurus and Leo and they can be seen in the 4 corners of each of those cards. Respectively, they are ruled by one of the 4 elements - Air, Water, Earth and Fire, and as well, they represent the 4 tarot cards listed above (The Star, Death, The Hierophant and Strength).

Step into the Garden of Eden with our 6th Musickal Meditation, designed in the essence of The Lovers!

As with all meditations, you may opt to simply enjoy the music on its own, or work with some of the suggestions provided to perform a fuller ritual. We do hope you enjoy the sounds! We will be updating the YouTube page regularly as we add more tracks as well as storing all links on a separate page of this site, so they are easy to find! Keep reading to learn more about connecting with The Lovers.

When it comes to my personal practice, I, like many others in the tarot community, have long overlooked the court cards and focused most of my study and attention on the Major and Minor Arcana. There are a number of reasons for this, but the main reason, I’m ashamed to admit, is that I’ve never found them to be quite as interesting as the latter two. (Is this just me? Let us know how you feel below.) But is this really a fair assessment, or is there more to our courtly cohorts than meets the eye? Over the past couple of days, I’ve begun my own little investigation to find out. I started off by asking myself a few simple questions:

Did you know you can read and receive messages from tarot without any cards?

As you engage with, learn more about and integrate the system of tarot, more happens than simply becoming a competent reader. You also become at one with its keys and the universal language of symbolism. And the more you notice, the more this system speaks, and the deeper your connection with it grows.

Tim and I were reflecting recently on aspects of our spiritual/personal journey that for whatever reason, tripped us up along the way. These may have been things we read that we took to heart, other opinions that we too easily absorbed, or ideologies we over-invested in. Now, I don’t believe we can ever go totally off course, and there are usually lessons that can be gained from any detour. What we’re mainly talking about are things that ultimately proved unhelpful that we then had to work to unravel. Things that didn’t add to our experience or understanding of ourselves, except in the discarding of them. Which, I suppose, is also valuable, even if in reverse!

There are certain cards that repel us more than others - maybe because we don’t like their message in relation to the question we’ve asked, or because we don’t quite grasp the concepts they represent, or they just seem too “out there” - not at all relatable to everyday life.

The other day we opened up a poll asking others what card challenged them most, giving 4 options to choose from, as follows: Judgement, The Hierophant, The Tower, and The Hanged Man. I can’t say I was surprised that The Hierophant rose above the rest, even if it wasn’t by any huge margin. But what specifically about The Hierophant put it in top place? Why do we find this particular archetype so difficult, and what can be done to reconcile this?

It was almost one month to this day that we shared our last entry in this series, highlighting the High Priestess as a Guardian to the Water Gate. In that post, we speculated that The High Priestess contained keys to a path that, if followed, would lead to unlocking hidden faculties and a greater sense of awareness. Today, we will continue with that exploration, diving straight through the gates of The Emperor into the land of Fire. Of course, if you’re feeling a bit lost, you may want to go back and read the full introductory post. Now is also a good time to remind readers that these are just ideas and in no way are we making any definitive claims. This is just one way of many to understand tarot and we hope others find it interesting and resonant.

We are delighted to share our newest Musickal Meditation, designed in the essence of The Hierophant!

As with all meditations, you may opt to simply enjoy the music on its own, or work with some of the suggestions provided to perform a fuller ritual. We do hope you enjoy the sounds! We will be updating the YouTube page regularly as we add more tracks as well as storing all links on a separate page of this site, so they are easy to find! Keep reading to learn more about connecting with The Hierophant.

There are a million different ways to slice and dice a tarot card. You can observe the direction the figures face, the clothes they are wearing, the landscape, the weather, the numerological meaning, or the astrological association. Many of these facets we know are intended in the design of the card and some, we can’t be so sure, but for whatever sticks out to the reader in the moment of reading - surely there is significance, whether originally intended or not.

For those who have been keeping up with the work we’ve been doing around here, you’ll be familiar with our Musickal Meditation series, now available on YouTube. This set of meditations is designed to get you in touch with each of the 22 Major Arcana - as a way to connect, integrate and ritualize those archetypes. However, now that we’re a few in we thought it would be interesting, for further study, to add a short list of Qabalistic correspondences to each. We feel that this will offer the practitioner a chance to explore each card in a number of additional ways as listed below:

• It allows us to observe the interrelationship between the cards, the elements, the signs, the planets, and other important esoteric symbols and concepts, so we can absorb and integrate their properties as we construct our own personal image of the Tree of Life in our psyche.

