78 Notes to Self: A Tarot Journal

Classic Tarot by Carlo DellaRocca Published by Lo Scarabeo 2000

The Star is always trotted out as one of the most wonderful cards, always.  Then why, when I see it, doesn't it make me happy?  I've said before it could be that I'm more geared toward immediate gratification so when I see the Star it tells me I'm on the right track but it's going to be a good while before I reach my goal and that just frustrates me.  It's always good to see the Star coming up for what a romantic partner thinks of you, but that too kind of irritates because inevitably the ones who always think the Star of you are the ones who also keep you at a distance.  Like you're up on some lofty pedestal or something.  Since readings have been sparse lately -- cue shameless promotional plug: it would be a great time to schedule a tarot reading with me now because there will be little to no wait -- I've had some time to poke around and research this card that seems oh so great but always bothers me.  I think I've uncovered something more than a naked lady playing with water.


The generic description of the card features "a goddess"...wait, which goddess?  And do they call her a goddess because she is both beautiful and naked or because she represents a particular goddess myth?  Choosing to go with the latter, I researched goddesses associated with either stars or water.  I found Inanna, Sumerian goddess of rebirth.  Hold up.  Rebirth?  Wouldn't that be better associated with Judgement?  Maybe, but there's a lot more.  Others have seen the similarities to Inanna and the tarot Star card, too, and what they are seeing is more than rebirth but alignment with a myth that is only a part, but an important part, of Inanna's legend.  Typically, images of Inanna show her either richly dressed or naked.  In the story, "Inanna's Descent to the Underworld," which is most useful for the Star imagery, she is stripped of her clothing.  Also, for a time during that journey, nature "dies" with Inanna and nothing would grow.  It was only when she returned to earth that things began blooming and growing again, hence her fertility goddess role and the watering of the earth.  Also, her symbol all over Mesopotamia is the 8-pointed star. 

Maybe I should tell the story. Essentially,  Inanna needed to visit her sister Ereshkigal who rules the Underworld. She heard her sister's baneful moaning and felt compelled to see her.  Any trek to the Underworld risks death, so she garbed herself accordingly: with her crown on her head, lapis lazuli around her neck, a golden bracelet, and a royal robe on her body and a breastplate.  She also took a lapis measuring rod and line.  When she was announced at the gate, her sister became more agitated and only allowed each of the gates to be opened a crack and Inanna had to remove her garments and ornaments in order to squeeze through each one.  She arrived at her destination naked and vulnerable.  The judges of the Underworld ruled against her and her sister killed her.  She became a rotting corpse and was hung from a hook on the wall.

Her companion outside the gates waited three days and then went seeking help from various Gods and finally Enki,God of Wisdom and Water who had originally blessed Inanna prior to her descent, came to his aid. He created two creatures and gave them the food and water of life to take to Inanna.  They snuck into the Underworld and found Ereshkigal in a very distressed state, moaning and crying.  Whatever agony she named, they would speak it back to her.  Finally she stopped and blessed the creatures and promised to give them whatever they asked.  They asked for Inanna's corpse, of course. As part of the deal of reviving her, though, she had to choose another person to go in her place.  She ended up choosing her husband because while she was gone, he had gone about his life as if nothing had happened.  Though she loved him very much it was clear he didn't love her the same.

Carl Jung, pioneer psychoanalyst who worked extensively with archetypes and myth in his practice and writings wrote some commentary on the Inanna's Descent myth.  I found this commentary to be so very enlightening with respect to the Star imagery.  The commentary focuses on the Inanna story as it illustrates a journey of deep depression.  His commentary, even more than the myth itself, speaks to why this card doesn't always feel so "happy" or "good."  It represents the afterwards, the time following a very rigorous examination of one's shadow self, a time of deep darkness and depression.   It's as if there is a pause between the Tower and the Star, a time spent in the Underworld groaning, moaning, and dying, a time of utter hopelessness.  We don't see this in tarot as it happens in the nether realms, but it is important to understand the cause of the hope the Star implies.  The article states: "The solution to depression lies not in great intellectual power, nor in great emotional power. It comes from Wisdom, which encompasses all of the psychological functions."  Ah! The missing virtue in tarot! Prudence!  The hope she has comes from Wisdom, and from knowing that whatever depths she has visited can be overcome with Wisdom.  She has also discarded her former garments for she has learned their value is little compared to the experience of facing her shadow self and integrating it into her being and becoming whole.

Being a veteran of my own treks to the Underworld, I know intimately the cost of depression. Upon my return, I was not happy-go-lucky but I did acquire hope.  In the depths, I could not see what there was to look towards.  In my ascent, I had hope that things would get better, I would get better.  The Star is that time, when you have integrated something rather dark, tragic, painful and costly into your being and, surviving that after having already survived the Tower experience that preceded it, your skin still raw and wet from rebirth, your psyche still wounded and painful to the touch, you spend some time tending to that which you could not when you were "away."  Inanna's earth would not grow, so she is watering it to revive its life.  The water would not flow, so she is pouring her tears into the stream.  It is a time of reclamation, without which we could not move on.   You may have to cut ties with people who, as you found out when you were gone, didn't really give a crap about you, like Inanna's husband.  You start the process of pruning the overgrowth.  This isn't an easy time, but it is a hopeful time.  It's a time when others may expect you to be back to "your old self."  How do you tell them your old self has died, never to return?  Besides, it will be a while before the process of reclamation is done, before you get where you're appointed to go. But it will never be as it was before.  You are changed. Your direction will likely change.  This is a card of work and healing and growth and yes, rebirth.

Now I understand why it unsettles me so.  I know this work. There is a reason stars only shine at night and why the Moon follows this one in tarot progression.  It's like that poem by Robert Frost, "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening."

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there's some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

I've always wanted to see a ghost.  I don't know what I would do if I actually saw one, but since I was young I have been fascinated with the idea of actually seeing, with my own eyes, an apparition of a spirit entity.  My friends who have seen such things assure me it's not all it's cracked up to be and it would scare the living crap out of me.  I expect they are correct.  So maybe it's a good thing that I don't "see dead people" on the regular.  However, I have had a few odd experiences that I cannot explain.  I thought I would use tarot to shed some light on these strange experiences.

