The Empress and the Abundance of the Heart

The Empress and the abundance of love.

Would you like to be an Empress?

You might read that sentence and think:

“Who, me? The muffler’s about to fall off my car. I can barely pay the rent. The kids need new shoes that I can’t afford, and my apartment looks like a disaster area.

Do I want to be an Empress? Yeah… right.”

What Does an Empress Look Like?

Let’s take a minute to really look at the Empress card before you rule yourself out.

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What do we see?

A beautiful woman reclining comfortably on a simple couch. She’s wearing a flowing robe, and her head is crowned with stars. In one hand she loosely holds a scepter topped with a golden globe. Resting beside her is a shield bearing the symbol of Venus.

Behind her stretches a peaceful forest, with a waterfall flowing gently through it beneath a clear blue sky.

What else do you see?

If your answer is, “Nothing,” you got that one exactly right.

What’s Missing?

When we hear the word Empress, certain images immediately come to mind.

Royal courts.

Tables groaning beneath crystal goblets and golden dishes.

Ladies-in-waiting glittering with jewels.

Magnificent ivory thrones.

You know…

Money.

Power.

Status.

Truckloads of doe-ray-me.

Not This Empress

Yet none of those things appear in this card.

She’s reclining on a simple seat instead of an elaborate throne.

There are no servants.

No palace.

No symbols of worldly power.

Yes, she carries a scepter, but she holds it so casually that it almost feels like an afterthought. Her crown is made of stars rather than jewels. Even her shield bears not a lion or dragon, but the symbol of Venus—the emblem of love.

The forest, the waterfall, and the open sky are her royal hall.

What does that tell us?

The Empress and Abundance

The Empress is often described as the archetype of abundance.

But this is a very different kind of abundance.

It isn’t measured in bank accounts or luxury cars.

She doesn’t need possessions to convince herself she’s wealthy.

Her richness flows outward from her.

It doesn’t flow inward from the things she owns.

Her abundance is written upon her shield:

Love.

So how do we incorporate that Empress energy into our own lives?

The Empress and Filling the Well

Julia Cameron observed that creativity is not a bottomless well.

Eventually the well must be refilled.

Sooner or later, the creative life asks us to stop producing and simply receive.

The Empress understands this instinctively.

She would probably tell us that resting isn’t the opposite of creating.

Resting is creating.

When we step away from frantic schedules and consciously enjoy the beauty already surrounding us, we’re expressing Empress energy.

Reading.

Walking.

Listening to music.

Cooking.

Taking a bath.

Watching clouds drift across the sky.

Standing outside beneath the moon.

These aren’t interruptions to creativity.

They’re how creativity breathes.

They’re how we absorb the abundance that already exists simply because we’re alive.

The Empress as a Spiritual Practice

Perhaps the most important symbol in the entire card is the small shield bearing the sign of Venus.

It reminds us that love isn’t something we have to earn.

It isn’t something we have to chase.

And it isn’t something other people give us permission to experience.

Love is our birthright.

It already lives within us.

It flows from the heart rather than into it.

That means we can practice Empress energy every single day.

Making our homes beautiful.

Growing flowers.

Lighting a scented candle.

Preparing a meal with care.

Creating peaceful spaces.

Being fully present in our own lives.

These simple acts may seem ordinary.

The Empress would call them sacred.

Becoming the Empress

So…

Would you like to be an Empress?

Perhaps you already are.

The Empress doesn’t ask how much money is in your bank account, what kind of car you drive, or whether your furniture belongs in a palace.

She asks a much quieter question.

Can you recognize the abundance that’s already present in this moment?

Can you slow down long enough to appreciate beauty?

Can you create a little more peace?

Can you let love flow outward into the world through the smallest acts of everyday life?

If you can…

Then you’re already wearing the crown of stars.

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The High Priestess and the Art of Being an Empath

Surviving as an empath in a world of mixed signals.

The High Priestess – 13 X 19 – Available on Etsy

Are You an Empath?

Have you ever walked into a room, greeted someone you’ve never met, and instantly known they were angry, grieving, anxious, or quietly celebrating something wonderful?

If so, here’s a piece of advice.

Don’t say anything.

Seriously. Don’t.

Most people don’t enjoy discovering that someone can see behind the mask they’re presenting to the world.

The High Priestess

In an earlier post, I described the High Priestess as the Tarot’s archetype of intuition.

She sits between two pillars—one black and one white—representing the meeting of opposites. I like to think of her as standing where logic and intuition meet, where analytical thought gives way to sudden flashes of knowing.

