Dan Adair

Tarot and the Root Chakra – Part Three – Finding Healing

Resources for Healing the Root Chakra – Part Three in a series on Tarot and the Root Chakra.

Root Chakra Meditation Poster – Available on Etsy.

This is the last of a three part series on Tarot and the root chakra. In the first part, “10 Tarot Cards That May Indicate a Blocked Root Chakra (1st Chakra)” we looked at some of the cards that are signposts for root chakra issues. In the second part, “Understanding the Root Chakra More Deeply: Safety, Survival, and the Foundations of Self,” we explored some of the devastating effects that problems with our root chakra can cause in our adult lives.

Of course, for any problem, we should also lay out some solutions, so in this post I’ve compiled some of the resources that I’ve personally used and found to be dependable. If you’re aware of other resources that you’d like to see listed here, please don’t hesitate to write and let me know.

BOOKS:

Energy Rules: Deflect Negative Vibrations and Own Your Energy by Alla Svirinskaya. This was originally published under the name of, “Own Your Energy,” and is a wonderful explanation of the chakras and meridian system by a world renowned energy healer. She also has some interesting thoughts about energy vampires and how to preserve your unique energy identity.

Chakras Made Easy: Seven Keys to Awakening and Healing the Energy Body (Made Easy series) by Anodea Judith. A complete guide to understanding, working with and developing your connection to your chakra system for healing and transformation. I’ve had this one in my library for several years and it’s one of the best and most complete explanations of the chakra system.

Root Chakra: The Ultimate Guide to Opening, Balancing, and Healing Muladhara (The Seven Chakras) by Mari Silva – Understand the role of your root chakra and learn how to keep it healthy and happy. Silva has written extensively about the chakra system and this is short, easy read on the root chakra.

Unblocked: A Revolutionary Approach to Tapping into Your Chakra Empowerment Energy to Reclaim Your Passion, Joy, and Confidence by Margaret Lynch Raniere and David Raniere – This is centered around using EFT tapping to unblock your chakras, but does a very deep dive into the lower four chakras. She especially covers how a blocked root chakra can lead to a weak sense of personal identity and severely affect our ability to attract abundance.

VIDEOS

Unblock Your SuperPowers – Chakra One – by Margaret Lynch Raniere – This is a really nice series covering that lower four chakras, which is an explanation of her book. About an hour long and packed with good ideas.

10 Minute Root Chakra Guided Meditation – by Great Meditations – Great Meditations has several chakra meditations up and they’re all good. If you have trouble meditating (or even if you don’t) this is a wonderful resource for quick, powerful visualizations.

Grounding with the First Chakra – Part One – by Sonia Choquette – Sonia, of course, is one of the best spiritual teachers out there and this is a wonderful three part series with many tips for immediate grounding.

10 min Chakra Meditation Series~Note C~1st~Root Chakra with Tibetan Bowls~No Vocals – by Temple Sounds – A quick sound meditation designed to stimulate the root chakra through vibrations.

Balance Your Chakras Using Tapping – Chakra #1 – by Helen McConnell Tapping Into Higher Consciousness – EFT tapping to heal root chakra blocks.

Yoga Nidra for the Root Chakra – 30 Minute Yoga Nidra for the Root Chakra with Costa Rican Jungle Soundscape – by Ally Boothroyd, Sarovara Yoga – All of her yoga Nidra videos are incredibly healing and this one is specifically for root chakra.

“Just the Tarot,” by Dan Adair – available on Amazon

Understanding the Root Chakra More Deeply: Safety, Survival, and the Foundations of Self

Exploring the causes of root chakra issues, the second in a three part series on Tarot and the root chakra.

In my previous post, “10 Tarot Cards That May Indicate a Blocked Root Chakra,” we explored how Tarot can reveal energetic patterns related to fear, insecurity, survival struggles, and grounding issues. Those are all first chakra issues.

So now, let’s look at the Root Chakra in a little more depth.

The Root Chakra, or Muladhara, is located at the base of the spine and is traditionally associated with the color red. It serves as the energetic foundation of the chakra system, governing our sense of safety, survival, stability, and belonging.

Its symbol is a four-petaled lotus, often interpreted as representing the four directions—north, south, east, and west—symbolizing our connection to the physical world and our grounded presence within it.

Its seed syllable, or bija mantra, is LAM, a sound traditionally used in meditation to strengthen and activate Root Chakra energy.

When balanced, this chakra allows us to feel safe in our bodies and secure in the world. When blocked, however, it can create profound ripple effects throughout every other area of life.

CHAKRAS AND DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY

One of the most interesting things about chakra work is that it’s really a method of developmental psychology.

What do we mean by that?

Developmental psychology posits that there are certain, “goals,” that we have to achieve as we develop into complete human beings and achieving one goal helps us to achieve the next goal.

To use a really simple example that’s become a cliche’, we have to learn how to walk before we run. When we look at an infant, we can see that that’s literally true: the child’s body has to develop the muscular strength to walk before she can run.

In the same sense, the child has to learn to make sounds before he can make words and has to learn what words mean before he can make sentences. Each developmental step leads into the next.

The important point here is that if we don’t fully achieve the first step, it makes it more difficult to achieve the next step.

While all of that is going on with our physical bodies, there’s a similar development happening with our energetic bodies, i.e. the chakra system.

Each chakra actually develops at a particular phase of our lives and – if it doesn’t develop right – that causes problems in the next chakra, which causes problems in the next chakra, and so on.

LOWER CHAKRA DEVELOPMENTAL STAGES

Chakra One (Root Chakra)

Womb to 12 months

Develops our sense of safety, security, and trust in life.

Chakra Two (Sacral Chakra)

6 months to 2 years

Develops personal identity, emotional experience, and selfhood.

Chakra Three (Solar Plexus Chakra)

18 months to 3.5 years

Develops ego strength, confidence, and our ability to project ourselves into the world.

