We don’t do a huge number of deck spotlights on this site, however I couldn’t not write about the final deck in the Wild Unknown Series, Alchemy, by visionary artist Kim Krans.

And even though we’ll be talking about the deck at length, I wouldn’t regard this article as a review in any way. These will be mine and Tim’s personal thoughts, ideas on how we plan to work with the cards, and any stirrings that come from our initial impressions. We are huge fans of The Wild Unknown series and regard both the Archetypes and Animal Spirit oracle as some of our most loved and most used decks. When we caught wind of this newest installation, we were extremely excited to get our hands on it, and even more thrilled that it overtly tackles alchemy; a subject that underpins much of our work, conversations and contemplations, especially as of late.

We are half way through 2022 and so we have just 6 months left with the themes of our Personal Year Numbers, which we thoroughly explored in a post late last year. Given we’re mid-year, we thought we’d revisit this topic to a) provide some reflections for you to see how your number has so far shown up in 2022 and b) highlight ways you can continue to make the most of its vibration for the remainder of 2022.

For us, the purpose of the 9 Year Cycle isn't about divining the future or knowing for sure what we can expect. It is about becoming attune to the divine nature of numbers by placing them against our own experiences and contemplations. In this way, much like with the moon, we fall into the rhythmic cycle of numbers, able to discern not only their meaning, but their patterns and the patterns underlying ourselves and nature.

June 14th marks the peak of the Full Supermoon in Sagittarius. Of course, while the effects of its charge are highest on this day, you may still feel the impact a couple days leading up to it as well as coming off of it.

If you’re astrologically savvy, you may already have a sense of what these energies have in store for yourself or even the collective. Around here, while we do take notice of what’s transitioning in the skies, we also love to explore things through the lens of tarot.

We have been so quiet around here the last couple months, but I did want to share our latest musickal meditation, designed to connect listeners with Justice. We’ll likely post again soon with some updates, but for now, we hope you enjoy this latest track!

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 Justice.

Why did you pick up your very first tarot deck? What were you hoping to accomplish when you began your journey with the cards? Where did you expect that journey to take you? We all have our origin stories along these lines. For myself I was 10 or 11 when I sensed a deep calling toward the cards. I don’t remember it clearly enough to say anything other than that; I just knew they were calling and that I very much wanted to explore that.

But, what I do distinctly recall are some of my expectations at the start, one being this very grandiose idea that if I could just get my hands on a deck of tarot cards, I could know anything. Of course, my conception of “anything” was somewhat limited and my curiosities were not exactly sophisticated. I desired to know what my peers were thinking. I looked forward to getting a sneak peak at summer plans. I was anxious to know who my real friends were and who were the phonies.

This is the first, of what I hope will be many posts exploring the esoteric elements found within pop culture. There is no shortage, to be sure, but before we dive into anything too specifically, I wanted to first introduce the series and what brought me to it.

We’ve all heard the stories and allegations - Jay-Z and Beyoncé are card-carrying members of the Illuminati… Dungeons & Dragons was designed to initiate impressionable young boys into the horrors of the occult… Disney is the main branch of a government-sponsored mass mind-control program… But are these assertions fact or fiction? Well… it depends on who you ask. There is certainly no shortage of armchair experts on YouTube, Reddit, and other online outlets who swear up and down that all of the above is true, and that all these and more are part of an ongoing plot to poison our youths and destroy the moral foundation of society. But have any of these folks earnestly explored the subjects at hand, or are they speaking from a place of well-meaning ignorance? In my experience, the answer is usually the latter. How do I know? I used to be one of them! Oddly enough, that is how my own esoteric studies began.

We are back with our 10th Musickal Meditation, the first, in fact, of 2022! This one plunges us into The Wheel of Fortune, known also as the game of life or karma.

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 Wheel of Fortune.

Happy 222222!

We can talk about today’s interesting numerology in a moment, but first we wanted to share that we had the opportunity to sit down with Thomas of Hermit’s Mirror yesterday to talk about his latest deck - The Life Line Tarot: Colour Outside The Lines edition.

In our hour long convo, we discuss the Kickstarter process, the differences or changes from the first edition of this deck to the second, its connection to inner child work and the undeniable link between tarot and creativity.

Well, it’s taken half a year but we’re back with another installment of our Tarot Pillar series. If you’re new to this, you may want to check out the introductory post where we lay the groundwork for the elements we’ll be exploring.

To summarize what has previously been written, we essentially began this journey by supposing that the pillared cards in tarot have something to tell us about the unfoldment of consciousness (individually and collectively). There are 3 apparent pillared cards in the Major Arcana which are The High Priestess, The Hierophant and Justice. Each of these cards represents one of the 4 elements and contains a different background colour. Given this, we speculated a fourth (hidden) pillared card also existed to fill the gap. We figured it was The Emperor because that would account for the missing element (fire) and also supply our 4th unique background colour (red).