That’s how intuition often feels.

It doesn’t arrive through careful reasoning.

It simply appears.

The answer is just…there.

The Empath’s Antenna

Being an empath can feel like walking through life with an extra antenna attached to your nervous system.

You notice things that other people miss.

Not because you’re reading minds, but because you’re reading people.

A slight hesitation.

A forced smile.

A shift in someone’s tone.

The energy in the room changes, and somehow you already know why.

For many empaths, this isn’t something they consciously do. It feels as natural as seeing colors or hearing music. They aren’t sitting there analyzing people.

They simply know.

Why It Makes People Uncomfortable

Here’s the problem.

Most people carefully manage what they reveal to the world.

Carl Jung called this the persona—the social mask we wear. It’s the version of ourselves we’re comfortable showing other people.

We’re happy for people to know our hobbies, our opinions, or what we do for a living.

We’re far less comfortable with them seeing our fears, our grief, our insecurities, or the parts of ourselves we’re trying to hide.

When an empath quietly senses those hidden emotions, people often feel exposed—even if the empath never intended to pry.

That can make them uncomfortable.

Sometimes it even makes them defensive.

Can We Turn It Off?

Many books about empathy focus on building stronger boundaries.

That’s good advice.

If empaths absorbed every emotional signal around them all day long, they’d quickly become overwhelmed.

But completely shutting down our intuition isn’t really the answer either.

Empathy is a gift, much like sight or hearing.

We don’t solve the problem by pretending we can’t see.

The Real Secret

The real skill isn’t becoming less intuitive.

It’s becoming more discreet.

Just because you know something doesn’t mean it needs to be spoken.

Sometimes people aren’t ready.

Sometimes they aren’t asking.

Sometimes the kindest thing you can do is quietly understand without announcing that you understand.

That’s the High Priestess at her best.

She knows.

But she doesn’t feel compelled to prove that she knows.

She observes.

She waits.

And when the moment is right, she speaks.

Until then, she simply smiles—and keeps the mystery alive.

The Magician and Learning to Hide Your Magic

Magic might exist best in silence.

The internet has made the world’s spiritual traditions available to anyone with a curious mind. In the space of an afternoon you can watch videos on Tarot, meditation, astrology, Wicca, Hermetic philosophy, or ancient shamanic practices.

That kind of openness creates an illusion that every spiritual subject is now safe to discuss openly.

Unfortunately, that isn’t always true.

The Price of Being Different

The word eccentric simply means “off center.”

Imagine society as a great circle. Most people live comfortably near the middle, sharing many of the same assumptions about life, religion, and reality. They may disagree about politics, music, or sports, but the foundation of their worldview is remarkably similar.

A spiritual journey often carries us away from that center.

We begin asking unusual questions. We become interested in synchronicity, Tarot, meditation, dreams, symbols, or ancient traditions. We may even come to believe in things that many people dismiss without a second thought.

Naturally, we’re excited.

Whenever we discover something meaningful, our first instinct is to share it with the people we love.

And that can be a grave mistake.

The people listening may smile politely while privately wondering whether we’ve lost our grip on reality. Sometimes the judgment remains unspoken.

Occasionally it comes back with surprising force from people we trusted completely and that can feel especially devastating.

The Magician – 13 X 19 inch poster by Dan Adair – Available on Etsy

Protecting Young Beliefs

This is especially important when you’re just beginning your spiritual exploration.

New beliefs are like tender seedlings pushing through the soil. They aren’t yet strong enough to withstand harsh weather.

They need time.

They need experience.

Most of all, they need protection.

Sharing those fragile discoveries with someone who has already decided they’re nonsense is like inviting someone to stomp through your garden wearing heavy boots.

The damage isn’t necessarily that they change your mind.

The damage is that they plant seeds of doubt before your own understanding has had time to mature.

History Is Shorter Than You Think

It’s easy to assume that hostility toward unconventional spiritual practices belongs to the distant past.

We remember the witch trials and the Inquisition, when innocent people were imprisoned, tortured, or killed because they were suspected of practicing forbidden arts.

Yet fear of the occult has appeared much more recently.

During the Satanic Panic of the 1980s, innocent people were accused of bizarre crimes involving imagined occult rituals. The most famous example was the McMartin Preschool case in California, where extraordinary accusations dominated headlines despite the complete lack of supporting evidence.

