Step by Step Tarot

SAMPLE WORKSHEET NO 4

Time: July ’89 – November ‘90 I was confused about my life in general – I was bored and taking tranquillisers – I was getting out of it – I felt it was an effort to get up in the morning. Then, my daughter had an accident and I realised how precious she was to me. Suddenly I was able to snap out of it: I stopped taking the pills and regained control over my life

The purpose of going through the Worksheets is two-fold. The first I have already given you: it gets you much more in touch with yourself. The second is that it enables you to make more of an emotional connection with the person who is having their cards read. You are far more able to connect with them if you have connected with yourself first. To relate to someone on an emotional level is not an intellectual process. It is a matter of the heart. In a very real sense you will not be able to see in anyone’s cards what you yourself have not already been through. You will not see heartbreak if you have never experienced it.

Keep all your Worksheets in a special folder after you have done them and keep them in order, so that you can refer back to them and add extra pages on each card, thus building up the compendium of associated experience for each one.

It is very important that you thoroughly personalize each individual Worksheet for each individual card. We must get all the details of the specific experience or memory associated with each card, locating it all in time and space, with where, when and with whom. It is not enough that you just write down the ‘meaning’ or any other superficial attribution for each card. What we want is Who, Where, When, How, Why and What in connection with your most personal (and painful) memories for each card. You may well go through bouts of crying, anger, happiness, etc. But write down the details of each of these memories. To work with the Tarot in this way is soul-cleansing and therapeutic. Also, you will access a different realm of insight into what the cards are hinting at in each of your Querent’s spreads when you have tapped into the true emotional, gritty meaning of each card and how it is linked with your own emotional past.

Also make a point of writing down any cognitions, thoughts, realizations, hopes, fears, prayers for absent friends, etc. which emerge from these exercises. Again, don’t make a big deal out of these exercises. Get through them so that you can go beyond them. You can always come back to them and redo them. If you find yourself spending more than 10 minutes on any card, go on to the next one. Keep all your notes intact and in order. Write at the top of each Worksheet the name of the card you were looking at when you did the write-up, so that you don’t get them mixed up.

You share karma with the person in front of you. Therefore, by tapping into your own emotional reservoir of experience, you will be able to ‘see’ 1,000 times more things going on in your Querent’s cards than you would have otherwise. This is a powerful technique, but to get the benefit of it you have to go deeply into yourself and the experiences in life which you have felt. It takes guts. But you will end up a far more effective reader if you do it than if you don’t.

6 THE HEIGHTENED MEANINGS (#ulink_e34d9904-e9a3-5114-9c1d-94b48cda3fde)

ABOUT THE HEIGHTENED MEANINGS

Here I am going to fill you in on some of the meanings of the cards. They are all oriented towards relating the meanings of each card to practical aspects of life and try to move beyond the simplistic meanings which you will find in the little booklets accompanying each deck. By the same token, they also try to get you thinking about the issues which are raised and to enable the Querent to become a little more determined by the end of the reading.

These meanings are more empowering than some of the esoteric waffle found in certain sources.

The Heightened Meanings have been written not with a view to making any definitive statement on the meanings of each card, but rather to get you as a trainee thinking along new lines. So some of the meanings you will agree with more than others. But I don’t want you to get stuck at agreement or disagreement. I want you to continue to develop your own associations, using the Heightened Meanings as a guide for your own continued work.

As you go through this chapter, why not keep a notebook beside you, so that you can write up your own Heightened Meanings, card by card.

You will notice that I have only given you these meanings after you have gone through the Worksheets and other exercises. The meanings you have derived for yourself do not have to match up exactly with the Heightened Meanings. To some extent there should be a basic consensus, because the Tarot is based around a pattern, but within that very wide pattern is the potential for an infinite number of personalizations.

So there is no sense of ‘getting it wrong’, really; only of weaving the symbolism which the Tarot has to offer into the context of your own life.

THE MAJOR ARCANA

0 THE FOOL

Encounters with other people will become very lively indeed! The kind of people you are meeting are outside the realm of what has gone on before. You will be experiencing them as interesting, exciting, enlivening! You will be having the same effect on them, by the way, just in case you thought it was a one-way street!