Chakra Four (Heart Chakra)

3.5 years to 7 years

Develops our ability to form loving, healthy relationships.

Here’s how that looks in the lower chakras:

So, if the first chakra doesn’t develop correctly, then we don’t feel safe in the world.

If we don’t feel safe in the world, then we’ll try to hide who we really are, so the second chakra won’t develop well.

If we try to hide who we really are, then we’ll never have the confidence to project ourselves into the world in a healthy way, so the third chakra won’t develop.

And if we don’t have a strong ego structure, then we can’t develop healthy relationships, so the fourth chakra becomes stunted.

Each step leads to the next, right?

FIRST CHAKRA ISSUES

In her powerful book: “Unblocked: A Revolutionary Approach to Tapping into Your Chakra Empowerment Energy to Reclaim Your Passion, Joy, and Confidence”, Margaret Lynch Raniere suggests that the Inner Child essentially lives within the Root Chakra.

This is a profound concept because it means the first chakra contains the earliest energetic blueprint for:

* Safety

* Security

* Trust

* Survival

* Worthiness of care

According to this model, Root Chakra healing often comes down to two essential early-life questions:

1. Did we feel safe?

2. Were our needs met?

The answers to these questions become deeply wired into both our nervous systems and our energetic systems.

DID WE FEEL SAFE?

That’s actually a fairly complex question. If we were born into extremely abusive or dysfunctional families, it’s fairly easy to surmise that we didn’t feel safe. If we were being slapped around or screamed at as a helpless infant, obviously we wouldn’t feel safe.

Remember, though, that the first chakra forms – not just in our first year – but also in the womb. During that period when we were gestating inside of our mother’s bodies, we were basically immersed in whatever chemicals and hormones SHE was feeling.

And so the second part of this question is, “Did our mothers feel safe?”

Because, for that period that we were in the womb, her nervous system was our nervous system.

For instance, if our family was going through a period of extreme stress during the time that we were gestating, we can reasonably conclude that our mothers were producing really high levels of cortisol and adrenaline in their bodies. If they were depressed, they may have had chronically low levels of serotonin. And so did we.

Put another way, if our mothers didn’t feel safe, then we didn’t feel safe.

Whatever they were feeling is the emotional set point that we had when we entered the world. If they were extremely anxious, then we were extremely anxious. If they were depressed, then we were depressed.

And we carry that forward into the rest of our lives. If we felt unsafe as infants, we’ll be in chronic low level fight or flight reactions as adults. We’ll be hyper-vigilant, always looking for the next threat.

We may be ungrounded and unfocused because it’s literally painful to be in our own bodies.

We may even be attracted to people who MAKE us feel unsafe as a way to validate our feelings.

WERE OUR NEEDS BEING MET?

As Raniere pointed out, we might think of the needs of an infant as a continuing series of irritations followed by being soothed.

In a healthy family, that runs like this:

Irritation: I’m hungry. Soothing: someone fed me.

Irritation: I’m cold. Soothing: someone covers me.

Irritation: I’m scared. Soothing: someone holds me.

That sets up a pattern in the nervous system whereby we feel that our needs will always be met. And if our needs are met, then we feel safe and secure in the world.

Now, again, we may think of an infant’s needs not being met in terms of the extremes of child neglect. If a child isn’t held and loved they can actually die from failure to thrive. But not having your needs met can exist over a broad spectrum.

We may, for instance, have good, loving parents who simply have too many kids. Raniere touches on this with the fact that she had 8 siblings who also needed to be taken care of by her parents.

As we were talking about in the preceding section, we may have had a mother who was suffering from deep depression or a physical illness and simply couldn’t provide the care that we needed.

And as Gabor Mate’ has pointed out, it’s possible that our parents adopted a child-rearing philosophy where they thought it was actually good for the infant to ignore her needs. If you just let the baby sit its crib and cry, they’ll learn patience, right?

Whatever the reasons, if our needs weren’t being met as infants, that sets up in our first chakra as the expectation that our needs won’t be met as adults.

We can drift into codependent relationships where we’re constantly over-giving in the hopes that our partners will at least meet some of our needs.

We can intentionally seek out partners who aren’t capable of meeting our needs in order to validate our expectations.

Even worse, we may learn to ignore our needs and fail to take care of ourselves as adults. The pattern we learned was, “Something is irritating me and I’m not going to be soothed, so I have to just live with it.” Our levels of self-care, self-love, and self-compassion may be almost non-existent.

MOVING ON TO SOME SOLUTIONS

So in the first post in this series, we looked at some Tarot cards that may indicate that we have a blocked first chakra. In this post, we looked at how that happens. In the next post, I’ll gather together a list of really good resources to help us heal the root chakra and regain a sense of safety in our lives.

Because when we reclaim our foundation, we reclaim the possibility of building a life rooted not in fear—but in genuine security.

10 Tarot Cards That May Indicate a Blocked Root Chakra (1st Chakra)

Ten tarot cards that may indicate a blocked first chakra.

When we begin exploring Tarot through the lens of the chakra system, the 1st chakra, or Root Chakra (Muladhara), is one of the most essential places to start.

Located at the base of the spine, the Root Chakra governs our sense of safety, survival, grounding, and physical stability. It is the energetic foundation upon which all other aspects of self-expression are built. If this chakra is balanced, we tend to feel secure, present, connected to our bodies, and capable of navigating the world with confidence.

When blocked or imbalanced, however, Root Chakra issues may manifest as:

* Chronic fear or anxiety

* Survival struggles

* Money insecurity

* Health concerns

* Feeling unsafe or unsupported

* Living in constant fight-or-flight mode

* Restlessness or inability to settle

* Feeling ungrounded, “spacey,” or disconnected

* Difficulty trusting life

Energetically, this chakra develops during the earliest stage of life—from the womb through approximately 12 months of age—making it deeply connected to our primal sense of security and belonging.

In many ways, a blocked Root Chakra can make it difficult to fully express our gifts, creativity, and higher spiritual potential because part of us is still focused on basic safety.

