2022: The Lovers and Tarot Magick

Apologies for such a late post. 2022 already feels long, doesn’t it? But here we are! And numerology wise, add the numbers for 2022 up and you get 6. Key 6 in the Major Arcana is the Lovers card. The Lovers is ruled by the element of Air, and the card itself signifies many things including love, morality, choices, and a newness overall. So, what does that mean for 2022? Well, we came out of the year of the Hierophant, Key 5 in the Major Arcana and the sum of the digits in 2021. The Hierophant as 2021 represented orthodoxy and correctness, which makes sense when we think about the impact of 2020 (Key 4, The Emperor) and everything that came after. So, now where does that leave us in terms of something new? Let’s think about that as we focus on the topic for this post: Tarot Magick!

For more on the Tarot, you can read the three posts I did on the history of Tarot and its modern use. Today, however, I’ll be focusing on the esoteric uses and the sympathetic magick we can do with Tarot. First and foremost, no matter how you use Tarot, it can be beneficial. The images and meanings can help us in the same way that journaling and using affirmations can. So, let’s view Tarot through a similar lens for the purposes of this endeavor. One of my favorite things to do with a Tarot deck is to set my intention for the week. Let’s say that my intention for this week is to commit to an artistic activity every day. Imagine that the cards I shuffle and pull, are “scary” cards like The Tower, The Devil, and Five of Swords. Wait. Does that mean my art will suck this week?! Before pressing the panic button, let’s first look at this objectively.

The Tower represents a major upheaval or change. Think what goes up must come down. If we use this analogy, perhaps the tower can be a force for good in our lives. The Devil is a tricky one. Aside from Christian and/or Biblical imagery, this card can reveal hidden layers within us. Yes, on the one hand, it is associated with temptation. On the other hand, I like to view The Devil card as being able to recognize the various multitudes that co-exist within ourselves, the good and the bad, and the potential to give in to things equally. So far, we have a major change, hidden layers, and now onto the Five of Swords. Perhaps, this Five of Swords calls into question the competitive and cutthroat nature of human aspirations. This is especially applicable in a workplace scenario. Let’s put it all together for artistic intentions: major change, hidden layers, and cutthroat competition.

Now, we’re going to take it apart. What constitutes major change? Does our artistic intention equate an upheaval or perhaps is it a transformative exercise? To use the energy of the Tower, we need to look at what we are building and evaluate whether something must shift or move to make room for the new. The foundation of what we want to accomplish will stay strong. This is a renovation of sorts. The next card is the Devil. Maybe in the context of temptation, this is a scenario in which a little indulgence could be useful. We need to think in terms of the playful nature of temptation versus the all-consuming desire that could potentially cause harm to ourselves. This is an area where “everything in moderation and eat desserts sparingly” comes to mind.

Five of Swords is more ambivalent. Are we in competition with others in our artistic intentions? If so, perhaps the idea is to change our perspective to be more motivated to be better—to compete against our personal bests (but not to go overboard either). If we are not competitive with others and are feeling that others are cutthroat competitive with us, this is a reminder to make time for ourselves and focus the attention where it belongs. Sometimes competition in the workplace is a challenge, especially when we are not actually competing. We may be surprised to learn that others can be competitive regardless of our intentions. Again, that is a call sign for us to channel energy inwards and not let the competition weigh us down.

These are just suggestions for interpretation, not to be taken at face value. Your own interpretations will likely make more sense to you, after all! Now, onto the magick side of Tarot. I think the beauty of harnessing imagery, such as what we see in Tarot, is an effortless exercise in our spiritual designs. If we really think about it, we use imagery in virtually every aspect of our lives. The decks I tend to use for magick are the Luis Royo Black Tarot and the Aleister Crowley Thoth Tarot. Say what you will about Crowley, but that Tarot deck is definitely potent. Here is a ritual suggestion. I’ve given substitutions as well. Make it your own and have fun!

Items need for Ritual: Salt water, almond oil, (or any base oil) a few pinches of mugwort as a herb (if not, you can use a bay leaf or cinnamon stick), your Tarot card of the day (if you pull a card, otherwise, use the Star card for inspiration, or use both a card you pull as well as the Star card), any essential oils. You can also decide which moon phase suits your purposes for magick.

I put the mugwort (you can use basil, cinnamon sticks, chamomile leaves, bay leaves, depending on your intention) in hot water like a tea, then strain it, add a few drops of an essential oil or added herbs, (lavender for calm, eucalyptus for healing, etc.) and then make it a mist. I spray my sacred space or altar and cleanse the area using incense or ringing bells. I find that both purify and protect my space. I say an intention prayer and call in the deities or guides. Then I shuffle my deck and pull out a card, whatever that card may be, interpret it, and make another intention based on the card. For example, if you pull a 10 of Wands or Five of Cups, think about whether there is a heaviness in your life where you’re feeling bogged down. What can you do about it? What would be the intention there? If it’s Five of Cups, how do we move past that sorrow? You can also keep the Star card on hand for inspiration and hope.

