I was reading for a client recently about how to deal with an institution. It was a reading all about advocating for their own rights in the face of being processed and not having their story heard. I am sure we have all run up against the machine of bureaucracy when trying to sort out problems with big companies. I get really frustrated when the person on the other end of the line says, “The computer won’t let me do that.” It may be true, but it sure doesn’t make me happy to hear it.

On to the Monkey business in this story…

The Magician appeared in this reading to talk about actions to be taken to get the best results. If you look at the Magician in the Thoth deck you will find a monkey hanging out with him. You might have to look close in some variations as he is sneaking around in the background. Crowley, in the book for this deck, says of the ape that this little fella’s job is to distort the word of God. The Magician speaks the word of God and his primate cousin distorts it so that the truth is hidden. The whole business is like playing broken telephone.

I don’t often find myself stuck on a card these days. I ran through the common meanings that often surface with this card – exerting your will, balancing inside yourself, using truth and illusion to achieve your results, or the persons power to manifest things. BUT… the Monkey just kept staring at me. Perhaps its because Monkeys stole my lunch once but I just started to get a bad feeling about it. I tried to think it out to no avail, so finally I asked him straight out. The conversation went something like this:

“Okay Monkey Man is the client not being clear in their communication?”
“Oook, ook”
“Two ‘ooks’ for yes, one for no?” I asked.
“Ooo aaaahhhh”
“Okay I am on the wrong track, are their emotions getting in the way?”
“Haaa haaa”
Starting to feel a bit silly for talking to a picture of a Monkey I thought “Okay you are being too heady about all this.”
Out loud I asked politely “What do you have to say in this reading Mr. Cynocephalus Ape?”
In a charming voice the answer came “You are not hearing what I have to say, because they are not hearing what she has to say.”

So there it was, the institution was distorting the communication between my client and their service provider. This was something I knew about dealing with, and luckily, the card itself conveyed the solution. The magician is the master of truth and illusion, and as such, knows when he is not being understood. By accepting the reality of the broken telephone, the client could focus on checking the feedback loop to ensure accurate communication. It’s a perfect setting for asking the question like “Can you repeat back to me what you heard me say?” and other techniques like it to get the wax out of the ears, or in this case the institution out of the way, and get on to communicating as two people intent on finding a workable solution to the problems at hand.

Oooook Ooook…

Got some monkeyshines of your own to share? Jump in by posting a comment.

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I was listening to a Radio Lab podcast on stress, which you can find here. They get to interviewing (@45:33min) a man by the name of Dr. Robert Sapolsky who was doing tests with rats to look at their stress and to see what helped them with it. The set up goes that two rats get zapped and one of them is given a coping mechanism. The coping mechanism that caught my attention was that being given a warning helped reduce the stress of the experience. In other words, if you know something stressful is coming you will handle it better. Now as people we don’t usually get a light that flashes to warn us that something unpleasant is going to happen, but we can get a Tarot reading. In this reading we can be given a warning that can help us handle the stress better – even if we can’t change the outcome. In fact, because we are not rats in a cage, a reading can even help us alleviate or avoid a negative situation all together.

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The Emperor, The Hierophant, The Lovers & The Chariot

You find yourself standing in a room from which there are 4 doors. The first leads outside and as you walk out you see a throne facing out to legions of soldiers. You sit and assume your position as their leader. They await your commands. What will it be for them and you today? Is it time for war? You turn to the side and look inwards. With this inner sight you connect to your inner light. This light is the light of the universe. From its wisdom you discern the best path to send your subjects on. You give your orders and troops move out to fill them. People come and kneel before you asking you to resolve their conflicts and relying on this inner light you pass your decrees. When your work is done for the day you retreat to the inner room behind the throne.

You return to the center and look to another door. This one leads out to a chapel where a couple waits to be wed. You change your garb and head out to fulfill your role. You speak the words of union and look into the hearts of the pair standing in front of you. Turning inwards to the eternal light of love you connect with this energy. It pours from on high into you and out into the couple eagerly awaiting this moment. Words flow from you about commitment, union, love and the labour that feeds it. In your heart you know they only grasp a small portion of what you say to them. Time will tell if they will nurture this day into a lasting life or not. Everyone cries with joy and hope at the culmination of the ceremony. You withdraw once again back to your chambers.