In an upcoming post, we’ll take a deeper look at Root Chakra healing and explore some of the powerful teachings of Margaret Lynch Raniere in her groundbreaking book, Unblocked: A Revolutionary Approach to Tapping into Your Chakra Empowerment Energy to Reclaim Your Passion, Joy, and Confidence.

For now, let’s explore 10 Tarot cards that may suggest Root Chakra imbalance and what they could reveal.

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1. The Moon

The Moon often points to deep subconscious fears, uncertainty, and emotional confusion.

When connected to Root Chakra issues, this card may indicate:

* Fear-based living

* Unclear survival instincts

* Anxiety rooted in early developmental experiences

* Difficulty distinguishing real threats from imagined ones

A blocked Root Chakra may leave us feeling as though the ground beneath us is unstable—very much the territory of The Moon.

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2. Five of Pentacles

This is one of the clearest indicators of Root Chakra distress.

It may reflect:

* Financial hardship

* Scarcity mindset

* Fear of abandonment

* Physical illness

* Feeling unsupported

The Five of Pentacles often highlights core wounds around survival, security, and belonging.

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3. Four of Pentacles (Reversed)

While upright, this card can show attempts to create security, reversed it may suggest:

* Fear-driven instability

* Money anxiety

* Difficulty holding onto resources

* Feeling unsafe or ungrounded

This reversal can point to instability in one’s foundational energy.

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4. Nine of Swords

This card often represents chronic worry, sleeplessness, and nervous system overload.

From a Root Chakra perspective:

* Fight-or-flight patterns

* Hypervigilance

* Trauma-based fear

* Difficulty relaxing into safety

The body may remain in survival mode even when danger is absent.

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5. The Tower

The Tower can represent major disruptions to safety structures.

Possible Root Chakra themes include:

* Sudden loss of stability

* Security crises

* Physical or emotional upheaval

* Fear of collapse

This card may indicate foundational wounds being activated.

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6. The Devil

The Devil often reflects fear, material bondage, or trauma patterns.

In relation to the Root Chakra:

* Survival programming

* Scarcity beliefs

* Fear-based attachment

* Feeling trapped by insecurity

This card can reveal deeply ingrained patterns rooted in primal fear.

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7. Seven of Cups

This card may not seem obvious, but it can indicate dissociation or lack of grounding.

Signs include:

* Spaciness

* Escapism

* Fantasy over practical reality

* Difficulty staying present

Blocked Root energy can sometimes lead people to disconnect from reality rather than inhabit it fully.

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8. Knight of Swords

This card may signal overactive nervous system energy.

Potential indicators:

* Restlessness

* Hyperactivity

* Constant urgency

* Survival-driven action

Instead of grounded stability, there is perpetual motion and mental overstimulation.

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9. Two of Pentacles

This card may suggest instability in balancing material concerns.

It can point toward:

* Financial juggling

* Overwhelm

* Lack of grounded routine

* Survival stress

Life may feel precarious rather than rooted.

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10. The Fool (Reversed)

While upright The Fool can symbolize trust, reversed it may reveal:

* Fear of stepping forward

* Lack of trust in life

* Instability

* Poor grounding

This may indicate that foundational fears are interfering with growth.

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Final Thoughts

A blocked Root Chakra doesn’t necessarily mean failure—it often means there are foundational issues calling for healing.

Tarot can help illuminate these patterns by showing us where fear, scarcity, instability, or early survival programming may still be influencing our lives.

The good news? Awareness is the first step toward transformation.

By recognizing these Tarot indicators, we can begin addressing the deeper energetic roots of our struggles and move toward greater grounding, safety, and empowerment.

In our next post, we’ll dive further into Root Chakra healing practices and explore Margaret Lynch Raniere’s innovative work on chakra empowerment.

Because when the foundation is strong, everything else can rise.

THE TOWER CARD AND THE HOUSE OF GOD

Why was The Tower card once called, “The House of God?”

We all know the basic definition of The Tower card: destruction. When it appears in a reading, it tells us that massive change is on the way. It can signal divorces, loss of employment, and many other difficult life-changing events. I’ve described it in the past as having our lives blasted right down to the studs.

Depending on which deck you use, you may have heard different names for The Tower card. Some call it The Lightning Struck Tower. Some refer to it as The Blasted Tower. Most of us just call it The Tower. There’s an interesting twist, though, in the name that a much older Tarot deck applied to it.

THE HOUSE OF GOD

In the Marseilles Tarot deck, which is a style that emerged in France in the 1500s, The Tower is referred to as, “La Maison Dieu.” Which means, “The House of God.”

That’s a very peculiar name for destruction, isn’t it?

What do we automatically think of when we hear the term, “House of God?” A church, of course. So is The Lightning Struck Tower actually a Lightning Struck Church?

Hmmm . . .

NOT GOD

Now, if the card had been labelled as, “The Finger of God,” or even just, “God,” it would have made more sense theologically.

The Middle Ages were a hyper-religious time in European history and, of course, Christianity was the dominant religion. As I’ve noted in previous posts, the God of the Old Testament acted very much like a bipolar alcoholic who was off his medications. He was constantly rampaging around causing floods or blowing up cities or throwing people out of gardens because they ate an apple.

If that was your concept of God, then, of course, you might associate him with complete destruction of your life. “Uh, oh . . . God’s pissed off at me for some reason, so he’s going to smash me like a bug.”

But the thing is, God is most notable in the Tarot by his absence. True, there are devils and angels and popes and priestesses, but there isn’t one single card that shows a god.

So if it wasn’t the wrath of God that the Tarot was trying to depict, what was it?

IT’S NOT THE TOWER OF BABEL

The French occultist, Eliphas Levi, created a rabbit hole that a lot of subsequent scholars have jumped into. For no particular reason, he looked at The Tower card and announced that it was a depiction of the Tower of Babel.