Witnesses testified that Virginia McMartin, who ran a day care center for preschoolers in Manhattan Beach was, “leading children into secret underground tunnels where they dressed up as witches and flew around in the air. Other parents made similarly shocking allegations about McMartin Preschool, accusing the employees of cannibalism, blood-drinking and infant sacrifice.”

Only 40 years ago, right here in the United States, a county attorney indicted a woman for dressing up like a witch and flying around the air.

Let that sink in.

Why the Magician Keeps Silent

There is an interesting clue in the very word, “occult.”

It simply means, “hidden.”

We usually think of hidden knowledge—teachings that are not widely known—but perhaps there is another lesson as well.

Some things are best kept private, even from people we thought we could trust.

There is quiet wisdom in that.

Not every insight needs to become a public discussion.

Not every ritual needs an audience.

Not every spiritual experience needs to be explained.

Sometimes the greatest magic grows best in silence.

The greatest secrets of Western Occultism were passed down from adept to student, always hidden from the prying eyes of the crowds, the priests, and the judges. That’s how they survived through the many years of the Dark Ages. Perhaps that’s how they’ll survive again.

That is one of The Magician’s deepest lessons—not simply learning how to work with unseen forces, but learning when to keep them unseen.

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Four Paths to Becoming the Hermit

An exploration of being alone in the world.

The Hermit – 13 X 19 inch poster by Dan Adair – Available on Etsy

Of all the figures in the Tarot, none stands more completely alone than The Hermit.

Unlike the Fool, the Magician, or the Emperor, the Hermit has intentionally stepped away from the crowd. He has withdrawn from unnecessary human contact, choosing solitude over society.

That seems almost contrary to human nature.

Aristotle observed that anyone who has no need of society must be either a god or a beast. Yet the Hermit is neither. He is simply a human being who has walked a very unusual road.

So how does someone become the Hermit?

1. The Wounded Hermit

For many people, the journey begins with pain.

They reached out sincerely. They loved, trusted, and tried to belong. Again and again they were hurt, rejected, or misunderstood.

Eventually they withdraw—not because they hate people, but because they need to protect what remains of their heart.

For some, this is the first step toward becoming the Hermit.

2. The Disappointed Hermit

Others are not driven away by wounds but by disillusionment.

They have done everything society promised would bring fulfillment. They built careers, earned money, fell in love, married, raised families, or achieved success.

Yet something still feels empty.

Status, romance, wealth, and recognition eventually turn to dust, leaving them quietly asking:

“Is this really all there is?”

3. The Called Hermit

Sometimes the first two experiences awaken something deeper.

After enough disappointment, a person begins to long for truth rather than comfort. They become convinced that life must contain something more profound than endless striving.

This is where the spiritual search begins.

The Hermit is no longer running away from the world.

He is walking toward wisdom.

4. The Natural Hermit

Some people simply possess the temperament for solitude.

Introverts often discover that being alone restores rather than depletes them. What began as an escape from pain gradually becomes a place of peace.

They don’t merely tolerate solitude.

They flourish there.

For these people, being alone feels less like isolation and more like coming home.

The Hermit’s True Gift

For some, the Hermit is only a season of life—a place of healing before they return to the world.

For others, it becomes a lifelong calling.

They gradually realize they never truly fit the expectations of the culture around them. Solitude begins as medicine but eventually becomes as necessary as breathing.

The Hermit archetype doesn’t create that feeling of being different.

It simply shines a lantern on a truth that has always been there.

Sometimes the greatest journey isn’t learning how to belong to the crowd.

Sometimes it’s discovering who you become when the crowd is no longer needed.

Saturn, The Tower, and Why I Meditate on The Fool

Saturn Transits and The Tower Card – How to NOT get run over.

As an Aries, I was recently dismayed to discover that Saturn has entered…

Gulp… Aries.

If you know anything about astrology, you probably understand why that made me nervous.

Saturn doesn’t exactly have the reputation of being the life of the party.

Saturn’s Bad Reputation

Saturn is often associated with:

* limitations

* delays

* responsibility

* endings

* hard lessons

* tearing down what no longer works

In other words…

Saturn has a way of rearranging your life whether you asked for it or not.

Sound Familiar?

If you’re a Tarot reader, that description probably reminds you of another archetype.

The Tower.

The Tower burns down the building.

It strips away certainty.

It leaves you standing in the ashes wondering,

“What just happened?”

A difficult Saturn transit can feel remarkably similar.

Sometimes it seems as though a cosmic steamroller has flattened your best-laid plans.

But They’re Not Exactly the Same

This is where I think people sometimes misunderstand Saturn.

The Tower is total collapse.