I then meditate and create a sigil for whatever workings I feel called to based on the Tarot magick I just did. Then dip your hands in salt water for added cleansing. Use an anointing oil afterwards (some will say you should do this at the start, but I find this method works for me. Try and see what works for you!) If you don’t have oils, you can substitute using herbs or make teas to drink for calming. This often helps ground me after ritual. I close the ritual with a prayer and gratitude to the guides. You’ll find as you start doing these rituals, you will interpret things your own way and craft your own magickal workings. That’s it for now. I will post more on herbs and oils next! Again, please make sure to check for safety, allergies, etc. and be careful around pets. **Disclaimer, none of what I’m proposing in this, or previous blog posts should ever be used in lieu of financial decision-making, medical and/or psychological treatment, and life-changing alterations.**

Thank you for reading so far and for being patient with me as I know this post was long overdue! If you are interested in my readings and creative writing Tarot courses, head over to my site:

https://www.thetarotstories.com

Until next time, have a blessed rest of the month. Namaste. With love, the Foxy Witch.

Tarot Part II: The Mystique.

Key 8: Strength, the Major Arcana from my Waite-Smith deck.

Hello again, lovely readers. As I sit down to write the second blog post on Tarot, I do so with a heavy heart. Before we get into our topic today, I want to say something about what we witnessed a little over a week ago. Perhaps others can relate, but I felt like I was watching the Tower card playing out in real time on the news, and it also made me feel like my own house was violated. And that was heartbreaking. A symbol of hope was subject to property damage, theft, and vandalism. I recall what I felt intuitively when we were entering 2020 from 2019. I felt a sense of portentous, negative energy on its way. It just did not feel like it was going to be a good year. To contrast, I felt differently coming into 2021. While I do not feel like this year is going to be as ominous as 2020 was, I believe that the major changes taking place are going to be uncomfortable—the battle is uphill, but we are already familiar with the storm, so perhaps we can navigate differently. This leads me to our topic on the Tarot.

First, I want to give you a collective forecast for 2021. So far, the running themes seem to be the Chariot, Justice, and the Wheel of Fortune. These three cards have been on my mind lately. I keep thinking about how we are each the storytellers of our destinies. We hold the reins to the chariot, and sometimes it can be challenging to maintain them. We have fought hard to get where we are through right actions, just causes, and tempered behavior. The tides are turning and changing with the wheel of fortune. Yet we sometimes feel bound by external forces and circumstances. Coming out of a tumultuous 2020 into what feels like a polarity shift on shaky legs in 2021 can leave us disoriented. This confusion and lack of control we sense are major reasons why we may consult Tarot or other methods of divination. Ultimately, the three cards above are positive cards. While things are difficult, there is hope. Fighting for justice, balance and fairness, achieving victory over adversity, and changing our tides/fortunes for the better are good omens for the collective. I also pulled an additional card yesterday, the Four of Wands. This card is about prosperity and renewal. Things are changing even if there are hardships. I see the overall message of the cards as one of hope. Be true to who you are and remember that the wheel of fortune is always in motion.

As promised, this post delves deeper into the more mystical aspects of Tarot from personal experience. I wanted to discuss Pamela Colman Smith’s contribution to modern interpretations of Tarot imagery for the twentieth century, but there’s so much more to include. So, I will honor her in a separate blog instead of alluding to her in small snippets. At the moment, I want to focus on the magick of Tarot. We had but a brief overview into the long and extremely interesting history of Tarot in the last post. Now we can look at Tarot in terms of the modern use of cartomancy. It is important though to keep the history of divination and the inception of Tarot in mind. It enriches our experience with using the cards for psychological and spiritual purposes. With that, let’s dive right into our topic of the day.

In terms of the way we use cards for divination, we can see that there is an intuitive process involved. Each person has a different gut reaction to the cards. Have you ever held a card and instantly felt as if it had some kind of magnetic pull on you? I have that with several specific cards, especially when I do readings for myself with the cards I’m directed to draw. It’s as if the energy is pushing or pulling me in certain ways. Sometimes, the pull is so strong that I feel like the card is going to attach itself to my hand. It truly has a vibration. I liken it to a sound or light wave. If I could measure what that feels like or typify it with another example, I would say it could qualify as an EKG graph too. It goes up and down and sometimes flatlines. The flatline occurs when the same cards keep coming up. It happens when we hit a roadblock and seek repeated clarification. Who here has pulled cards and then not liked said cards, then shuffled and pulled new cards only to get a similar reading or the same cards? I know I did many times! It is the proverbial backhanded slap of “what did I just say?”, except in the form of Tarot cards. Intuitively, you probably already knew the answer. Sometimes, it helps to see it validated in the cards—and other times, it is important to look at the best direction to take, especially if there are too many variables.