You turn to look at the third door and hear a knock. A seeker on the path has come to deepen their connection with the light. You open the door and they wait blindfolded and bound. You bring them in and ask them what they seek. Opening yourself up to the light you feel it fill you. It guides you as you move through the ritual. A part of this light you gift to the initiate. You free them from their bonds knowing that they will never see anything the same again. You introduce them to their selves and grant them words of wisdom. They depart in awe at what has come to pass and you take some time to center yourself again.

At the end of your day you prepare to do a ritual to balance and recharge yourself. First connect to the source. Then you circle slowly to each of the four directions calling up its guardian. Before each you ask be to balanced, cleansed and rejuvenated. With each you feel a greater sense of harmony and clarity about the direction in which you are headed. You return to the center and sit cross-legged on the small cushion. Around you stand the four elemental guides. They resolve from form to motion and you find yourself sitting perfectly still in the middle the whirling of the universe. Within you arises a familiar certainty of where you are going and what you must do with your life.

Please share your experience of this meditation in the comments with me. It really helps me get better to hear how these explorations work for people.

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The Fool, Magician and Priestess
You open your eyes and find yourself in a field of grass and flowers under a clear blue sky. The tall grasses around you gently swirl in the breeze. Looking around you can see nothing but the seeming infinite expanse of fields, grass and flowers. You feel calm and at ease here. The wind seems to open a path through the grass and gently pushes you towards it. Following this opening you find yourself navigating through the fields. In front of you there is a small bush with bright yellow flowers covering it. Fascinated by it you find yourself drawn towards it. As you near you are greeted by its fresh scent. The yellow of the flowers, the green of the leaves all seem brighter and brighter the more you look at it.

You reach out to touch it and suddenly there is movement. It is not the wind this time but the movement of a butterfly spreading its wings and taking flight. With wonder you follow its flight, at first with your eyes, and then with your feet. The butterfly takes a winding path circling in on itself, first closer, now farther. Paying no heed to your surroundings you are drawn after it. Like dance partners the two of you ride the winds like music.

A rustling in the tall grass grabs your attention, yet you turn your attention back to the butterfly. With glee you follow it dancing through the grass. Another movement and this time a sound brings you out of your reverie. What is there in the grass with you? Moving away from the unseen presence you head in the opposite direction. Hearing the sound of something following you, you pick up the pace. Behind you a large cat emerges from the grasses. You start to run and it follows. A hill rises in front of you and you bolt up it, tumbling off the hidden precipice on the other side into the darkness.

You find yourself floating in space. Calm and serene. A light come from inside you and as you turn your attention to the darkness you see many stars dotting the infinite expanse. Aware of the power of the light within you words form on your lips and find the darkness being clothed in images. People, places and things fill up the space that the darkness once occupied. Within each of these you are aware of the star – the spark of the divine – within all that you see. It surprises you that they are not aware of this truth.

You watch the movement of these stars as they move through their lives. You watch as needs and fears drive them to action. Their actions seem endless driven by the outside forces impacting on them. Turning inward you feel needs of your own, and as you perceive them you give them names. Naming hunger food appears, naming love a companion joins you, naming wealth opportunity and money flow towards you. You walk among them but no one sees you. You pass by stores, homes and buildings. You find a quiet place to sit with your thoughts and turn your attention inwards.

A building is raised around you but you pay it little mind. People come and kneel before you uttering their hopes and fears, their prayers and requests. From within you feel the swelling of your connection with the source. Silently you sit and commune with the source of all. Within each of those who come before you see the spark that permeates all creation.

From within or is it above you understand what each truly needs. You whisper to them the solution to their troubles but few hear. You lend them of your light but few feel. You speak to them of the infinite nature in each of them but the still hate and fear. They bring you flowers and gifts and you sit there silently. Always in touch with the source, always in touch with the world.

Please share your experience of this meditation in the comments with me. It really helps me get better to hear how these explorations work for people.

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The gateway into figuring what needs to change comes from asking the client the right questions and looking for what aspect of their lives is inconsistent with their goals. My favourite question is, “What is the most important thing to you?” By getting them to name their core goal it becomes much easier to see where they are stuck in other areas. I know that hierarchy can be a dirty word, but having a sense of what part of your life is more important, and which is not, is crucial to sorting out these internal blocks. If your goal is your career, then anything else that gets in the way needs to be dealt with as less important. If the goal is peace – then anything or anyone that does not bring peace to your life needs to be removed.