I have a shadow cat.  I have had this "companion" for a long time and cannot remember when I first began noticing its presence.  All I know is that it tends to simply be in my home, wherever my home may be, and its appearance is incredibly random.  I never told anyone about the "cat" because I value being seen as a sane individual and partly figured it might be a figment of my imagination anyway.  This "cat" will move about my home, under furniture, around corners, and rub against me.  I will usually only see it out of the corner of my eye as it walks behind the sofa, under the table, or around the corner into the next room.  I feel very comforted when I see it, it makes me smile both inside and out, like a real cat companion would.  I do not know its gender, if it has one, nor its name.  I see it as a black cat, but that could be because it is shadowy.  I didn't mention any of this to my boyfriend, Mike, when we moved in together.  Why would I?  I mean, it's all in my mind, right?  That is, until he spoke up one night and said,  "I saw a cat in the apartment today."  I stared at him.
 "We don't have a cat," I said, stating the obvious.
"I know, silly.  It wasn't a cat, really, but I saw a cat kind of slink under that table over there and into our bedroom.  It was weird."
"Oh.  That's my cat." I tried to sound nonchalant.
"And you were planning to tell me about this when?" he eyed me.
"Never.  But now that you've seen it." I shrugged.  I was acting quite cool about it but in reality I was amazed that someone else had seen my cat.  Mike is very empathic, but I didn't think he'd actually see my cat.  Now I'm not so embarrassed about it because his seeing it validates that I am not imagining it.
I was talking about my cat to a friend while my daughter was in the room.  She had never heard me talk about it before, and her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open.  I thought she was thinking her mom had gone mad.
"What?" I asked.
"Well, you never told me that before," she said.
"I don't parade my insanity before my children," I laughed.
"Well, because one night I was semi-sleeping and I felt a cat jump on my bed.  I thought it was Cinnamon (our real cat), but when I reached out to pet him, there was nothing there."
"Really? Wow.  Ok, yeah, that was probably my cat. I wish you had told me because it wasn't until Mike told me he saw it that I realized it wasn't all in my head."

I really wish I knew why this cat has hung around me for so long and if there is a particular spiritual significance other than companionship for its presence.  Some have told me it is my "familiar" but I'm not into witchcraft or anything like that.  Is there any reason a non-witch would have a familiar?  And I have no control over when it shows up.  It's not like I can call it and it appears.  It shows up very randomly of its own accord.

I asked tarot to tell me about the cat:

The 6 of Swords is a transitional card having to do with moving and traveling, but because it is of the Swords suit, we focus more on the state of mind which prompts the progression from moving from a rather unhealthy state to a more peaceful frame of mind.  Two elements are featured prominently in this card: air and water.  The wooden boat suggests earth as well, though it is designed to float on the emotional water.  The implication here is that it is a time when one can evaluate one's thought process and one's emotions without being engulfed by the attending emotions, safe and grounded in an earthen vessel.  The ferryman is a guide to this process.  So could the cat be a manifestation of a guide that assists in my life transitions? 

I love that the Strength kitty showed up.  It's definitely feline. Offering a kind of peaceful strength in times when its needed. It may also suggest that the unassuming kitty may be a lot more powerful than I think.  The Moon may suggest I'm crazy and seeing illusions and imagining things, which I thought was true, but since both my partner and my daughter have validated my sightings, I'm more inclined to think the Moon is pointing to the spiritual feminine and the shapeshifting qualities of such an "animal."  There is an otherworldly aura to the Moon, a card of spiritual and subconscious depth and intuition.  The light of the moon is a shadowy guide through the night, so again it feels like it's saying the cat is an intuitive guide. 

Another weird and very disturbing sighting of something I have no name or explanation for happened randomly one evening when Mike and I were driving to a friend's home across town.  It was dusk, but we didn't need the headlights on just yet.  Our friends lived in an apartment complex behind a large cemetery, so Mike, who was driving, took a shortcut on the road that runs through the cemetery.  He was driving slowly as one does in a cemetery, like 15 mph or something.  I was gazing out the passenger side window at the headstones and saw a..."creature" walking between the graves and down a slight hill.  It looked odd so I sat up straight and looked closer.  It was as large as a Great Dane but its hind end was higher than its front, much as a human might be postured if down on hands and feet, but its gait was smooth and comfortable as opposed to a human trying to awkwardly travel that way.  It was covered in gray, shaggy, medium length fur.  It's muzzle was elongated, and its head quite large.  This was no dog or wolf nor was it a deer, as some have suggested.  It did not appear to notice us and it casually walked on in the opposite direction that we were driving.  "What was THAT!" I exclaimed and looked over at Mike.  When I looked back at the creature it had disappeared.   Mike didn't see it but he saw the look on my face and heard the slight panic in my voice.  He has no doubt that I saw something very unusual given my reaction.  I described what I saw in as much detail as I could, and I was seriously shaken.
"I wish you had seen it," I said.
"I didn't need to see it, I saw your face after you saw it," he answered.
 Upon arriving home that evening I tried to research what I might have seen.  The closest description is of a Black Dog or Barghest, but I am not sure. 

I drew three cards on my graveyard sighting and this is the result:


The Tower suggests the shock I felt and still feel at seeing the creature.  It was entirely unexpected, I wasn't on any sort of paranormal exploration nor did I remotely expect to encounter anything out of the ordinary.  Judgement is rather eerie here with the image of the graves and the formerly dead rising out of them.  Did I encounter an otherworldly or undead being?  The angel, too, suggests a spirit guardian of sorts and these types of mythical dogs have a reputation of being "guardians of the corpse-ways" and are, according to the stories, often sighted in cemeteries.  Angels are also messengers, but I don't know, even four years since, what message this sighting was supposed to have brought.  The 9 of Pentacles gives an assurance that all is well, however, no need to be frightened, I am safe and secure and well-grounded -- i.e., not crazy.

I'm glad tarot, at least, defends my sanity.

I'd love to hear others' views on these weird experiences.  Any insights?  Feel free to share your own strange experiences and any readings you've done on them. 

I sometimes wonder, when I read tarot for someone, do they feel annoyed because I always seem to hone in on the card in their reading that says, "While you may not have control over this, you do have control over that, therefore you should...." While many find that kind of advice helpful, there are others that just skip past that part and focus on the outcome or future prediction.  There's a reason I focus on the Advice card rather than the Outcome. The reason is Locus of Control.  Your locus of control may change the outcome.

I think many people choose to get a tarot reading because they are feeling some lack of control in some area of their lives and they want to look ahead and see what's coming around the bend.  There are many things that happen to us that are outside our immediate control and they can be worrisome.  But there are things that only seem as if they are outside our control that can be brought into our control if we adjust our thinking and then our actions.  At minimum, even if we cannot control the situation itself, we can control our own responses to it. 