If you’re not familiar with that myth, here’s a brief recap: at one point, all humans spoke the same language. Since they were able to communicate, they decided to build a tower that would reach all the way to heaven. That pissed God off and he cursed them so that they’d all speak different languages and couldn’t complete their construction project.

Now, nowhere in the Tower of Babel myth is there any indication that the tower was struck by lightning. And nowhere in the Tower card, is there any indication that the people falling out of the tower are trying to talk to each other.

In other words, the only thing that the Tower of Babel and The Tower card have in common is the word, “tower.”

One really unfortunate result of that confusion is that The Tower is now associated with hubris and arrogance. Like the builders of the Tower of Babel, people who draw the card are supposedly being punished for their pride. Again, there’s no evidence for that whatsoever. You can be a perfectly good person and still have that Tower energy blow through your life.

THE INQUISITION

So, again . . . why call it The House of God?

We have to remember that the Tarot is basically a system for predicting the future, or what we loosely call fortune telling. And the Bible – the operating manual for the Christian church – is very much against it.

“Let no one be found among you who sacrifices their son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft.” – Book of Deuteronomy 18:10–12.

There are several other examples, but suffice it to say the church was against fortune telling and the punishment was death.

The Inquisition was reaching its peak during the exact same time frame that the Tarot first emerged. Priests were merrily torturing, maiming, and burning anyone whom they considered to be practicing witchcraft.

In a very real sense, then, the church itself – the House of God – could be viewed as complete destruction for both the Tarot and those who used it for divination.

THE DEFINITION IS THE SAME

The basic definition of The Tower remains the same, of course. It signifies an almost complete destruction of a person’s way of living or thinking. Upright, it shows that the destruction is coming and reversed, it shows that it’s already happened.

It IS fascinating, though, to conjecture about what those early Tarot designers might have been trying to tell us. Were they saying that the church itself was evil?

Were they warning other occultists to keep the true meanings of the cards concealed or risk persecution?

Were they warning against the ultimate effect of rigid belief systems?

Were they, perhaps, predicting the eventual destruction of the church system – the House of God?

We’ll never really know. In an age when we’re once again seeing the rise of religious fundamentalism and intolerance, though, it might serve us well to ponder those very questions.

What Are Tarot Archetypes (And Why They Matter)?

The influence of Tarot archetypes in our lives.

The Empress Abundance Poster – available on Etsy

In any serious discussion of the Tarot, you’ll hear people referring to the Major Arcana as “archetypes.”

Which sounds very impressive… but also raises a perfectly reasonable question:

What, exactly, is an archetype?

The idea goes all the way back to Plato, but in modern usage it’s most often associated with the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung.

Jung defined archetypes as:

Universal, inherited patterns of thought or imagery that exist in the collective unconscious of all human beings.

Which is a fine scholarly definition… but for most of us, it lands somewhere around:

“Huh?”

So instead of trying to define archetypes academically, let’s talk about how they actually show up in real life—especially through the Tarot.

The Major Arcana

If you’re reading a Tarot blog, you probably already know the basics. The Tarot is divided into two parts, the Minor Arcana and the Major Arcana.

• The Minor Arcana (Wands, Cups, Pentacles, Swords) deal with everyday life.

• The Major Arcana (22 cards) deal with something deeper.

The images of the Major Arcana are the ancient core of the Tarot, dating back to the 15th century (and possibly earlier). The Minor Arcana didn’t even get illustrated scenes until the Waite-Smith deck in 1909.

So when we talk about archetypes in Tarot, we’re really talking about the Major Arcana.

They’re Not Personal

Here’s the first—and most important—thing to understand:

Archetypes are not personal.

Now, I know that sounds strange, because they feel very personal.

If you pull Death or The Tower in a reading, it doesn’t feel abstract. It feels like the universe just singled you out and dropped a piano on your head.

But here’s the shift:

• Minor Arcana = things you’re generating and can influence

• Major Arcana = larger forces moving through your life

For example:

• Two of Cups → You’re falling in love. Those are personal dynamics, like the type of person you find attractive, are you feeling lonely, do you want a partner?

• The Lovers → Love as an energy is active in your life (archetypal force.). The energy isn’t something you’re creating and it’s not attached to any one person. It’s just moving through your life.

In other words:

You don’t create archetypes—you experience them.

Sometimes They’re Collective

Archetypes don’t just affect individuals—they can sweep through entire cultures.

Jung noticed this before World War II when many of his German patients reported eerily similar dreams of White men riding black horses through the night—images that seemed to foreshadow the rise of Nazism. He interpreted this as a collective archetype emerging.

And honestly, you don’t have to look far to see this kind of thing in today’s politics.

We’ve all watched people we’ve known for years suddenly shift—sometimes dramatically—in beliefs, behavior, or identity. It can feel almost like they’ve been “taken over.”

From an archetypal perspective, that’s not entirely wrong.

These are psychic weather systems—and sometimes whole populations get caught in them.

The important takeaway?

Just because an energy is present doesn’t mean you have to identify with it.

Shelter in Place

Obviously, not all archetypes are pleasant.

• The Tower → destruction

• The Moon → confusion, illusion, emotional instability

• The Devil → addiction, entrapment, shadow patterns

So what do you do when one of these shows up?

You’ve got two main options.

1. Shelter in Place

Sometimes the best strategy is simple:

Ride it out.

Think of a tornado. You don’t go out and negotiate with it. You don’t try to “manifest” it away.

You get into the storm shelter and wait.

Life sometimes does this:

• Relationship ends

• Job disappears

• Everything falls apart at once

That’s Tower energy.

And sometimes the wisest response is:

“Okay… this is happening. Let’s survive it.” Hunker down and wait for it to go away.

2. Rise Above It

The Kybalion talks about this strategy quite a bit.

Even if you can’t control the event, you can control your response.

You can:

• shift your perspective

• regulate your emotions

• choose your interpretation

For instance, with The Tower, you can respond to it in one of two ways.