When the Tower appears, something fundamental is breaking apart.

It’s dramatic.

It’s shocking.

It’s often terrifying.

Saturn, however, is usually much more selective.

Saturn doesn’t destroy everything.

It destroys what isn’t solid.

That distinction makes all the difference.

Think of Saturn as a Strict Parent

I’ve always thought of Saturn as having a fatherly quality.

Not cruel.

Just uncompromising.

Imagine a parent walking into your room and saying,

“You haven’t used half this stuff in years. It’s time to clean it out.”

That’s Saturn.

Old habits.

Old beliefs.

Old ambitions.

Old identities.

If they’ve stopped serving your life, Saturn starts carrying them to the curb.

It may not feel pleasant.

But it isn’t random destruction.

Every Ending Makes Space for a Beginning

One thing that’s easy to overlook is that Saturn often marks the beginning of an entirely new chapter.

Yes, something is ending.

But something else is quietly making room to begin.

That’s why so many people look back on difficult Saturn periods years later and say,

“I wouldn’t want to go through it again…

…but I wouldn’t trade what came afterward.”

Why I Meditate on The Fool

When I’m going through Saturn energy, I don’t usually meditate on The Tower.

I meditate on The Fool.

That may sound strange at first.

The Fool is the card of beginnings.

Fresh energy.

New possibilities.

A journey that hasn’t been written yet.

The Fool steps into a completely unknown future with little more than hope, trust, and curiosity.

In many ways, that’s exactly what Saturn is asking us to do.

The Real Lesson

Here’s the conclusion I’ve gradually come to.

Saturn isn’t really asking us to suffer.

It’s asking us to let go.

Those are not the same thing.

The suffering often comes from trying to hold on to something that’s already finished.

When we resist Saturn…

the process feels brutal.

When we cooperate with Saturn…

the same energy becomes a tool for rebuilding.

You Can’t Stop Saturn…

…but you can work with it.

You can’t negotiate with it.

You can’t outrun it.

But you can decide whether you’ll spend your energy clinging to yesterday…

…or building tomorrow.

That’s why, during difficult Saturn transits, I keep coming back to The Fool.

Not because the journey is easy.

But because every meaningful journey begins the same way.

With one uncertain step into a brand-new world.

Fairies, Devas and Angels, Oh My . . .

Why our belief in nature spirits has diminished at the time that we need it the most.

Do you believe in fairies?

Gnomes?

Water sprites?

Undines, sylphs, elves, salamanders?

In a nutshell, nature spirits?

If you don’t believe in them, you’re right there with the great majority. The few studies that have been done suggest that only about 10% of Americans believe that nature spirits exist. Most of that 10% is composed of children, women, and people who research paranormal phenomena.

IT’S NOT NORMAL

If you tell other people that you believe in fairies, you’re going to get some serious side-eye, at the very least. If you INSIST that you believe in fairies, you’ll be tagged as weird, eccentric, or seriously delusional.

After all, it’s just not NORMAL, is it?

Ironically, as Tim Wyatt points out in this video from the Theosophical Society, it absolutely IS “normal” to believe in nature spirits. Every culture in human history has had frequent contacts with them. Until now.

Our lack of belief in them is actually an aberration. We’re the ones who aren’t normal.

So what happened? Why did we lose contact with them? Wyatt has some interesting suggestions.

URBANIZATION

The onset of the Industrial Revolution witnessed a huge migration of humans out of the country and into cities. For the first time in human history, more people now live in cities than in towns and villages.

And the thing is, nature spirits love . . . guess what? . . . nature. They reside in streams, rivers, lakes, forests, and beaches. They are not present where there is a decided lack of nature, such as we find in the concrete monstrosities of our modern cities.

To put it another way, we’ve lost contact with nature spirits because we’ve lost contact with nature. In our lust for constant construction, high-rises, and endless suburbs, we’ve driven the nature spirits out and they no longer speak with many of us.

That’s what I was trying to portray with the image of the fairy looking down at the cityscape. How sad it must be for them to witness us raping the lands where they once lived freely.

ORGANIZED RELIGION

The rise of Christian theology had a devastating effect on our relationship with nature and the spirits that inhabit it.

It has traditionally taken a very binary approach to life and metaphysics. On one side there’s good and on the other side there’s evil. On one side there’s God and on the other side there’s Satan.

As Wyatt points out, angels were allowed into the Christian worldview, but only because they were messengers of God. Nature spirits, on the other hand, were clearly pronounced to be servants of evil.