If one has a strong external locus of control, they believe much that happens in life is chance, luck, or misfortune.  A strong internal locus of control is more self-determinate and believes that you pretty much get what you give and act upon.  Most of us fall more toward one end or the other of the spectrum, but few are die hard extremes.  This article by John A. Johnson, Ph.D., Life as Poker illustrates well the middle road locus of control and how we try to mitigate the uncomfortable feelings that come with a lack of control over significant things in our lives.  Believing in reincarnation, for example, is one way people explain injustice, cruelty and poverty.  By positing that we choose our next incarnation for spiritual learning purposes helps us breathe a sigh of relief when we are faced with inexplicable human tragedy.  By theorizing that we attract everything we experience into our lives by our vibrations is also a conscious shift to fairly extreme internal locus of control.  It feels better to believe we are in control, in some way, of most if not all that happens to us.  In fact, scientific studies are revealing that when people feel less control, they are more inclined to superstitious thinking and behaviors.  Lack of control also contributes to stress and  there is more than enough evidence that stress contributes greatly to a lack of health and well being. 

These studies support what I have thought all along: that a sense of lack of control predisposes a person to believe in tarot as a vehicle for fortune-telling.  That belief is neither right or wrong, but it, along with feeling more of an external locus of control in the given situation, is often what will compel a person to get a reading.  Given that a stronger internal locus of control contributes to a better outlook on life and less stress, finding that card in the reading that can shift that locus of control more to the internal side of the scale is often a crucial key in changing a situation's outcome. 

But locus of control is only one factor.  Another is self-efficacy.  A person who is looking to quit smoking, for example, may fully believe and understand that smoking cigarettes is completely within their own control, but not believe they are capable of following through on cessation.  Knowing something is within your control but not believing you can do what is required to make something happen is less about thinking fate or chance has the power but that you lack the power, so resignation and/or acceptance of something you wish you could change but can't sets in.  Which is why even when that Advice card is really helpful, we don't always follow it and the outcome happens anyway. This lack of self-efficacy can also impact us in situations that truly are outside our control as well.  Using the poker analogy, one may likewise feel a lack of confidence in one's abilities to play the cards "right" or in such a way that will yield success.


Here's an opportunity to dig a little deeper.  So if the cards show a recommended course of action that you know would be helpful but you really don't feel inspired to follow, throw some additional cards seeking how to get to that place.  Locate the block and the wedge that will split that block wide open.  Maybe there is some inspiration to be found.  What do the cards have to say about that?  Where is the resistance inside and why is it there?  In pop star Rihanna and rapper Eminem's new single, Love the Way You Lie, Part II, the lyrics reveal there is more to an abusive relationship than one may see, there may be addiction, love, stubbornness, and attraction from both sides.  When someone knows that change is needed but is unwilling to act to make the change happen, more is going on under the surface than simple good advice can fix.  The Advice card, therefore, can be a stepping stone rather than a resolution.  It can act as catalyst to find the answers inside of you that will bring you to a deeper understanding of the choices you made and continue to make that, along with the choices others make (outside of your control) conspire to create this situation at hand.  You may find, for example, that you really don't enjoy playing poker and don't want to learn the best way to manage your hand.  You decide (a decision is in your control) you'd rather just allow others to continue to control your life's circumstances so you can conveniently blame others for your misfortune, even though you're a really good person and don't deserve all this mess.  Good luck just wasn't "in the cards" for you.  I honestly don't know anyone for whom that sounds appealing.

I think most of us fall somewhere in the middle.  We acknowledge there are external forces outside our control that impact and influence our lives, sometimes for good, sometimes not.  While there may be nothing we can do about those events, we can proactively choose the perspective with which we view the events as well as our active responses to them.  While we may not be able to control how we feel about an event, we can express our feelings in productive ways that strengthen rather than weaken us.  So even in the midst of feeling a lack of control, there are ways to take control of some aspect of yourself or the situation so that you gain a better foothold on the path you're on.  Most of us know we actually are in control of a lot more than we give ourselves credit for.  Following the path of least resistance often leads us to just coast along without direction, even though we know we could change course if we wanted.  For example, if I am unhappy at my job but continue to go to work every day, month after month, year after year, without actively putting out resumes and queries into other work, because the effort to look for another job seems like too much on top of the effort I'm already expending at the job I hate, I am acknowledging that I could change my situation but I'm not willing. If I complain that I am too fat to fit into my clothes but refuse to either exercise or buy new clothes, I am simply going to be unhappy with myself and my clothing.  Why we do this to ourselves for extended periods of time, I don't know.  I've done it.  We all do it from time to time.  Then one day we get an Ace of Wands up our butts and do something different and actually make a change.  If I could bottle Ace of Wands energy and sell it, I'd be a millionaire.

The whole purpose of my tarot reading is to help one increase their internal locus of control.  Come to a reading feeling a lack of control, leave the reading feeling you've gained some control or at least a perspective or plan on how to gain more.  Some may say I'm working myself out of a job, for if only people who feel a lack of control seek out a reading, then helping people empower themselves by shifting to an internal locus of control is counterproductive to my earning a living reading tarot.  Not so.  Tarot's usefulness extends beyond this.  Knowing one has control but not being sure which choice to make often leads people to a tarot reading.  The desire to identify internal blocks and the best means to break them also prompts tarot readings.  Sometimes the reading itself serves as Ace of Wands in a can and prompts someone to act on their own behalf.  But my aim is always to push a bit further into that internal place where one's own Ace of Wands need igniting and provide the match.