• “This is a disaster. I lost my job, my partner divorced me, I’m out of money. My life is ruined.”

• “This is a reset. I get to rebuild from scratch. My old life is gone, so I get to build my new life exactly as I want it.”

The external event is the same.

The internal vibration is not.

And that makes all the difference. We haven’t, “cured,” what happened to us, but we’ve vastly diminished it effects on us.

Invoking the Positive Archetypes

Here’s where things get interesting.

Even though archetypes aren’t created by us…

We can align with them.

Think of it less as control and more as tuning in.

Examples:

• Feeling stuck financially? → work with The Empress (abundance, growth)

• Struggling with confidence? → invoke The Emperor (authority, structure)

• Feeling lonely? → connect with The Lovers (connection, union)

• Burned out? → step into The Hermit (withdrawal, restoration)

This can be done through:

• meditation

• visualization

• journaling

• even just keeping the image nearby

You’re not creating the energy.

You’re opening yourself to it and inviting it’s power into your life.

Conclusion

So what is an archetype, really?

It’s not just a symbol.

It’s not just a psychological idea.

It’s more like a living pattern of energy that moves through human experience.

Sometimes it lifts us.

Sometimes it breaks us open.

Sometimes it sweeps through entire cultures like a storm.

But here’s the key:

You are not powerless in the face of archetypes.

You may not control when they appear,

but you do have a say in how you meet them.

You can:

• recognize them

• name them

• step back from them

• align with the ones that serve you

And over time, something interesting happens:

Instead of being tossed around by these forces…

You start to navigate them.

And that’s really what Tarot is for.

Politics and the Tarot

Exploring spirituality and politics.

I admit it: I’m a political junkie. I have a lifelong obsession with watching how politics play out in our country and around the world and it hasn’t diminished much as I’ve aged.

In part, that may be a generational thing. I grew up during a time when people had, “the daily paper,” delivered to their front porch every morning. When every family had subscriptions to magazines like Time and Newsweek, and we all gathered around the television to watch the nightly news. Even movies at theaters frequently started with a recap of the week’s news events. In many ways, we were FAR more plugged into political events than we are now, even with the advent of the internet.

And so I love it when I see an intersection of this passion – the Tarot – and that passion – politics. Put very simply, I love watching Tarot readers trying to figure out what in the HELL is going on with our crazy politics at any given time.

By far and away, my current favorite is Touched by Tarot and Beyond, which is a YouTube channel run by a woman named Afefe, who is a psychic reader and retired journalist. She posts online readings a couple of times a week and she’s amazingly accurate. Just for grins I kept track of her predictions over a period of a month and she was right on about 85 to 90% of the time.

And, yes, she is unapologetically political and progressively liberal and her readings are all over our insane political happenings.

SPIRITUALITY AND POLITICS

Now, I have several friends who are deeply into spirituality and turn up their noses at politics. There are a couple of reasons for that, as near as I can tell.

The first is that many folks who are on the spiritual path are empaths. As empaths, we tend to absorb whatever energies are coming our way and the energy of our current politics is SO toxic. For an empath, reading the morning news can be like drinking a cup of poison for breakfast. Sooner or later, it’s going to make them sick, so they try to avoid it.

The second reason that many New Agers avoid politics is that they have a sort of a more-spiritual-than-thou attitude. Politics are common and mundane and not at all like the high minded path that spiritual people are supposed to tread.

In that model, we’re supposed to rise above the mere physical – politics – and keep our noses pointed toward the Higher Powers. We meditate, do yoga, take sound baths, and chant. We do NOT indulge in the hatred and division that can come along with political discourse.

Of course, when an increasing number of our fellow humans are being arrested, tortured, and cut off from food and shelter, the question arises: where is your compassion? Where is your love? If you see someone suffering and do nothing to alleviate it, how spiritual ARE you, really?

And so, spirituality can become a good excuse for doing nothing and feeling comfortable about it. I completely understand people who simply can’t follow politics because it burns them out energetically. People who just feel that they’re somehow above it all, though? Not so much.

TRACKING THE CRAZINESS

One of the most fascinating things I see happening with political Tarot readings is the vastly increased difficulty in predicting what’s going to happen.

As I’ve said many times before, a Tarot reading is just a snapshot in time. It’s not written in stone. A Tarot reading gathers in all of the relevant factors from the past and the present and – based on those factors – makes a prediction about what the probable outcome will be.

Now, built in to that process is the idea that people are . . . well . . . predictable. By the time that we become adults, most of us have a pretty predictable set of behaviors. We have fairly firm political and religious beliefs. We tend to dress a certain way and behave a certain way. We react emotionally a certain way. We’re introverts or extroverts, Republicans or Democrats, liberals or conservatives.

Unless we undergo a mental breakdown or a personal disaster, we’re very unlikely to deviate from those behaviors and so the outcome of a Tarot reading is easy to ascertain.

Normally, politics follow along those same lines. Cultures and societies actually change at a much slower pace than individuals do, and it’s fairly easy to predict what directions they’re heading in.

Until now.

Our culture and society are changing at such an incredibly rapid rate that it really is hard to predict which direction we’re going in next, even with a deck of Tarot cards.

THE CHAOS FACTOR

The reason for that is that we’re seeing deliberately induced chaos. Normal patterns of behavior are being disrupted to a point where our society is shaking apart.

One of the favorite expressions of the Silicon Valley techies is, “Move fast and break things.” In other words, don’t plan what you’re going to replace something with before you break it – just break it and let chaos fill in the void.

Another conservative aphorism is, “flood the zone.” That means introducing so many crazy changes so fast that a normal human attention span simply can’t keep up with them. Eventually, we give up and shut down.

Which is exactly what we see in the news every week. It jumps from the Epstein files to killing people in fishing boats to invading Iran to shooting demonstrators. It’s literally one crisis after another with no respite. Just when you think it can’t get any crazier, it does.