New relationships may take place which will be totally different from anything you have experienced before! Don’t go into this new world with all your old knowledge – leave your shoes and your mind by the door! It is only by removing the barrier of existing knowledge that you will be able to receive fresh inflows of teaching, which will pave the way for you to go on to the next level of spiritual development.

It may well be that under this influence you are attracting people who are very different from your normal circle of friends and associates. These new associations may tend to have an unusual quality which makes your existing friends wonder about the direction in life which you are taking. Let them sit and wonder – maybe one day they may even find out!

The whole emphasis is upon freedom, spontaneity, the unusual and that which has the capacity to interest.

If it is essential for you to make any important decisions, especially those which might require long-term commitments, then this isn’t the best set of influences. It is far better to postpone these decisions until a time in the future when the correct balance – or at the very least a new balance of the mind’s faculties – can be achieved. In particular, steer clear of business decisions, matters involving finances, property, the drawing up of leases or any legal agreements which would be binding or have long-term effects.

This card would certainly point the way towards the development of new skills, new techniques, new abilities. The only problem here is that under this card’s influence, it might be difficult to focus the mind or to concentrate on one thing at a time sufficiently to achieve anything concrete. But this would probably be the crux of the whole matter.

It symbolizes a brilliant time for pushing ahead with new plans and projects, although there is in this card a far greater degree of the element of ‘experiment’ than is to be found anywhere else. Let’s not get too disillusioned or upset if some of these experiments don’t necessarily work out or at least yield the kind of tangible results which we had originally anticipated!

The Fool is all about the experimental, the original, the eccentric, the different. He is all about not following any pattern at all, just doing his own thing! He is no respecter of outward appearances, but is able to see right to the heart of the other person – or situation – and judge truly. He is a great idealist and by his refusal to compromise himself with the material world he inhabits a rather different dimension. Time, place: neither of these have much effect on him; he is only just in his own body. If he went any higher, he’d slip out of his physical form and go back to the realm of pure spirit. He is a great teacher, but wouldn’t want you around for too long, hanging on his every word. He’s not here to let you slip out of your self-imposed responsibilities and start projecting onto him. He’s not a guru, just his own true self. In the past, he was associated with the element Air, as that was the lightest of all the elements, like the wind, blowing wherever it wanted to blow. More recently, he has been seen in the company of the planet Uranus, which alone out of all the planets in the Solar System rotates horizontally on its axis, going around the Zodiac. So, he is equally eccentric, rotating around the universe in his own original way as well!

He is a breath of fresh air, in a world where orthodoxy has gone mad. Others inevitably copy him, which is where the merchandizing comes in, and the fashion designers, starved of fresh ideas, start seeing new possibilities.

His is the flash of genius which comes like a bolt of lightning: the invention of the paper clip; the rubber band; the milk carton; these are some of his ideas! To hell with 9-5! Who needs all that slavery when you can have a ball?

What could you be doing instead of reading this book? How could you get to meet the Fool? What would you say to him?

1 THE MAGICIAN

In this card you are shown possessing great power, as if a great force were flowing through you, coming in from some higher plane of inspiration and manifesting more fully in your everyday life as energy, action and power. Quite possibly you haven’t got yourself fully connected to this great force – as yet. The Magician is here to show you how to!

This card looks at the role of communication, especially to a much wider audience than that to which you are used. You are being described in this card as an intermediary, as if you are in some way the representative of a message which is flowing in from outside and beyond yourself, into action.

This card talks of learning, teaching and intellectual knowledge. It is in these areas, this card is saying, that your next stage of growth is likely. You may well find yourself in the role of teaching, or of learning from others, or both!

The Magician is saying that in the coming period you will be using your knowledge to influence the minds of others. There may even be very specific points of contact between you and those in the advertising industry, media or other branches of the communication industry.

The Magician represents the principle of reason; of thinking things through; of talking with others and consulting them on their viewpoints. He likes libraries, which to him are symbols of tremendous work done by mighty minds. He is able to look at a book and know just how much work has gone into it, how many years of collecting data, collating it, digesting it and then displaying it so that someone else can share in that knowledge. He likes to visit laboratories, where he can give hints as to how new life-saving discoveries can be made, which will help humanity wipe out diseases such as typhoid, smallpox, syphilis and leprosy. He is helpful to those who wish to roll back the borders of human knowledge. All explorers know something of him. All discoverers, too. He is master of communication and can speak all languages. He rules over all education, by which means alone we are rendered fit members of society. Negative aspects of him are shown in mythology when he appears a Loki, the trickster, or as a deceiver or beguiler in some way. Negative aspects of him in life are the confidence trickster, the card sharp, the loan shark. Even more negative would be when he invents something like a new disease or drugs with horrendous side-effects.