Gilded Tarot by Ciro Marchetti Llewellyn 2004

Earlier this week, artist Ciro Marchetti revealed on Facebook his reworked Devil card for his new project, The Gilded Tarot Royale.  (The old version is above, the new version can be seen in his FB photos) This card has long been one of my favorite expressions of Trump XV for obvious sexy reasons, but also because it clearly illustrates why temptation is, well, tempting! In so many deck renditions the Devil is shown as a revolting creature that could not tempt a flea to a dog.  The traditional grotesque symbolism is supposed to imply that we don't realize the ugliness until we're neck-deep in it, and I get that, but I think Ciro's version communicates the seduction aspect very blatantly. It also shows the not-so-bad side of the Devil without neglecting its potentially disastrous side.  Some decks use Pan or other horned gods like Cernunnos to stand in for The Devil because pagan tradition doesn't demonize this energy and is more accepting of its usefulness.  That's healthy, yes, but sometimes the images stray a bit too far into All-Is-Well-Land and diminish the stern warning the card is meant to convey.  Ciro's Devil is yummy, and it appears he's been working out since we last saw him,  but he is also blinded by his own self-interests.  He is choosing not to see.  The pentacle behind him is upright, symbolizing the healthy aspect of the Lord of the Material World, but the pentacle on the horned helmet is upside down, suggesting an unhealthy obsession with sensuality and hedonism.  This card's imagery is much easier to personally identify with also.  One can easily switch perspectives from being the Tempter to the Tempted and back again.   You can be the guy in the card or you can feel the temptation from him, and that helps a lot when trying to figure out its specific message for you.  It's much more difficult to identify with this:

Tarot of Durer By Giacinto Gaudenzi  Lo Scarabeo

Can we easily slip into that beast? Or can we better imagine ourselves as the hot guy in the helmet?  Not only that, but the message of the Devil isn't always evil as the pagan themed decks well know.  It is often advising a healthy measure of self-care and attention to one's sensual needs, which, if neglected, can grow into devils themselves.

The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful"

– Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray 1891

The thoughtful and wise part of me knows that what Wilde is saying here is absolutely true, but there are many caveats, exceptions and asterisked footnoting going on in my brain.  Certainly many could take this as carte blanche  and defend rampant selfishness and reckless douchebaggery, weak argument though that may be.  If I am tempted towards harming someone, my soul would grow exponentially more ill if I gave into that temptation.  So let's just rule out giving into any temptations involving robbing, maiming, abusing, or killing anyone, m'kay?  In the original context, Wilde is talking about how society sets up a code of "morality" that forces a great number of people to live deceptive lives in which they pretend to abide by the code but instead are secretly breaking it.  Living a lie is very stressful and the ripple effect is detrimental to not only one's own psychological health in terms of unnecessary guilt and self-recrimination,  but it also affects the health of society as a whole with far-reaching repercussions of pent-up frustrations spilling over into violence, overindulgence in response to forbidden temptations, lost jobs, broken families,  and just a whole lot of hurt all around.   Wilde was a successful poet and playwright enjoying high society life in Victorian Britain when he was accused by his male lover's father of "posing as a sodomite."  He sued the accuser for slander and lost.  A guilty verdict on the charge of sodomy at that time meant life imprisonment and a lesser "gross indecency" conviction garnered a two-year hard labor sentence.  He received the latter judgement and his career went down in ruin.  Ironically, had he not sued his accuser, probably nothing would have happened.  By attempting to deny an accusation Wilde knew to be true, he brought about his own professional demise. Prison humiliated and humbled Wilde and caused him to reflect on his former indulgent lifestyle: 
If we take both quotes together we get the most nuanced meaning for tarot's great tempter.  Whereas the first quotation is true, the second is also true and a warning that we must use the first with care and wise judgment.  While he still maintained the social laws were unjust and unhealthy, Wilde also recognized that if we indulge our temptations without thought to the effects on ourselves and others, we risk losing our personal freedom.  And there we have it: XV The Devil whose message would best be compared to Polonius' advice to his son in Shakespeare's Hamlet: "To thine own self be true."  Polonius was not advocating reckless pursuit of sensual indulgence, as that would have been harmful to his son and disloyal to his son's self.  Instead, he was telling him that he must first take care of himself so that he could be in the position to take care of others.  Just like the flight attendants tell us to please make sure to secure your own mask before assisting others, if we neglect our own selves and souls, we can be of no service to the ones we hope to help.

The balance is a delicate one, sure.  How do we know when we are crossing the line from healthy self-care to selfish harm?  Wilde's observation holds a tremendous clue: when you risk losing your  freedom, when the thing desired or the desire itself begins to control you instead of the other way around.  But sometimes yielding is exactly what we need to do because the temptation itself has become the problem and doing what we want to do, consequences be damned, is the healthiest choice.  If one's fight against temptation has resulted in living a lie, that lie itself is the Devil's bondage.  Ciro's Devil must remove the helmet to see and so must we when dealing with temptation.  If we refuse to examine the ripple effect of our yielding to this tempting thing, we cannot know if it will be harmful or not, nor will we care.  When temptation arises, the Devil card gives the best advice because it prompts us to examine our motivations and ultimately urges us to choose wisely for our soul's best interest.

What exactly is this magical, ineffable thing we call "intuition?"  For the last several years intuition research has proven and dis-proven its own theories like a tennis match.  I'm glad it is being studied  even if no hard and fast conclusions have been made.  A dictionary definition of intuition states: "direct perception of truth, fact, etc., independent of any reasoning process; immediate apprehension."  Intuition exists, of that there is no doubt.  Just ask any seasoned doctor or business person.  If a person works in a field or endeavor long enough, they will undoubtedly experience times when they just "know" the answer and it usually happens when they feel pressured to make a snap judgement.  There's no time to rationally process and think through the situation, they suddenly blurt out the right answer or choose the correct action based only on a "gut feeling."  Science wants to get to the root of this phenomenon.

Professor Gerard Hodgkinson of the Centre for Organisational Strategy, Learning and Change at Leeds University Business School led a study team on intuitive research and they concluded:

"Through analysis of a wide range of research papers examining the phenomenon, the researchers conclude that intuition is the brain drawing on past experiences and external cues to make a decision – but one that happens so fast the reaction is at a non-conscious level. All we’re aware of is a general feeling that something is right or wrong." (University of Leeds. "Go With Your Gut -- Intuition Is More Than Just A Hunch, Says New Research." ScienceDaily, 6 Mar. 2008. Web. 13 Jun. 2011.)

 In the article, Professor Hodgkinson cited the recorded case of a Formula One driver who braked sharply when nearing a hairpin bend without knowing why – and as a result avoided hitting a pile-up of cars on the track ahead, undoubtedly saving his life.

“The driver couldn’t explain why he felt he should stop, but the urge was much stronger than his desire to win the race,” explains Professor Hodgkinson. “The driver underwent forensic analysis by psychologists afterwards, where he was shown a video to mentally relive the event. In hindsight he realised that the crowd, which would have normally been cheering him on, wasn’t looking at him coming up to the bend but was looking the other way in a static, frozen way. That was the cue. He didn’t consciously process this, but he knew something was wrong and stopped in time.”