With the many decks available to us, it may seem at first daunting to figure out which deck you want to get. Why are there all these decks? I think the answer lies in how we evolved as a society. Cartomancy may not have been as popular before nor were they mass produced on a broad scale like today. Once they gained momentum, the demand rose. Initially, the first modern deck, the Waite-Smith Tarot, provided a gateway allowing both Christian imagery as well as the esoteric for what felt like a relatable approach at that time. It stands to reason that people over the decades and into the 21^st century also wanted something relatable and thus created decks based on interests, diversity in imagery, themes they believed would resonate with lots of people—not aiming at a singular audience necessarily, though some are likely to appeal more or less to others. The decks I have are vast and diverse: The Lovers Tarot, the Universal Waite-Smith deck, the Mystic Dreamer Tarot, the Ukiyoe Tarot, the Archeon Tarot, the Margerete Peterson Tarot, the mini-Secret Tarot, the mini-Manga Tarot, the King Arthur Tarot, True Heart Tarot, and a Celtic Lenormand deck. I know, I know! I have a lot of decks. One could say I developed a habit. And each of these decks have such a unique vibratory resonance. This brings me to the magick. When we start to talk about Tarot magick, we can look at how to invoke them during rituals.

I like to incorporate the Tarot with manifesting. An excellent card to use is the Nine of Cups. It is a very fulfilling card. Nine is also a special number, the last one before double digits—I also believe that nine embodies the traits of one through eight to carry forward. The Cups suit is about intuition and water energy. The combination of the two and the significance of traditional plus modern meanings make Nine of Cups a card of rewards, of the cups being filled, and wishes being granted. The World card from the Major Arcana is a great one as well—we can think of this card as completing our journey and reaping the benefits in multiple ways including the spiritual. When we see ourselves or deities perhaps in the cards, we can invoke and evoke them during rituals for maximizing the energy of the moon phase or planetary alignment in addition to what we put out as well. I believe Tarot magick is one of the most wonderful forms of visualization, because it provides us with an image to focus on easily. And with that, I conclude this post. More to follow on Tarot!

Once again, thank you for reading my post. I will be making a Part III to my Tarot posts, a separate post on Pamela Colman-Smith, and some future blog post topics will include hereditary and folk magick practices. Thank you again, beloved readers! Have a blessed rest of your January. Be safe. Be well. And invoke the Strength card to get you through the day and through the upcoming Mercury Retrograde. Namaste. With love, the Foxy Witch.

The Divine Dance of Tarot

Happy new year beloved readers! We have finally left behind 2020. We are entering a new phase of awakening! Have you felt it yet? We are currently moving towards karmic returns and rewards. Plan ahead and plan accordingly. That’s what my intuition tells me anyway. This blog post, as promised in the previous, is about Tarot! What a time to discuss it as we move into a mystical year. This is the year of the Hierophant. 2+0+2+1=5. Key 5 in the Major Arcana is the Hierophant. The Hierophant traditionally refers to orthodoxy or tradition and has a spiritual connotation. I interpret it for 2021 to have a deeper, inner meaning for each of us. We can develop our own traditions and spiritual practices as well as utilize what we already know. To delve into our blog topic, I want to first begin with an amazing experience on the Winter Solstice Great Conjunction day last month. I was privileged, humbled, and honored to do a group Tarot reading as a 2021 forecast live on Zoom! So, why was it such a big deal? Well, because this was not something that I have done in a group setting or had even thought about doing publicly. And it absolutely set my soul on fire! Let me add to that statement. It reignited the embers of my passion for Tarot that were simmering away inside all this time. I remember when I got my first Tarot deck. I received it as a gift during high school: The Love Tarot deck by Sarah Bartlett and illustrated by Nancy Tolford. It is an unusual deck in that it does not contain the full seventy-eight cards, just the Major Arcana. At that time, I wasn’t sure if it was going to have the same effect as a full Tarot deck, but I used it, nevertheless. It even went to college with me! I used the Love Tarot my freshman year to gain insight into a “Victorian era” style romance that I was unsure of, and the wisdom through it proved helpful. Thus, began my “secret love affair” with Tarot.