Chaos has always been a factor in human existence. Cultures have enshrined that principle in the idea of, “tricksters,” like Loki or Coyote’ or Satan, who basically just like to fuck things up and see what happens.

Scientists call it, “entropy.” The tendency of organized systems to fall apart.

We seldom, however, see political leaders deliberately inducing chaos as we do today. It makes rational prediction way more complicated.

RECLAIMING OUR GROUND

Of course, all of this is quite intentional. When we’re constantly frightened or angry – AKA fight or flight response – the parts of our brains that are logical and creative shut down. Brain scans show that we literally lose our ability to think rationally and judge what’s going on.

Margaret Lynch Raniere refers to this as being, “hijacked.” Our normal personalities are taken over by the fight-or-flight response, we’re flooded with cortisol and adrenaline, and we become . . . someone else. Someone who lives in fear and anger. Someone who has no compassion. Someone who is incapable of empathy.

This is where political Tarot readings can re-introduce a level of sanity by giving us perspective.

The Moon card may tell us that – no, it’s not just us – things really ARE crazy right now.

The Emperor reversed may tell us that the King is crazy as a loon and meaner than a constipated crocodile.

The Hierophant reversed may tell us that religion is being twisted and the land is full of false prophets.

The readings can’t change reality. They don’t magically make things better. But they do tell us what’s actually going on behind the smoke and mirrors. They give us the ground to stand on while it all unfurls, rather than simply being swept away by the tides of fear and anger.

Hunter Thompson once said, “Things never got crazy enough for me.” Perhaps if he’d lived a few years longer . . .

The Hierophant and the Strange History of Spiritual Possession

Exploring spiritual possession with Robert Falconer and the two sides of religious authority.

I watched an interesting interview recently with Robert Falconer, author of The Others Within Us: Internal Family Systems, Porous Mind, and Spirit Possession. The conversation took place on the podcast Life with Ghosts, so naturally there was a fair amount of discussion about spirituality and the spirit world.

One statement in particular really caught my attention.

Falconer noted that in roughly 80% of human cultures, spirit possession is not feared — it’s actively sought out.

In other words, what we usually think of as something terrifying was historically considered a sign of spiritual ability and authority.

That sounds strange to modern ears, doesn’t it?

Yet this idea connects directly to the deeper meaning of the Tarot card known as The Hierophant.

Spiritual Possession in Human History

Falconer’s observation is supported by a long history of spiritual traditions around the world.

In ancient Greece, the Oracle at Delphi entered trance states to channel messages believed to come from the gods.

Many Native American traditions included vision quests, in which individuals sought altered states of consciousness in the wilderness to receive spiritual insight.

In the Vodun religion, practitioners are said to be “ridden” by the Loa, powerful spiritual beings who temporarily inhabit the body and communicate sacred knowledge.

Shamans in many cultures likewise enter trance states in order to commune with spirit animals and guiding entities.

In each of these traditions, the ability to enter such states was not seen as madness or danger. Instead, it was considered a spiritual skill—one that brought wisdom and prestige.

Even in modern times we still see echoes of this idea. For example, Esther Hicks claims to channel a collective group of spiritual beings known as Abraham. Meanwhile, in certain Christian traditions, believers seek spiritual ecstasy through speaking in tongues.

Across cultures and centuries, the basic idea remains the same: direct contact with the spirit world is a form of spiritual authority.

The Hierophant and Religious Authority

This is where The Hierophant becomes particularly interesting.

In Tarot, the Hierophant represents traditional spiritual authority—the priests, teachers, and religious leaders who guide communities in matters of faith and morality.

Today, we tend to imagine these figures as scholars or counselors. They sit in offices, wear ceremonial clothing, and offer guidance based on established teachings.

But historically, that wasn’t the original source of their authority.

The earliest priests and priestesses were valued because they were believed to have direct experience with the spirit world. They entered trance states, communed with divine forces, and returned with knowledge that helped guide their communities.

Their authority came not from books or institutions, but from experience.

When Authority Becomes Control

Over time, however, something changed.

As religious institutions grew more powerful, the priestly class began to guard their spiritual authority carefully. Communication with the spirit world was increasingly presented as something that only certain sanctioned individuals were allowed to do.

Ordinary people were discouraged—or even forbidden—from seeking those experiences themselves.

Those who attempted to bypass the system could be labeled heretics or dangerous mystics.

At the same time, organized religion often promoted the idea that interacting with spirits was extremely risky. The spirit world, people were warned, was full of malevolent entities waiting to corrupt or destroy unwary seekers.

Modern horror films have reinforced this idea beautifully. The classic movie The Exorcist is perhaps the most famous example: a child possessed by a demon and saved only through the intervention of religious authority.

The True Meaning of the Hierophant

When the Hierophant appears in a Tarot reading, it often represents a teacher, mentor, or spiritual authority figure.

But the card invites us to ask an important question:

Is this person acting as a guide — or as a gatekeeper?

True spiritual teachers help others develop their own connection to the sacred. They share knowledge, offer guidance, and encourage personal exploration.

Authoritarian figures, on the other hand, demand obedience and insist that spiritual truth flows only through them.

The difference is crucial.

As Ram Dass once said:

“The second that you think you’re spiritual, you aren’t.”

The best Hierophants understand this. They see themselves not as masters, but as teachers and guides—people who have walked a path and are willing to help others walk it too.

Their role is not to control spiritual experience.

Their role is to help others discover it for themselves.

The Emperor: Sacred Structure and the Protection of Creativity

A look at the roles of Yin and Yang energies in the process of creativity.

The Emperor and the Empress are obviously paired cards—one female and the other male. But if we stop at gender, we miss their deeper meaning entirely.

On a more profound level, they represent the Yin and Yang energies that exist within every human being.

Every woman has testosterone in her body. Every man has estrogen. Wholeness comes not from exaggerating one pole and suppressing the other, but from integrating both. Strength and compassion. Power and vulnerability. Fierceness and tenderness.

