Step by Step Tarot

The Hermit also touches upon the value of just going off by ourselves every now and again, just to clear our own minds. Some people find that they get real benefit from going to a monastery or ashram, for a period. Others are content just to go for walks in the park, alongside a river or to an ancient site such as Glastonbury Tor. If people aren’t able to get away by themselves every now and again, they will resort to other, less positive ways of ‘escaping’ from the mental proximity of others, such as drugs and drink. The Hermit teaches us the need we each of us have to ‘vanish’ and the value in terms of heightened insight which we can derive from the experience.

Are you getting away enough, the Hermit is asking you? Are you making some time for yourself, forsaking all others? How else do you expect to hear that still small voice of the Higher Self through all of that din and racket that you call social life?

10 THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE

On the great Wheel of Fortune we see the sum total of life and death, with all the ups and downs of life, short-term and long-term.

Here, we are looking at the principle of expansion, of things growing and taking off right before our eyes! But without some element of control or direction things can get out of hand. After all, if everything in the garden is growing, then so are the weeds as well! And if you didn’t do any pruning, you wouldn’t even be able to get into the garden after a while, either! So, just as this card is talking about growth and abundance, recognize that there is a potential negative aspect even to this. A prescriptive measure, in looking at this card, is to recognize that it is important that we ascertain exactly what are the things that we want to see grow and develop, both in our own personal lives and in the society in which we live. There is certainly the need for some element of discrimination.

You are going through a period of increase, of abundance. This will have an effect of increasing whatever it is that you value. If your own values are purely on the material level, the set of influences which you are going through will make you very wealthy. If it is land that you are intent on buying, for example, then this card will enable you to grow and to prosper in that direction. If your values are also on the spiritual level, then this card will give you a sense of abundance here also.

Positive people will be entering into your life at this time. You will benefit from their contact and they will from you also. You may even be meeting people who are rich or even famous at this time. But don’t fall into the trap of associating with people just because they are well-known or well-to-do or because they can provide specific help in your career: you would actually be missing the main reason for life having brought you into contact with them in the first place.

The best way of utilizing this experience is to learn from these people. That will require some element of humility on your part to be able to so do.

It is important to avoid excessive pride under this influence. You could well misrepresent yourself to others as being wilful, or too puffy or proud. If so, it would be a shame, because you may well tend to cut yourself off from valuable sources of support which would come in useful at a later point.

Some of what you consider to be important discoveries at this time may well represent a milestone in your own development. But others may well have already learnt for themselves these same things.

What are the things which you would like to see more abundantly available in your own life? What sort of things would you like to see growing more abundantly in society?

11 JUSTICE

Here in this card what we are seeing is a major balancing out of different aspects of your past, present and future taking place. At this time in your life, it is possible for you to restructure your life without any major crisis taking place as a result. This card is saying that you should not necessarily be on a continual clean-up and improvement campaign, especially in the area of your relationships. Instead, concentrate on the issues which are actively troubling the relationship: the rest you can safely afford to bypass for the time being.

In this card we are looking at the law of karma – the law of cause and effect. This card is saying that in accordance with the seeds which you have sown, you will begin to reap the harvest: what will be relevant will be those things which you have thought, said or done.

Therefore, look at how you can now influence the present situation while taking on board more responsibility, not less. You already have knowledge – you will find that you will come to exercise control by taking responsibility for what is going on around you. The way up for you is by moving in this direction: the way down is for you to run away, to retreat and to say to others, ‘Look at what was done to me’: don’t allow yourself to become a victim. You may find it helpful to sit down and write up all the negative acts of commission and omission which you have perpetrated: against yourself, against the opposite sex, against your family, against your deepest principles, etc. It is only by reviewing your own weak spots or ‘blind spots’, that you will become sufficiently aware to be able to avoid repeating them.

12 THE HANGED MAN

This card is looking at the principle of sacrifice at work in your life and it is saying that at the moment, you probably feel that people are making quite heavy demands upon your time, energy and money.

Sometimes in our lives, we are called upon by fortune to give unselfishly to a particular cause, to friends, to relatives, to something which we believe in or are a part of. This is one such point in your life. Someone in your circle of activity is asking a particular favour of you, and it may well be your immediate reaction to say, ‘Well, what have you done to deserve such a favour?’ The answer would be, of course, that in all probability the other person would have done nothing – or at least very little.

The presence of this card in your reading is suggesting that you shouldn’t be too calculating in terms of whether the things which are now being asked of you have been earned.

At some earlier point in your life, you also were given support and help, and didn’t thank the person who had helped you. You weren’t expected to do so. Now, the time has come for you to do the same for someone else. At this point, show a sense of magnanimity, of generosity, of being big as a personality: in this way, you will win the favour of the Gods and earn for yourself an even greater blessing in the future.

It may well seem that events have almost literally stopped taking place in your life; that you have arrived at a standstill. Enjoy this period of suspension. Because generally, when events seem to have stopped happening in the plane of action, it means that the whole experience is changing gear and that things are therefore happening on an even deeper level of reality. Another aspect of this card is that it can tend to show someone looking at the world upside down. Could that be you? In what way?

13 DEATH

This is the card which even those people who are not familiar with Tarot symbolism are often able to recall, maybe from having seen a Hammer horror film on television. It shows Azrael, the Archangel of Death, descending upon ancient Egypt in response to the invocation of Moses. In this legend, Moses had asked for his people to be allowed to go free out of ancient Egypt, and when his requests had been repeatedly refused by the Pharaoh, he summoned the Angel of Death to come and take the firstborn of each Egyptian household.