Those who believed in nature spirits and communed with them were, in the Christian view, witches and sorcerers and were tortured and condemned to death.

Perhaps the clearest example of that approach was when the Catholic Church arrived in Ireland and cut down thousands of oak trees because the Druids worshiped in the sacred groves. The church literally destroyed the very places where the nature spirits lived.

CYNICISM

What struck me most forcefully in Wyatt’s analysis was the effect that cynicism has had on our belief in nature spirits.

Cynicism is . . . fashionable. We’ve only to scroll through the internet in order to find millions of people who don’t seem to believe in anything. They mercilessly mock the belief systems of others and wear their pessimism like a badge of honor.

The news is fake. Politicians are fake. Liberals are fake. Conservatives are fake. Even viruses are fake.

What’s worse, we find many people who loudly proclaim their faith and simply ignore it in their day-to-day lives. People who claim to believe in a Higher Power, yet spew hatred, vitriol, and distrust.

Which, of course, makes us . . . ahem . . . somewhat cynical about their faith.

In an age when people routinely dismiss what they see with their own eyes, why would we expect them to believe in something that they haven’t seen? It’s far easier to dismiss nature spirits as superstitions of simple-minded people than to take them seriously, even if every other culture in human history has believed in them.

WHAT HAPPENS TO NATURE?

The Theosophists have a very interesting take on nature spirits, angels, and devas. They don’t simply see them as amusing little creatures that frolic around the woods wearing pinecone crowns.

Rather, they view them as organizers of nature. They are the underlying forces that make nature work.

For instance, we might think of a water sprite as living in a river. From the Theosophist’s viewpoint, she’s actually making the river into what it is, overseeing the purity of the water and maintaining the lives of the various animals that live in it.

Orcas Island, off the coast of Washington, is said to have a magnificent deva or angel, who oversees all of the life of the island. Lakes, rivers, streams, forests, mountains, all have nature spirits who nurture and sustain them.

Without the spirits, the earth begins to die and without the earth, we die.

MAKE LOVE, NOT WAR

As near as I can tell, the nature spirits don’t really give a flying fig whether we believe in them or not. They’re not some Tinker Bell spirits who’ll curl up and die if we don’t clap for them.

In fact, they seem to avoid our company as much as possible, thank you very much.

What they DO want is for us to quit making war on them.

Stop cutting down those sacred groves of trees.

Stop dumping tons of garbage into the oceans.

Stop paving over paradise and putting up parking lots.

Stop slaughtering millions of animals every year because it’s, “convenient,” for us.

I’m not asking anyone to share my beliefs. But . . . you might go sit by a stream and think about it.

Maybe ask the stream what it thinks.

The Happiness Compass: What If Joy Is Trying to Tell You Something?

Exploring the idea that happiness is a compass that points us in the right direction.

We’ve all heard the old saying from the 1960s:

“If it feels good, do it.”

Unfortunately, our culture often teaches the exact opposite.

Work a job you hate because it’s practical.

Stay in a relationship that’s gone stale because it’s your duty.

Ignore your dreams because they’re unrealistic.

Somewhere along the way, many of us begin wearing our unhappiness like a badge of honor, as though misery proves we’re responsible adults.

But what if we’ve misunderstood happiness?

What if it isn’t a luxury?

What if it’s a compass?

Happiness Isn’t Random

One of the central ideas in my book, Tarot and the Art of Alignment, is that happiness isn’t merely an emotion that comes and goes.

It’s directional.

It points.

When we’re moving toward the life we’re meant to live, something inside us quietly says:

“Yes…this is the way.”

Likewise, when we drift away from our authentic nature, life begins to feel heavy, flat, and strangely empty.

Our emotions aren’t simply fluctuations. They’re messages that point us in the right direction.

The Simplest Question

Perhaps the most radical question we can ask ourselves isn’t:

“How much money am I making?”

Or…

“What will other people think?”

It’s simply this:

Am I happy here?

If the honest answer is no, don’t treat it as a failure. Treat it as information.

Your inner compass is trying to get your attention.

Isn’t That Just Hedonism?

Whenever people talk about following happiness, someone inevitably objects:

“That sounds selfish.”

Or…

“Life isn’t supposed to be fun all the time.”

I agree. This isn’t about chasing pleasure.

There’s a profound difference between pleasure and fulfillment.

Pleasure asks:

“What feels good right now?”

Fulfillment asks:

“What kind of joy helps me become more fully myself?”

Real happiness isn’t the endless pursuit of dopamine. It’s the quiet satisfaction that comes from living in harmony with your deepest nature.