The Magician is also master of travel. The Greeks and Romans venerated him as Hermes and Mercury respectively. One of his most important attributes was that of ruling over trade, travel and commerce. His assistance was always invoked at the beginning of any major journey or transaction.

What could you be doing in your life to continue your education? Why not get along to your local library – maybe you haven’t been there for some time! Take time out to learn that language you always wanted to brush up on. On another level, what messages are you sending out to others at this time? Are you sure that the messages you are actually sending are the ones that you intend? If not, this could lead to some confusion between you and others, could it not? How could you then ensure that you are going to be better understood? Similarly, how sure are you that you are reading other people’s signals properly? For example, do you know about body language, about all of the physical signals which people give off, without any words ever being spoken? Can you tell when someone really likes you and when they don’t? Or when they are telling you the truth and when they aren’t? This could be something else for you to learn, couldn’t it?

2 THE HIGH PRIESTESS

The symbol here shows how our own psychic intuition is the most powerful way in which the symbolic veil separating our conscious minds from the collective mind of humanity may be attained. In the inner depths of your own mind, this card is saying, you will find the knowledge that you seek. You must be guided by your own intuition, but not by mere emotional whim, which is not the same thing at all.

Seek within your own past experience the answer to the problem with which you are currently faced: somewhere back there you have been in pretty much the same situation as you are in now.

In this card, you are shown with your feet standing on the Moon, which is a symbol of the mirror of Hathor, the ancient Egyptian goddess of the night sky. This mirror is indicating the need to reflect upon what has happened up until now and the answer will float into the surface level of your mind.

The High Priestess is suppressed in this society, as she is in virtually the whole world at this time. She is the wise woman, who knows without lots of schooling. She has more wisdom and insight in her little finger than most men have in their entire heads. Hers is the ability to use foresight, and to make problems vanish before they grow and multiply. With her insight, we would be able to eradicate the problems of crime without massive expenditures on repressive measures which do nothing to punish the offender, to make him desire change or which give recompense to the victim. With more of her insight, we would be able to find solutions to problems that would completely bypass the ‘us versus them’ approach which characterizes so much of male-dominated society.

The High Priestess stands there, able and willing to guide us through the labyrinth of our own subconscious minds to the point where we can tap into our higher consciousness and begin to remold our own lives. But we must become more willing to be guided by our own intuition.

3 THE EMPRESS

This card is showing that at this point the way forward for you is to develop and put to use your own creativity, your own ability to make things grow.

We are shown here a representation of Venus, resting in her garden, allowing all the plants and creatures which she has brought into being there with her life-bringing force to grow stronger and take their place in existence. It is a message to you that you also have the ability to create, to bring into existence new things.

You may, for instance, have an artistic ability or sensitivity. If so, then now is the time to put it to use and increase output of whatever is your particular artistic skill.

If you paint, then create many paintings and promote yourself by holding an exhibition in your area. If your sensitivity runs in another direction, then locate it and consciously enhance that.

If you are a woman, this card can indicate that you are going through a period of exceptional fertility and that if you do not want to have a child, then you should take extra steps to ensure that you do not become pregnant.

This card also indicates that the harmonious quality of the planet Venus, which this card represents, is bringing into your life a very peaceful effect – you will observe that contacts with others flow more easily than before.

The Empress rules over our own personal creativity. This card comes up a lot for artists, musicians, actors and actresses. It is directly related to the emotions in which this creative potential is rooted. Without our ability to feel, to experience the different emotions of love, pain, fulfilment and rejection, we are as dead as doornails, at least as far as the Empress is concerned. Many people walk around in life like zombies, blocking themselves off from their own emotions with drugs, alcohol or just with their own insensitivity. The real challenge for them is to learn to accept all of their feelings. This isn’t necessarily an easy business. The entire industry of therapy and self-development has boomed over the last couple of decades, designed to help people do just this.