This card, then, may be warning us about becoming too inflexible with regard to some of the changes which life sometimes makes upon us. It is simply saying that we must be flexible and not allow ourselves to get drawn into ‘winner-takes-all’ scenarios from which we stand to lose more than we could possibly gain.

This card is saying to you that a major period of change is taking place in your life – but that it is going to be extremely advantageous to you in the long run.

You may not feel that the time is right for you to have to make such major changes, but this card is really reassuring you and saying that what is being presented to you is an exceptional opportunity for you to get out of your rut and start to experience something different from anything that has gone on before now.

What are the umbilical cords which still link you to past patterns? What is stopping you from cutting them?

14 TEMPERANCE

This card is showing an angel standing by a pool of water, pouring water from one cup to another. It shows the movement of the life force from one vessel or body into another. Water, the symbol of life itself from time immemorial, moves from the state of solid, when it is ice, through to liquid, and then from liquid to the state of air, when it evaporates. After a period spent in that form, it condenses, when it comes back down to earth in the form of rain, i.e. the downward motion of water in the card. So, we have a guided tour in this card through each of the elements, but with the essential and eternal quality of the life force remaining absolutely constant.

This card is inviting you to recognize the eternal and unchanging aspect of your own spiritual condition, that although you go through the experience of seeing constant change around you, you yourself as a spiritual creature are not whatever body you find yourself contained within in this lifetime.

This card is saying that at this point in life we have genuinely experienced a sense of spiritual and personal growth. Now we can begin to look back into our past with an awareness unfettered by the blinkers of ordinary consciousness and see what has really happened there to make us – or at least influence us – become the things which we are in the present.

It is a card which suggests great good fortune, if we take advantage of the present to look more closely at the decisions about ourselves which have led us to this present vantage point.

It is a period of considerable clarity, enabling us to define more clearly those things which we want to be, to do, and to have in the next cycle of activity as well.

This card is saying that it is by looking at our past from this perspective that we will more accurately be able to understand our present. At that point, it will be increasingly easy to determine our life direction, and to begin to move ahead to our goals and objectives.

The angel, or, more correctly, archangel which is shown here is Raphael, traditionally associated in ancient texts with healing. Thus the card is suggesting some kind of a healing process which is taking place in your life or which perhaps needs to take place. This card comes up a lot for people that have been involved in counselling, either giving counsel to others or receiving it themselves. Behind Raphael we see a road running into the distance, suggesting the past experiences which we have gone through, which have led us to where we are now. If you look carefully you will see the angel stands with one foot on land and the other on water. This represents the time when we emerged from the waters onto land, and thus became air-breathing creatures with lungs instead of gills. Thus we see from the posture of the angel that this card is all about the important evolutionary steps which we have as yet to make. What is there in your past that you could actively bring forward into present time to help you move forward? What is there in your life which still needs to go through the healing process?

15 THE DEVIL

Here we have the Tarot saying to you that there is some kind of energy blockage taking place. Quite probably you are suppressing your emotions and forcing your emotional response on the basis of a personality imprint made upon you at an earlier point in your life. You must ‘unlearn’ away from this pattern. You must get away from all the sources of negativity and annoyance which vex your soul and trouble your mind at this time. It is not necessary to overload your mind at the expense of your own sense of peace and harmony.

The Devil card often appears in a person’s life when a challenge is being made against them. This challenge may come through other people – here, you must be strong enough to withstand the opposing forces representing the influence of these people: they may well be hidden or out of sight, not wanting to display themselves openly, preferring to work against you in a more surreptitious manner.

The basic message of this card stays the same, whether your opponents are fighting you openly or not: what you must do is stand by your principles, your ethics, and refuse to compromise with the forces against you.

Another aspect of the Devil is that it touches upon all of that which we feel we cannot give up or relinquish: all of our stuff, habits and routines, which we know aren’t doing us any good at all, and which may in fact be holding us back from going ahead into what our futures may hold for us. What is it that you aren’t prepared to say goodbye to?

Some people need devils, so that they can have an excuse for failure. ‘Well, I tried to do X, but, well, it didn’t work out, so it must mean it’s not “intended” to work out.’ Or they dramatize others in the role of the Queen or King of Darkness, against which they seem to lose their power of control. How can we rid our lives of casting others into this role? How can we come to see those who challenge us in life less as devils and more as our own personal trainers, leading us on to greater levels of self-empowerment?

16 THE TOWER

In this card we see a great tower being tested by the forces of nature. It represents everything that you have built up being put to the test.

From the financial standpoint, now is most definitely a time for you to conserve resources, almost fanatically. Any kind of excess would work against you under this set of influences.

It is vital that you use this period to clear as many debts as possible, karmic as well as financial. It may seem as though people in your life whom you had automatically assumed to be reliable are now proving themselves not to be.

You must immediately bypass normal habits and routines, and take control over whatever area of your life has started disfunctioning. Then, handling the situation and removing any danger in it, proceed to reorganize the relevant activity so that the situation is not constantly happening again and again.

Now is the time for you to apply your ethics – whatever they may happen to be – and that means examining that area of your life that is going wrong at this time and deciding what is best for you – and the society in which you live – on the basis of the greatest good for the greatest number.

Don’t operate from a purely selfish dynamic – remember that others are relying on you for your qualities of leadership to help them get out of this mess as well!

What could you be doing in your life at this time that will come to be the foundation of something really positive in the future? What pattern should you be stopping here in the present, i.e. specifically not doing, which will enable you to avoid suffering at some future time period?