Happiness Is a Side Effect of Truth

One of the biggest misconceptions in our culture is that happiness comes from accumulating enough “stuff.”

More money.

A bigger house.

A nicer car.

More followers.

Those things may be enjoyable. But they’re not necessarily meaningful.

Real happiness comes from something much deeper.

It appears when we’re living with integrity.

When our actions reflect who we really are.

When we’re doing the work we came here to do—even if that work is difficult.

Happiness isn’t the goal.

It’s the glow that appears when we’re moving in the right direction.

Entering the Flow

Psychologists call it flow.

The Taoists simply speak of being in harmony with the Tao.

Athletes call it being in the zone.

Whatever name we give it, most of us have experienced those rare moments when intention and action become one. When life seems to go perfectly.

Time disappears.

Energy rises.

Life feels strangely enchanted.

Synchronicities seem to increase.

Everything flows naturally.

To me, this is the Happiness Compass operating at full strength. The needle of the compass isn’t spinning in circles anymore – it’s pointing solidly in one direction.

Why We Lose Our Way

The tragedy is that most of us weren’t taught to trust this inner guidance.

We were taught to obey.

To fit in. To be practical. To put duty ahead of authenticity.

Eventually the compass is still there…

But it’s buried beneath expectations, obligations, financial worries, and the opinions of other people.

Eventually, we may not even remember what genuine happiness feels like, because we’ve forgotten who we truly are.

How the Tarot Can Help

This is one of the reasons I love working with the Tarot.

The cards don’t tell us who we’re supposed to become. They remind us who we already are. They gently reveal where we’ve ignored our intuition, overridden our happiness, or wandered away from our authentic path.

The cards are about helping us realign with ourselves and answer that basic question: Am I happy? If the answer is no, they tell us why.

Perhaps happiness isn’t something we have to chase. Perhaps it’s simply something that we need to remember.

⸻

Adapted from Chapter Six of my new book, Tarot and the Art of Alignment: Using the Cards to Remember Who You Are, which explores how the Tarot can become a practical compass for discovering your authentic path and living with greater joy, purpose, and synchronicity.

What If Your Destiny Isn’t to Become Rich?

Exploring the idea that we’re not just here to get rich.

Spend a few minutes browsing YouTube or social media and you’ll quickly discover that almost everyone seems to know your destiny.

Apparently, you’re supposed to become wealthy.

Manifest abundance.

Drive the right car.

Live in the right house.

Travel the world.

And, of course, achieve financial freedom.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with any of those goals. The question is whether they’re everyone’s destiny.

I’m not convinced they are.

The Feeling That Something Is Missing

Most of us have experienced a quiet feeling that we’re here for some larger purpose.

Even when life is going reasonably well, there can be a sense that something remains unfinished.

It’s as though we’re being gently called toward a life that is more authentic, more meaningful, and somehow more fully our own.

But what exactly is that calling? Some people say it’s destiny.

Two Ways of Looking at Destiny

Over the years, I’ve noticed that most spiritual teachings seem to fall into one of two broad models.

The first is what I call the Earth School Model.

According to this view, we reincarnate again and again in order to learn lessons, overcome limitations, and gradually evolve spiritually.

Life is a classroom.

Every challenge is part of the curriculum.

The second is what I call the Actualization Model.

Instead of asking, “What lessons am I here to learn?” it asks:

“Who am I here to become?”

This idea reminds me of psychologist Abraham Maslow’s famous hierarchy of needs.

At the very top of his pyramid wasn’t wealth.

It wasn’t fame.

It wasn’t status.

It was self-actualization—becoming the fullest expression of your authentic self.

I find that idea deeply compelling.

The Prosperity Trap

Somewhere during the twentieth century, something interesting happened.

The New Thought movement, with its emphasis on affirmations, visualization, and the creative power of the mind, gradually merged with American ideas about success and capitalism.

Before long, spiritual growth and financial success became almost interchangeable.

Manifestation came to mean one thing:

More money.

Now, don’t misunderstand me.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with financial security.

Most of us would welcome a little more of it.

But if we believe that every soul reincarnated primarily to become rich, we end up with a rather curious picture of human existence. Can we really imagine that we’ve come back again and again because we should all be more like Elon Musk?

Imagine a shepherd whose deepest fulfillment comes from tending goats in the mountains.

Or a teacher whose greatest joy is helping children learn to read.

Or an artist who creates beauty that quietly changes people’s lives.

Would we really say that these people have somehow missed their destiny because they didn’t become millionaires?