Neuroscientists discovered a few years ago that the human brain has both conscious and unconscious systems for receiving and analyzing sensory impressions. The unconscious takes the sensory impressions and compares them with previous experiential sensory data. Our brains remember much that we don't realize we captured.  Along with that data, we also remember if the experience was positive or negative.  When presented with a new experience, our brains swiftly and unconsciously assess the situation at hand and predict the outcome. Memories are stored, however, only if they matter to us, if we are somehow committed to the experience in some way.  Also, the more variations we have of a similar experience, the more varied the data is stored in the unconscious which is accessed to compare to present situations.  Therefore, the longer someone has worked in an area of expertise the more accurate these assessments tend to be.


When my daughter was nine, a routine cold turned into something unknown and quite serious when she complained that her neck hurt.  We suspected meningitis, but a long visit to the Emergency Room and a spinal tap ruled that out.  Her condition worsened dramatically over the next 48 hours and I took her to her doctor's office very concerned that this wasn't just a "cold in the neck" as the ER docs had said.  Her physician shared an office with my boys' pediatrician.  Dr. Aaronson was an older doctor and though very respected in the area, some people dismiss the older professionals as outdated or not up on the latest medical techniques.  He saw all three of my boys and I grew to trust his instincts as he seemed to make the right decisions for my kids time and time again.  My daughter's doctor was not in the office that day so she was seen by a very competent nurse practitioner. A thorough exam showed nothing new, but to be sure she had covered all her bases, the LNP consulted with Dr. Aaronson before sending us home.  Without even examining the child himself, Dr. Aaronson directed us to head back to the hospital and insist on an X-Ray of her neck.  After much waiting and a minor outburst by me to the negligent ER staff, my daughter's neck X-rays revealed a very swollen and infected lymph node in the back of her neck that was threatening to impede her air passage.   Dr. Aaronson's intuition was spot on.  The Ear, Nose, and Throat specialist said this sort of thing was very rare and in all his years working at children's hospitals, he had only seen a few cases.  How did Dr. Aaronson know?  Experience.  His unconscious had stored away all the details of all the years of seeing sick children and came up with the right answer for Tori that none of the younger, more sophisticated and newly minted doctors and health professionals could.

Brain research on intuition tends to focus on practical applications of the findings.  They are not too concerned with making sure tarot readers give good card readings.  They are more focused on finding out how we process information, how we learn best, how we make decisions, etc.  However, it stands to reason that the longer we have been doing something the storehouse of images and sensory input grows.  There is value in a tarot reader's experience.  What also makes sense is how the brain remembers an event, whether it turned out well or not.  We remember our good readings and our bad ones, so we tend to unconsciously choose from the outcomes that were good and use that data for the reading at hand.  Therefore, we tend to rely more and more on our intuitive judgements because when we used them before, they worked.  We didn't know how they worked, we only knew they did.  We are left only with a physical sensation or simply a general "knowing" that something is right or wrong.

However, intuitive decision making isn't necessarily better or more keen than conscious decision making.  In fact, scientists haven't found any qualitative difference between them.  Sometimes intuition is wrong and sometimes we make the wrong conscious decision, too.  What's really cool about intuitive process is it happens so quickly and behind-the-scenes that it can seem otherworldly.  The times intuitive thinking is most valuable is in those snap-decision moments when we just don't have time to deliberate.  Tarot reading is like that.  You have the querant waiting expectantly on the other side of the table, the cards are staring you in the face, you have to say something soon.  Of course your conscious mind is at work, sorting through what you know about the cards, what you have learned and retain consciously.  But your unconscious mind is also really busy sifting through the past readings you've done, too.  It's also rifling through your own personal experiences that the imagery evokes in you.  It does this in literally seconds.  Seven seconds before you consciously know what your decision is, your brain has already predicted it.  By the time it comes out of your mouth, your unconscious has already patted itself on the back smugly, "I knew she'd say that." 


So if you want to be a better tarot reader, read more tarot.  But also, and maybe more importantly, live a life full of experiences and meaning.  Feed your unconscious storehouse with sensory rich data.  Hone your skills, keep doing what you love to do, gain experience in your endeavors.   Lars-Erik Björklund, author of a 2008 dissertation in education research from Linköping University in Sweden explained, "We need to see, feel, smell, hear, taste, and experience with our senses. This collection of data can’t be replaced by studying course literature,” he writes. “Experience is under-evaluated today, and this is perhaps because we haven’t understood this type of tacit knowledge. Now we know, thanks to brain researchers.” ( Linköping University. "Intuition Can Be Explained." ScienceDaily, 2 Jul. 2008. Web. 13 Jun. 2011.) 


Also referenced:
Max-Planck-Gesellschaft. "Decision-making May Be Surprisingly Unconscious Activity." ScienceDaily, 15 Apr. 2008. Web. 13 Jun. 2011.

University of New South Wales. "Complex Decision? Don't Sleep On It." ScienceDaily, 11 Aug. 2008. Web. 13 Jun. 2011.

Both music  and tarot are such powerful communicators. Many times when I hear a song, I naturally associate certain tarot images with either the song itself or phrases within the song. To illustrate what I mean I created this video (with full credit to all the artists at the end of the clip):



Here's the link for those unable to watch the video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aHd8RaRQAg

I'm going to assume you've heard the Christian Rapture didn't happen on schedule, and if you haven't, a quick websearch will yield the info.  The source of the claim was Family Radio, ( as of this writing, the website is down) specifically its founder, Harold Camping, who insisted his [mis]calculations on Biblical prophesies  pinpointed May 21, 2011 as the day of the Rapture: the day when Jesus would come and supernaturally vacuum up all Christian believers and deposit them in heaven as a prelude to the end of the world.  All of the hubbub surrounding this non-event had me re-visiting places and theories and ideas that I hadn't for some time.  Bear with me while I process these thoughts.

As usual, most people were poking fun and mocking before May 21 and now a lot of people are angry at Camping.  That's what happens to prophets, false or real.  It doesn't matter what they say, until what they predict actually happens, every prophet gets treated in the same manner.  There is no justifiable reason to believe someone whose predictions have never come to pass and Camping has made this kind of prediction before. Though, in the days before May 21, underneath some of the playful mocking I felt and heard expressed an undercurrent of fear.  What if he's right?  Nah, it's all too ridiculous and based on very sketchy theology and bogus number crunching.  Those people are crazy.  But what if he's right?  Even a broken clock is right twice a day.  Pishaw, do you know how many doomsday predictions there have been?  Thousands! Maybe millions!  They've all been wrong. He's wrong, I tell you.  But it could happen.  Anything can happen.  Yes, and I could be turned into a toad by an evil witch because there are books that foretell that sort of thing happening.