More often than not these internal blocks have their roots in the horrible monster ‘should’ – this beast in the number one block between people and their happiness. I should work on this relationship, I should want to make more money, I should want to do this or that. Should is a monster that keeps us tied to what makes us unhappy. If you look at the devil card it might as well say should on the chain holding the unhappy couple in place. If we are caught up in ‘should’ than our true path will be obscured by expectation. We have a harder time seeing what is. Our decisions are less clear because of the obscuring power of expectations.

What is your should?
Along our path we all incorporate some element of ‘should’ into our decisions. This exercise is geared at revealing what the hidden ‘shoulds’ are, so you can make a deliberate choice to keep them or not. This process requires you to work directly with your subconscious by answering the questions as quickly as possible. This is a very intuitive way of working with the cards and yourself so don’t get caught up in what the cards mean, or being too intellectual about the process.

Get yourself all set up before you begin. Shuffle your deck and lay it on a table with a pen and paper beside it.

READY
SET
GO!

What is the one thing you want more than anything?
Write it down

What are you doing to support it?
Flip a card and write down the first thought that comes to mind.

What are you doing that works against your goal?
Flip a card and write down the first thought that comes to mind.

What would shorten the journey to your goal?
Flip a card and write down the first thought that comes to mind.

What do you need to do more of?
Flip a card and write down the first thought that comes to mind.

What kind of help do you need?
Flip a card and write down the first thought that comes to mind.

Where can you find this help?
Flip a card and write down the first thought that comes to mind.

What’s the next step?
Flip a card and write down the first thought that comes to mind.

Don’t worry about writing out the questions or cards as you go you can do that afterwards. Don’t worry about being right, just focus on listening to and being open to the first thought that comes through. Just stay in the flow and allow the process to unfold.

After you have gone through once, you can review your answers and draft a secondary set of questions to help you go deeper and further. Be sure to avoid questions that involve why and focus on actions and beliefs.

And for goodness sake, don’t let ‘should’ find it’s way into your questions.

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1. It will help folks who are just starting to read tarot in solidifying their understanding of the cards and
2. It will give them a tool to use when the meaning of the card slips out of mind.

Even with 23 years of reading under my belt I sometimes hit a card in a spread and am unclear about what it means for the reading. When this happens I find myself asking what is its message or its relationship to the rest of the reading.

I use the following techniques to help me ferret out the meaning of the card or its significance in the spread. Keep in mind this is a tool to tap intuitively into what is going on. It can be very helpful, but knowing what the cards mean traditionally is still important.

1. If there is a person in the card where are they looking? If they look backwards think about the past, if they look at another card in the spread think about the relationship between the cards. If they are looking up think spiritually, if they look down think materially.
2. Look at the colours and see if other cards in the spread have the same colours. Think about what the relationship between those cards or positions that are linked by colour.
3. Talk about a related idea to the number on the card. Using numerology, Qabalah, or Astrology to gateway into the card.
4. Ask the person getting the reading how they feel about the card.
5. What is going on in the background of the card? Sometimes it’s the couple in the background, or the dog, or the flower, that is more important than the image in the foreground.
6. Talk about the energy of the card. Does it move? Is it static? Blocked?
7. Tell a story from your life that this card triggers.
8. Is this card a progression or regression from another card in the spread? If the 5 of wands falls after the 4 go back and talk about the other card again and think about the pattern.
9. Look at the client and ask about how they are doing with the reading? Are they nervous, skeptical, relaxed? etc
10. Flip the next card in the spread and come back to the confusing one later.

Just keep relaxed and it’ll come to you.

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In the Tarot there are many cards that talk about change but there is one that stands out as being caught in that moment in between states – the princess of Disks. She is, in my reckoning, the last card in the deck. She sits there at the end awaiting the rebirth of the cycle in the return to the fool. In her hands is a large disk with a Yin Yang on it. If it was not so organic-looking it might seem to be a shield. This disk is the seed of what is to come. Everything in this card is about potential.

Timing is everything!

When the Princess of Disks surfaces in a reading her advice is simple - wait. Wait to find out if you got the job, wait for the child to arrive, wait to see if this person is the one. Just wait.