This is what the ancient Yin–Yang symbol illustrates so elegantly: Yin contains Yang, and Yang contains Yin.

When these energies are balanced, they produce whole, grounded human beings. When they are separated and exaggerated, they produce caricatures.

That’s where we find emotionally stunted men obsessed with dominance and control. That’s where we find people who abdicate their agency entirely and wait for someone else to take care of their lives.

Me Tarzan. You Jane.

Man strong. Woman weak.

This is not balance. This is Yang attempting to overwhelm Yin. But Yin and Yang are not enemies. They are partners.

Creation requires both.

The Peculiar Paradox of Yin Energy

Modern culture often assumes that Yang energy—the active, assertive, masculine principle—is the true creative force, while Yin energy is passive or secondary.

Nature shows us exactly the opposite.

Consider procreation. A man’s biological contribution to the creation of a child may take minutes. But the woman’s body then undertakes nine months of continuous creation—growing, forming, and sustaining new life from her own substance.

She gives birth. She nourishes the infant. She does the creating.

THE YIN ENERGY DOES 99% OF THE WORK OF CREATION.

This pattern appears everywhere.

The receptive, Yin principle is not inert. It is generative. It is the matrix from which life emerges.

The Kybalion expresses this clearly: the feminine principle does the creative work. The masculine principle directs and structures it.

Without Yin, nothing would exist.

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The Artist and the Subconscious

We see this same pattern in the creative process.

When we imagine an artist, we picture someone standing at an easel, brush in hand, actively painting.

But the visible act of painting is only the final stage.

Long before the brush touches the canvas, the image has already been forming in the artist’s subconscious mind. It grows invisibly. It gestates. It organizes itself.

We call this “inspiration,” as if it appeared suddenly.

But inspiration is the flowering of something that has been developing quietly within.

The conscious mind—the Yang principle—provides skill, technique, discipline, and execution. But the image itself emerges from the Yin subconscious.

Again, the receptive principle does the creative work.

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The Function of the Emperor

Does this mean the Emperor—the Yang principle—is unnecessary?

Not at all.

The Emperor is essential.

The Empress creates. The Emperor protects and stabilizes what she creates.

Consider the garden.

The Empress is the lush, living growth. She is the fertile soil, the green leaves, the flowing water. She is life itself.

But without structure, the garden cannot reach its full potential.

The Emperor builds the raised beds. He enriches the soil. He installs irrigation. He builds the fence to keep the deer out.

He does not create the life. He ensures its survival. The Emperor provides continuity. He creates the conditions under which life can flourish and endure.

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The Emperor Is Always Grounded in the Empress

In my own Emperor affirmation card, I made a subtle but important change. The Emperor still sits on his stone throne, armored and immovable.

But I surrounded him with life.

Emperor Affirmation Poster – available on Etsy

Because the Emperor does not exist independently of the Empress. He exists to protect her. He exists to serve creation. Within each of us, the Emperor is the part that creates structure for our creative and emotional lives.

If you are an artist, your Emperor sets up your studio, organizes your materials, and protects your time.

If you are a writer, your Emperor establishes the discipline to write regularly and brings your work into the world.

If you are in a relationship, your Emperor establishes boundaries that protect emotional safety and mutual respect.

The Emperor does not suppress the Empress.

He protects her so she can fully express herself.

When the Emperor Is Separated from the Empress

When the Emperor loses his connection to the Empress, he becomes distorted.

His structure serves nothing. His authority protects nothing.

He becomes the petty tyrant. The rigid bureaucrat. The hollow authoritarian. His armor is empty. He enforces rules not to protect life, but to compensate for his own inner disconnection.

True authority does not arise from domination. It arises from service to life.

The Emperor’s true purpose is not control. It is protection. He is the guardian of the garden. He is the structure that allows creativity to endure.

He is sovereignty in service of life itself.

When we see beyond the illusion of gender, the deeper purpose of these archetypes becomes clear. The Empress and the Emperor are not separate beings, but complementary forces within each of us. One creates. The other protects what has been created. One generates life from the invisible depths. The other builds the structure that allows that life to endure.

Our true purpose is not to choose between them, but to embody both—to allow our inner Empress to bring forth creativity, love, and vision, and to allow our inner Emperor to establish the boundaries, discipline, and stability that allow those creations to survive and flourish in the world. When these two forces work in harmony, we cease to live reactively and begin to live sovereignly, shaping a life that is both fertile and enduring.

The Empress and the Courage to Be “Unproductive”

The Empress Archetype and Relaxation as a Way to Nurture Creativity.

In my Empress affirmation poster, I paired her image with the words:

Nurture Creativity

This may be one of the most misunderstood instructions in the entire Tarot.

Empress Affirmation Poster – Available on Etsy

Because most of us have been trained to believe that creativity comes from effort. From discipline. From pushing harder. From sitting at the desk and refusing to get up until something happens.

That approach belongs to The Emperor.

The Empress operates differently.

She does not force growth.

She allows it.

She creates the conditions in which growth becomes inevitable.

Creativity Cannot Be Forced

Every creative person eventually encounters this paradox.

The harder you try to force creativity, the more it retreats.

You sit at your desk, determined to produce something brilliant. Hours pass. Nothing happens. Your mind feels like dry soil.

And then, days later—while taking a walk, washing dishes, or doing something completely unrelated—an idea appears effortlessly.

It arrives whole.

Not constructed, but received.

Albert Einstein understood this phenomenon. When asked how he discovered the theory of relativity, he didn’t describe grinding intellectual labor. He said simply:

“It just dropped in while I was playing the piano.”

He wasn’t forcing the insight.

He was allowing it.

This is Empress energy.

The Forgotten Value of Leisure

The philosopher Josef Pieper wrote a remarkable book titled Leisure as the Basis of Culture. In it, he argues that leisure is not the absence of productivity, but its foundation.

Leisure, in its true sense, is not laziness in the modern, pejorative sense. It is a state of receptive openness.