I don’t think so.

Their success may have very little to do with the size of their bank account.

Listening for Your Own Call

One of the central ideas in my book, Tarot and the Art of Alignment, is that destiny isn’t something someone else can define for you.

It isn’t found in a bestselling seminar or a motivational slogan.

It arises from discovering your own authentic nature.

For one person, that path may indeed involve building a successful business.

For another, it may involve raising a family, creating art, caring for others, teaching, healing, or living a quiet life close to nature.

The Tarot doesn’t ask us to pursue someone else’s dream.

It asks us to discover our own.

Perhaps the real purpose of life isn’t to become rich.

Perhaps it’s to become ourselves.

And in the end, that may be the greatest success of all.

Finding Ourselves on the Map

Using the Tarot to Predict the Present

Why One-Size-Fits-All Spirituality Doesn’t Work

If you’ve spent any time in the self-help world, you’ve probably noticed a recurring theme:

Someone discovers a technique that changes their life.

Then they write a book, launch a podcast, create an online course, and explain why everyone else should do exactly the same thing.

The assumption is simple:

If it worked for me, it should work for everyone.

Unfortunately, human beings don’t work that way.

When it comes to following a spiritual path, one size does not fit all.

The Jewel Hidden Beneath the Rock

Buddhist teachers sometimes use a beautiful metaphor.

They tell us that each of us possesses a precious jewel hidden beneath a layer of gray rock.

That jewel is our true nature.

Our wisdom.

Our compassion.

Our spiritual essence.

The goal of the spiritual path isn’t to create the jewel. It’s already there.

The goal is to uncover it.

This is an important distinction.

Many of us approach spirituality as though we’re trying to become something we are not. We’re trying to become enlightened, worthy, lovable, wise, or whole. But what if our deeper nature already possesses those qualities?

What if awakening isn’t something that gets added to us?

What if it’s something that gets revealed?

Some Rocks Are Thicker Than Others

Of course, if life were that simple, we’d all be enlightened by Tuesday.

The challenge is that the jewel is often buried beneath layers of conditioning.

Those layers can include:

Fear
Trauma
Limiting beliefs
Cultural conditioning
Prejudice
Old wounds
False ideas about who we are

Some people arrive carrying a little rock.

Others arrive carrying a boulder.

But we’re all engaged in the same process. We’re all uncovering the same jewel.

Don’t Compare Your Journey

One of my favorite passages from the Desiderata reminds us:

“If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.”

That’s particularly true on the spiritual path.

Some people seem naturally compassionate. Some seem deeply intuitive. Others appear to have spent decades doing inner work.

Meanwhile, some of us are just figuring out which end of the shovel to hold.

And that’s okay.

The important thing is to remember that we’re all on the same continuum.

Some people have uncovered more of the jewel.

Some are just beginning.

Neither position makes anyone better or worse.

The Spiritual GPS

This brings me to one of my favorite metaphors, borrowed from Mike Dooley.

He compares the spiritual journey to a GPS.

It’s a wonderful image.

Suppose you want to drive from Phoenix to Los Angeles.

The GPS can absolutely help you get there.

But first it needs one crucial piece of information:

Where are you now?

Without that information, the GPS is useless. It cannot guide you from Phoenix to Los Angeles if it doesn’t know you’re in Phoenix.

The same thing is true spiritually.

Before we can determine where we’re going, we need to understand where we are.

And that’s precisely where many spiritual systems fall apart.

They offer directions without first helping us identify our current location.

The Real Genius of the Tarot

Most people think the Tarot’s greatest strength is predicting the future.

I disagree.

I believe the real genius of the Tarot lies in its ability to describe the present.

A good Tarot reading reveals:

Where you are right now
What forces are influencing you
What patterns are helping you
What patterns are holding you back
What lessons are trying to emerge

In other words, it functions as a spiritual GPS.

Before it tells you where you’re headed, it tells you where you’re standing.

And that’s incredibly valuable information.

Because once you know where you are, the next step becomes much easier to see.

The Paradox of Destiny

One of the central ideas in Tarot and the Art of Alignment is that destiny is often misunderstood.

Most people imagine destiny as something waiting for them somewhere in the future.

A distant goal.

A future achievement.

A place they haven’t reached yet.

But what if destiny isn’t waiting out there somewhere?

What if it’s already here?

What if the path is beneath your feet right now?

The future emerges from the interaction between the present and the past.

Every choice.

Every belief.

Every action.

Every moment.

The Tarot helps us see those forces at work.