What do you do if you have this kind of time to kill? I don’t mean an hour or a day, but a month or a season? In fact what do you do while you are waiting for the rest of your life to move ahead. It is pretty common these days to just try to work harder, faster, and smarter to get there more quickly. But when the princess of disks shows up its not about the amount of effort exerted, so much as the passing of the hours on the clock.

During my year of transition I spent time going back and forth between angsting about reaching the end and turning my attention to things that were immediate. One of the biggest things I did this year was to become a better cook. You may notice this was not on the initial list, and this is because it was not a goal, but something I found a lot of joy in that passed the time.

The other thing that the disk looks like to me is a life preserver. Being in transition can certainly feel like you are lost at sea, waiting to find land, or be discovered. What can you grab a hold of to keep you afloat during this time?

Surviving Transition Spread
This spread is really geared to keeping you in the now and preventing despair from setting in during periods of transition. So draw three cards and lay them in a row.

1. Pastime – This card is here to suggest what you can do to keep busy, to divert your attention and to refresh you. Don’t look to the meaning of this card so much as to the images on it. If there are trees – get outside. If there are people being active – join a gym. If it’s about knowledge - read a book.
2. Are we there yet? Ok we all have an internal little kid that gets bored with a long journey. Think of this card as the new toy, treat or game that will help in those moments when the end feels far away. Look for something distracting in the card. My 2 year old gets a handful of gummy bears sometimes to help her move through the gap from one place and another, say the playground and the house. It helps with the momentary emotion and allows for easier transitions.
3. Confidence booster. Being in the space between often evokes insecurities. In this card look for some piece of wisdom to hold on to, to be your touch stone during the times when all seems lost or pointless.

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We talked about how to learn Tarot and how to use the cards to build the life you want to lead. I give several short readings as well. You can listen to it here. I hope you enjoy and look forward to hearing what you think.

The biggest problem, aside from the obvious jack of all trades issue, is in putting them together. It’s like that song by Johnny Cash where he steals the pieces from his job to make a car and when he puts it together, it ends up being a bit of a Frankenstein: 3 headlights, 1 tailfin and so on. Perhaps that is your aesthetic, which is fine, but building a spiritual practice out of pieces designed to be a cohesive whole is a lot easier.

How to integrate your tools!
So this spread takes a bit of a different approach – you start by choosing a card that represents you or your goal. In choosing, I don’t want you to pick a card from the deck, but instead choose one from the following list. If you are not sure which to use, you could pull them all and draw one randomly from them. This card will be put in the middle to represent the core, the center, or, if you prefer, the goal.

Magician – personal power, knowledge-driven
Hierophant – spiritual leadership, groups
Emperor – earthly power and leadership
Empress – for creative endeavours
High Priestess – personal power, intuitive-driven
Hermit – when setting out on your own
Fool – when starting over, or just beginning

So, now you have one card by itself in the middle to represent you, your aspiration, and your goal. Now place one card for each of your practices around this center, leaving a space for another card to be placed later between each card on this outer ring and the center. For example, you might be doing Yoga, studying Qabalah, Tarot, and Reiki – you would then put one card for each making sure to keep track of which is which.

Flip them all over, one at a time, and see what the cards have to say to you about this practice. Is it good? Is it neutral? Is it bad? Does the card match what you are getting from this practice, or its current state of importance in your life? Once you have a sense of the state of the union, it is time to move on to how looking for how to integrate these practices into your core.

Place another card in between each of the practices and the center. These cards will help you find integration, or perhaps point out that a parting of ways might be coming up. Go through each card one at a time and look at how they encourage or discourage the flow between the outer card and the core.

As an example, I might have chosen the Hierophant as my core, gotten the 9 of disks – gain – for my Tarot practice. This is not just a part of my practice, but is also my profession, so getting the 9 of disks is a great card – material prosperity and gain – cool! The next card, for integration, is the 8 of wands – swiftness – a card of communication. I would read this card to say that deeper communication, and success in my work will come from spreading my message. Getting word out about what I do and what I am all about.

If a negative card showed up either for a practice, or it’s integration, you should read it as a questioning of the value of that practice in your life. Though it might be tempting to ask whether it is just for now or for good it might be more fruitful to just carry the question with you into meditation. Questions to ask yourself are things like; have I learned everything I need from this? Is it off point from my primary direction? Am I staying in my strength instead of continuing to challenge myself? I am sure many other questions will present themselves to you.

Let me know in the comments how your integration is going!

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