Tarot is a riveting study because of the numerous benefits it offers from a psychological perspective as well as the spiritual guidance side of it. But before we get into that, let us peek a little into the origins of Tarot. To do that, we need to first look at the concept of divination. Divination by itself is nothing new. Many cultures have had methods that predated the inception of paper. They used stones, shells, leaves, tree barks, to name a few, and some continue to do so, and others with modifications. We humans have always had a fascination with divining knowledge and learning about specific outcomes to predict our own futures better. I believe the reason for this lies mainly in the fear of our mortality and in our desire to be happy. These two factors influence our decision-making daily whether we actively think about them or not. It is hard to pinpoint the exact origins of divination in terms of place and the time period, but I think we can relatively assume that it was a natural progression after we gained awareness of our existence within the scope of the world and the universe as our early ancestors understood it. So, that makes divination an ancient study that endures to the present day! This brings us to the subject of Tarot as a divinatory practice today.

I want to briefly discuss the history of Tarot. I know, I know “Why the history lesson, Foxy Witch?”—but this is incredibly interesting and something I believe adds to the mystique of Tarot. I’ll be succinct, because I’m merely presenting a humble overview of what I understand with works I cite at the end as well as in-text of this blog. So, let’s begin! Tarot as we know it can trace its existence back to the late medieval/early Renaissance era in Europe, most notably in Italy. It was not used for divination at that time. Tarot was a card game. You may note the similarities with the Tarot and playing cards used today. There are a few origin stories with regards to the divinatory nature of Tarot—some claim it can be traced back to Egypt. There are other theories as well, however, the most-well known and evidential explanation of the Tarot itself dates back to the fifteenth century. The Visconti Tarot, Sola Busca Tarot, and the Visconti-Sforza are among the earliest decks. But it wasn’t until the 1700s when Jean-Batpiste Alliette also known as Etteilla, ascribed meanings to the cards and created spreads that enabled divinatory interpretations that changed how Tarot was viewed. Occult societies began to gain momentum around that time and well into the 1800s, most notably the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. (Wen 8). That brings us to the modern Tarot deck that popularized Tarot for the twentieth century: the Waite-Smith deck. It is the work of Arthur Edward Waite and artist Pamela Colman Smith who were both members of the Golden Dawn. Smith’s art could be considered the standard that inspired other modern decks. A lot of decks publish it as Rider-Waite Tarot—but I will use Waite-Smith. She is an intriguing woman to study, and I will be making a post dedicated just to her. I’ll explain more towards the end of this blog.

The Waite-Smith deck is modern in nature because it captures both esoteric elements as well as Christian symbology. The Tarot decks in existence today are plentiful with a variety of interpretations. The early decks seem to have strong Christian, Hebrew, and Greek influences. They are more classical and allegorical in terms of the artwork, which is reflective of the Renaissance period. The emergence of the modern Tarot did not discard this completely as we see in the Waite-Smith deck. (“History of Tarot”). However, the more occultist approach became popular. This brings us to the main point of the blog: Tarot for divination. The Tarot deck by itself may seem just a set of images with meanings attached to them. To the mystic, there is an intuitive approach to divining. We meditate, set up sacred space, and cleanse and shuffle the deck. We let our intuition guide us to the cards. Either we let the cards jump out as we shuffle, or we pull them based on how we want to lay them out. But we are guided to the cards, however we do them. The messages are contained in our impressions of the cards as we scrutinize the images. We use the knowledge of the meanings of the cards as well as our reactions. Then we notice them in the context of a spread. There is an art and science to the Tarot. In terms of magick, we can use the cards to help us manifest, connect with deity or guides. We may lay them on our altars or use them in a specific ritual or during a new moon or holiday. There are astrological and elemental associations we utilize to help us divine. It supports us in terms of our understanding of ourselves and our relationship to environments and people around us. There is much more to be said on the Tarot. I will make another blog post on it as this is already quite long!

I want to end on a note about my decks. I communicate with them regularly. I pick them up and meditate. Each one has a different vibrational feel to it. The Archeon deck practically hums in my hands. This deck holds special meaning to me. I did not get it by accident. I’ll discuss that more in the next post! I also use the Universal Waite-Smith deck frequently. I feel Pamela Colman Smith’s essence permeate the deck. It actually seems infused with her energy! I want to say much, much more on this. So, my next post will discuss my decks and Tarot magick, Pamela Colman Smith, and end with a current forecast for the collective for 2021. If you made it this far, thank you! Until next time, happy new year readers. Namaste. With love, the Foxy Witch.

Works Cited

Wen, Benebell. Holistic Tarot: An Integrative Approach to Using Tarot for Personal Growth. North Atlantic Books, 2015.

Payne-Towler, Christine. “History of Tarot” Tarot.com, 24^th May. 2018, https://www.tarot.com/tarot/christine-payne-towler/history-of-tarot. Accessed 6 January 2021.