What irked me most was not the prediction itself but the attitude of the prophet. As tarot readers, we understand predictions.  We're well aware that predictions are hit or miss, like the weather.  We know that probable outcomes are not a concrete certainty. In Camping's predictions there was no humility, no understanding that he could be wrong (a "tiny miniscule chance" that he could be wrong is all he would admit).  There was no acknowledgement that he is but a finite dude in human clothing that can't see with the eyes of the God he believes.  I've studied the Bible, Christian theology and history, as well as various non-canonical writings.  More importantly, I've spent time among evangelical, fundamentalist Christians.  I was a part of that world once and I know how Camping got his listeners to embrace his theories.  It was built, scripture verse by verse with years of indoctrination into a mindset and belief system that made it "rational" and "sensible" and entirely believable to many people.  If you're coming into it at this juncture, never having experienced what it is to be taught and to believe the foundational pieces to this colossal gaff, it all seems so unbelievably stupid.

First of all, the one thing that will get my defenses up is stereotyping of Christians, even though I've been known to do it myself in frustration.  I don't identify as a Christian anymore, so it's not personal knee-jerking. Stereotyping any group is pretty ignorant, but with Christians it completely misses the mark because of Christianity's inherent factionalism.  It's not enough to say, "Oh, I know some really decent Christians."  That's like saying, "I have some Black friends."  With very public misfires such as this recent non-Rapture it's quite easy and convenient to simply dismiss Camping and those who believed him as ignorant, gullible fanatics.  While those who took their belief to the road may reasonably qualify as "fanatics" I would not say they were gullible or ignorant.  Fanatics are simply people who got their Wands lit up and fanatics are quite often those who change the world.  Gullibility implies one is easily deceived or duped because of a lack of intelligence.  While these folks were deceived and duped, it wasn't easy and they aren't stupid.  They weren't even credulous, which implies being persuaded to believe something unlikely but unsupported by evidence.  Evidence is what apologists are all about.  For all the people who publicly proclaimed belief in the May 21 Rapture, there were many more who secretly believed but who felt sheepish about coming out about it.  Even more entertained it as a distinct possibility.  Why?  Because of the evidence, which is quite persuasive if you happen to believe certain foundational theories.

Most Christians don't really dig that deeply into the mind-y apologetic stuff, but a good many do.  Usually they are the really gifted and brilliant ones, ones whose minds need such provoking. You know, the Swords types of people.  There are lots more Cups people in Christianity.  Christianity can feel really good.  I remember feeling relief that, after all the uncertainty and questioning, I had finally been shown the answers to life's problems or at least the means to find them in the Bible.  It felt good to belong to a community that welcomed me and accepted me.  It felt good to sing and worship.  It was reassuring to know that voice I sometimes heard inside didn't qualify me as schizophrenic, that it was indeed God's Holy Spirit guiding me.  All these qualities and more filled the cups inside of me.  Fiery Wands folks are usually found in the Evangelical and Charismatic camps, but they're everywhere.  Passion and zeal for their spiritual beliefs prompt them to do some pretty wild things, but they also provide the inspiration for change and reaching out to others.  They'll let the Pentacles people tend to the homeless and hungry but they were the ones that got the program started. Me, I'm more a Swords type, and while it was my searching and curious mind that led me into Christianity, and despite the initial emotional satisfaction,  that same inquisitive mind led me out.  Out of the labels and boxes and debates and mind-numbing, hair-splitting, morally repugnant, contradictory, sometimes nonsensical theological web that is The Church.  It has taken years to unravel the knots, but  I took some really good stuff with me. 

The funny thing about The Church is that it doesn't really exist.  It never did.  Before it even got off the ground there were splinters and cells and branches and offshoots.  The writings of the apostles in the New Testament clearly show theological disagreements among them that resulted in marked divisions of factions.  While one group clearly became more popular and ended up codifying the body of writings we know today as The Holy Bible, the Reformation in the 1500's brought some brutal editing of that book.  Gnostic Christians have been contributing to the divisions since the early days as well, bringing into play the "other" Gospels such as Thomas, Judas, and Mary Magdalene's.  Over the last two thousand years a lot of energy in these groups has gone into proving each other wrong.  The varied sects of Christianity have continued to divide even more and there is now exponentially more arguing and debating over the minutiae of Scripture.  If one spends any time among Christian apologists, one should be prepared to give one's position in titles before you can begin the discussion.  Are you Reformed? Calvinist? Arminian? Are you Evangelical? Are you a Dispensationalist?  What about Pre-Trib or Post?  Forget that, are you a Preterist? A Universalist?  What's your stance on baptism, sprinkled or immersion?  Infant or age-of accountability?  What do you believe about the Gifts of the Holy Spirit?  Are they for today or did they cease after Pentecost?  Clearly this goes way beyond Catholic versus Protestant, Gnostic or Orthodox.  Each of these positions rely heavily on Biblical proof texting and are likewise each very persuasive to the intelligent mind.  However, they oppose one another.  One cannot be, for example, both Arminian and Calvinist as they negate each other, even though one might agree with concepts in both theories.


The entire construct of Camping's Rapture date was based on a "new earth" creationist theory which places the date of earth's creation at around 6,000 BCE plus or minus 2,000 years.  There are many problems with this, one of which is that the ancient civilization of Egypt began prior to the time assigned to the creation of man. Per the creationists, that's a technicality and those carbon daters have it all wrong because natural earth events, acts of God, like floods and volcanoes tend to speed up geological processes. Both creationists and evolutionists agree that evolution is impossible with a "young earth" perspective, which suits creationists just fine since they don't believe in evolution anyway.  In order to accept Camping's evidence, one would first have to believe Genesis happened literally.  While that may seem far-fetched to many, the Christian literal belief system is based on a belief in a God that can do anything.  Any Thing.  What other kind of god is worthy of worship and devotion?  So while the stories in the Bible may seem unbelievable, a literalist Christian will believe them because God is capable of doing unbelievable things.  In order to even begin to accept Camping's evidence, one would have to already accept as fact that God exists, is Omnipotent, and the creationist position of a "young earth."  Lots of Christians already believe those things.  It's heresy in many circles to not believe them.  Because there are no assigned dates in the early books of the Bible, the first known date is at the beginning of King Saul's reign over Israel in 1020 BCE which creationists then work backwards from to arrive at their year of earth's creation.  It is done through estimates of generations, the time of Judges, genealogies, etc.  They didn't just pull a date out of their underwear, but they do limit themselves to what is contained in the Bible, which they consider infallible and the only reliable source of truth.  Camping took on the arduous task of calculating these dates and ended up with May 21, 2011 and presented his work as evidence.  For someone who already accepts certain foundational arguments, the evidence is quite persuasive.  For everyone else, it's nonsense.  But it isn't ignorant, it's just...unlikely.