If you’ve been following along for awhile, you’ll know that Tim and I love to go deep into the cards, finding connections and contrast to help us better understand them individually and as a whole.

In our 78 Connections series, we take two cards and try to spot as many obvious and underlying links as we can. In doing this, we see just how interwoven this system is and how precise and intentional all the details are.

Today, in the spirit of that exploration, we thought we would begin a new series focusing on one card at a time. The purpose of this exercise will be to take a proverbial magnifying glass to the card in question, noting all the symbols we can spot, and then also considering where else in the deck they can be found. Think of it as a bit like a scavenger hunt!

After taking a hiatus in December, we’re back with our third installment of this bookshelf series. Reading is a very important component to our practice, ongoing self-development and overall wellbeing. In this post, we’re sharing some of our December-January reads, providing a quick snapshot of the book’s contents, our reflections and a link to purchase or learn more if one happens to catch your eye.

We hope you find this series interesting and maybe even useful. Please let us know if you’ve read anything we’ve listed, have taken recommendations from these posts or have any suggestions for us!

While not always discussed, Tarot and music share an inextricable link. We suspect there is some inherent quality to this, and also some conscious effort to ensure its symbols stay steeped in the imagery and lexicon of this tool. It also seems to us that it is no coincidence that many occultists throughout history have demonstrated this connection. You don’t have to look far to observe the crossover between an aptitude in music and an interest in magick, and we could debate the reasons for this, however the link remains. Notably, the following musicians have incorporated the occult, tarot and related symbolism into their work: Jimmy Page, Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, Tool, Andrew W. K. , Rush, The Beatles, Ab-Soul, Erykah Badu and so on. It’s not uncommon either to observe occult imagery in modern music videos, though, we’re not sure if that is a result of the artist having a genuine interest in this field or a capitalization on the mystery of it all.

Whether you celebrate a specific tradition this time of year, or simply wish to honour the turning of the year, we wanted to share some simple ideas for incorporating tarot into the the holidays - however they look to you! Please enjoy this list, take care of yourself and enjoy whatever the remainder of 2021 has to offer!

It’s December so that means it’s time for us to share our Collective and Personal Year insights for the upcoming year, based on numerology.

In this post, we’ll discuss the overall vibration of 2022 that we can expect collectively, as well as the Personal Year Number system including how to calculate your place within it. I also want to note that we will be providing Patron-exclusive content around the Personal Year Cycle throughout the month, beginning on December 4th. This will take the form of dedicated Patron-only posts for each of the numbers, 1-9, which will include additional information, plus insights from Spirit. For the basics, keep on reading!

Our 9th musickal meditation is complete, just in time to close out the year. Our goal was to have the first 9 done by December so that we could pair them with our personal year information pages. While the meditations have been designed to get one in touch with each tarot archetype, they would also be an excellent complement for connecting with the energy of numbers. In the new year, we’ll be back with The Wheel of Fortune, which seems very apt given the cyclical nature of the 12 month calendar year.

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 Hermit.

We’re back with another installment of our new Bookshelf series. In this post, we’re sharing some of our November reads, providing a quick snapshot of its contents, our reflections and a link to purchase or learn more if one happens to catch your eye.

We hope you find this series interesting and maybe even useful. Please let us know if you’ve read anything we’ve listed, have taken recommendations from these posts or have any suggestions for us! We’d love to hear it!

We have another Musickal Mediation to share, this one designed in the essence of Strength. It is our 8th to date, and the goal is to have The Hermit completed by early December so we have a meditation to offer for each of the personal years as part of the numerology section of our website.

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 Strength.

I just finished re-reading The Kybalion. It’s one of these things you can return to time and time again and with each visit, get something new from it. For this particular rendezvous, I thought it would be interesting to explore it with tarot in mind. For those who have read The Kybalion, you’ve no doubt noted parallels between the 7 laws and certain tarot cards, particularly those belonging the the Major Arcana.

For myself, this exercise is a way of further cementing these concepts; a kind of out-loud study blog. Of course, I also hope this exploration will be useful for others, whether you’re familiar with The Kybalion or not.

Some cards in tarot are more palatable than others. We’ve already explored Judgment and The Hierophant through this lens, and today we’re tackling another unsettling, off putting and sometimes difficult to make sense of Major Arcana - The Devil.

We do a lot of reading around here and it is as much entertainment to us as it is skill building and personal development. Given this, we thought it may be fun to do a roundup at the end of each month to discuss the books that crossed out paths - the ones we loved, the ones we begrudgingly persevered through and anything in between.

We hope you find it useful and please let us know if you’ve read anything we’ve listed, have taken recommendations from these posts or have any suggestions for us! We’d love to hear it!