It shows us how the energies of the present moment are combining to create the next moment.

In that sense, the cards don’t simply predict the future.

They reveal the path.

Finding Your Own Way

This is why I don’t believe there is a single spiritual method that works for everyone.

Different people need different tools.

Different lessons.

Different experiences.

The first step is not finding the perfect technique.

The first step is discovering where you are.

Once you know that, the path forward becomes much easier to navigate.

Like any GPS, the Tarot begins with a simple question:

“You are here.”

And from that point, the journey can begin.

Navigating the Ocean of Self-Help

Using the Tarot to become your own guru.

Why We Don’t Need Another Guru

The Buddha once taught that certain conditions are necessary for enlightenment:

Being born human
The appearance of a Buddha or enlightened teacher
A way for those teachings to reach human beings
People capable of understanding and applying the teachings

Today, I’d like to focus on that third point: How do the teachings reach us?

And perhaps more importantly:

How do we know which teachings are right for us?

From Ancient Villages to Information Overload

In the Buddha’s day, getting a spiritual message out into the world was no small task.

There were no emails, podcasts, YouTube channels, online courses, or social media platforms.

The Buddha spent roughly forty-five years walking from village to village, teaching anyone who was willing to listen. Basically, walking up to strangers and saying, “Hey, I’ve got an idea . . .”

Imagine that.

No marketing department. No sales funnel. No premium membership package.

Just a teacher sharing what he had discovered.

Fast forward twenty-five centuries and we’ve arrived at the opposite problem.

When I wake up in the morning, my inbox is usually full of messages promising to transform my life, align my energy, unlock hidden potential, activate forgotten abilities, and teach me the secret to happiness, wealth, abundance, success, enlightenment, or all of the above.

The challenge is no longer finding information.

The challenge is sorting through it.

Never before in human history have so many spiritual teachings, philosophies, techniques, and self-help systems been available to so many people.

And yet many of us remain confused about what actually works.

The Billion-Dollar Search for Happiness

The self-help industry generates tens of billions of dollars each year.

That’s a big chunk of enlightenment.

Most programs follow a familiar pattern:

I have achieved success.
You have not.
I have a special technique, secret, or system.
Pay me, and I’ll teach it to you.

To be fair, some of these teachers are sincere and genuinely helpful.

Many people have benefited from books, courses, seminars, and retreats.

But there is also a tendency to assume that one technique should work for everyone.

What if that assumption is wrong? What if there is no universal formula? What if different people require different paths?

Satisfaction Not Guaranteed

One thing I’ve noticed over the years is that self-help programs rarely come with guarantees.

Suppose someone is struggling financially and spends thousands of dollars attending an exclusive retreat in Costa Rica. They spend a week sipping organic hot chocolate, munching down tofu rice cakes, and opening their heart chakra.

At the end of the experience, they may feel inspired, motivated, and hopeful. But what if nothing really changed, other than they have a better tan and a lighter wallet?

What if their life remains exactly the same six months later?

The explanation is often that they didn’t practice enough, believe enough, surrender enough, visualize enough, or raise their vibration enough.

In other words, if MY method doesn’t work, it’s YOUR fault.

Let’s face it: if one teacher could make everyone happy, rich and successful, we’d all be going to that teacher and we’d all be rich.

Instead, the emails continue to pile up in our in-boxes.

Where the Tarot Is Different

This is where my book, Tarot and the Art of Alignment, takes a different arapproach.

The central idea is surprisingly simple:

The wisdom we seek is not somewhere outside of us.

It is already within us.

The challenge is learning how to access it.

The Tarot provides a remarkably effective way to do exactly that.

Rather than telling us what to think, the cards help us listen.

Rather than asking us to surrender our authority to a teacher, they encourage us to develop trust in our own inner knowing.

Rather than offering one answer for everyone, they reveal the unique lessons, challenges, and opportunities present in each individual’s life.

In this model, the Tarot is not a fortune-telling device.

It is a mirror.

A guide.

A conversation with the deeper parts of ourselves.

Your Own Inner Teacher

One of the things I appreciate most about the Tarot is its simplicity.

A Tarot deck costs roughly twenty-five to thirty bucks.

Once you have it, the conversation can begin.

There are no monthly subscription fees. No expensive retreats. No advanced certification programs. No endless upselling.

Just you, the cards, and the wisdom waiting beneath the noise of everyday life.

The goal is not to find another guru.

The goal is to discover the teacher that has been quietly waiting within you all along.

And in my experience, the Tarot is one of the most powerful keys to that door.