It is the willingness to stop forcing.

Pieper observed that culture itself—art, philosophy, music, science—arises not from frantic effort, but from spaces of inward stillness.

When we allow ourselves to be idle, something deeper begins to move.

The soil replenishes itself.

Modern society often treats leisure as wasteful. We are taught that our worth is tied to constant activity. But creativity obeys older, quieter laws.

Seeds do not grow faster because you stare at them.

They grow because the conditions are right.

Julia Cameron and the Act of Creative Nurturing

Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way remains one of the most practical and psychologically accurate guides to creativity ever written.

Her central insight is simple: creativity must be nurtured.

Not commanded.

She encourages practices like morning pages and artist dates—not to produce finished work, but to create space for the creative self to emerge naturally.

These practices are Empress practices.

They say to the creative mind:

You are safe here.

You are allowed to emerge in your own time.

And when that safety is present, creativity begins to flow again.

The Courage to Be “Lazy”

This is perhaps the most radical lesson of The Empress.

You must allow yourself to be, at times, unproductive.

Not because you are weak.

But because you are cultivating fertility.

What appears to be inactivity is often incubation.

Beneath the surface, ideas are forming. Connections are being made. Your subconscious is doing its work.

If you constantly demand output, you exhaust the system that produces it.

The Empress reminds us that rest is not the opposite of creation.

It is part of creation.

Nurture Creativity

The Empress does not shout. She does not command. She invites.

She reminds us that creativity is not a machine, but a living process.

It responds to kindness.

It responds to patience.

It responds to nourishment.

When you stop trying to force creativity and begin nurturing it instead, something remarkable happens.

Ideas begin to arrive again.

Quietly.

Effortlessly.

Like seeds finding their way toward the light.

So when The Empress appears in your readings—or quietly makes herself known in your life—it is not a signal to push harder. It is an invitation to soften. She asks you to step out of the mentality of force and into the rhythm of cultivation. To rest without guilt. To follow your curiosity. To trust that creativity, like all living things, emerges when it is nourished rather than commanded.

She reminds you that you are not a machine designed for constant output, but a garden capable of extraordinary growth. Your task is not to force the flowers to bloom, but to tend the soil and allow them to emerge in their own time.

The Influence of The Hierophant

The Influence of The Hierophant Card When Paired With Other Major Arcana, Including Definitions for Each Pairing.

In the absence of a regular blog post for today, I’d like to offer a reference chart detailing the influence of The Hierophant when paired with the other cards of the Major Arcana.

The Hierophant represents tradition, spiritual authority, teaching, sacred structures, and shared belief systems. When this card appears, it often asks:

• What do you believe?

• Where did those beliefs come from?

• Are you conforming… or consciously committing?

Please feel free to print this and use it as a quick reference in your readings. Or, if you prefer, you can download a PDF version here. Just click the link and, when it opens, select Print from your browser menu.

The Hierophant + The Fool

A new spiritual path begins; stepping into tradition with fresh eyes.

Reversed: Rebellion without reflection; rejecting structure simply to avoid commitment.

The Hierophant + The Magician

Teaching what you know; manifesting through spiritual principles.

Reversed: Manipulating belief systems; using doctrine for personal gain.

The Hierophant + The High Priestess

Outer tradition meets inner knowing; balancing doctrine with intuition.

Reversed: Conflict between personal truth and institutional belief.

The Hierophant + The Empress

Sacred nurturing; honoring family or cultural traditions around love and creativity.

Reversed: Restrictive roles around gender, parenting, or creative expression.

The Hierophant + The Emperor

Institutional authority; law, governance, or structured religion.

Reversed: Oppressive systems; authoritarian belief structures.

The Hierophant + The Lovers

Commitment blessed by tradition; marriage, vows, sacred partnership.

Reversed: Choosing love outside of conventional expectations.

The Hierophant + The Chariot

Driving forward with faith; disciplined spiritual progress.

Reversed: Dogmatic certainty; forcing beliefs onto others.

The Hierophant + Strength

Moral courage; gentle adherence to deeply held values.

Reversed: Internal conflict between instinct and conditioning.

The Hierophant + The Hermit

Spiritual teacher and spiritual seeker; mentorship or formal study.

Reversed: Breaking away from tradition to seek personal truth.

The Hierophant + Wheel of Fortune

Destined encounters with teachers or belief systems.

Reversed: Clinging to outdated doctrines during change.

The Hierophant + Justice

Ethical accountability; living in alignment with stated values.

Reversed: Hypocrisy; preaching principles not practiced.

The Hierophant + The Hanged Man

Spiritual surrender; re-evaluating long-held beliefs.

Reversed: Martyrdom rooted in rigid ideology.

The Hierophant + Death

Transformation of belief systems; shedding old doctrines.

Reversed: Fear of spiritual evolution; resisting theological change.

The Hierophant + Temperance

Balanced faith; integrating different traditions harmoniously.

Reversed: Spiritual confusion; incompatible belief blending.

The Hierophant + The Devil

Religious guilt; toxic conditioning; spiritual bondage.

Reversed: Breaking free from oppressive belief systems.

The Hierophant + The Tower

Collapse of institutional structures; crisis of faith.

Reversed: Quiet deconstruction of long-held doctrines.

The Hierophant + The Star

Renewed faith; spiritual hope; inspired teaching.

Reversed: Disillusionment with organized belief systems.

The Hierophant + The Moon

Hidden doctrines; subconscious conditioning; fear-based teachings.

Reversed: Seeing through illusion; questioning inherited fears.

The Hierophant + The Sun

Joyful faith; spiritual clarity; enlightened tradition.

Reversed: Childlike rebellion against structure without understanding.

The Hierophant + Judgment

Spiritual awakening; answering a higher calling within tradition.

Reversed: Rejecting external authority to follow inner calling.

The Hierophant + The World

Completion of a spiritual cycle; mastery within a tradition.

Reversed: Feeling confined by cultural or institutional identity.