• Each individual piece of information provides a window into the deeper meanings of the cards, and can thus be used as an aid for meditation or contemplation along with its corresponding musickal composition.

• The Hebrew letters in particular can either be visualized or used as mantras. (We have included phonetic pronunciation guides beside each letter name to eliminate any guesswork.)

I remember when I first began really noticing synchronicities. It was, like it is for many, through repeated numbers showing up for me every day, in all manner of ways.

Through the years, the type of synchronicity I receive and the frequency at which I receive them has evolved. Along with that too, with much contemplation on the subject, has my relationship with them. Do I have all the answers? Never will I ever (on anything), but this is what I’ve come to realize for myself where these little signposts are concerned.

Last month we introduced a new series where we opened up an exploration of the pillared cards in tarot (The Waite/Smith deck specifically). In that post, we set the stage for what we envision will be a 5-part journey through each of the following Major Arcana - The High Priestess, The Emperor, The Hierophant, and Justice. The purpose of these posts is to create the supposition that each of these cards is a gateway to greater degrees of consciousness, demonstrated through 4 separate plotlines that also intersect. Along those lines, we are asking the following - what might these 4 entrances veil? What other cards connect to their plotline? And what can be learned by approaching them in this way? While you can read the full introductory post, we will provide a brief recap before we jump through our first gate guarded by The High Priestess. This is a good time to remind readers that these are just ideas and in no way are we making any definitive claims. This is just one way of many to understand tarot and we hope others find it interesting and resonant.

We are delighted to share our newest Musickal Meditation, designed in the essence of The Emperor! This series is rolling along much quicker than anticipated. As it stands now, we have the next 4 Major Arcana sampled and ready for mastering. I suppose that is a testament to the energy available when a project feels really aligned.

As with all meditations, you may opt to simply enjoy the music on its own, or work with some of the suggestions provided to perform a fuller ritual. We do hope you enjoy the sounds! We will be updating the YouTube page regularly as we add more tracks as well as storing all links on a separate page of this site, so they are easy to find! Keep reading to learn more about connecting with The Emperor.

Earlier this month I shared a collaborative project I’ve been working on with my partner Tim and my dad, Don, combining tarot and meditation. The purpose of the series is to bring listeners into alignment with the Major Arcana card they have selected to work with. Today we’re pleased to share our third track, a musical embodiment of The Empress.

While you may opt to simply enjoy the meditation on its own, we have also provided some suggestions should you want to incorporate it into a fuller ritual. We do hope you enjoy the sounds! We will be updating the YouTube page regularly as we add more tracks. Feel free to follow along - we’ll likely use the space for other content as well. I also plan on storing all meditations on a separate page of this site, so they are easy to find! Keep reading to learn more about connecting with The Empress.

At the end of April, Tim and I started a new series called 78 Connections, which I’ve been sharing on Instagram and saving to a dedicated page in this space ever since. It’s essentially an exercise that takes two cards and attempts to find as many connections between them as possible. Most of those links are of a visual nature, but inevitably we end up exploring numerical, astrological, and qabalistic similarities as well.

On the surface, this all appears rather simple and straightforward and I’m not sure that the value is immediately obvious. But what I can say is that this practice of comparing and contrasting scenes has been one of the most interesting, eye-opening, and integrative methods I’ve so far found to squeeze as much information as I can from the cards. It’s a general principle that follows us daily; if we want to really know something, to truly define it, we will benefit from examining it next to something else.

However, that wasn’t the expected outcome when this activity was born. This all began while trying to work through something that was irritating me. Inevitably if you spend enough time online, and around social media, you’re going to be exposed to a world of thought that clashes with your own. Without getting too specific, I will say that it touches a nerve when I see people putting an unnecessarily negative slant on something without having a basic understanding of its history. This is especially the case when it devolves into declarations around who can and can’t read tarot, which decks should or shouldn’t be worked with, or otherwise making dictations based on presumptions. Dogmatic attitudes, opinions presented as absolute facts, don’t settle comfortably with me regardless of the topic. But I realize that’s none of my business and partly my problem. I also don’t need to confront misinformation directly. But, what I can do is sit longer and look harder at this tool that has done so much for me and, I’m assuming if you’re here, for you as well. In doing this, I’m either going to see what they’re seeing too or reinforce what I already hold to be true, and as far as I’m concerned, either is a fair outcome.