The evidence doesn't rely entirely on dates and calculations of creation.  Current events that appear to fulfill prophesy are also trotted out.  Scriptures that seem to predict present day earthquakes, wars, and the Internet, even though they were likely already fulfilled a long time ago, are given as evidence that the End Times are imminent or already here.  Here is where things get messy.  I remember the first time I read Revelation as a Christian.  It terrified me.  I couldn't understand how anyone could receive comfort from that book.  It's a horrifying roller-coaster ride of devastation and destruction.  So what that the Christians may be spared some of the harsher scenes, it's brutal.  It seemed to me that everything Jesus talked about in the Gospels was negated as he dishes out torment to his enemies.  In time, I was indoctrinated into reconciling the Jesus of the Gospels with the Jesus of Revelation, who, by the way, is a favored representation of some men who feel uncomfortable with the submissive wuss of the Gospels.  Everything is set to rights when Badass Revelation Jesus comes back with a sword,  kicking heathen and demon ass and taking names.  Redemption indeed.  I grew up during the Cold War era and the nuclear warning sirens still went off every Wednesday.  We believed the Russians could wipe us out at any time, and we them.  One could only hope one died in the initial atomic blast as the picture painted of a post-nuclear war world was hellish and miserable.  I imagined the Tribulation like that.  I could never fully reconcile the tenets of the Gospels to this last book of the Bible.  It's like the angry Zeus-like God (and his Pantheon) of the Old Testament makes an encore appearance, and after all is said and done, a glittering city appears for the believers and evil is vanquished, and we all live happily ever after, curtain closes, The End.  What?

In order to reconcile anything, including monkeys flying out of my butt, I had to believe God would and could do Any Thing.  I finally got to the place where I couldn't do that anymore.  I couldn't speak peace with God in one sentence and callously care less that "evildoers" were destined to burn in hell for eternity because they didn't jump on the Jesus Bus soon enough.  I never could accept that most of the human race were living walk-on parts in this drama but destined for hell because they aren't among God's elect.  I could no longer abide the contradictory logic that on the one hand told me all my sins, past, present, future, were forgiven, but God's arms wouldn't reach past a certain point if I decided to keep sinning.  Nor did it make any sense that if Jesus defeated Satan on the Cross and released the captive prisoners of the devil, then why were Christians warning about the devil duping me now?  Grace is amazing, but you better watch your step because God may decide to rescind it if He gets fed up with your sorry self.  The most honest Christians are the ones who see the inconsistencies in the interpretations and teachings and simply throw up their hands and say, "Look, we can't know for sure, but I believe because Jesus has spoken to my heart, and I've trusted God's voice inside of me.  That's all I know for sure.  Meanwhile, I know God loves us and I love God's creation, the people and the earth and life itself.  I'm just going to attempt to live that."  My Christian intellectual finds unearthed so many more questions than answers but  I'm content with unanswered questions now.  I feel no pressing need to reconcile what happens in life to any predetermined code or theology.  We're all in this together and any one of us could get it right or wrong at any given time.

 I sincerely hope this non-Rapture experience proves to be enlightening for some people, but Christians are a fairly stubborn lot.  That comes, in part, from having beliefs rooted in some good, solid evidence, or at least what appears to be evidence.  What many Christians fail to fully appreciate about their faith is that it isn't, or shouldn't be, based on evidence but is itself the evidence.  "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." (Hebrews 11:1)  Faith in what you believe is the outward manifestation of that belief.  You don't need numbers and dates and calamities and prophecy fulfillment to know God is real to you.  What more evidence does one need than that within your own heart and life?  If you're still seeking outward evidence, fine, but that's not faith.  And having a solid faith doesn't mean nothing catastrophic will happen to you, but a calm in the middle of the storm.  There really is no way to prepare for major disruption on earth.  No emergency kit will help when a 9 point something earthquake hits.  Only love for one another, people helping each other get through the day, helps anything. And isn't that what we're told Jesus gave as the one and only commandment that sums up all of the Law and the Prophets commentaries combined? "Love one another as I have loved you." (John 13:34 & 15:12)  Camping isn't the only one that needs to brush up on that.

And if to you all of this was simply another "look at the Christians being stupid again" event, carry on.  I won't defend indefensible acts.  I only felt obliged to say it really isn't ignorance or gullibility that is on display.  Just human fallibility dressed up like faith.  And the Fool, often a symbol for Jesus, always comes in to say the Emperor has no clothes.

Recently, a 78 Notes reader, Tabitha, commented to me that while she'd always identified with the Queen of Wands, astrologically/elementally speaking she might be more the Queen of Swords given that she is a Pisces sun with Gemini rising, due to the base water element of all Queens and her water sign of Pisces and the air element of her rising sign Gemini and Swords.  I found her comment really interesting because, though I am no astrologer and Tabitha and I may be straying off the charts (pun intended), it got me thinking about the various planetary elemental associations with the tarot court.  Maybe other tarot readers have already discovered this and written about it, I don't know, so I apologize if I am reinventing someone else's wheel.   As far as tarot and astrology goes, my interaction with the combination is fairly limited, though I always love to hear how others work with them together. 

If you do not know the planetary alignments of your date, time, and place of birth, you can access one of these useful charts for free at various websites such as AstroDienst.  That site also has a clickable chart with valuable information about what each planet in a chart means and specific descriptions regarding the placements of your particular planets.  Useful for we astrology novices who really can't remember what Pluto does for you.

To associate your sun sign with a court card, your sun sign element and your rising sign would give you the two elements for that association.  For example, my sun is in Libra and my rising is Aries.  Libra is an air sign and Aries is a fire sign.  Air is the base element for all tarot kings and wands is the suit of fire, so my Sun/Rising tarot card would be King of Wands.   This may be challenging to identify with because we naturally gravitate toward our own gendered court card, women identifying with Queens and men with Kings, so this moves a lot of us out of that predetermined box.  The gender and ages of the courts aren't supposed to be taken literally anyway.

Spring boarding off of Tabitha's musings, I wondered if I could do this with other planets, such as Mercury, which rules the way we communicate.  I am Mercury in Libra so that is air/air.  Therefore my Mercury tarot court card would be King of Swords which gives me clues about how my mind works and how I communicate with others.  Venus in Scorpio would yield a King of Cups or a Queen of Swords modality in love and relationships with its air/water combination.  My moon is in Taurus, so my basic emotional level would be King of Pentacles and/or Page of Swords with its air/earth combination.

I thought to combine the planetary element with the sign element rather than the Sun sign element, but there isn't anything close to a consensus on which element is associated with each planet.  For example, although Mercury rules communication, it isn't necessarily an "air planet."  It rules two signs, Gemini, which is an air sign and Virgo, an earth sign. Here is where I usually get frustrated with overlaying any other system on top of tarot because they  don't neatly fit without bending and compromising one system or the other.  While the associations are interesting and give much food for thought and introspection, I would not grasp them too tightly or identify too strongly.  If the shoe doesn't fit, don't wear it.   Remember, we are just experimenting here.

Next step -- associating your planetary court cards within the twelve astrological houses.  Once you have your planetary court card associations, you can them use them within your chart to see how those qualities interact with the houses.  Using one's astrological chart, lay out the designated court cards (you would need more than one tarot deck because court cards will likely be repeated throughout your chart) where they appear on the different houses and determine how these court cards would behave and interact within those placements.  For more info on the meanings of the houses, you can simply web search "meanings of the houses" and find a wealth of sites that explain them.  For example, my Venus is not only in Scorpio but also in the 8th House which is the house of death, rebirth, and others resources.  That house shows how I deal with separation and loss, how I renew and rebuild, and how I deal with legacies, inheritance, taxes, loans, etc.  Therefore, using a King of Cups as my Sun/Venus card in the 8th House, that can show me, based on what I know to be the King of Cups qualities, how I tend to deal with those issues.

Whether these associations work out to be accurate portrayals is really up to the individual to decide.  But I think because we hold within ourselves all the qualities of all the court cards in varying measure, it may be truly enlightening.  Keep in mind also that no one planet, house, or court card is a summation of your entire person, that each placement or association merely describes a piece of your own personal puzzle.  While some of the results may be totally on target, others may leave you scratching your head.  In the end, what can we do with this information?  Just as I do not believe tarot determines your fate, neither does astrology nor any combination thereof.  While we may have specific tendencies inherent in our personalities, they only limit us as much as we allow them to.  The revealing of these tendencies is valuable information because once we know what we're working with, our strengths and weaknesses, we can use them to our advantage in a conscious manner.

Rarely in life is anything very simple.  We live in complex societies in which our lives take on many roles, activities and interests.  We, ourselves, are multidimensional having physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual components.  We live and move among people who are just as complex and and living equally multifaceted lives.  It's a huge, multi-layered web of interconnectedness.  For such beings living in this kind of world,  tarot cards wouldn't be very helpful if they each had just one static meaning or application.  It might make reading tarot a whole lot easier, but not very useful.  It would be like sending an "e-gift" of a picture of a delicious dinner to a hungry person.  Nice sentiment, but the belly is still growling.

One of the first things a tarot reader discovers is that each card has many meanings.   This presents a challenge for novice and seasoned  readers alike.  To determine when a card means this or that, and to figure out which of the many interpretations apply, most readers and teachers will advise, "Intuition.  Use your intuition."  But what if I don't have intuition?  Don't be silly, we all have intuition, we just need to tap into it.  Ok, so how do I do that?  Listen to your gut.  My gut says it wants a cookie but I don't think that's what the card is saying.  Sometimes the predominant meaning shines forth in glorious clarity while all the other meanings fade into the background.  Most of the time, though, it takes some consideration.

What has helped me is to recognize that one card may be addressing several aspects of a person's life and be giving advice on more than just one area.  For example, a court card that can be representative of another person or aspects of the querant's personality, or a more literal thing such as a message or travel.  Consider that it may be addressing all of those potential areas.  You don't always have to choose between them.  Even when the reading is primarily focusing on a person's career, for instance, the card in question may be speaking about their romantic partner.  We don't live our lives in separate designated vacuums,  our jobs affect our personal lives and vice versa.  The court card could be advising a certain approach for that situation at work but it may also be showing that the person you went on that date with last week is going to call.  Not having to choose between those meanings is wonderfully freeing.  If you see several meanings in one card, then say so.  You're not being a wishy-washy reader, you are seeing the multiple layers and dimensions of the card and the intersections of those meanings in your querant's life.  If the reading is specific to a topic, you don't want to stray too far afield from it, of course.  By all means keep the positional subject in mind, too.  It has to make logical sense to the spread positions and original question.  However, if the reading is a general one with few topical boundaries, one should be open to many layers and possibilities.


I'm not recommending listing all the possible meanings of the Sun card for your querant and letting them choose which one applies to their situation.  They could open a book and get that for themselves.  I'm saying tell them the Chariot shows they are determined to get this thing accomplished in the most efficient way possible, but also mention there may be some travel coming up not necessarily directly related to that issue.  For all you know this person may experience a family emergency and will need to take a quick unexpected trip which, naturally, affects both their home and work life.  The cards may not show the emergency but only the travel.  Say what you see, even if you think it doesn't make sense.  That's where intuition comes into play.  Your intuition is still picking and choosing among the available meanings, but you are not limiting yourself to just one choice.

Our lives are anything but linear.  We may track time in a linear fashion but that's somewhat misleading.  We're always multitasking, carrying on many thought-streams at once, and often physically doing several things at once, too.  As I am writing this, for example, I am thinking of an errand I need to run at a specific time today.  I am also drinking coffee and smoking a cigarette.   I'm wondering if I have time to go out for a walk.  My ankle itches, so I scratch it.  I'm recalling various readings where the cards spoke to more than one area of the querant's life. I talk to one of my kids.  Even in this moment I am living in several dimensions.  In order for tarot to be truly helpful to we who live this kind of existence rife with a complexity we take for granted and most of the time don't even notice,  it must be capable of addressing all of these aspects simultaneously, too.

I would love to own a Kindle. So for all the Kindle users, I have made 78 Notes To Self available for download.



Enjoy!